Peter Abelard

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Peter Abelard

Born c. 1079

Died 1142

French philosopher

P eter Abelard was a philosopher, meaning that his writings addressed the nature of values and reality. Like most European thinkers of his time, Abelard was particularly concerned with a better understanding of Christianity. This led him into investigations of ethics, or the philosophy of right and wrong. His belief that sin has more to do with a person's attitude than with their actions would hardly raise any eyebrows today, but in twelfth-century France, such ideas nearly got him killed. In a time and place when the authority of the Bible and the Catholic Church were absolute, Abelard seemed to be questioning both. Similarly, his explanations concerning the nature of ideas placed him at odds with many of the leading minds of the day.

But Abelard is not remembered merely as a thinker; his tragic but tender love affair with Héloïse, a student who became his wife and later simply his friend, is a compelling story in its own right. Today the two occupy a place among the ranks of the world's great lovers.

Fighting with ideas and not swords

Peter Abelard was born in Le Pallet (pah-LAY), a village in the region of Brittany, a peninsula in the northwest part of France. His father, Berengar, was a lord and knight, and his parents expected him to follow in these professions, but from an early age he showed a greater interest in fighting with ideas than in fighting with swords.

In medieval Europe, there was only one place for an intellectual, a person whose profession or lifestyle centers around study and ideas: the church. This meant that he would have to pursue a career in the priesthood, which in turn meant that he could never marry—a fact that would later have a great effect on his life.

At the age of fifteen, Abelard left his parents, his three brothers, and his sister, to study under Roscelin de Compiègne (rawz-LAn duh KAHn-pyan). A priest and philosopher, Roscelin had recently been forced to change his teachings about the Trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost who make up the three parts of the Christian God) because his claim that they were actually three separate gods went against established beliefs of the church. Like Roscelin, Abelard would later get into a great deal of trouble with his ideas.

"The unconquerable rhinoceros"

In 1100, Abelard went to the French capital of Paris, where he began studying under Guillaume (gee-YOHM), or William, of Champeaux (sham-POH). William was a high official at the Cathedral of Notre Dame (NOH-truh DAHM), the greatest church in France, and therefore a powerful man. Perhaps if young Abelard had been as wise as he was smart, he would not have humiliated William as he did in a public debate concerning the nature of ideas.

Abelard's victory over William won him a number of admirers among his classmates, who dubbed him Rhinoceros indomitus, or "the unconquerable rhinoceros." But it made a lifelong enemy of William, and by 1102, Abelard had left Notre Dame to establish a school of his own outside the capital. Meanwhile William, no doubt because of his recent shaming by Abelard, left Notre Dame for another appointment as well. Abelard suffered a brief illness and returned to Brittany, but in 1108 was invited to take William's old job at Notre Dame. This so infuriated William that he returned to Paris and forced Abelard out, whereupon the young scholar began teaching at another school. Most of the students at Notre Dame left the cathedral to study under Abelard, their new hero.

Anselm of Laon

After another brief period at home, in 1113 Abelard went to study with Anselm of Laon (LAH-own; died 1117). Like William before him, Anselm—not to be confused with Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1034–1109), a philosopher regarded by many historians as Abelard's equal—was a highly respected teacher; and as with William, Abelard made a fool of him.

Because Abelard skipped many of Anselm's classes, some of his classmates challenged his lack of respect. Abelard

Li Po

Like Abelard, the Chinese poet Li Po (BOH; 701–762) was a brash, highly talented figure whose recklessness often got him into trouble. Because his ancestors had been exiled to the northern part of China, they had intermarried with the Mongols, a hardy tribal people of that region. As a result, Li Po was taller than most Chinese. He also had different ideas about the world, having been exposed primarily to Taoist (DOW-ist) rather than Confucian teachings. Confucianism, which dominated Chinese thinking, taught submission to people in authority, whereas Taoism urged followers to seek meaning by removing themselves from society.

From his youth, Li Po seemed wild and uncontrollable, and as a young man he associated with ruffians who were fond of sword-fighting. Though he married and had children, he spent much of the time wandering the countryside by himself, and he began writing what many scholars consider some of the finest work composed by a Chinese poet. He also took to excessive drinking; he believed that when he was drunk he had a higher understanding of reality.

At one point Li Po was befriended by the emperor Hsüan Tsung (shwee-AHND-zoong; ruled 712–56), who so admired his work that he once served Li Po food with his own hands—an almost unthinkable act of humility for a Chinese ruler. One of Li Po's most famous poems was "A Song of Pure Happiness," which he wrote in celebration of the emperor's beautiful concubine, Yang Kuei-fei (see box in Irene of Athens entry).

At a later point, however, Li offended a member of the imperial court—perhaps even the emperor himself—and he again wandered the country. During this time, he associated with Tu Fu (doo-FOO; 712–770), a poet whom many critics consider Li Po's equal. Tu Fu had an entirely different approach to life than Li Po, and was a calming influence on him.

During the widespread rebellion led by Yang Kuei-fei's lover, An Lu-shan, which nearly toppled the government of the T'ang dynasty, Li Po was imprisoned. He only gained his release through the help of a soldier he had befriended many years before. He returned to his wife and lived out his days quietly. According to folklore, Li Po died of drowning: supposedly he was drunk in his boat on a beautiful evening, and leaned too far over the side to admire his reflection in the moonlit water.

announced that he could do a better job than his teacher, and to prove it he prepared a lecture of his own. The subject was Ezekiel, one of the most challenging books of the Bible, and Abelard spent a single day in preparation. The next day, he spoke so brilliantly that most of Anselm's students deserted him in favor of Abelard.

