Peter Abelard and Heloise [1 ed.] 0815362587, 9780815362586

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VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES

Peter Abelard and Heloise

David Luscombe

Peter Abelard and Heloise

Collected Studies

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 David Luscombe The right of David Luscombe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Luscombe, D. E. (David Edward), author. Title: Peter Abelard and Heloise : collected studies / David Luscombe. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Variorum collected studies series ; CS1072 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018024440| ISBN 9780815362586 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781351111911 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Abelard, Peter, 1079-1142. | Hâeloèise, approximately 1095-1163 or 1164. Classification: LCC B765.A24 L873 2018 | DDC 189/.4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024440 ISBN: 978-­0-8153-­6258-­6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-­1-351-­11191-­1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS1072

contents

CONTENTS

Prefacexi Abbreviationsxiii Bibliographyxv 1

‘From Paris to the Paraclete: The correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, Raleigh Lecture on History. Proceedings of the British Academy, 74 (1988; date of publication 1989), pp. 247–283. © The British Academy. Reprinted by permission.

1

Peter Abelard: Philosopher 2

3

4

‘Peter Abelard’, A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 279–307. Paperback edition 1992. © Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

35

‘Nature in the thought of Peter Abelard’, La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo. Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medioevale (Milan, Società Editrice Vita e Pensiero, 1966), pp. 314–319. Reprinted by permission.

63

‘Peter Abelard and the arts of language’, Media Latinitas. A collection of essays to mark the occasion of the retirement of L. J. Engels, ed. by R.I.A. Nip and others. Instrumenta Patristica 28 (Steenbrugge, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium, 1996), pp. 101–116. Reprinted by permission.

69

5 ‘Scientia and disciplina in the correspondence of Peter Abelard and Heloise’, ‘Scientia’ und ‘disciplina’. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftpraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. R. Berndt, M. Lutz-­Bachmann and R.M.W. Stammberger. Erudiri Sapientia

vii

contents 3 (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2002), pp. 79–89. Reprinted by permission.85 6

7

‘The sense of innovation in the writings of Peter Abelard’, Tradition, Innovation, Invention. Fortschrittsverweigerung und Fortschrittsbewusstein im Mittelalter, ed. Hans-­Joachim Schmidt. Scrinium Friburgense. Veröffentlichungen des Mediaevistischen Instituts der Universität Freiburg Schweiz 18 (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2005), pp. 181–194. Reprinted by permission. ‘Peter Abelard and the poets’, Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon. Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, ed. P. G. Schmidt, 29 (Leiden, Brill, 2001), pp. 155–171. Reprinted by permission.

97

109

Peter Abelard: Theologian 8

‘The school of Peter Abelard revisited’, Vivarium XXX, I (Leiden, Brill, May 1992), pp. 127–138. Reprinted by permission.

127

9

‘The Bible in the work of Peter Abelard and his “school”’, Neue Richtungen in der hoch – und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 32 (Munich, Walter de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 79–93. Reprinted by permission.

137

10 ‘Peter Abelard and the creation of the world’, Hombre y Naturaleza en el Pensiamento Medieval. Congreso Internacional de Filosofia ­Medieval – 7­ LatinoAmericano. San Antonio de Padua, Buenos Aires 12–15 de octubre de 1999. Nuevo Mundo 1 (2000), pp. 81–93. Reprinted by permission.

153

11 ‘Peter Abelard’s carnal thoughts’, Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, ed. Peter Biller and A. J. Minnis, York Studies in Medieval Theology (University of York, York Medieval Press 1997), pp. 31–41. Reprinted by permission of Boydell & Brewer Ltd.163 12 ‘St Anselm and Abelard: A restatement’, Saint Anselm – A Thinker for Yesterday and Today. Anselm’s Thought Viewed by Our Contemporaries. Proceedings of the International Anselm Conference, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Paris, ed. C. Viola and F. Van Fleteren. Texts and Studies in Religion viii

contents 90 (Lewiston, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), pp. 445–460. Reprinted by permission.

175

13 ‘A new student for Peter Abelard: The marginalia in British Library MS Cotton Faustina A.X (with Charles Burnett)’, Itinérairesde la raison. Études de philosophie médiévale offertes à Maria Candida Pacheco, ed. J. F. Meirinhos. Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales. Textes et Études du Moyen Âge 32 (Louvain-­la-­Neuve, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium, 2005), pp. 163–186. Reprinted by permission of C. Burnett and Brepols Publishers.

187

14 ‘Berengar, defender of Peter Abelard’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 33 (Abbaye du Mont César, Louvain, 1966), pp. 319–337. Reprinted by permission of Peeters Publishers, Leuven, Belgium.

207

Peter Abelard and Heloise 15 ‘The Letters of Heloise and Abelard since “Cluny, 1972”’, Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142). Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. R. Thomas in association with J. Jolivet, D. E. Luscombe and L. M. De Rijk. Trierer Theologische Studien 38 (Trier, Paulinus Verlag, 1980), pp. 19–29. Reprinted by permission.

227

16 ‘Peter Abelard and the abbey of the Paraclete’. For an earlier French version of this essay see ‘Pierre Abélard et l’abbaye du Paraclet’, Pierre Abélard. Colloque international de Nantes, ed. J. Jolivet and H. Habrias. Collection ‘Histoire’ (Rennes, 2003), pp. 215–229.251 17 ‘Excerpts from the letter collection of Heloise and Abelard in Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30’, Pascua Mediaevalia. Studies voor Prof. Dr. J. M. De Smet. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series 1/Studies X (Universitaire Pers Leuven, 1983), pp. 529–544. Reprinted by permission.

265

Peter Abelard: Monk 18 ‘Peter Abelard and monasticism’, For an earlier French version of this essay see ‘Pierre Abélard et le monachisme’, Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable. Centre national de la recherche scientifique (1975), pp. 271–278.

ix

283

contents 19 ‘Monasticism in the lives and writings of Heloise and Abelard’, Monastic Studies. The Continuity of Tradition II, ed. J. Loades. Headstart History (Bangor, 1991), pp. 1–11. Reprinted by permission.289 20 Supplementary notes

301

Index309 Index of Manuscripts317

x

PREFACE

I have from time to time been asked to make a collection of some of my studies of Peter Abelard and Heloise which were published in widely scattered and not always easily accessible volumes. The present book brings together and reprints nineteen of these essays with very few and only very small amendments but with a common format and new pagination. Some of these essays were published before the arrival of new editions of the writings of Abelard and Heloise. In general with these earlier essays I have not sought to incorporate references to new editions in footnotes because these new editions usually show the page or column numbers found in the earlier editions. This is especially the case with the Collationes, the Ethics, the Theologia ‘Summi boni’ and the Theologia ‘Scholarium’. In particular, a new edition of The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise, edited by David Luscombe, translated by Betty Radice, revised by David Luscombe, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2013 (Oxford Medieval Texts), presents on pages 554–558 a Concordance with the page and column numbers of earlier editions of the Letters. In the notes I have abbreviated and standardized the titles of many works that are cited and a list of the short titles used is given in the Bibliography. In the Supplementary Notes found at the end of this volume I have given some information about more recent scholarship. Asterisks inserted in the essays signal these Supplementary Notes. For permissions granted to reprint these essays I thank the original publishers. Michael Greenwood and Kevin Selmes at Routledge have been the most supportive links between myself and the press and I thank them too. David Luscombe Sheffield October 2018

xi

ABBREVIATIONS

AHDLMA Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge BGPTMA Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters CCCM Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnhout, Brepols CCSL Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, Turnhout, Brepols CLS Cistercian Liturgy Series CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum PL Patrologia latina, ed. J.-P. Migne. RTAM Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale

xiii

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Writings of Heloise and Abelard Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher: Peter Abelard. Carmen ad Astralabium. A Critical Edition, ed. J.M.A. Rubingh-­Bosscher, Groningen, Rijksuniversiteit, 1987. Collationes, ed. Marenbon and Orlandi: Peter Abelard, Collationes, ed. J.  Marenbon and G. Orlandi, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2001 (Oxford Medieval Texts). Also known as Dialogus, ed. R. Thomas, Petrus Abaelardus. Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum, Stuttgart-­ Bad Cannstatt, Friedrich Frommann Verlag (Günther Holzboog), 1970. Comm. Rom.: Commentaria in Epistolam ad Romanos, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, I, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, 11). Dialectica, ed. de Rijk: Petrus Abaelardus. Dialectica, ed. L. M. de Rijk, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1956, 19702 (Wijsgerige Teksten en Studies, 1). Dialogus, see Collationes. Ethics, ed. Luscombe: Peter Abelard’s Ethics, ed. D. E. Luscombe, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971 (Oxford Medieval Texts); ed. Ilgner: Scito te ipsum, ed. R. M. Ilgner, in Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica IV, CCCM, 190. Expositio Epistolae Pauli ad Romanos: see Comm. Rom. Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Romig; Expositio in Hexameron, ed. M. Romig assisted by D. Luscombe; Abbreviatio Petri Abaelardi Expositionis in Hexameron¸ ed. C. Burnett assisted by D. Luscombe, in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, V, Turnhout, Brepols, 2004 (CCCM, 15). Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin: Abélard, Historia calamitatum, ed. J. Monfrin, Paris, J. Vrin, 19622. Hymns, ed. Szövérffy: Peter Abelard’s Hymnarius Paraclitensis, ed. J. Szövérffy, 2 vols., Albany, N.Y., Classical Folia Editions, 1975 (Medieval Classics: Texts and Studies, 2–3). ——ed. Waddell: Hymn Collections from the Paraclete. Volume 1: Introduction and Commentary. Volume 2: Edition of Texts, ed. C. Waddell, Gethsemane Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1989 and 1987 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 8–9). xv

b i b l i o g ra p h y The Letter Collection, ed. Luscombe: The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise, ed. D. Luscombe, trans. B. Radice and revised by D. Luscombe, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2013 (Oxford Medieval Texts). Letter I, see Historia calamitatum. Letters II–V, ed. Muckle: ‘The personal letters between Abelard and Heloise: Introduction, authenticity and text’, ed. J. T. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies, XV (1953), pp. 47–94. Letters VI–VII, ed. Muckle: ‘The Letter of Heloise on the religious life and Abelard’s first Reply’, ed. J. T. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies, (1955), pp. 240–281. Letter VIII and the Rule: see Rule. Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits: Peter Abelard. Letters IX–XIV, ed. E.R. Smits, Groningen, Rijksuniversiteit, 1983. Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer in Peter Abaelards Philosophische Schriften, I, ed. B. Geyer, Münster i. W., Aschendorff, 1919–27 (BGPTMA, XXI, 1–3). Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, ed. Geyer in Peter Abaelards Philosophische Schriften, ed. B. Geyer, II, Münster i. W., Aschendorf, 19732 (BGPTMA, XXI, 4). Rule, ed. McLaughlin: ‘Abelard’s Rule for religious women’, ed. T. P. McLaughlin, Mediaeval Studies, XVIII (1956), pp. 241–292. SN: Peter Abailard, Sic et Non. A Critical Edition by B. Boyer and R. McKeon, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1976–1977. SPA: Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi, ed. D. Luscombe with J. Barrow, C.  Burnett, K. Keats-­Rohan, C. J. Mews, in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, VI, 2006 (CCCM, 14). Tchr: Theologia Christiana, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, 12), pp. 1–371. tsch: Theologia ‘Scholarium’ (recensiones breviores), ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, 12), pp. 373–451. TSch: Theologia ‘Scholarium’, ed. E. M. Buytaert and C. J. Mews, Petri Abaelardi  Opera theologica, III, Turnhout, Brepols, 1987 (CCCM, 13), pp. 203–549. TSum: Theologia ‘Summi boni’, ed. E. M. Buytaert and C. J. Mews, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, III, Turnhout, Brepols, 1987 (CCCM, 13), pp. 83–201. Other abbreviated titles Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas: Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142). Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. R. Thomas with J. Jolivet, D. E. Luscombe and L. M. de Rijk, Trier, Paulinus Verlag, 1980 (Trierer theologische Studien, 38). Pierre Abélard-Pierre le Vénérable: Pierre Abélard-Pierre le Vénérable. Les xvi

b i b l i o g ra p h y courants philosophiques, littéraires et artistiques en Occident au milieu du XIIe siècle. Abbaye de Cluny, 2 au 9 juillet 1972, Paris, Editions du Centre national de recherche scientifique, 1975 (Colloques internationaux du Centre national de recherché scientifique 546).

