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ABÉLARD, PETER (1079–1142)
Much of the life of Abélard, one of the most renowned
12th-century thinkers, is known from his Historia
calamitatum, written ca. 1133. Born into a minor noble
family in Le Pallet, Brittany, in 1079, Abélard embarked
on a career as student, then master, in various French
schools. He studied with leading masters at three cathe-
dral schools: Roscelin (Loches), William of Champeaux
(Paris), and Anselm of Laon (Laon). He himself taught
at Paris (Mont-Sainte-Geneviève, Saint-Denis [while a
monk there], and the cathedral school at Notre-Dame),
Melun, Corbeil, Laon, and the Paraclete (near Troyes).
An intellectual combatant, at Paris he challenged Will-
liam of Champeaux on the existence of universals and
at Laon criticized Anselm as lacking theological insight
and dialectical skills. Abélard himself was harshly
criticized and rebuked. In 1121, a council at Soissons
found him guilty of heresy concerning the Trinity and
required him to burn his treatise On the Trinity and Unity
of God (or Theologia “Summi Boni”). In the late 1130s,
William of Saint-Thierry, deeply troubled by Abélard’s
Theologia Christiana, wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux,
who had Abélard summoned to a council at Sens in June
1140, where he was charged with heresy. The council
condemned nineteen points in Abélard’s theology; the
pope soon thereafter also condemned Abélard. Follow-
ing the condemnation at Sens, the Cluniac abbot Peter
the Venerable offered Abélard a refuge at Cluny. Ac-
cording to Peter, Bernard and Abélard were reconciled
before Abélard died in April 1142 at Saint-Marcel, a
Cluniac priory near Chalons-sur-Saône.
While teaching in the schools of Paris, Abélard be-
came involved in a passionate love affair with Héloïse,
possibly the niece and certainly the ward of Fulbert,
canon of the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. Fulbert
engaged Abélard to tutor the brilliant Héloïse, but the
two were soon making love, not studying philosophy.

Héloï se became pregnant; Fulbert, unsatisfi ed by the

secret marriage of Abélard and Héloïse, had Abélard

castrated. Abélard and Héloïse entered the monastic

life in 1119, she at the convent of Argenteuil, near

Paris; he at the monastery of Saint-Denis, also near

Paris. At Saint-Denis, Abélard began teaching again, at

the request of students. He earned the monks’ enmity

by suggesting that the St. Denis to whom their abbey

was dedicated was not the same as the mystical author

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, an identifi cation

generally accepted in the 12th century.

Abélard’s Historia calamitatum chronicles the love

affair and its aftermath, particularly Abélard’s career. A

subsequent series of letters exchanged between Abélard

and Héloïse reveals her deep attachment to him, his

growing concern for her and her sister nuns, and his

efforts to provide them with sermons, hymns, and a

monastic rule. The authenticity of the correspondence

has been challenged in recent years, but the consensus

is that the letters represent a genuine exchange between

Abélard and Héloïse.

Abélard fi nally left Saint-Denis and built a hermitage

dedicated to the Paraclete at a remote spot near Troyes,

where he taught students who sought him out. He later

gave the land and buildings to Héloïse and her sister nuns

for a convent after they were ejected from Argenteuil by

Suger of Saint-Denis. In 1126, Abélard became abbot

of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys in Brittany; after an abortive

attempt to reform this lax monastic establishment, he

fl ed, probably to Paris and the schools.

An accomplished master of dialectic (logic), Abé-

lard pushed vigorously for questioning in the fi eld of

theology, with the goal of arriving at truth through a

rigorous examination of confl icting opinions drawn

from Scripture and authoritative writings (Augustine,

Gregory the Great and other popes, church councils).

This approach received classic expression in Sic et non.