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Abelard Biography

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ABÉLARD, PIERRE (1079-1142). A scholastic philosopher and theologian, the boldest thinker of the twelfth century. His name is commonly given in the French form, Abélard or Abailard; in Latin, Abailardus or Bajolardus. But these are epithets of uncertain meaning, the latter form perhaps from bajulus, ‘teacher,’ the former from abeille, ‘a bee.’ He had properly the single name Peter, Petrus, to which was added de Palais, from the place of his birth, Le Pallet, or in Latin form Palatinus, a village 8 miles southeast of Nantes, Brittany, western France. He was born in 1079. His father was the knight Berengar, lord of the village; his mother was Lucia, and they both later on entered monastic orders. An irrepressible thirst for knowledge and a special pleasure in scholastic logic moved Abélard to resign his rights of primogeniture in favor of his younger brothers. His first teacher was Roscellin, the Nominalist, during the latter's stay at Vannes. He wandered about in search of knowledge until he arrived in Paris, wbere he became a pupil of William of Champeaux, the Realist, the head of the cathedral school of Notre Dame there, but soon incurred the hatred of his master, whom he puzzled by his wonderful subtlety. He fled to Melun; where he started a school of his own, and afterward to Corbeil, admired, yet persecuted, wherever he went. He then returned home for the restoration of his health. With renewed strength, he returned to Paris, reconciled himself with his opponents, and molded, by his influence as a lecturer, some of the most distinguished men of his age, among whom were the future Pope Celestine II, Peter Lombard, Berengar, his future apologist, and Arnold of Brescia.

At this time, however, there also lived in Paris with her uncle, the canon Fulbert, Héloïse, the 18-year-old natural daughter of a certain canon John, of Paris, already remarkable for her beauty, talents, and attainments. At Fulbert's invitation Abélard made his home with him and instructed Héloïse. She soon kindled in the breast of Abélard, then 38 years old, a violent and overwhelming passion, which was returned by Héloïse with no less fervor. The lovers were happy together until Abélard's ardent poetical effusions reached the ears of the canon. He sought to separate the lovers, but it was too late. They fled together to Abélard's home, where, in his sister Dionysia's house Héloïse gave birth to a son and was privately married to Abélard with the consent of her uncle. Not long after, Héloïse returned to Fulbert's house and denied the marriage, that her love might be no hindrance to Abélard's advancement in the church. Enraged at this, and at a second flight which she took with Abélard to the Benedictine nunnery at Argenteuil, where she had been educated, a flight which Fulbert interpreted as showing Abélard's desire to rid himself of his wife, Fulbert, in order to make him canonically incapable of ecclesiastical preferment, caused Abélard to be emasculated. In deep humiliation Abélard entered as a monk the abbey of St. Denis, in Paris, and induced Héloïse to take the veil at Argenteuil.

But the lectures which he began to give soon after exposed him to new persecutions. The synod of Soissons (1121) declared his opinions on the Trinity to be heretical. In punishment he had to throw the offending treatise into the fire, to read publicly the Athanasian Creed, and to endure a brief imprisonment. The charge seems to have been that he declared God the Father alone omnipotent. But what cost him more was his declaration that St. Dionysius, the patron saint of France, had been bishop of Corinth, and not of Athens, for this stirred up court opposition. He fled from St. Denis to the monastery of St. Aigulph, near Provins, but was brought back and compelled to retract his opinions concerning St. Dionysius. He was then allowed to go, and went to Nogent-sur-Seine, and there built of reeds and rushes a little chapel to the Trinity, and later, on account of the press of hearers, who planted their huts about him, a structure of wood and stone, which he called the Paraclete, the ruins of which exist to this day. But as everything he did caused adverse criticism, so the name that he gave the building-because it brought into unusual prominence the Holy Spirit-involved him in fresh trouble, and he left the Paraclete and accepted the abbotship of St. Gildas de Rhuys, on the coast of Lower Brittany. It was a sore trial for him to contend with the unruly monks. Meanwhile, the convent at Argenteuil, where Héloïse was prioress, had been broken up. Abélard transferred Héloïse and her nuns to the Paraclete and made her abbess of the nunnery he established. It was a long distance from St. Gildas, but, as spiritual director, he frequently went thither. Naturally, he fell under suspicion of renewing his intimacy with Héloïse, and so the lovers finally restricted themselves to writing. The correspondence has been preserved. On his part it was sternly repressive, to the point of coldness; on her part the heart expressed its love, which was an inextinguishable passion, both of body and soul; and tyrannical in its demands upon the monk who had ceased to share it.

After ten more years, Abélard, fearing an attack upon his life, left his monks and became a wandering teacher again. Two men, Norbert and the much more famous Bernard of Clairvaux, were always on his track. The Council of Sens, held in 1141, under the influence of Bernard condemned his teachings. Abélard appealed to the Pope, Innocent II, and the latter confirmed the finding of the council and ordered his imprisonment and the burning of his writings. Abélard submitted; reconciled himself with Bernard, and was on his way to Rome to undergo his punishment, when he came, worn out, to the great monastery of Cluny. Through the friendly offices of Peter the Venerable, its noble abbot, he received permission to retire thither and a release from the order of imprisonment. He had not long to live, but the time was well spent in religious exercises and in occasional teaching. He had the scurvy, and when his ills increased he was removed to the priory of St. Marcel at Chalon-sur-Saône where the air was better, it was thought. There he died, on April 21, 1142. His body was brought to the Paraclete. Héloïse died there May 16, 1164, and was laid beside him. In the cemetery of Père-la-Chaise in Paris their bones are now united in one tomb, erected in 1817.

The loves of Abélard and Héloïse have made them immortal, but Abélard also has importance as a philosopher. He followed John Scotus Erigena, the ninth century philosopher, in his rationalism. He planted himself on Aristotelian ground (although all he knew of Aristotle was derived from Latin quotations) and did much to overthrow the prevalent realism. Ile stated the theory later known as conceptualism, rejecting both nominalism and realism. He held that we come to the conception of the general by thought upon the particular. General ideas are the creation of the intellect and in so far have reality. His great service in the development, of ethics was in his treatment of conscience by dwelling upon the subjective aspect. He also has great importance as the virtual founder of the University of Paris, in a sense the mother of mediaeval, and so of all modern, universities. This claim may be made for him because he first established schools independent of the monastic and episcopal schools. In Melun, in Corbeil, and then in Paris, at Nogent-sur-Seine, he had thousands of pupils and gave an extraordinary impetus to learning and speculation. His example as an independent teacher was followed. Out of such gatherings of students at a later date the universities were evolved. By his appeal to reason instead of authority, he showed the path to intellectual freedom and thus became the prophet of the freedom of speech and research for which the universities properly stand. In both these respects his pedagogical importance is great, and so his particular opinions and errors are of comparatively small moment.

His works, all written in Latin, first printed at Paris, 1616, are in Migne, Patrol. Lat., clxxviii (Paris, 1855); also as edited by Victor Cousin: Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard (Paris, 1836); Opera (1849-59, 2 vols.) ; to which should be added his Sic et Non, editors, E. L. T. Henke and G. L. Lindenkohl (Marburg, 1851).