xvii

1 FROM PARIS TO THE PARACLETE The correspondence of Abelard and Heloise

Abelard was not a Parisian nor a Frenchman. None the less, the duchy of Brittany, and especially the county of Nantes into which he had been born in 1079, was increasingly open to and taking part in opportunities of all kinds opening up in France.1 Breton clergy went to the schools of Anjou to study; and sometimes they returned to occupy and to reform Breton bishoprics.2 Abelard himself from the mid 1090s attended the schools of Tours and Loches and Angers3 and like his fellow Breton Robert of Arbrissel, the founder of the abbey of Fontevraud, he went on to Paris in search of further opportunities to study; and, like Robert too, Abelard eventually became an abbot.4 He remained throughout his life in touch with his Breton ­homeland – ­his patria – returning there in illness,5 and when his mother Lucy entered religion,6 entrusting Heloise to his sister during her pregnancy in 1116,7 placing his son Astralabe with this same sister for his upbringing,8 dedicating his Dialectica to his brother Dagobert,9 accepting election around 1125/7 as abbot of the monastery of Saint-­Gildas de Rhuys in the diocese of Vannes on the southern, Atlantic coast of the duchy10 and in this role playing a part in the affairs of the duchy, and appearing from time to time in the entourage of Conan III, the count of Nantes and duke of Brittany.11 Heloise’s family, which is less well known than Abelard’s, belonged to the nobility of the Paris region.12 Her uncle Fulbert was a canon of Notre-­Dame13 and she was educated in the nearby convent of Argenteuil.14 There is reason to think that she belonged on her father’s side to a branch of the Beaumont family, or of the closely related family of Montmorency-­Bantelu, and that she had on her mother’s side Chartrain connections.15 The Montmorencys were dominant in the Val d’Oise, and the advowson of the convent of Argenteuil was in the hands of one of their number; they were neighbours, and by no means harmonious ones, of the abbots of Saint-­Denis.16 In the earliest years of the twelfth century Paris was still a dilapidated, crumbling city largely confined to an island on the Seine.17 Louis VI, at the start of his reign in 1108, was hemmed in by the counts of Meulan and Corbeil, and by the lords of Montmorency. But, following the sack of the city by the count of Meulan in 1111, he established a ville neuve on the right 1

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e bank of the Seine in a vigorous drive to promote settlement and commerce. On the left bank in 1113 Louis officially founded the new abbey of Saint-­ Victor; hitherto a lonely hermitage, it quickly grew to be a notable centre for scholarly clergy.18 The east of the Cité itself had been dominated by the vast, ruinous basilica of Saint-­Etienne while further to the east arose the more recent church of Notre-­Dame. To the north of these lay the cloister and most of the canons’ houses. Apart from the dean, the chanter and the chancellor, the chapter comprised three archdeacons, three priest-­canons, three deacons, three subdeacons and three acolytes. The bishop himself occupied a palace to the south of the cathedral, close to the Petit Pont. And in the years before (or in) 1116 Louis VI fixed the boundaries of the close.19 Abelard was not brought up here, but he came as a mature student around the year 1100 to complete an education that had been pursued largely in the valley of the Loire. The state of the school in Paris at the time is obscure. But bishop Guillaume, who died in 1102, had been a pupil of that famous teacher, bishop Ivo of Chartres, as was Galo, his successor as bishop in Paris from 1104.20 These two bishops heralded a period of rapid growth for the school;21 increasing numbers of students were to come and to breed conflicts, a climax being reached perhaps after Abelard had left Paris and in the 1120s when bishop Gerbert suspended Master Gualo from teaching in the close and moved the school away from the canons’ properties and closer both to his palace and to the Petit Pont which leads to the rive gauche. Henceforth external pupils, such as Abelard himself had been, were no longer to lodge in the canons’ houses.22 A battle of ideas unquestionably took place in Paris between Abelard and his master William of Champeaux in the early 1100s23 but personal alliances and quarrels were also involved and the politics of the royal court bore closely upon them.24 Stephen de Garlande, from 1105 the royal chancellor, was like William an archdeacon and had houses in the close;25 and when Abelard first set up school, not in Paris but at the castrum and royal residence of Melun, he had the support of powerful figures.26 When after a short while he moved away from ­Melun – a­ nd the reason for this may well have been a rift between Stephen and the k ­ ing – h ­ e took his teaching to the little town of Corbeil, closer to Paris, but in the hands of Count Odo who was opposed to the king.27 Nor need it be a coincidence that, when shortly afterwards (and perhaps still in 1105) Abelard returned home to Brittany, for reasons of health, the de Garlandes, in alliance with Milo of Troyes, were fighting the Rocheforts who had taken Prince Louis into their keeping. Only when the cloud of disgrace was lifted from the de Garlandes, probably in 1108, did Abelard see fit to return from Brittany to France.28 1108 is also the year in which William of Champeaux took the habit of a regular canon and resigned his archdeaconry to join the new community at Saint-­Victor on the left bank. This followed the accession to the throne of Louis VI and a reversal in 1107 of alliances in the royal court leading to 2

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e William’s exclusion from royal favour.29 The Parisian basin was in the grip of military operations. Gui de Rochefort lost the ­seneschalship – ­which had given him command of the royal ­army – ­and was replaced by Anseau de Garlande. Stephen de Garlande was restored to the royal chancellorship.30 And the new archdeacon, Gilbert, who succeeded William, attempted to install Abelard in the episcopal school of Paris, but he failed to overcome the influence of William over bishop Galo who imposed another nominee.31 So Abelard went back to Melun and to the royal court32 and then came to the Mont Sainte-­ Geneviève to the south of Paris where Stephen was dean of the abbey. It was on the lands or in the church of Sainte-­Geneviève that Abelard taught around 1109 and 1110.33 He finally secured appointment as master in Paris only after the resignation of William’s successor and after William left Paris to become bishop of Châlons in 1113.34 There followed at least three undisturbed years of teaching in the cathedral close35 until the course of his relationship with Heloise and his brutal emasculation led him, probably in 1117/18, to put his wife back into the convent of Argenteuil and to place himself under the rule of abbot Adam at the royal monastery of Saint-­Denis.36 These ructions are evoked very sketchily in the letter now universally known under the title of Historia calamitatum.37 Until William of Champeaux finally left Paris, the account is largely couched ‘in the terminology of a military operation aimed at the academic capture of the stronghold of Paris’.38 The frequent metaphors employed of assault and battle, of siege and camps, of occupation and retreat, gain significance when we take into account the close connections between the clerical and military struggles in royal France.39 At precisely the time that Abelard taught on the Mont Sainte-­Geneviève, and prepared there for his assault on the cathedral school, Roger count of Meulan in March 1111 raided the Cité from the rive droite, sacked the royal palace and cut the bridges across the Seine.40 This bragging martial language is not the least of reasons for reading the text as an acceptably contemporary document.41 As much can be said too of the account of Heloise. It is believable, even so long before the invention of safe methods of artificial contraception, that Heloise should have insisted that she preferred the freedom of concubinage to the tie of wedlock. Heloise is represented in the Historia as one who wanted to reject the marriage bond and who, desperately as well as forcefully, turned St Jerome’s arguments against marriage in directions Jerome never intended.42 In the first of her letters Heloise writes that the name of wife might seem more sacred or more binding, but sweeter would always be the word friend, even that of mistress or concubine.43 This sentiment, coming from a woman, at a time when concubinage was not socially disreputable but when the prohibitions of clerical marriage and other laws of marriage were still being sharpened, is not so daringly original nor so old-­fashioned as to be implausible. To many concubines it was an advantage to keep their clerical partners well away from marriage.44 3

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Another persistent objection to the contemporary character of the Historia is that the quotations it contains from the Bible are put in a form not invented before the thirteenth century.45 In particular, in evoking Abelard’s shame on becoming a eunuch and therefore unclean, the Book of Deuteronomy is quoted: ‘An ­eunuch . . . ­shall not enter into the church of the Lord’.46 The reference given in the Historia to chapter 21 is (we might presume) a simple error for chapter 23 where the passage is now found, but the objection is that such an error could not have been made until after the early thirteenth century when Stephen Langton devised a new system of chapter numberings, whereupon this passage was included for the first time in a chapter numbered 23. The objection is, however, groundless, not because of the possibility that copyists of the extant MSS (which are all later than Stephen Langton) may have sensibly adjusted the text to a new system,47 nor because of the possibility that the quotation was interpolated during the thirteenth century into an earlier copy,48 but because of the fact that the supposedly new system was not wholly new. In some twelfth-­century Bibles, this particular passage in Deuteronomy is quite clearly in a chapter numbered 23.49 From this point in the Historia we may compare what other writers of letters had to say. Before the end of 1118 Prior Fulk of Deuil addressed a stunning letter to Abelard.50 The Benedictine priory of Deuil, the priory which fostered Odo, the historian of the second Crusade, lay about 5 km away from the abbey of Saint-­Denis, and beneath the fortress of Montmorency. From there the Bouchard branch of the Montmorency family wielded power. From the height of their castle and 10 km to the south-­west Argenteuil can be seen. In his letter Fulk offers both consolation to Abelard on his wounds and congratulations on becoming a monk. Fortune is indeed fickle, for by his fame as a teacher Abelard had attracted crowds of pupils, but he had then fallen into debauchery;51 and his castration, which led to his conversion, was a benign act of providence. So Abelard should stop moaning about his wounds and should thank God that he is now a monk. Yet Fulk complains that he still takes on pupils and still spends his earnings on women, so much so that he is now beggared. And in addition to this he wishes to impoverish his monastery by launching an expensive appeal to Rome against the leniency of the punishments meted out to those who had castrated him. Fulk is unbelievably spiteful. He admits that it will damage the good name of the monastic order if he writes down the moral failings of a fellow monk, but he luridly writes about Abelard’s visits to prostitutes. The Montmorencys had no love for the abbey of Saint-­Denis; there is malicious irony in Fulk’s appeal to Abelard not to wreck the finances of his opulent house by appealing to Rome.52 Nastiness masquerades as charitable guidance, but the Montmorencys had an interest in protecting Fulbert and his niece if they were, as is very possible, family relatives. According to the Historia Fulbert’s brutal action was taken in conjunction with his family, with his consanguinei seu affines.53 Vengeance was collective and Fulk writes to ward off the consequences. So he exaggerates 4

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e Abelard’s lasciviousness to condone or at least to mitigate the crime of castration and to plead that the perpetrators have been punished enough. They too had been castrated; the man accused of organizing the crime had denied involvement yet he had had his possessions confiscated. The judicial officials have already been severe and certainly Fulbert’s name disappeared for a while from the lists of the canons of Paris.54 Fulk does not mention Fulbert’s name nor that of Heloise, but he writes on account of their affinity. Roscelin of Compiègne is a second witness.55 He has been called the leader of the nominalist school in France and Abelard had become his pupil around 1092, at a time when Roscelin’s excursions into theology had been put under investigation at a council at Soissons and were also heavily criticized by Anselm of Bec.56 Of Roscelin’s writings, and of those of other contemporary philosophers in the schools, we still know very little indeed,57 and perhaps through this and similar facts the next generation of masters after Roscelin has appeared to modern historians to show an undeserved degree of originality.58 Abelard, in his surviving writings on logic, appears to us to be in constant debate with rather shadowy teachers, with William of Champeaux in Paris and with Ulger and Vasletus and Roscelin in the schools by the River Loire.59 His criticisms are almost invariably destructive;60 none the less he owed to some of these masters an incalculable, and never admitted, debt of stimulation. Roscelin’s letter to Abelard is a rare and valuable exception to the paucity of the evidence we have on masters in the French schools before about 1120. In writing this letter before the council of Soissons61 Roscelin exhibits three moods in turn: controlled fury, earnest reasoning and unbridled slanderousness. Abelard had allegedly written to the canons of Tours saying that their church was a pit and that even in that Roscelin was a disgrace, for he was a condemned heretic who had insulted the great and the good such as Anselm of Canterbury and Robert of Arbrissel. In reply Roscelin says he will defend not himself but his fellow canons. In fact he defends only himself. To Abelard’s indignities he makes no concessions: Abelard used to be promiscuous with his tail, he writes, but now that he has rightly lost it he has taken to pricking with his tongue like a poisonous snake.62 On the other hand Roscelin can call on witnesses to vouch for his own good name; they are witnesses who are prepared to affirm his readiness to correct mistakes he may have made in teaching. He had not been condemned, he writes: wherever he goes, in Tours or in Loches where Abelard had once sat at his feet, in Besançon where he is a canon, or even in Rome itself, he is always welcomed and honoured.63 As for Anselm and Robert, wise and holy though they be, they are not infallible.64 What Roscelin has to say about Anselm leads him into the second part of his letter.65 Few topics dominate the landscape of medieval thought more than that of the omnipotence of God. In later centuries the nominalist party was to enlarge to the limit the horizon of what is possible to God; that school was to replace fixed laws of nature with varieties of possible worlds. But already 5

