United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Geoffroi, bishop of Chartres, the second of the name to hold that post, was subsequently a warm friend of St. Bernard. Abélard's high estimate of him is fully confirmed by other contemporary authorities. This abbot was probably, though not certainly, Anselm of Soissons, who became a bishop in 1145. The chronology, however, is confusing.
It is not known to whom Abélard's letter was addressed, but it may be guessed that the writer intended it to reach the hands of Héloïse. This actually happened, and the first and most famous letter from Héloise to Abélard was substantially an answer to the "Historia Calamitatum."
Denis was founded about 625 by Dagobert, son of Lothair II, at some distance from the basilica which the clergy of Paris had erected in the fifth century over the saint's tomb. Long renowned as the place of burial for most of the kings of France, the abbey of St. Denis had a particular importance in Abélard's day by reason of its close association with the reigning monarch.
In 1136, however, we find him once more lecturing, and apparently with much of his former success, on Mont Ste. Genevieve. His old enemies were still on his trail, and most of all Bernard of Clairvaux, to whose fiery adherence to the faith Abélard's rationalism seemed a sheer desecration.
For the main facts of Abélard's life his own writings remain the best authority, but through his frequent contact with many of the foremost figures in the intellectual and clerical life of the early twelfth century it has been possible to check his own account of his career with considerable accuracy.
That he was something of a pedant is probable, but Abélard's picture of him is certainly very far from doing him justice. Of these two not much is known beyond what Abélard himself tells us. ALberic, indeed, won a considerable reputation, and was highly recommended to Pope Honorius II by St. Bernard. In 1139 Alberic seems to have become archbishop of Bourges, dying two years later.
It saw a new enthusiasm of monasticism, not originated by, but centring in, the person of Bernard, a more conspicuous and a more authoritative figure than any pope of the time. To him was due the suppression of the intellectual movement from within against the authority of the Church, connected with Abelard's name.
Nevertheless it soon became the fashion to discuss the various doctrines of Christianity with great freedom and to try to make a well-reasoned system of theology by following the rules of Aristotle's logic. It was just after Abelard's death that Peter Lombard published his Sentences, already described.
She would rather bear all manner of disgrace than stand in the way of Abelard's advancement. He has himself given some of the words in which she pleaded with him: What glory shall I win from you, when I have made you quite inglorious and have humbled both of us? What vengeance will the world inflict on me if I deprive it of one so brilliant? What curses will follow such a marriage?
The problems of philosophy and theology that were so vital in the Middle Ages interest us no more, even when they are less obscure than those so rife in the twelfth century, but the problem of human love is always near and so it is not perhaps surprising that the abiding interest concerns itself with Abélard's relationship with Héloïse. So far as he is concerned it is not a very savoury matter.
Word Of The Day