Thus Abelard gained a new enemy, and Anselm saw to it that the upstart was forbidden from teaching anywhere in the region. By then, however, William's old job at Notre Dame was vacant once again, and Abelard took it. He could not have suspected that his great pride was about to lead him into misfortune.

Abelard and Héloïse

A handsome man with deep brown eyes, Abelard was a commanding presence. In his style of teaching, he rejected the old method of simply reading a text along with all the established commentaries on it; instead, he favored an active approach, introducing an idea and then grappling with it verbally through careful analysis. This made him an exciting lecturer, and won him countless admirers.

Among these was a high official at Notre Dame named Fulbert (fool-BEHR), who in 1117 invited Abelard to come live with him and tutor his niece Héloïse (EL-oh-eez; c. 1100–1164). Abelard was thirty-eight and Héloïse seventeen—tall, with fine features, a gracious manner, and great intelligence. The outcome of their long hours together should not have come as a surprise to anyone: as Abelard himself recalled, "More words of love than of our reading passed between us, and more kissing than teaching."

Tragedy

By the time Fulbert realized what was going on and ordered Abelard to leave his home, Héloïse was pregnant. Abelard took her with him to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son they named Astrolabe. (They placed the boy in the care of Abelard's sister Denise.) Abelard proposed marriage, and Fulbert was agreeable—not least because he would have one of the most admired men in France for an adoptive sonin-law. Surprisingly, it was Héloïse who objected, on the grounds that marriage would ruin Abelard's chances for advancement in the church, and that family responsibilities would keep him from his work. Furthermore, she maintained that their love was stronger than any legal vows.

Nevertheless, they went ahead with the marriage, which they kept secret to protect Abelard's reputation. Soon, however, Fulbert began bragging about the fact that Abelard was his relative, and when the two publicly denied that they were married, Fulbert became abusive toward his niece. Abelard arranged for Héloïse to escape to a convent, or nunnery, in Argenteuil (ar-zhahn-TWEE).

Fearing that Abelard intended to force Héloïse to become a nun, thereby breaking off the marriage, Fulbert decided to take revenge. He bribed Abelard's servant to leave his master's door unlocked, and one night Fulbert, accompanied by a few hoodlums, broke into Abelard's bedroom and castrated him.

Despite the many enemies he had made, Abelard had many friends as well, and the public was outraged when they learned what had happened. Abelard's servant and one of Fulbert's henchmen were captured, blinded, and castrated; as for Fulbert, he lost his position and was forced to leave the city.

New enemies

Feeling that his misfortune was a punishment from God, Abelard became a monk in 1119, and told Héloïse to become a nun. But soon he was back to his rebellious self, raising hackles among the monks at the monastery of Saint-Denis by criticizing their methods. Therefore when he requested permission to return to his work as a teacher, the monks were happy to see him go.

In 1120, Abelard wrote a book about the nature of the Trinity that so infuriated some of Anselm's disciples that they organized a meeting at Soissons (swah-SAWn) in 1121 and condemned him on religious grounds. Abelard returned to the monastery, but again made enemies, and with the help of a powerful friend established a monastery of his own dedicated to the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost. This caused problems too, since monasteries were supposed to be dedicated to the entire Trinity or to Christ.

In 1123, Abelard published one of his most important works, Sic et Non ("For and Against"), which presented some 160 seemingly illogical statements by church leaders and argued that only through reasoning could one understand them. It was bad enough to place such an emphasis on reason as opposed to religious faith, but also in 1123, his Ethics put forth the idea that sin is a matter of one's intentions rather than one's actions; in other words, a sin can only be a sin if one knowingly commits it. Students continued to flock to Abelard, but when he realized he had gained a truly powerful enemy in Bernard of Clairvaux (see entry), he took a job in Brittany—far from Paris.

Abelard's latter years

In 1128, Héloïse established a convent in the buildings formerly occupied by Abelard's monastery. Meanwhile Abelard's enemies in Brittany tried several times to have him killed, so he escaped and in 1132 wrote a volume translated as The Story of My Misfortunes. Héloïse obtained a copy and wrote him a letter in which she made it clear that she still loved him. Abelard responded: "If … you have need of my instruction and writings in matters pertaining to God, write to me what you want, so that I may answer as God permits me." She understood that he no longer wanted to speak of love, but they continued to correspond on questions of faith.

By 1136, Abelard was back in Paris, preparing to debate Bernard. But Bernard was not about to engage in an argument he knew he would lose, and on June 3, 1140, he charged Abelard with heresy (HAIR-uh-see)—that is, holding ideas that went against established church beliefs. Abelard appealed to Pope Innocent II (ruled 1130–43), but he learned that the pope supported Bernard, so he agreed to make peace. In private, however, he wrote a work the English title of which is Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian. In it he still maintained that reason, as opposed to blind faith, was a necessary part of religious belief.

By this time, Abelard was sixty-three and in ailing health. He died on April 21, 1142, and in accordance with his wishes, was buried at the Paraclete. When Héloïse died twenty-two years later, she was laid to rest beside him. Later their bodies were moved to Père-Lachaise (PAYR luh-SHEZ), a famous cemetery in Paris, where their headstone reads, "ABELARD: HÉLOÏSE—For Ever One."