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e by 1067 Peter Damian had claimed for God the kind of all-­powerfulness which could alter the history of past events, which could restore virginity to a woman or undo the founding of the city of Rome.66 Anselm had seen danger here, for such a God might do away with the Incarnation and might not be bound even to preserve truth.67 Roscelin faced this problem and it is central to the development of Abelard’s speculations also, but he rejected Anselm’s argument that everything done by God, including the Incarnation of Christ, is done for a necessary reason. God was completely free to choose how to act.68 About that Abelard was to develop extensive doubt.69 Then Roscelin returns to personal abuse.70 He seems to know facts: indeed he writes that the facts are known ‘from Dan to Bersabee’ (I Kings 3:20). Abelard had betrayed the trust of the noble Fulbert, canon of the church of Paris; he had violated his brilliant niece, when she was entrusted to him for tuition, by teaching her the art of fornication. ‘The God of revenge’ (Psalm 93:1) justly removed from him the offending part of his body. His flight to Saint-­Denis had been made easy by an indulgent abbot, and so he returned to teaching, using his earnings to support his mistress. This libel is linked to fact. Abelard did teach after his monastic profession around 1117–18 and probably continued to keep in touch with Heloise;71 before this, according to the second letter to Heloise attributed to him in the collected correspondence, he admits having yielded to passion with her in the refectory in Argenteuil.72 The close of Roscelin’s letter contains the most biting criticism: Abelard is no longer a monk because he is now teaching; nor is he any longer a cleric or a layman. There is no name left for him, not even Peter. For a masculine name loses its meaning once its subject changes gender. As a house which loses its roof and its walls is no longer a house, so the name of a man who loses his masculinity no longer applies. And as Roscelin is attacking an incomplete man he will leave his letter incomplete also. It had an awful sequel. Not the least of the calamities that loom so large in the Historia is Abelard’s trial for heresy at Soissons in 1121. Before this happened Abelard wrote to the bishop and clergy of Paris to say, on the strength of a report by a student, that Roscelin was vomiting accusations over a work on the Holy Trinity in which Abelard refuted the heresy for which Roscelin had been criticized earlier at Soissons. He therefore requests a meeting with Roscelin in the presence of other catholics.73 Abelard’s letters to Tours and to Paris together with Roscelin’s letter to him leave no doubt that their relationship lasted over twenty years and that their long-­running disputes covered many issues. Abelard’s condemnation in Soissons in 1121 was at least in part a sequel to Roscelin’s own trial there in 1092. But he is never named in Abelard’s treatise or even in the letter to the bishop. And these omissions have been overlooked by critics who, having noticed that Roscelin is named by Abelard in his Dialectica,74 are puzzled by the lack of mention of him in the Historia.75 Yet Abelard clearly wrote his treatise on the Trinity to refute Roscelin: ‘Answer me, Abelard demands, you 6

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e cunning dialectician, you wormlike s­ ophist . . . ­How do you account to those who taught you, to whose traditions you are indebted’.76And so on. Abelard’s authorship of the Historia is supported, not weakened, by its silences when these same silences are loudly echoed in his other works. No doubt in appealing to the bishop and clergy of Paris Abelard hoped to obtain personal support. For the bishop was Gilbert, a former cathedral chancellor, who had earlier succeeded William of Champeaux as archdeacon. And it was he who had first attempted to establish Abelard in his own place in the school.77 Gilbert had become bishop in 1116 and his archdeacons then included Stephen de Garlande.78 We know that Fulbert was probably in disgrace.79 Abelard must have calculated that support would be forthcoming. But if it did, it was not enough and his prospects in Paris were doomed. The Benedictine abbey of the Paraclete lay far away in the diocese of Troyes, 8 km east of Nogent-­sur-­Seine, on the edges of Quincey and Saint-­Aubin, and by the little stream of the Ardusson. The site was occupied by Abelard in 1123 after he finally withdrew from the monastery of Saint-­Denis.80 There he built an oratory in honour of the Trinity but he changed the name to that of the Paraclete b ­ ecause – ­as he w ­ rote – h ­ aving come as a refugee lacking hope, he found there through the grace of God a little consolation.81 After his departure to take up the abbacy of Saint-­Gildas de Rhuys by about 1127, and after the closure of the nunnery of Argenteuil in 1129, Abelard gave this oratory to Heloise and to the nuns who were with her. On 28 November 1131 at Auxerre, Pope Innocent II confirmed Heloise and the sisters in possession, and the privilege was renewed in 1135 at Pisa.82 In 1133 Count Theobald of Troyes, always a sympathetic friend,83 recorded grants made to the nuns by one Galo and his wife Adelaudis.84 The sisters were exempted by King Louis VI in 1135 from payment of all royal customs and they were granted tithes by archbishop Henry of Sens in 1136.85 The convent thus survived the early, critical stages of foundation.86 In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, growing numbers of women apparently entered the religious life. Robert of Arbrissel and Norbert of Prémontré both attracted women by their preaching. The Premonstratensian canons for a time accepted women into their order. Fontevraud also accepted women. The Cistercians, who grew very numerous, did not do so before the thirteenth century but many houses of women unofficially adopted Cistercian customs. Thus, Gilbert of Sempringham sought the aid of Bernard, the Cistercian abbot of Clairvaux, when drawing up a constitution for his new order of nuns. Indeed, when Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, founded the Gilbertine priory of Haverholme, he commented c.1139 that the nuns were following ‘the life of the monks of Cîteaux as far as the strength of their sex allowed’.87 The Paraclete too preferred many Cistercian customs but not without being urged by Abelard to entertain his own ideas. 7

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Already in the second letter of the collection Heloise complained that in the precarious early days of the new plantation Abelard had not offered comfort. Her complaint was largely personal. Here and again in Letter 4 Heloise protests her unquenched love, sexual passion and religious insincerity.88 She was troubled by Abelard’s failure to comfort her either by word when they were together or by letter when they were apart. But the criticism included a more collective significance since Heloise’s present community was Abelard’s own foundation and as its head she wanted his guidance. She was anxious that one so well-­read in spiritual literature, the sole creator of her community, should share his knowledge with his daughters.89 Already, then, in her first letter, personal though it is, Heloise draws attention to the task of providing a body of teaching and usages suitable for the new foundation. In reply Abelard indicated that if her experience at Argenteuil needed to be supplemented at the Paraclete with additional guidance and writings from himself, Heloise should write to him to say what she wanted.90 In the event, in Letter 6 Heloise presented her requests at length,91 and in Letters 7 and 8 Abelard met her requests and delivered to her both a treatise on religious women and a Rule. The Rule is long, provocative and radical; in particular it emphasizes, as Heloise had encouraged Abelard to do, that the weaker sex needs the help of the stronger. Therefore a convent of women should be supported by a monastery of men, and the two communities should be united. As it was right for women to be governed by men, and wrong for women to be governed by a woman, the Rule develops the argument in favour of a male abbot presiding over the abbess and her sisters.92 In a further communication, which is not included in the manuscripts containing the letter collection but which was addressed to the nuns of the Paraclete,93 Abelard urged them to understand that the monastic ideal is an intellectual one. Here, as so often, he follows in the wake of St Jerome who had been an advocate of scholarship to the celibate Christian ladies of fourth-­ century Rome. The Paraclete nuns likewise should devote themselves to the study of the Bible. And, as the Bible cannot be adequately understood in translation, they should become p ­ roficient – l­ike ­Heloise – i­n the three languages of Scripture, namely Latin, Greek and Hebrew.94 This address to the community may have been written as a letter, but (like a number of other letters by Abelard) it lacks a salutation and a valediction.95 The suggestion has been made that it is the last part, accidentally detached, of the Rule.96 For the text of the Rule ends abruptly with mention of Jerome, and of women he supervised, and this is the topic developed in the address. But the theme of the three Biblical languages does not form a strong link with the Rule or with the earlier correspondence, which contains general exhortations to study Scripture, and indeed to follow Jerome, but not specifically to study Latin, Greek and Hebrew.97 And to these general exhortations there was apparently a positive response. Letters 3 and 8 in the collected correspondence ask Heloise and the sisters to present 8

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e their wants and requests about Scripture.98 And the nuns apparently did so, for outside the collected correspondence we have a letter from Heloise saying that she and her sisters were indeed following his advice to study Scripture and were following the example that Jerome had given.99 This is evidence, not conclusive but none the less suggestive, in favour of the presence at the Paraclete in Abelard’s lifetime of a copy of at least Letter 3 or Letter 8. Heloise’s letter is intimate in its address, as she calls Abelard dilecte multis, sed dilectissime nobis (‘beloved by many but most loved by us’). But she is chiefly writing on behalf of his spiritual daughters, gathered together (as she writes) in his oratory, to present a petition, which consists of forty-­two questions raised by the sisters in the course of their studies. To these mainly exegetical questions Abelard provided answers which were collected along with the original questions so as to make a small book prefaced by Heloise’s letter. Since the Middle Ages it has borne the title, Problems of Heloise. Some questions reflect the personal preoccupations of Heloise as we find them expressed in the collected letters,100 and the final question must surely have been placed last by Heloise herself since it enquires of Abelard whether it is ever sinful to do what one’s lord commands. In Letter 2 Abelard was reproached for commanding Heloise to gointo the religious life, which she did, though not out of the love of God; the same question of how to live a life that has not been chosen, here included in the Problems sent by Heloise, lies at the heart of Letter 2 and Letter 4.101 Another reflection of the importance attached to study of Scripture is a letter accompanying Abelard’s commentary on the opening of the Book of Genesis.102 Again the tone is personal as he fondly addresses his sister Heloise, once dear in the world, now most dear in Christ. And he emphasizes that she has pressed him to send an exposition.103 Two versions of the Commentary survive, the one sent to Heloisc being perhaps an elaboration of a shorter philosophical commentary on the six days of creation, now turned into a more spiritual work to suit a religious community.104 Abelard weaves together moral and mystical exegesis within a literal, historical frame; the six days of creation become a mirror of the ages of the world and of the path of the human soul.105 In another letter to Heloise, Abelard writes that he is sending sermons, written at her request, for her and for her spiritual daughters gathered together, as he writes, in our oratory.106 They follow the ordering of the feasts from the beginning of man’s redemption. He mentions as a related fact that he has recently composed a book of hymns and sequences on her request.107 The hymns survive as do three accompanying letters to Heloise,108 addressed again as his sister, and to the other sisters at the Paraclete.109 In the first of these he cites some lines from an otherwise unknown letter from Heloise giving her view that in the Latin and the Gallican church the use of hymns has become unsatisfactory.110 Abelard replies by reinforcing her arguments in a manner which reminds us of his prologue to the Sic et non: he insists on the need to stick to authentic and accurate texts, not to use incorrect translations of the Psalms or hymns by uncertain authors or hymns with corrupt versification. 9

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e So persuaded is he by Heloise that he has written his new hymns to fill the gaps caused by the defective traditions to which she has drawn attention. His collection contains 133 newly written hymns. They are a striking collection and embrace much of salvation history.111 Book one has Sunday and week-­time hymns which celebrate the divine work of creation. They offer parallels with Abelard’s Commentary on Genesis: the night hymns treat in detail the work of the six days of creation, the day hymns offer allegorical and moral interpretations of this work. Night and day respectively correspond to the obscurity of Old Testament history and to the understanding brought by the New Testament revelation.112 One melody was composed for the night hymns and one for those of the day.113 Book two, the hymns for solemn feasts, is concerned with the mysteries of Redemption; book three with the court of heaven, with the Virgin, and with the saints in glory. There is evidence here of Abelard’s personal experiences for he includes hymns in honour of thc patrons of the monasteries he had lived in, Saint-­Denis, Saint-­Ayoul and Saint-­Gildas.114 Now this additional correspondence between Heloise and ­Abelard – ­the letters accompanying and prefacing the books of hymns and sequences, the Biblical problems, the Hexameron commentary and the ­sermons – ­is closely connected to their collected ­correspondence – ­the eight letters which begin with the Historia and conclude with the Rule for the abbey. Both this correspondence and the collected correspondence must be considered together and cannot be considered apart, for they constitute in their entirety a single achievement, that of providing the abbey in effect with a corporate strategic and operational plan. It is precisely the evidence of the careful attempts to arrange and introduce the books of hymns, the Problems, the Commentary and the collection of eight letters beginning with the Historia and ending with the Rule, and it is precisely the contrast that these carefully mounted arrangements offer to the unstable texts of several of Abelard’s principal works for other ­readers – ­his heavily revised Theologiae, the varying texts of the Sententiae from his ‘school’, the differing versions of his Sic et non – that suggests most strongly that the collected correspondence was prepared and arranged under the very eyes of those who proposed, composed and arranged the books of hymns and sermons and expositions for the Paraclete. The making of the collected correspondence cannot be reasonably detached from this wider, distinct activity on behalf of the abbey of the Paraclete.115 Some have argued that the Paraclete adhered to statutes or Institutes of its devising, and that it set aside, or else failed ever to adopt, the Rule which concludes the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard.116 These Institutes survive in one of the earliest MSS containing the letter collection, the Troyes MS which itself was copied either at the Paraclete or in one of its dependent houses.117 They are followed in this MS by other texts of diverse origin but also all concerning convents of women.118 As D. Van den Eynde showed, these documents form a collection which cannot have been formed before the 1230s. Their first part, however, which consists of the Institutes, aims to 10

