Pierre (Peter)
Abelard of Le Pallet,
introduction

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I am being repeatedly asked questions about the original Abelard. I tend to write as a means of avoiding the need for continual repetition. I also go along with the dictum on the seal of the great mathematician Gauss, “few but seasoned” (pauca sed matura).
No details guaranteed, especially in view of the intervening 900 years and the current unavailability of the original Abelard for interview!

1 Major dates and details

2 Probable locations of Abelard with approximate dates[1]

1079

Peter the Venerable then took Abelard’s body for burial at ‘Le Paraclet’, a nunnery founded by Abelard and run by Heloise (‘Le Paraclet’ was 5 miles SE of Nogent-sur-Seine, on the road from Paris to Troyes, close to the village of Quincey and the River Ardusson.). Heloise died in 1163 and was then buried alongside Abelard. In 1497 the bodies were move to a new oratory and placed either side of the high altar. In 1621 they were moved again to the crypt. They were moved again in 1780 to another position in the crypt. The remains then went to Nogent-sur Seine at the time of the revolution (approximately 1789) and then to a museum in Paris and most recently to Mont Louis, now Père Lachaise cemetery. Weird are the ways of humanity.

3 Some common misperceptions

While my main interest in Abelard is in his philosophy and his life, I must refer to his relationship with Heloise and its consequences, as a concession to these matters that are of more interest to this escapist age. The relationship betwixt Abelard and Heloise is regarded as one of the great romances of history, à la Romeo and Juliet and Dante and Beatrice. This romance was however most real.

Heloise was probably in her 20s, perhaps approaching 30, not a teenager as is commonly romanticised (Clanchy, p.275).

Abelard and Heloise were married in accord with customary legitimate process at the time. Their marriage was to be kept secret by agreement with the parties; the agreement was flaunted by the ‘party’ of Fulbert.

4 Some other background notes

Marriage, while legitimate, had the potential to limit Abelard’s advancement in the church, the only available route for advancement as a literate. But Heloise’s main objection was the judgement that marriage would be a betrayal of the philosophic ideal. Such views are now returning to our society after the long 800 years of dark ages perpetrated by the fundamentalism of modern European ‘Christianity’. These considerations were likely to have been at the base of the secrecy over the marriage forced by Abelard upon Heloise.

It is possible that Fulbert, the uncle of Heloise, imagined that Abelard had cast Heloise aside and on this imagining, perpetrated the castration of Abelard. An interesting article by B.M. Cook and other sources[2] can be read to suggest another possibility: that an aggravating factor was political rivalry between the powerful factions of the Montmorency family and that of Stephen de Garlande, a protector and sponsor of Abelard. The incident seems to have been in the nature of family ‘honour’, politics and blood feud, still common in backward societies; with Abelard and Heloise becoming enmeshed in an early real life version of the Montagues and the Capulets.[3]

Two of the perpetrators, one a servant of Abelard who betrayed him and the other probably a kinsman of Fulbert, were in their turn castrated and blinded. Fulbert was expelled from Notre-Dame and deprived of all his goods and possessions, but these measures were rescinded within a year or two.

The 12th century started with rivalries at all levels of the feudal system, which was then establishing itself in present day France. This was a time of great transition which I would date between 1066 and 1200. It is conceivable that much of Abelard's calamities involved being caught up in the political crosscurrents at times. He was clearly subject to considerable rivalries and jealousies.

Quote from Abelard: “Logic has made me hated by the world”.

Quotes from Heloise: ‘The name of mistress instead of wife would be dearer and more honourable for me, only love given freely, rather than the constriction of the marriage tie, is of significance to an ideal relationship’. According to Abelard, she also wrote of the unbearable annoyances of marriage and its endless anxieties, that a man should not take a wife and of the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home. She was further concerned that marriage would interfere with his work in philosophy. In one of her letters, written when she was a nun, is the following: ‘God is my witness that if Augustus, emperor of the whole world, thought fit to honour me with marriage and conferred all the earth upon me to possess for ever, it would be dearer and more honourable to me to be called not his empress but your whore’.

Abelard and Heloise had one child, a boy they named Astralabe, born in 1118. He was cared for by the sister of Abelard’s at Le Pallet with apparently little contact with his parents. Astralabe was eventually found a canonry at Nantes.

These were times of growing repression and orthodoxy, generated by the growing power of Rome and by the political allegiances between the Normans and the church. The centralising power structures of the church and kings were gaining an ever-increasing stranglehold on society between approximately 1066 and 1200.

5 The trial of Abelard for heresy at Sens, 1140 [4]

Abelard was tried for heresy under nineteen headings or ‘capitula’, the trial being master-minded by Bernard of Clairvaux who wished to destroy Abelard's power and influence.

In the second of three documents commenting on the thought of Abelard, the logic of ethics, I have discussed eight of the capitula. That document also has a summary of Abelard’s approach to ethics. Also see On aliquid by Roland. An outline of ‘heresies’ may be seen on this site at ‘heresies’, authority, quarrels and words.

6 Abelard and ‘heresies’

In the following table, the first column links to a description of each ‘heresy’, the second column links to where the ‘heresy’ is discussed in the main documents on Abelard’s philosophy, the logic of ethics and “Logic has made me hated among men”. These documents refer in more detail to Abelard’s ‘trial’ at Sens, in 1140

7 Sources:

8 Abelard of Le Pallet’s works in English translation

McKeon, R. P. (translator), ‘Selections from Medieval Philosophy’, 1929, I, pp 208-58 
now available reprinted in

Hyman,, A and Walsh, J.J.(editors), Philosophy in the Middle Ages,
first published 1973, Indianapolis & Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Co.
pbk, 2nd ed., 1983, Hackett Pub Co, 0915145804
$29.95 [amazon.com]/ £19.95 [amazon.co.uk]
hbk, 2nd ed., 1983, Hackett Pub Co, 0915145812
$55.00 [amazon.com]/ £34.00 [amazon.co.uk]

9 Some other useful books on Abelard

Clanchy, M. T., Abelard, a Medieval Life, pbk, 1999, Blackwell Pub, 0631214445
$29.95 [amazon.com] / £17.99 [amazon.co.uk].
This publication lacks the rather pompous tone of much historic writing and the author is not afraid to guess a little. It therefore gives a good feel for the times.

END NOTES

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© abelard, 1998 (27 december)
version 1.3


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