Perhaps the most famous man in Europe in his own
lifetime, Peter Abelard was a renowned teacher,
philosopher, theologian, writer and lover, as famous
for his celebrated affair with HELOISE as for his provoking applications of reason to issues of faith.
Abelard was born in the village of Pallet, south
of Nantes in Brittany. Eldest son of a noble house,
he gave up his inheritance for a life of the intellect.
He studied logic in Compiègne before moving to
Paris in 1100 to study dialectic under William of
Campaux, under whom the cathedral school at
Notre Dame had become as famous a center of
learning as St. ANSELM’s Bec. But Abelard had a
penchant for challenging authority, and apparently
aroused the resentment of his classmates as well as
his teacher as he regularly challenged William.
After defeating William in a public debate in 1101,
Abelard started his own school at Melun, later
moving to Corboeil, southeast of Paris. But by
1105 Abelard had exhausted himself, and returned
to Brittany for his health.
But he was back in Paris in 1108, looking for a
chair at the cathedral school and studying rhetoric
in the meantime with his old master William. He
began to teach theology and dialectic at the school
of Mont Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, and in 1113
went to Laon to study theology under the wellknown Anselm of Laon. Impatient with Anselm’s
methods—which essentially were exegetical (based
on scriptural interpretation) rather than logical—
and true to his penchant for challenging older, established authorities, Abelard gave a scandalous
public lecture on Ezekiel, raising a number of logical questions.
In 1114 Abelard returned to Paris again, this
time to finally take a chair at the cathedral school
of Notre Dame. If we are to believe his own words
from his autobiography, students flocked to his
lectures from all over Europe. Certainly his reputation made him quite wealthy. But it was here, at the
height of his reputation, that Abelard was to suffer
disaster.
Abelard was living in the home of Fulbert, a
canon of the cathedral. He also was given charge of
the education of Fulbert’s niece, the beautiful
Heloise, who was 22 years Abelard’s junior. The
two became lovers, and when Heloise became
pregnant, Abelard married her in secret and sent
her to live in Brittany, where she gave birth to their
son, whom they named Astrolabe. The affair became publicly known, however, and when Abelard
sent Heloise to join the convent of Saint-Argenteuil, Fulbert saw this as Abelard’s failure to take
responsibility for his actions. One evening in 1118,
he hired men to take Abelard in his sleep and castrate him.
After the disgrace of the Heloise affair and his
emasculation, Abelard became a Benedictine
monk. He entered the monastery of Saint-Denis,
but before long had caused resentment among the
monks by what they considered his irreverent attitude toward the legend of their patron saint. He
was back in Paris teaching again in 1121, but at
that time the Council of Soissons brought charges
against him for a treatise he had written on the
Trinity. He was sentenced to burn his book, and to
be imprisoned in the Abbey of St. Medard. Rather
than complete a forced residence there, he fled to
an out-of-the-way area near Troyes called Nogentsûr-Seine and set up another school.
In 1125 Abelard’s monastic condemnation was
lifted, and he was elected abbot of the Abbey of St.
Gildas in his native Brittany. Those were difficult
years for Abelard, however, since (as might be expected) he aroused a great deal of resentment
among the monks there. Allegedly they even tried
to poison him. So by 1136, he was back in Paris
and teaching again.
But by this time, the opinions expressed in his
philosophical treatises, particularly the rationalist
approach that seemed to negate the mystery of the
Christian faith, had aroused the interest and enmity of the most powerful ecclesiast in Europe, St.
BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. Bernard denounced
Abelard to Pope Innocent II, and Abelard was
called to the Council of Sens in 1141. Here Abelard
thought he would be given the chance to publicly
dispute with Bernard—a debate Abelard would
have relished as he had his previous challenges to
authority. But he was never given the opportunity
to speak in his own defense. He was condemned on
several counts of heresy, one of the most serious
being his ethical theory, which held that it was the
intention of sinning, rather than the act itself, for
which we are to be held culpable.
Far from quietly accepting his condemnation,
Abelard appealed to the pope (though it was a
fruitless appeal since Bernard had already convinced the pope of Abelard’s errors). En route to
Rome, Abelard was given protection by Peter the
Venerable, abbot of Cluny. Peter apparently convinced Abelard to drop his appeal and make peace
with Bernard if he could, and to remain at Cluny.
Peter was able to obtain authorization from the
pope to allow Abelard to spend his remaining days
under the protection of Cluny. Abelard died in a
Cluniac monastery in 1142.
Abelard influenced the whole subsequent
course of medieval scholastic theology—he may
have lost the battle with St. Bernard in 1141 but ultimately it was his methods that won out over the
next few centuries. Some of his more influential
students were Arnold of Brescia, PETER LOMBARD,
and JOHN OF SALISBURY. His most influential philosophical work was Sic et Non (Yes and no), a text
that lists opinions of the most important fathers of
the church on both sides of a variety of theological questions. He first wrote the text in 1123 and
revised it in 1136. The point of the treatise is that
there are respected opinions both for and against
most theological points, and that a strict rational
approach must be applied to reconcile the various
opinions.
Another important text is Abelard’s Dialogus
inter philosophum, Judaeum, et Christianum (A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian),
possibly written at Cluny during the last year of his
life, though more recently it has been asserted that
it was written during Abelard’s years at St. Gildas.
In the text, which unlike most such imaginary disputations in the Middle Ages allows the Jew to
make a great number of logical points, Abelard
presents his final words on the relationship of reason and faith.
But Abelard’s most important contributions to
literature are his letters to Heloise, written after she
had become a nun and he a monk; and his autobiography, entitled Historia Calamitatum (The Story
of My Misfortunes), which tells the story of his life
until 1129. Though both of these make interesting
reading, particularly since Abelard is the only important medieval philosopher who has left personal letters or an autobiography, one should take
care to realize that both are texts Abelard intended
for wide circulation, and so present the public face
he wanted to be perceived.
Bibliography
Abelard, Peter. A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew
and a Christian. Translated by Pierre J. Payer.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies,
1979.
———. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Translated
by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin,
1974.
———. The Story of My Misfortunes: The Autobiography of Peter Abelard. Translated by Henry Adams
Bellows. New York: Macmillan, 1972.
Clanchy, M. T. Abelard: A Medieval Life. Oxford:
Blackwell, 1997.
Robertson, D. W., Jr. Abelard and Heloise. New York:
Dial Press, 1972.