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e establish uniform observances for all the dependent houses of the Paraclete and may date from the lifetime of Heloise. It displays parallels with the Rule of Abelard but it is also manifestly in conflict with the Rule in requiring stricter practices of abstinence and fasting. As it is questionable that Heloise would have quashed a Rule which she requested herself, having challenged on behalf of the weaker sex conventional practices regarding food and drink, Van den Eynde thought it possible that the Institutes were drawn up after the death of Heloise in 1164. Benton, however, dated the Institutes to the lifetime of Heloise; moreover he removed the Rule from the 1130s to the 1280s.119 Very recently Fr. Chrysogonus Waddell has demonstrated the direct indebtedness of the Paraclete to the usages of the Cistercian order.120 He writes: ‘the author of Institutiones nostrae has utilized the abridged, thematically arranged version of the Cistercian General Chapter statutes as found in copies of the Order’s customary dating before the recension of around 1147’.121 He provides a transcription of the relevant material using the oldest MS, Trent, Biblioteca comunale, 1711; and he dates this MS to c.1136/40.122 He rejects the possibility that the Paraclete borrowed statutes from the Norbertine or Premonstratensian nuns who themselves adopted Cistercian material.123 On this basis he concludes that the Institutes ‘almost certainly’ date to an early period in the history of the convent during the lifetime of Heloise (d. 1164).124 As for the Rule of Abelard, that was one of the principal sources used in the Institutes. The Institutes are a very brief document summarizing characteristic features of the observances of the order of the Paraclete.125 They incorporate material from this Rule on clothing, beds and b ­ edding – m ­ aterial that does not come from other sources such as Benedict, Cîteaux or Prémontré.126 But they set Abelard aright on matters of diet and authority: his most unconventional ideas, such as the allowance of meat and the provision of a male superior, are not taken up.127 If the Institutes are the work of Heloise, however, is it conceivable that, having begged for a Rule from Abelard and having received it, she would set it aside on such key points as these? The divergences are in fact largely on points proposed to Abelard by Heloise in Letter 6. Abelard’s Rule was not ignored at the Paraclete, but after being shorn of some notable eccentricities it served as one of the principal texts utilized when writing the Institutes.128 And, as Fr. Waddell suggests, the redactor of these is probably Heloise who, far from subserviently following the Rule in every detail, freely adapted it,129 but turned as well to Cîteaux and its practices for further ideas.130 Many convents of the time adopted some Cistercian usages.131 The Paraclete statutes particularly follow the general arrangement of the Cistercian statutes of c.1136.132 If Fr. Waddell is right, the contention that the Paraclete or Heloise would not have repudiated the Rule of its founder, and that this Rule was not written by Abclard, loses its sting. It matters more to the authenticity of this Rule and of the collected correspondence which precedes it that other writings by Heloise and Abelard 11

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e should be consistent with it than that the Paraclete rejected or abandoned part of it as unsuitable for use. For the many tensions within and between religious foundations, both old and new, occasioned substantial debate and many changes of policy. In Letter 12 of his uncollected correspondence, Abelard entered a lively area of dispute and inveighed against an unnamed representative of the modern regular canons in defence of the greater dignity of the older monastic way of life.133 For the Paraclete, we have direct evidence of a clash between Abelard’s monastic principles and those of the Cistercians, and we can relate this disagreement to what might be seen as a ‘Cistercianization’ of the Paraclete as early as the early 1130s. For there survives a letter which Abelard wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux between about 1131 and 1135,134 on the occasion of a criticism made by Bernard and reported by Heloise of the unusual wording of the Lord’s Prayer in use in the Paraclete. From this letter we learn that Bernard had visited the Paraclete. And there is little doubt, in view of what Abelard wrote about the Lord’s Prayer elsewhere in one of his sermons,135 that this wording (supersubstantial bread as in Matthew 6:11, in place of daily bread as in Luke 11:3) was his considered preference and formed a part of his wider, unconventional prescriptions for the convent. Abelard responded with a counter attack on the unconventional usages of the Cistercian order. In addition to this polemical letter we have other official evidence of the development of the Paraclete way of life. The Institutes and Abelard’s Rule have been mentioned. But there is too the evidence of the Paraclete Ordinary or Ordinal, written in the late thirteenth century in Old French. This is preceded in the MS, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, français 14410, by the Paraclete Necrology or Book of Burials which gives obits and indicates burial sites; and it is followed by a directory or order of processions.136 And finally we have the Breviary of the Paraclete together with a Calendar which is found in a manuscript of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.137 These are late documents and they cannot tell us how rapidly the Paraclete first adopted Cistercian practices, but they do show how much and also how little of Abelard’s own provision withstood the passage of time. Cistercian influences are dominant. Although Abelard had taken exception in Letter 10 to one result of Bernard’s visit to the Paraclete, he granted that it had been an occasion of supreme joy and encouragement to the sisters and to Heloise. Bernard had been received by them not like a man but like an angel.138 Furthermore, within a decade of his strongly fought campaign in 1140 denouncing Abelard as a heretic, Bernard could still write to Pope Eugenius on behalf of Heloise herself.139 Yet some of Abelard’s written offerings did survive in use and much is revealed in these texts. Indeed, Abelard’s preoccupation with the needs of the Paraclete seemingly had no limit. And Heloise’s many requests were not in vain. Especially worthy of mention are the clusters of antiphons, responsories and hymns apparently selected and arranged by Abelard for the offices of 12

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e Holy Week and for the feast of the Transfiguration.140 Also we find in the collects which invoke the graces of the Holy Spirit and in a collect concerning St Philip the Deacon an idiosyncratic formula which is exactly the same as that found in the collects which Abelard, in Letter 3 of the collection, asks the nuns to use when praying for himself.141 From mentions in the Ordinal we see too that some of Abelard’s sermons were still required to be read in the refectory.142 Then again, in the selection of Biblical lessons to be read on feastdays, there is ample evidence that a leconnier or lectionary used by the nuns conformed to the prescriptions of the maistre or master as stated in his Rule.143 Furthermore, though the Cistercian hymnal was used, Abelard’s hymns were also sometimes incorporated.144 Perhaps the reason why he had criticized the early Cistercian hymnal so freely in Letter 10 was because it was already in use at the Paraclete.145 In his letter accompanying the gift of sermons Abelard mentions not only hymns but also sequences written at Heloise’s request.146 These have proved difficult to identify but two have been found with their music147 and a third has been suggested.148 The most interesting of these is an Easter sequence, the Epithalamica, which echoes Abelard’s Easter sermons and Easter hymns and which evokes the passage from the anguish of death to the joy of the morning of the Resurrection: I did cry but now I laugh. At night I cried, at dawn I laughed. I cried in the night; I laughed in the morn.149 In these and in many other ways the Paraclete conserved in use elements of the founder’s legacy. Just as it seems to have been a mistake to consider that the Paraclete statutes discredit Abelard’s authorship of the Rule, so too the differences between the way of life followed later at the Paraclete and the ostensible intentions of the founder do not provide a firm basis for doubting the genuineness of the latter. Many of the recommendations found in the Rule, and many of the hymns composed for the convent, did not survive in use; they may never have been adopted. On the other hand, Abelard’s sermons and hymns and the collected correspondence including the Rule have proved a guide to the detection in the Paraclete office books of traces of these materials as well as of other related Biblical readings, antiphons and sequences.150 These traces are relatively few in number; they are dwarfed by more powerful Cistercian influences during much of the liturgical year. But the fact that they can be found at all in later documents provides a strong reason for accepting that Abelard was the guiding spirit in the composition of a wide range of works addressed to the Paraclete, not excepting the Rule. We may never know how or when or under whose eyes the collected correspondence was arranged and acquired the form which it has. There seems to 13

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e be no necessity to believe that any of the pieces that are included in the collection were touched up or rewritten, lengthened or shortened, altered or forged, by a third party. The problem we are left with, and may never dispel, is that of knowing whether the letters were at first written for dispatch, separately and successively, with each provoking a reply and further correspondence until Abelard met Heloise’s requests in full; or whether the collection arose from a compact between Heloise and Abelard jointly to share, compose and exchange their thoughts, experiences and principles in fictive correspondence. The boundary between fact and fiction, between reality and art, is not firm in either case and cannot be certainly drawn. The late John Benton sampled evidence of a statistical sort based on word frequencies, use of quotations and patterns of phrasing. He was led by this to believe that an onus of argument now lies on those who favour dual authorship of the collected correspondence: similarities of vocabulary, erudition and style bind together texts supposedly written by a couple who markedly lacked opportunities for personal contact.151 But Benton’s arguments seem reversible: Heloise and Abelard did communicate with each other; their many shared ideas and phrases, carried forward from one letter to another, do nothing to make dual authorship impossible, or even unlikely, and do everything to suggest correspondence. Decisive proof of single authorship of the collected correspondence has no more been found than decisive proof of two distinctive prose styles, one for Abelard and another for Heloise. To take one example, the cursus or cadences found in the letters (including some of the uncollected ones) has led Dr Dronke to the belief that Heloise’s epistolary style does differ to some degree from Abelard’s because in her letters there is a ‘frequent conjunction of the tardus and velox cadences with elaborate rhyme, both within sentences and at sentence-­endings’.152 Heloise even more than Abelard preferred slow to swift cadences but the differences between them are not so strong as to determine authorship. There are questions here to raise of all the letters attributed to Heloise and Abelard, not simply of those found in the collected correspondence. It is as much of a problem to know in what circumstances the Problemata of H ­ eloise – ­with their forty-­two questions and ­answers – ­were first arranged and introduced, not by a letter from Abelard returning his replies but by a letter from Heloise to him. It is no less difficult to penetrate the circumstances of the composition, arrangement and dispatch of sermons to the Paraclete; unspecified sermons are introduced by a letter from Abelard in answer to Heloise’s request to him to prepare sermons for the convent. By contrast, the plan and arrangement of the three books of hymns, each introduced by a letter by Abelard, and all, according to him, composed to meet the request of Heloise and her sisters, is clearer. These collections of problems, sermons and hymns suggest similarities with the collected correspondence: Heloise’s letters in the collected correspondence also contain requests and Letter 7 and the Rule also contain answers to her requests. Letter 6, in particular, raises so many 14

f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e questions as to bear comparison with the Problemata. Questions of motive, initiative and authorship, whenever they are raised of the collected correspondence, should be raised also of the remaining correspondence outside the collection, and the hypotheses proposed should at least be tested in the light of all the letters. Abelard’s trial and condemnation for heresy at the church council held in Sens in 1140 generated more letters. Attacks began in 1136 or 1137153 and may be associated with an attempt by Abelard to return to teaching at Paris and possibly with the eclipse of his patron, Stephen de Garlande, on the death of King Louis VI on 1 August 1137.154 Having left his Breton abbey for good shortly after 1132, he had perhaps tried then (or even earlier) to become abbot superior of the Paraclete. Whether we suppose that by 1136/7 he had failed to establish permanent residence there, had seen his proposals for the observances of the Paraclete diluted by the community, and had decided to try to regain a position in Paris but failed to do so; or whether we conjecture that he felt himself sufficiently free to combine and to intersperse with trips to the Paraclete brief performances as a teacher in 1136/7 and again in 1139/40,155 it remains a fact that John of Salisbury declared that Abelard’s return to Paris was disappointingly short156 and that within a few years Bernard of Clairvaux was to criticize him not only as an abbot without monks, but also as a monk without a rule.157 These acid remarks, which belittle the no longer resident abbot of an unruly Breton monastery, may possibly also conceal the knowledge that Abelard had failed to recreate at the Paraclete the community of male monastic scholars that he had once briefly had there before the coming of the sisters, and that in addition he no longer could hope to persuade others to accept his Rule. In response to his teaching in Paris, WaIter of Mortagne addressed a letter to him raising a number of theological points of concern and asking Abelard to satisfy him that his concern was misplaced.158 No direct reply has been found, but as the next few years passed, efforts were made by others to drive Abelard into retracting his errors. When these failed, very heavy pressure was brought to bear on the French bishops to have him formally silenced.159 Eventually nineteen accusations were brought to a council held at Sens.160 Against such charges Abelard wrote furiously. He addressed an open ­letter – ­submissive in m ­ anner – t­ o the church at large, admitting that like everyone he is fallible, formally disclaiming heresy, methodically declaring his agreement with the opposite of each of the charges.161 The best copy of this much travelled letter is found in a MS which also contains the letter of WaIter of Mortagne, and reasonably so, because Abelard took up specific points raised by WaIter who had begun the hue and cry.162 For Bernard of Clairvaux was prepared a disastrously long letter of which only fragments now remain.163 It represents an attempt to filibuster a complete answer to each of the charges one by one. In addition Abelard sent round to his supporters and sympathizers a letter in which again he blamed Bernard bitterly and asked his friends to rally to his support.164 15

t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Nor was Heloise overlooked. To her he addressed another Confession of faith, one altogether more personal than the open one addressed to all the faithful.165 It survives in incomplete form embedded within a tract written by Berengar, a staunch supporter of Abelard who mercilessly and satirically derided Bernard and his machinations.166 But the mood of Abelard’s letter to Heloise was desperate. Once more he proclaims his belief that philosophy and logic need not separate one from Christ167 but his old confidence was deserting him, as it did after Soissons in the 1120s. Old age, infirmity, a religious calling and learning are four reasons offered by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, to Pope Innocent II to persuade him to permit Abelard, after his condemnation and also after his reconciliation with Bernard, to live out his last days at Cluny.168 To Heloise a few years later abbot Peter sent the master’s body together with a public absolution and a promise to try to help Astralabe obtain a prebend.169 Earlier, after Abelard’s death, he wrote to her to boost her morale and to fire her with confidence in her role as a leader of women.170 Abbot Peter knew Heloise well and understood the development of her life, as the whole letter shows. Even though Cluny, and Cluny’s nunnery of Marcigny, did not possess her, he was sure that she, who had put behind herself the pleasures and trifles of this life, would prove to be a leader in the army of the Lord. Peter called to mind Deborah who inspired the Israelites. In this way Peter obliquely, and perhaps deliberately, countered Abelard’s discouraging belief that a woman should not rule.171 Postscript: After correcting and returning the proofs of this lecture two further volumes have reached me from Fr Waddell and an opportunity has kindly been created for me to mention them: Chrysogonus Waddell, OCSO, Hymn Collections from the Paraclete. Volume I: Introduction and Commentary. Volume 11: Edition of Texts. Cistercian Liturgy Series, 8 and 9 (Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1989 and 1987).

