Abélard, Peter 7Though Abd al-Rahman won some great victories, he suf-
fered a serious defeat in 939 at the Battle of Siminicas to
the king of León, Ramiro II (d. 951). During the battle,
he was almost captured, and he lost his copy of the
Quran, a loss that prompted him to vow never to fight
again. By the end of his reign, al-Andalus was pacified,
prosperous, and very much under his control. Córdoba
was among the great cities of the world with 3,000
mosques and more than 100,000 shops and houses.
Besides adding to the Great Mosque there, Abd al-Rah-
man built a luxurious palace city near Córdoba at AL-
MADINA al-Zahir. Christian and Jewish communities
throughout al-Andalus flourished during his tolerant
reign. Still wary of rebellions, in 949 he executed his own
son for conspiring against him. He died at Córdoba on
October 15, 961, after a long and successful reign.
Further reading: Roger Collins, Early Medieval
Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400–1000(London: Macmillan,
1983); Roger Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain,
710–797(Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); Hugh Kennedy, Mus-
lim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus
(New York: Longman, 1996); Évariste Lévi-Provençal,
“Abd al-Rahma ̄n,” Encyclopedia of Islam,1.83–84.
Abélard, Peter (1079–1142)scholar, teacher, one of the
most important and radical thinkers of the Middle Ages
Abélard was born at Le Pallet in BRITTANY, France, near
Nantes in 1079. His father, Berengar, was a knight and lord
of Pallet. Since Abélard was the eldest son, he was
expected to be knighted and succeed his father. But he
rejected arms and sought an ecclesiastical career as a
teacher in one of the cathedral schools then flourishing in
northern France. Leaving home at the age of 15, he studied
logic and dialectic. Eventually, he went to PARISto study
under William of Champeaux (ca. 1070–ca. 1121), the
head of the cathedral school and an archdeacon of Notre-
Dame. Abélard was a difficult and intelligent student. He
frequently questioned the method and conclusions of the
popular William, raising points in class that embarrassed
the scholar in front of his students. In 1102 Abélard set up
his own rival school at Melun, quickly attracting students.
About 1106 poor health forced him to visit his home in
Brittany. He returned to Paris in 1107 and taught at the
cathedral school, even succeeding William as its head in
1108, until the entrance of his parents into monastic life
about 1111 forced him to return to Brittany to help reorga-
nize family affairs. He soon returned to scholarship and
teaching. Journeying to the cathedral school at Laon,
northeast of Paris, Abélard studied under the most
renowned master of this time, the elderly ANSELMof Laon.
He soon grew disillusioned with Anselm’s teaching, caus-
ing a serious breach between Anselm and his students.
After his expulsion from Laon, he returned in 1113 to the
cathedral school in Paris, where he taught theology for a
number of years in relative peace.
HÉLOÏSE
In Paris Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral, hired Abélard
as a tutor to his cultured and beautiful 18-year-old niece,
HÉLOÏSE. Abélard and Héloïse fell in love. After some
months Fulbert discovered their affair and forced Abélard
to leave his house. Héloïse, however, soon found that she
was pregnant. She and Abélard left Paris to have their
child in the more secluded and secure surroundings of Le
Pallet, where his relatives lived. She gave birth to a son,
Astrolabe. Soon afterward, at the request of Fulbert and
over her objections, the couple married in Paris. The
marriage initially was to remain a secret to protect
Abélard’s reputation as a committed philosopher and also
to allow his unimpeded advancement as a cleric. The
denial of the marriage by Abélard and Héloïse angered
Fulbert. For her protection, Abélard sent her to the con-
vent at Argenteuil. Fulbert assumed Abélard was trying to
annul the marriage by forcing Héloïse into the religious
life. He hired men to seize Abélard while he slept and to
castrate him. This attack resulted in the disgrace of Ful-
bert and the death of those who had attacked Abélard and
also temporarily ended Abélard’s teaching career. He and
Héloïse retreated to monastic life, she at Argenteuil and
he at Saint Denis, the famous Benedictine monastery
north of Paris. Abélard’s life at Saint Denis was difficult
not only because he was publicly disgraced, but also
because separation from academic life and subjection to
the authority of an abbot were foreign to him. Despite
these tensions, the abbot allowed him to set up a school
and Abélard’s reputation attracted students.TEACHING AMID CONFLICT;
INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS
The return to teaching drew criticism from Abélard’s
rivals, who maintained that monks should not teach phi-
losophy and moreover that his training in theology was
insufficient. They specifically attacked his work on the
Trinity. A council at Soissons in 1121 condemned his
ideas and placed him under confinement. Additional fric-
tion with his fellow monks forced Abélard to flee to a pri-
ory in Provins, located in the territory of the count of
Chartres, who was well disposed toward him.
In spite of and in the midst of these reversals,
Abélard found time to write. His most famous work, Sic
et non(Yes and no), was probably written then. It was
intended to provide a dialectic methodology for scholars
to debate theological questions. Conflicting quotations
from earlier Christian authorities were to be placed side
by side, and an introduction indicated procedures for
resolving dilemmas. The work explicitly attacked tradi-
tional authorities. Abélard suggested that reliance on
authority must be combined with a critical examination
of the theological issues and arguments, as well as a
careful examination of the intentions and merits of the
authorities and quotations involved.