Notes 1 N.-Y. Tonnerre, ‘Le comté nantais à la fin du XIe siècle’, in Abélard en son temps. Actes du colloque international organisé à l’occasion du 9e centenaire de la naissance de Pierre Abélard (14–19 mai 1979), Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1981, pp. 11–20. 2 Ibidem, pp.  18–19: Budic, bishop of Nantes; Marbod, bishop of Rennes, 1096–1123; Baudri of Bourgueil, archbishop of Dol, 1107–1130. 3 Roscelin of Compiègne, Epistola ad Abaelardum: ‘...Turonensis ecclesia vel Locensis, ubi ad pedes meos magistri tui discipulorum minimus tam diu resedisti’, ed. J. Reiners, Der Nominalismus in der Frühscholastik, Münster, Aschendorf, 1910 (BGPTMA, VIII), pp. 63–80: 65. There is circumstantial evidence that suggests that Abelard studied at Angers under Master Ulger: see Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. xix–xx. 4 Tonnerre, Le comté nantais, pp. 19–20. 5 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 65, ll. 65–69. 6 Ibidem, p. 67, ll. 155–158.

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e 7 Ibidem, p.  74, ll. 391–399. For the date see R.-H. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, in Abélard en son temps, pp. 21–77: 56, n. 1. 8 Abélard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 79, l. 559. 9 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 142, l. 15; 146, l. 23; 535, l. 7. 10 Abélard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 98, ll. 1234–1239. 11 Ibidem, p.  106, ll. 1511–1516. Abelard witnesses, as abbot of Saint-­Gildas, a charter granted by Conan III to the abbey of Notre-­Dame of Le Ronceray at Angers on 15 March 1128. See P. Marchegay, Archives d’Anjou, vol. 3, Angers, C. Labussière, 1854, pp. 259–260, 288–289; also (and I owe this reference to the kindness of Dr Michael Jones of the University of Nottingham) H. Guillotel, Recueil des actes des ducs de Bretagne, 944–1148, Paris, Faculté de droit, thèse, 1971, pp. 414–416. Abelard may have been encouraged by his continuing connections with the Breton nobility to accept the abbacy; see further J. Verger, ‘Abélard et les milieux sociaux de son temps’, in Abélard en son temps, pp. 107–131, here pp. 111–112 and 127 n. 5. 12 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 75–77. 13 Ibidem, pp. 75–76 and p. 56 n. l. 14 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 79, ll. 573–576. 15 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 76–77. 16 Ibidem, p. 76; T. G. Waldman, ‘Abbot Suger and the Nuns of Argenteuil’, Traditio, XLI (1985), pp. 239–242. 17 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 21–52. L. Halphen, Paris sous les premiers capétiens (987–1223), Paris, E. Leroux, 1909, pp. 5–15, 23–25. 18 J.-P. Willesme, ‘Saint-­ Victor au temps d’Abélard’, in Abélard en son temps, pp. 95–105. 19 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 28–30. On Paris in the reign of Louis VI see too Bautier, ‘Quand et comment Paris devint capitale’, Bulletin de la société de l’histoire de Paris, CV (1978), pp. 17–46: 36–39. 20 A. L. Gabriel, ‘Les écoles de la cathédrale de Notre-­Dame et le commencement de l’université de Paris’, in Huitième centenaire de Notre-Dame de Paris. Paris, J. Vrin, 1967 (Bibliothèque de la Société d’histoire ecclésiastique de la France), pp. 141–166: 145–148. 21 On this growth see R. W. Southern, ‘The Schools of Paris and the School of Chartres’, in R. L. Benson and G. Constable with Carol D. Lanham (eds), Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, pp. 113–137: 119 et seq. 22 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp.  31, 66–67; Southern, ‘The Schools of Paris’, pp. 120–121. 23 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 64, l. 31–67, l. 154. Abelard criticizes William’s view of predication in his lntroductiones parvulorum (Super Topica Glossae), ed. M. dal Pra, Pietro Abelardo. Scritti filosofici, Rome, Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1954, pp. 271, l. 38–273, l. 35. See L. M. de Rijk, Logica modernorum, Vol. 2, Part I, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1967, pp. 183–186, 203–206. Also, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. xxi. 24 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 54, 61–62. 25 Ibidem, pp. 54, 60–61, and (for Stephen’s houses) p. 29 n. 7. 26 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp.  64, 1l. 45–49, 55. Cf. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 61–62. 27 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  64, l. 61–p.  65, l. 65. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 62. 28 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 65, ll. 65–81. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 62.

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 29 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 65, ll. 70–80. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 62–63. A letter written by a German student, and recording William’s change of position, contains the remark that before he left his archdeaconry William was ‘fereque apud regem primus’ – ‘almost the chief adviser to the king’. P. Jaffé, Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, Vol. 5, Berlin, Apud Weidmannos, 1869, p. 286. 30 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 62. 31 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 66, ll. 104–16. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 63. 32 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 66, ll. 117–118. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 63. 33 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 66, l. 127–p. 67, l. 132. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 63 and 55 n. 4. 34 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 67, ll. 132–161, p. 70. ll. 241–243. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 55 n. 6. 35 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 70, ll. 241–243. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 55, n. 8. 36 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 79, l. 573–p. 81, l. 641. Bautier, Paris au temps d’Abélard, p. 56, n. 1. 37 In two MSS the letter is introduced by the words: ‘Abaelardi ad amicum Consolatoria’ (Monfrin, p. 60). The title Historia calamitatum appears in one MS (Rheims 872) and there only as a secondary title. See J. T. Muckle, ‘Abelard’s Letter of Consolation to a Friend (Historia Calamitatum)’, Mediaeval Studies, XII (1950), pp. 163, 175, n. 2. 38 R. W. Southern, ‘The Schools of Paris’, p. 122. 39 For the following terms in the Historia calamitatum, see Monfrin’s edition: assultus (p. 65, l. 65); disputationum nostrarum conamina (p. 65, l. 82); a civitate recessisset (p.  66, l. 125); locum nostrum . . . occupari (p.  66, ll. 128–129); scolarum nostrarum castra posui, quasi eum obsessurus qui locum occupaverat nostrum (p. 66, l. 130–p. 67, l. 132); quasi militem suum quem dimiserat ab obsidione nostra liberaturus (p. 67, ll. 135–136); conflictus disputationum (p. 67, l. 145); in his bellis . . . nostris (p. 67, l. 147). 40 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 41, 55 n. 5, 63. 41 Among recent scholars who are convinced that the Historia calamitatum was not written by Abelard mention must chiefly be made of H. Silvestre, ‘L’idylle d’Abélard et Héloïse: la part du roman’, Académie Royale de Belgique. Bulletin de la classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques, 5e série, LXXI (1985), pp. 157–200. This is reproduced and extended in a German version entitled ‘Die Liebesgeschichte zwischen Abaelard und Heloise: der Anteil des Romans’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München, 16.–19. September 1986, Teil V: Fingierte Briefe, Frömmigkeit und Fälschung, Realienfälschungen, Hanover, Hansche Buchhandlung, 1988 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Schriften, Band XXXIII), pp.  121–165. Abelard’s authorship of the Historia calamitatum was accepted as likely by John F. Benton in the same volume, ‘The Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, pp. 95–120 (see p. 98). In an earlier paper Benton could not find any significant arguments against Abelard’s authorship of the Historia, ‘A reconsideration of the authenticity of the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 41–52: 49). In 1972 Benton had launched a celebrated assault against Abelard’s authorship of the work, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing in the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 469–511.

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e 42 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp.  75, ll. 425–479, l. 558, especially. p.  78, ll. 545–549. Cf. P. Delhaye, ‘Le dossier antimatrimoniaI de l’Adversus Jovinianum et son influence sur quelques écrits latins du XIIe siècle’, Mediaeval Studies, XIII (1951), pp. 65–86. 43 Letter 2, ed. Muckle, pp. 47–94: 70, l. 30–p. 71, l. 33, and especially p. 71, ll. 2–4; PL 178, cols. 184C–185C, especially 184D. I have numbered the letters in the collected correspondence continuously from one to eight, two being the letter from Heloise which follows the Historia calamitatum. 44 In his book, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, Professor Christopher Brooke explores the problems created in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the ideal of celibacy and examines examples of clerical concubines and their dynasties, unwilling nuns, and family opposition to entry into the religious life. D. Fraioli, ‘The importance of satire in Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum as an argument against the authenticity of the Historia Calamitatum’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, V, pp. 167–200, argues that the misapplication in the Historia of Jerome’s satire agamst marriage (Heloise appears to be in favour of free love, not of virginity or celibacy) is unlikely to represent Heloise’s real arguments and is intentionally ridiculous and comic. Fraioli’s argument seems to founder on her unwillingness to accept, in the light of evidence of continuing concubinage in clerical circles during Heloise’s lifetime, that Heloise could have been serious. Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 194–195; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 159–160, believes that Peter the Venerable (see G. Constable, ed., The Letters of Peter the Venerable, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967, Vol. I, pp. 303–308) would not have praised Heloise so highly if these views were really hers. One might counter that Peter the Venerable would not have praised Abelard so highly if he was really a heretic. 45 The objection was put by J. F. Benton in ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing’, pp. 495–496, and again in ‘A reconsideration of the authenticity’, p. 43. Benton was followed by Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, p. 178; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, p. 143. 46 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 80, ll. 620–622. 47 A possibility I mentioned in Peter Abelard, London, The Historical Association, 1979 (The Historical Association, General Series, 95), p. 27. 48 A possibility suggested by G. Orlandi, ‘Minima Abaelardiana. Note sul Testo dell’Historia calamitatum’, Res publica litterarum, III (1980), pp.  131–138: 132–133. 49 I have looked at dated MSS in the British Library and at MSS from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in the University Library in Cambridge. In the dated MSS I have seen in the British Library the chapter containing the passage in Deuteronomy is numbered as follows: CIIII (in the text), XXIIII (in the margin) – Add. 14788, f. 102v, from l’Abbaye du Parc, Belgium, 1148; CVII (in the text), XXIII (in the margin) – Add. 17737, f. 110r, Belgium, c.1155; C ­ VII – ­Add. 28106, f. 70va from Stavelot, Belgium, 1094–1097; C ­ VII – H ­ arley 2798, f. 76rb, from Arnstein, Germany, 1172; ­XCVIII – H ­ arley 2803, f. 87rb, from the Middle Rhineland (Worms), 1148 For information on these MSS see A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable MSS c.700–1600 in the Department of MSS, The British Library, The British Library, 1979, Vol. 1, pp. 39, 51, 70, 128, 129. In the case of the Bibles in the Library of Cambridge University I have relied on M. R. James’s judgements of their date. Copies of the book of Deuteronomy (e. g. Cambridge University Library, Ii. iii. 18) were not always divided into chapters in the twelfth century, and in some MSS the numberings were added by later hands. But copies in which the chapter divisions were added in the twelfth century place the passage in question either into chapter XXIII (e.g. Pembroke College, Cambridge, MS

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 53; also in MS 211, although in this MS the chapter numbers may have been added subsequently) or into chapter CVII (e. g. Pembroke College, Cambridge, 52). See M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1905, pp. 51, 50, 193, Benton, ‘The Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, p. 99, n. 9, came to write that Bibles in the twelfth century showed a variety (‘great inconsistency’) in their chapter numbers and that Abelard himself had no standard practice when citing passages from the Bible. But Benton gave no examples of pre-­Langton Bibles when making his suggestion or when withdrawing it. 50 Epist. XVI in PL 178, 371–376. A fragment of this letter was printed from two MSS by D. Van den Eynde, ‘Détails biographiques sur Pierre Abélard’, Antonianum, XXXVIII (1963), pp. 217–223: 219; for a third MS see H. Silvestre, ‘Pourquoi Roscelin n’est-­it pas mentionné dans l’Historia calamitatum?’, RTAM, XLVIII (1981), pp. 218–224: 221, n. 8. 51 The evidence concerning Abelard’s sexual conduct or misconduct is rich in discrepancies; for a brief commentary with further references see Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 175–176; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 139–140. 52 Abelard also challenged the prestige of the abbey of Saint-­Denis by raising questions concerning the life and identity of its patron. His Letter 11 to abbot Adam (ed. Smits, pp. 249–255 and PL 178, 341–344), written in or before 1122, explored these questions; according to the Historia calamitalum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 89–91, ll. 941–1016) they had caused a bitter rift between Abelard and his fellow monks. E.Jeauneau, ‘Pierre Abélard à Saint-­Denis’, in Abélard en son temps, pp. 161–173, has put the two accounts of the quarrel into perspective and has explained Abelard’s change of mind very satisfyingly. See also Smits, ibidem, pp. 137–153. On one mistake conveyed in the letter see H. Silvestre, ‘Aratus pour Arator: un singulier lapsus d’Abélard’, Studi medievali, 3a serie, XXVII (1986), pp. 221–224. 53 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 79, ll. 578–579. As J. Verger has written: ‘le châtiment d’Abélard, ce n’est pas la vengeance aveugle d’un homme bafoué, c’est la faide collective et rituellement organisée d’un clan à qui on a ravi une femme’. Verger adds (but this is less clear in the Historia, ed. Monfrin, p. 79): ‘Et Abélard lui-­même, avant de se réfugier à Saint-­Denis, semble bien avoir tenté avec ses amis de se venger à son tour de l’affront reçu’, ‘Abélard et les milieux sociaux de son temps’, in Abélard en son temps, pp.  107–131: 120. The Historia, ed. Monfrin, p. 80, depicts scenes of public sympathy for a humbled Abelard rather than of mounting revenge. 54 See Histoire générale de Paris. Cartulaire général de Paris by R. de Lasteyrie, I, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1887, nos. 174, 175 (both dated 1117). Of all the documents dating to Fulbert’s time as subdeacon of Notre-­Dame and issued from the chapter these two alone contain the names of two, not three, subdeacons. 55 The latest edition is that of J. Reiners in Der Nominalismus . . . (cited at n. 3 above), pp.  63–80. On Roscelin see too R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963, pp. 77–82. 56 Anselm, Epistola de incarnatione verbi, ed. F. S. Schmitt, S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi Opera omnia, 2, Edinburgh, Nelson, 1946, pp. 21–23. D. Luscombe, ‘St. Anselm and Abelard’, in Anselm Studies, I (1983), pp. 208–210. 57 F. Picavet, Roscelin: philosophe et théologien d’après la légende et d’après l’histoire, Paris, Félix Alcan, 1911, pp. 139–141, printed a text entitled Sententia de universalibus secundum magistrum R. This had earlier been published by B. Hauréau in Notices et Extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque Nationale, V, Paris, C. Klinksieck, 1892, pp. 325–328. Picavet (pp. 43–44) believed it to be written by a pupil of Roscelin. J. Marenbon has recently supported this suggestion,

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e Early Medieval Philosophy (480–1150). An Introduction, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, pp.  134–­135 – ­and he has added the comment: ‘Abelard perhaps learned more from his early master than he liked to acknowledge’. A letter by Walter of Honnecourt to Roscelin was published by G. Morin in ‘Revue bénédictine’, XXII (1905), pp. 172–175. And an epigram of Roscelin is printed in P. Jaffé, Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, V, Berlin, Apud Weidmannos, 1869, p. 187, n. 98. B. Geyer’s brief account of Roscelin’s teaching and career remains useful, Die Patristische und Scholastische Philosophie in F. Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, II, Basel, Benno Schwabe & Co. Verlag, 192711, pp. 206–209. 58 J. Jolivet, Arts du langage et théologie chez Abélard, Paris, J. Vrin, 19822 (Etudes de philosophie médiévale, 57), p. 338. Cf. Southern, Saint Anselm p. 78: ‘the new secular m ­ asters . . . ­are one of the great new unchronicled phenomena of the time’. 59 See Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. xix–xxi. 60 In the Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp.  554, l. 37–555, l. 9, Abelard rejects one of Roscelin’s opinions on totum and pars as insana. 61 For this date see D. Van den Eynde, ‘Les écrits perdus d’Abélard’, in Antonianum, XXXVII (1962), pp.  467–480: 468–469. Also Benton, ‘Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing’, p. 487; Luscombe, ‘St Anselm and Abelard’, p. 208. 62 Reiners, p. 64. 63 Reiners, p. 65. 64 Reiners, p. 66. 65 Reiners, pp. 67–77. 66 Peter Damian, Letter on the Omnipotence of God, ed. A. Cantin, Paris, Editions du Cerf, 1972 (Sources chrétiennes, 191), e.g. 2 (pp. 386–390), 6 (pp. 406–410). 67 Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 2, 17, ed. F. S. Schmitt, S. Anselmi Opera omnia, 2, pp.  122–126; also ed. R. Roques, Paris, 1963 (Sources chrétiennes, 91), pp. 426–438. 68 Reiners, pp. 67–68. 69 Luscombe, St. Anselm and Abelard, pp. 208–210. 70 Reiners, pp.  77–80. H. Silvestre, ‘Pourquoi Roscelin n’est-­ il pas mentionné’, pp.  218–224 draws attention to words and phrases in Roscelin’s account of Abelard’s affair with Heloise that are similar to those found in the Historia calamitatum written well over ten years later. See also Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 176–177; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 140–141. These similarities do not convincingly prove that the Historia was forged. The accumulation of written evidence, which suggests that these incidents were much debated, was likely to result in the development of a common stock of expressions; verbal coincidences of this kind are hardly surprising. Abelard in any case would have remembered Roscelin’s letter very well. 71 On this date see Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 56, n. 1. 72 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, p. 88; PL 178, 205C. 73 Letter 14, ed. Smits, pp.  279–280 and PL 178, 355–358. For comments on the letter see Smits, pp. 189–202. The opusculum is Abelard’s Theologia ‘Summi boni’, ed. H. Ostlender, Peter Abaelards Theologia Summi Boni, Münster, Aschendorf, 1939 (BGPTMA, XXXV. 2–3). For the new edition by Buytaert and Mews see TSum. For the argument against Roscelin and the reaction to Abelard see Mews in TSum, pp. 41–46, 54–57; Luscombe, ‘St. Anselm and Abelard’, pp. 208–213. 74 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 554, l. 37–555, l. 2. Note the comparison between res/ partes and domus/paries, tectum, fundamentum; this corresponds to the close of Roscelin’s letter to Abelard, ed. Reiners, p. 80, ll. 16–18.

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 75 Cf. Silvestre, ‘Pourquoi Roscelin n’est-­ il pas mentionné’, p.  221; Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 176–177; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 140–141. 76 TSum, II. 75, p.  140. Cf. II. 76–77, p.  140; also Mews, introduction to TSum, pp.  68–69 and 41–46. Mews notes (pp.  42–43) that in later versions of the Theologia these anonymous attacks on Roscelin are omitted altogether. 77 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p.  63 and pp.  54–55. Cf. Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 66, ll. 104–108 where Gilbert is not named. 78 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 64. 79 See above p. 000. 80 Benton, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing’, pp.  489–491 argued that the Paraclete was founded as a mixed or double monastery for men and women before 1121 on land belonging to the abbey of Saint-­Denis. Later Benton, in ‘A reconsideration’, pp. 46–47, withdrew his argument that the foundation was made before 1121 or even before 1129. Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 57 gives 1123 as the year in which Abelard installed himself on the spot that was to become the Paraclete. See the Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 92, ll. 1038 et seq. 81 Abelard defends his dedication against criticisms of its novelty in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 94–97, ll. 1120–1195. His argument is reminiscent of his statements in his Theologia of the appropriation to each divine person of a special though not exclusive operatio. 82 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp.  98–100, ll. 1229–1320. On the privileges granted by Pope Innocent II see J. Barrow, C. Burnett and D. Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise’, Revue d’Histoire des Textes, XIV–XV (1984–1985), nos. 416, 417. 83 Theobald is gratefully mentioned in the Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  91, ll. 987–991, 996 et seq. Theobald appears as a benefactor in Abelard’s Carmen ad Astralabium, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, p. 157, ll. 921–922 and in a story concerning Abelard told by Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, c. 46 (PL 205, 146BC). 84 Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no. 426; cf. no. 432 (dated 1146). 85 Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, nos. 427, 428. Other grants made in the lifetime of Heloise are listed here, nos. 418–425, 429–431, 433–441. On the buildings erected for the convent sce R. Louis, ‘Pierre Abélard et L’architecture monastique: l’abbaye du Paraclet, au diocèse de Troyes’, in L’architecture monastique: Actes et travaux de la rencontre franco-allemande des historiens d’art, 1951. Numéro spécial du Bulletin des relations artistiques France-Allemagne, Mayence, mai, 1951, 8 pp. C. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1985 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 3), I, pp. 313–318, reconstructs the general plan of the Paraclete oratory and cloister quadrangle from the Book of Burials which survives in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS français, 14410, ff. 5r–28r, a late thirteenth-­century MS which has been edited by Boutillier du Retail and Piétresson de Saint-­Aubin in Obituaires de la Province de Sens, IV. Diocèses de Meaux et de Troyes, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1923, pp. 388–403. Waddell draws attention to similarities between Cistercian abbey plans and that of the Paraclete. 86 In Sermon 30, appealing for funds for the Paraclete, Abelard declared that the monastery was not founded by a rich man and was not well endowed. It was a new and tender plantation which needed the support of alms in order to grow, PL 178, 564–569: 568D–569C. 87 S. Thompson, ‘The Problem of the Cistercian Nuns in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries’, in D. Baker, ed., Medieval Women, Oxford, B. Blackwell, 1978 (Studies in Church History, Subsidia I), pp. 227–253: 251. Also J. Burton,

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e The Yorkshire Nunneries in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, University of York, St Anthony Press, 1979 (Borthwick Papers, 56), p. 4. 88 For some other examples of erotic frankness on the part of men and women in religious life in the eleventh and twelfth centuries see Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp.  84–92; also Luscombe, ‘The Letters of Heloise and Abelard since “Cluny 1972”’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 19–39: 21–22; and for ‘model’ letters see D. Schaller, ‘Erotische und sexuelle Thematik in Musterbriefsammlungen des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, V, pp. 63–77. Many examples of letters of this time dealing with love and sex, in as well as out of religious contexts, and ranging from the disgusting to the respectable, are brought together by H. M. Schaller, ‘Scherz und Ernst in erfunden Briefen des Mittelalters’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, V, pp. 79–94: 86–93. 89 Heloise seems to have made two complaints here in Letter 2. One relates to her own earliest days as a nun immediately following her unwilling separation from Abelard: ‘non mediocri admiratione nostrae tenera conversationis initia tua iamdudum oblivio movit quod, nec reverentia Dei, nec amore nostri nec sanctorum patrum exemplis admonitus fluctuantem me et iam diutino moerore confectam, vel sermone praesentem vel epistola absentem consolari temptaveris’, ed. Muckle, p. 70; PL 178, 184B; also: ‘Dic unum si uales cur, post conversionem nostram quam tu solus facere decrevisti, in tantam tibi negligentiam atque oblivionem venerim, ut nec colloquia praesentis recreer, nec absentis epistola consoler’, ed. Muckle, p. 72; PL 178, 186B. The other arises from the need of nuns of the Paraclete for guidance from their founder: ‘Huius quippe loci tu post Deum solus es fundator, solus huius oratorii constructor, solus huius congregationis a­ edificator . . . S ­ atis ex ipsa feminei sexus natura debilis est haec plantatio et ­infirma . . . Q ­ uid tuae debeas ­attende . . . ­Quot autem et quantos tractatus in doctrina vel exhortatione seu etiam consolatione sanctarum feminarum sancti patres consummaverint et quanta eos diligentia composuerint, tua melius excellentia quam nostra parvitas novit’, ed. Muckle, pp. 69–70; PL 178, 183C, 183D, 184A, 184B. C. Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes. Institutiones nostrae, Gethesmani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1987 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 20), pp. 51–53 appears to emphasize the latter at the expense of the former; and so, it may be thought, do I on the pages which follow here, but for a highly perceptive analysis of Heloise’s personal position see Brooke (cited in no. 44 above). H. Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 173–174; ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 136–137, draws attention to the problem of why, during the course of Abelard’s visits to the Paraclete, Heloise failed to learn about the Historia calamitatum, which contains so much comment about herself. No definite answer is available, but the following sequence of developments (if true) would not entail ‘une duplicité assez incroyable’ nor put into question Abelard’s authorship of the Historia: 1. Visits by Abelard to the Paraclete (Historia calamitatum, Monfrin, p. 105, ll. 1477–1488). 2. Composition of the Historia. 3. Heloise’s chance discovery of the text of the Historia (Letter 2). 4. Correspondence between Abelard and Heloise (Letters 3–8). 90 ‘Quod si nunc tanta diligentia tuis provideas filiabus quanta tunc sororibus satis esse credimus ut iam omnino superfluam doctrinam vel exhortationem nostram arbitremur. Sin autem humilitati tue aliter videtur, et in iis etiam quae ad Deum pertinent magisterio nostro atque scriptis indiges, super his quae velis scribe mihi ut ad ipsam rescribam prout mihi Dominus annuerit’. Letter 3, ed. Muckle, p.  73; PL 178, 187BC. Pace Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp.  165 n. 15, 174–175, ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp. 129 n. 15, 137–138, the Historia is not the only evidence of Heloise living at Argenteuil after separating from Abelard. See, in conjunction

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e with the passage just cited, Letters 4 and 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 79, 88; PL 178, 195A, 205C. Of arguments or evidence to support Silvestre’s suggestion that Heloise lived with Astralabe in a private house, not at Argenteuil, I know none. 91 Heloise’s authorship of Letter 6 was rejected by Benton, ‘A reconsideration’, pp. 41–52: 50–51. Benton’s ­argument – w ­ hich was (largely) that a quotation from Augustine, De bono coniugali, was lifted word for word, error for error, from SN, c.­130 – ­is followed and supported by Silvestre, ‘L’idylle’, pp. 185–186, ‘Die Liebesgeschichte’, pp.  150–151. But it is well answered by P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, pp. 140–143. Dronke (here pp. 127–134) examines the letter closely. 92 Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 241–292: 259; PL 178, 276AB. Cf. Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 105, ll. 1464–1488; also Letter 6, ed. Muckle, pp. 240–281: 243 and 253; PL 178, 214C, 226BC. 93 Ed. Smits, pp.  219–237; PL 178, 325A–336A. On the MS of the letter and its earlier  edition in 1616 see Smits, pp.  49–69; and on its content see Smits, pp. 113–120. 94 Ed. Smits, pp. 231, 233, ll. 299, 308–309, 360–364. Smits, pp. 115–118, accepts the possibility that Heloise knew at least some Greek as well as Latin. For general tributes to Heloise’s knowledge of letters see Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 71, ll. 284–288, and Peter the Venerable, Letter 115, ed. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, pp. 303–304. 95 Van den Eynde, ‘Chronologie des écrits d’Abélard à Héloïse’, Antonianum, XXXVII (1962), pp. 337–349: 342–343 calls it ‘une espèce de mémoire, que les éditions appellent Epistola, mais qui, en réalité, est une exhortation adressée directement aux soeurs’. The letter collection constitutes a united corpus and it offers little encouragement to expect to find any detached extra pieces. See Monfrin in the introduction to his edition of the Historia calamitatum, p. 60; also Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité de la correspondance d’Abélard et d’Héloïse’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 409–424: 416–417. Moreover, Letter 9 is not the only ‘letter’ attributed to Abelard which lacks both a salutatio and a valedictio; others are Letters 12 and 13. 96 Waddell, Institutiones, pp. 55–56. 97 Van den Eynde, ‘Chronologie’, p. 342, notes that the theme of the study of the three Biblical languages in Letter 9 does not form a strong link with Letters 1–8 or with the Rule. (The Rule, which is not part of Letter 8, only adopts the second personal plural at the very end and at the point where Jerome is introduced, ed. McLaughlin, p.  292; PL I78, 3I4B). It does, however, appear in the Pentecost Sermon, 18 (PL 178, 505–512) where reference is made to the sisters of the Paraclete (507B) and to their need to know the three languages in which the Scriptures were written (511–512). See D. Van den Eynde, ‘Le recueil des sermons de Pierre Abélard’, ‘Antonianum’, XXXVII (1962), pp. 17–54. 98 ‘­Sin . . . ­in iis etiam quae ad Deum pertinent magisterio nostro atque scriptis indiges, super his quae velis scribe mihi ut ad ipsam rescribam prout mihi Dominus annuerit’, etter 3, ed. Muckle, p. 73; PL 178, 187C. ‘imitamini saltem et amore et studio sanctarum litterarum beatas illas sancti Hieronymi discipulas Paulam et Eustochium quarum precipue rogatu tot voluminibus ecclesiam praedictus doctor illustravit’, Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, p. 292; PL 178, 314B. 99 Heloise’s letter prefaces the Problemata (PL 178, 677–730: 677–678). The letter lacks a salutation and valediction; the title given to the work in the MS of Simon de Plumetot is: Solutiones Problematum heloissae per Petrum Abailardum (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 14511, f. 18r. Cf. Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p.  51). The Problemata are not especially concerned with problems of

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e translation or of language and Van den Eynde (Chronologie, pp. 340–344) sees the Problemata (rather than Letter 9) as the continuation of Letters 2–8. Letter 9 and the Problemata survive and are found together in a single MS of the fifteenth century, Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 14511; here the text of the Problemata precedes that of Letter 9. See Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no. 146, p. 217. The date of the Problemata cannot be established with any certainty; C. Mews, ‘On dating the works of Peter Abelard’, AHDLMA, LI (1986), pp. 73–134: 132, suggests c. 1137–1138. 100 See P. Dronke, ‘Heloise’s Problemata and Letters: Some Questions of Form and Content’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 53–73: 60–61; Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, pp. 134–139. Dr Dronke draws attention especially to problems concerning guilt, repentance and consent. 101 Problema Heloissae XLII (PL 178, 723–730). Heloise repeatedly writes of Abelard’s command to her in her letters. See for example Letter 2, ed. Muckle, p.  72 (‘non religionis devotio sed tua tantum pertraxit iussio’); Letter 4, ed. Muckle, p. 81 (‘tua me ad religionis habitum iussio, non divina traxit dilectio’); PL 178, 186C, 197D. As Dronke writes (‘Heloise’s Problemata’, p. 58): ‘it is hard to read this final Problema without perceiving an echo of the anguished reproach Heloise had made Abelard in her second letter’. Cf. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, p. 137. 102 PL 178, 731–732. A new edition prepared by Mary Romig and revised for publication by myself and others is to appear in the series CCCM (see Bibliography: Expositio in Hexameron). Mews, ‘On dating’, pp.  118–120, suggests that the Commentary was written soon after 1132/3. 103 ‘Supplicando itaque postulas et postulando supplicas, soror Heloissa, in seculo quondam chara, nunc in Christo charissima quatenus expositionem horum tanto studiosius intendam quanto difficilioremn esse constat intelligentiam, et spiritaliter hoc tibi et filiabus tuis spiritalibus persolvam. Unde et rogantes vos rogo ut, quia me rogando ad hoc compellitis, orando Deum mihi efficaciam ­impetretis . . . Q ­ uam nunc quidem expositionem ita me vestrarum instantia precum aggredi cognoscatis . . .’, Letter-­preface to the Commentary on the Hexameron, PL 178, 731C–732C. 104 For details see Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no, 286. In the forthcoming edition of the Commentary by M. Romig et al., C. Burnett demonstrates the relationships between the shorter and the longer versions. 105 E. Kearney, ‘Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator: A Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 199–215. 106 PL 178, 379–380. Again Abelard writes affectionately to Heloise, ‘mihi quondam in saeculo chara, nunc in Christo charissima: in carne tunc uxor, nunc in spiritu soror, atque in professione sacri propositi consors’. For MSS of the sermons see Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no. ­304 – ­but we did not indicate that there is no MS extant with the letter-­preface. L. J. Engels suggests that the collection of sermons was put together between 1129/30 and 1135/6, ‘Adtendite a falsis prophetis (Ms. Colmar 128, ff. 152v/153v). Un texte de Pierre Abélard contre les Cisterciens retrouvé?’ in Corona Gratiarum, Miscellanea …... E. Dekkers, Vol. 2, Bruges and the Hague, Sint Pietersabdej, 1975, pp. 195–228: 221. 107 ‘Libello quodam hymnorum uel sequentiarum a me nuper precibus tuis consummato . . .’, PL 178, 379–380. Mews, ‘On dating’, p. 131 suggests that the date of composition lies between about 1132 and 1137. 108 In the Brussels MS, Bibliothèque royale, 10147–10158, 96 of the hymns are copied and are divided into three sections, each of these being introduced by its own preface in the form of a letter to Heloise. See Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe,

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e ‘A Checklist’, nos. 23 and 291. Editions of the Paraclete hymnal are those of G. M. Dreves, Petri Abaelardi Hymnarius Paraclitensis (first published Paris, P.  Lethielleux, 1891, but reprinted at Bologna, Forni, 1970 with an introduction by G. Vecchi) and of J. Szövérffy, Peter Abelard’s Hymnarius Paraclitensis, 2 vols., Albany, N.Y. State, Classical Folia Editions, 1975. None of the editions is definitive. See C. Burnett, ‘Notes on the Tradition of the Text of the Hymnarius Paraclitensis of Peter Abelard’, Scriptorium, XXXVIII (1984), pp. 295–302.* 109 ‘Ad tuarum precum instantiam, soror mihi Heloisa, in saeculo quondam cara, nunc in Christo carissima . . .’, Preface to the first libellus of hymns, ed. Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 2, p. 9. ‘. . . nostrum saepe ingeniolum, dilectissimae Christi filiae, multis precibus pulsavistis, addentes insuper, quibus de causis id necessarium vobis videatur, vestrae iam petitioni, prout Dominus adnuerit, ex parte paruimus’, Preface to libellus 2, ed. Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 2, p. 81. ‘. . . sorores carissimae Christoque dicatae, quarum maxime precibus hoc opus aggressus sum,’ Preface to libellus 3, ed. Szövérffy, vol. 2, p. 169. On these prefaces see Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 2, pp. 30–35. 110 The length of the passage or passages cited from Heloise’s lost letter is not altogether certain. Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 1, p.  9, includes less than three lines within inverted commas. Waddell, Institutiones, p. 53, states that 81 lines (in his forthcoming edition) are a ‘direct quotation’ but that they may contain the ideas of Abelard. The quotation seems to consist in fact of those sentences written in the first person plural and to present a rationem offered by Heloise (p. 9, l. 4 up); much of what follows summarizes (but does not quote) Heloise’s further rationes (p. 13, l. 6 up).* 111 The best exposition of the plan of the hymn books is that of Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 1. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 357–359 points out the paucity of melodies provided by Abelard and the gaps in the hymnal which provides no hymns for the seasons of Advent or Lent or much of Passiontide.* 112 Cf. L. Engels, ‘Abélard écrivain’, Peter Abelard. Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain, May 10–12, 1971, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1974 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series I/Studia II), pp.  12–37: 21. ‘. . . qui nocturni sunt, suarum opera feriarum contineant, diurni autem ipsorum operum allegoricam seu moralem expositionem tradant. Atque ita factum est, ut obscuritas historiae nocti, lux vero expositionis reservetur diei’, Abelard, preface to libellus 2 of the Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, vol. 2, p. 81. 113 Preface to libellus 2, Szövérffy (ed.), Hymnarius, vol. 2, p.  81. The day-­time melody alone has been identified; it has been edited on a number of occasions, e.g. by B. Stäblein, Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi. Hymnen (I), Kassel, Basel, Bärenreiter, 1956, pp. 324–325, Melody 590; and by L. Weinrich, ‘Peter Abelard as a Musician–I’, The Musical Quarterly, LV (1969), pp. 295–312: 302. 114 Nos. 105–106 (St Denis), 107 (St Ayoul), 119 (St Gildas), ed. Szövérffy, Hymnarius, vol. 2, pp. 218–222, 241–243. 115 If it be wondered whether I have overdrawn a contrast between carefully preserved ‘stable’ Paraclete texts and carelessly copied ‘instable’ school works, I should wish to add (i) that the survival of some hymns uniquely in the Chaumont MS, Bibliothèque municipale 31, does not detract from the fact that, in the incomplete Brussels MS, Bibliothèque royale 10147–10158, 96 hymns are arranged into books and introduced by three prefaces addressed to the Paraclete; (ii) that while the prologue to the Sic et Non appears in a largely similar form in the different MSS, the texts which follow are very different from one MS to the other, and rival the texts of the Theologia and the Sententiae in their variety and even

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e confusion. These works offer nightmares to their editors (as well as to their readers) on account of the varieties of corrected drafts, alternative arrangements and readings which the MSS present. See the following editions in particular: Peter Abailard, Sic et Non: A Critical Edition by B. B. Boyer and R. McKeon, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1976–77; E. M. Buytaert (ed.), Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II. Theologia Christiana; Theologia Scholarium (recensiones breviores), Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, XII); E. M. Buytaert and C. J. Mews (eds.), Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, III. Theologia ‘Summi boni’; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, Turnhout, Brepols, 1987 (CCCM, XIII). A new edition of the Sententiae of Peter Abelard by C. J. Mews et al. in the University of Sheffield is in active preparation. On these Sententiae see C. J. Mews, ‘The Sententiae of Peter Abelard’, RTAM, LIII (1986), pp. 130–184. For information on the MSS of these works see Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’.* 116 ‘The most striking feature of the rule in the correspondence is that it was not followed at the Paraclete’, wrote J. F. Benton, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing’, p. 474. 117 The Troyes MS, Bibliothèque municipale 802 is described by Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, pp. 9–18; see here pp. 11–13. The Institutes follow the Rule in this MS; as Monfrin observes, ‘ce texte peut apparaître comme un complément de la règle d’Abélard’. 118 The Institutes are printed in PL 178, 313C–3I7B; the texts that follow (from ‘Ex concilio Triburiensi, cap.  10’ onwards) on columns 317B–326A are not strictly part of the Institutes. See D. Van den Eynde, ‘En marge des écrits d’Abélard. Les “Excerpta ex regulis Paracletensis monasterii”’, Analecta Praemonstratensia, XXXVIII (1962), pp. 70–84. Also J.F. Benton, ‘The Paracletc and the Council of Rouen of 1231’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, New Series IV (1974), pp. 33–38.* 119 For the similarities and the differences see D. Van den Eynde, ‘En marge des écrits d’Abélard’; Benton, ‘Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing’, pp. 503–506. Benton focussed especially (pp.  474–478) upon two themes: the double monastery for men and women and the regulations governing abstinence. 120 C. Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes. Institutiones nostrae. Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms 802, ff. 89r–90v. Introduction, Edition, Commentary, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1987 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 20). 121 The Paraclete Statutes, p. 64. On these Cistercian statutes, see here pp. 62–63. 122 The Paraclete Statutes, Appendix II, pp. li–lv. 123 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 64–65. 124 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 200–202. 125 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 36–37. The edition occupies only pp. 9–15 here. 126 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 87, 92–93, 199. 127 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 94; 99–102. 128 The Paraclete Statutes pp. 32–36, 199. On p. 40 Fr. Waddell hesitates to describe either Abelard’s Rule or the Cistercian Instituta as ‘sources’ of the Paraclete statutes since the author of the latter adapted rather than borrowed from these. 129 The Paraclete Statutes, p. 202. 130 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 199–200. 131 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 64, 200. 132 The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 67, 200. 133 Letter 12, ed. Smits, pp.  257–269; PL 178, 343–352. No medieval MS of this letter survives and the document lacks a salutation and a valediction (Smits, pp. 100–101). In content it shows some similarities with the Historia calamitatum, Letter 6 and Letter 7, the sermon Adtendite and Sermon 33. For comments on Letter 12 see Smits, pp. 153–172. Also L. J. Engels, ‘Adtendite a falsis prophetis’, pp. 195–228 (e.g. pp. 205, 216, 217).

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 134 Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247. There are no medieval MSS of this letter, the earliest MS being c.1600. This MS also contains other letters written by and to Abelard; see Smits, pp. 70–76. On the argument of the letter and on the light it sheds on the relationships between Abelard and Bernard see Smits, pp. 120–136. The sermon Adtendite (mentioned in the last note) includes another strong attack by Abelard on the Cistercians. 135 Sermon 14. PL 178, 491AC, 493D–494D. See Smits, p. 206, n. 33. 136 Ed. C. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Ms français 14410) and the Paraclete Breviary (Chaumont, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 31), 3 vols in 5 parts, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky, 1985, 1983 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 3–7). Vol. 1 (1983) contains an introduction and commentary; Vol. 2. (l983) contains an edition of the Ordinary. The order of processions is also edited there in vol. 2 on pp. 112–124. The Book of Burials is not edited there but it is discussed in vol. 1 on pp. xiv, 313–318, and was partly edited by A. Boutillier du Retail and P. Piétresson de Saint-­Aubin, Recueil des historiens de la France. Obituaires de la province de Sens, IV, Diocèses de Meaux et de Troyes, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1923, pp. 404–430. See J.-L. Lemaître, Répertoire des documents nécrologiques français (in Recueil des historiens de la France. Obituaires, 7), Vol. 1, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1980, p. 520, no. 1096. 137 Chaumont, Bibliothèque municipale MS 31, ed. C. Waddell, The Paraclete Breviary, vol. 3 in 3 parts, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky, 1983 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 5–7). On the MS see Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no. 196. On the Calendar see Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 319–336. 138 Ed. Smits, p. 239. 139 Letter 278, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, S. Bernardi Opera, vol. 8, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, p.  190. The letter is dated (ibidem) to 1150. A solemn privilege of Eugenius III, dated Châlons, 1 November 1147, confirmed to Heloise, abbess, and the sisters of the monastery of the Holy Spirit the possessions of their house. Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘A Checklist’, no. 420. 140 C. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp.  354–356, 361–363. Fr. Waddell has identified compositions which are not Cistercian and which are not known in non-­Paraclete sources and which therefore appear to be probably by Abelard and part of his broader contributions to the development of the Paraclete offices. The identification of individual pieces cannot always be certain and much of the Paraclete office is Cistercian, but the general picture drawn by Fr Waddell is p ­ lausible – ­and a very remarkable feat of dedicated and enthusiastic scholarship. 141 See Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes, pp. 137–139, and The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 377–379, 369–370 and pp. 353–354. The collects are edited by Waddell in The Paraclete Breviary, vol. 3C, pp. 401–402; vol. 3B, p. 258 ll. 4–6. For Letter 3 see Muckle, ed., p. 76; PL 178, 191B–192A. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 209–210 and 378, compares the close of Abelard’s Sermon 31 on St Stephen and ‘other deacons who serve saintly widows’ (PL 178, 573AB), and also the close of Sermon 32 on St Stephen (PL 178, 582A), with the collect on the feast of St Philip (The Paraclete Breviary, vol. 3B, p. 258, ll. 4–6). 142 Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp.  383–387. Some of the references in the Ordinal are unmistakable, e.g. ‘Les sermons au mestre’, ‘les sermons maistre pierre’, Waddell, ed., The Old French Paraclete Ordinary, vol. 2, pp. 24, ll. 12–13, 57, l. 20, 40, l. 13. 143 Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1,

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e pp. 364–367. In his Rule Abelard enjoined the nuns to divide the Old and New Testaments into lessons so that comprehensive provision is made for the needs of the whole year, Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 263; PL 178, 281C. Waddell’s attribution to Abelard himself of the Biblical lessons indicated in the Ordinal is perhaps too definite, but the recommendation of the Rule is largely met in the Ordinal. The term ‘leconnier’ is used in the Ordinal, Waddell, ed., The Old French Paraclete Ordinary, vol. 2, pp. 64, l. 29, 68, l. 8. 144 Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp.  356–359. Also, Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes, p.  141. Abelard’s cycle of Sunday and weekday hymns did not survive in use at the Paraclete. 145 Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vo1. 1, p. 358, has established that all 34 hymns of the first recension of the Cistercian hymnal before its revision c.1140/7 are found in the Paraclete Breviary. For Abelard’s derision of Cistercian hymnody, following the criticism by Bernard of Clairvaux of the wording of the Lord’s Prayer adopted at the Paraclete, see Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 245; PL 178, 339BC. 146 PL 178, 379–380. 147 Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 347–350. The two identified sequences are an Easter sequence, Epithalamica, mentioned in the Ordinal, Waddell, ed., The Old French Paraclete Ordinary, vol. 2, p.  31, l. 12, and an All Souls sequence, De profundis, mentioned in the Ordinal, ibidem, p.  100, l. 9. On these see Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 125–126 and pp. 298–299 respectively. The texts accompany Abelard’s Planctus ‘Dolorum solatium’ in the Paris MS, Bibliothèque nationale, nouvelle acquisition latine 3126; on this MS see M. Huglo, Un nouveau prosaire nivernais, ‘Ephemerides liturgicae’, LXXI (1957), pp. 3–30 and especially p. 18. The sequences were printed from other sources by G. Dreves and others in Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Leipzig, Fues, 1886–1922, 8: 45–46 and 10:54. 148 This is the St John sequence, Eya karissimi, mentioned in the Ordinal, Waddell, ed., The Old French Paraclete Ordinary, vol. 2, p. 48, l. 27. See Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vo1. 1, pp. 183–184, 350. The text was printed from other sources in G. Dreves et al., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, 44: 163. 149    Iam rideo, quae iam fleveram.    Nocte flevi, mane risi,    Flevi nocte, risi mane. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclele Breviary, vol. 1, p. 126. 150 Waddell, in The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 389–390, has drawn attention to the special features, proper to the Paraclete, of the Holy Week offices in which antiphons and responses probably by Abelard and also his hymns figure prominently. See Waddell, The Paraclete Breviary, vol. 3A, pp. 122–140. Abelard’s hymns continue to be in use especially during the octave of Easter and at Pentecost, The Paraclete Breviary, vol. 3A, pp. 141–149, 169–174. On Abelard’s possible role in writing antiphons see Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, p. 362. As regards the sermons, Fr. Waddell suggests, on the basis of the audience addressed in the surviving sermons, that over sixteen of the thirty-­five sermons by Abelard were addressed to the nuns of the Paraclete. Their contents covered the whole of salvation history from the Annunciation to Pentecost and they formed an arranged collection but have not been printed in this form in PL 178, 379–610 and only

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t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e a few are mentioned in the Paraclete Ordinal. In addition Abelard’s Sermon (or Sermons) for the feast of the Assumption was required to be read in the refectory (Sermon 26, PL 178, 539–546). See Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, vol. 1, pp. 239, 384–387. The fate of the sermons is analogous to that of Abelard’s hymns: some survived in use, according to the evidence of the Paraclete Ordinal and Breviary; many did not. 151 J. F. Benton (†), ‘The correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, 5, pp. 95–120. 152 Peter Dronke, ‘Heloise’s Problemata and Letters: Some Questions of Form and Content’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 53–73: 55. These arguments are amplified by Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Chap. 5. An unpublished paper on this same subject written by Professor Tore Janson is mentioned by Benton, ‘The correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, p. 100 and n. 11. 153 Waiter of Mortagne, Epistola ad Abaelardum, ed. H. Ostlender, Bonn, P. Hanstein, 1929 (Florilegium patristicum, 19), pp. 34–40. For the date see L. Ott, Untersuchungen zur theologischer Briefliteratur der Frühscholastik, Münster i.W., Aschendorf, 1937 (BGPTMA, 34), pp. 240–241. 154 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 77. 155 For Abelard’s last stay in Paris before retiring to Cluny see the circumstantial comments of John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, Edinburgh, Nelson, 1956 (Nelson’s (now Oxford) Medieval Texts), pp. 63–64. 156 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, II. 10, ed. C.C.J. Webb, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929, p. 78.* 157 Bernard of Clairvaux, Letters 193, 331, 332, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, S. Bernardi Opera, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, vol. 8, pp. 44, 269, 271. 158 Walter of Mortagne, Epistola ad Abaelardum, ed. Ostlender. On this letter see Ott, Untersuchungen, pp. 234–266. 159 Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Second Series, 14), pp. 105–110. 160 C. J. Mews, ‘The Lists of Heresies imputed to Peter Abelard’, Revue bénédictine, XCV (1985), pp. 73–110. 161 Abelard, Confessio fidei ‘universis’, PL 178, 105–108; new edition by C. S. F. Burnett, ‘Peter Abelard, Confessio fidei “Universis”: a critical edition of Abelard’s reply to accusations of heresy’, Mediaeval Studies, XLVIII (1986), pp. 111–138. See P. Zerbi, ‘San Bernardo di Chiaravalle e il concilio di Sens’, in Studi su S. Bernardo di Chiaravalle nell’ ottavo centenario della canonizzazione. Convegno internazionale, Certoza di Firenze (6–9 novembre 1974), Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1975 (Bibliotheca Cisterciensis, 6), pp. 49–73. 162 Burnett, ‘Peter Abelard, Confessio fidei “Universis”’, pp. 117–119. 163 Abelard, Apologia contra Bernardum, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, Vol. 1, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, XI), pp. 341–368. Previously ed. P. Ruf and M. Grabmann, ‘Ein neuaufgefundenes Bruchstück der Apologia Abaelards’, in Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Abteilung, 5 (1930). 164 Abelard, Epistola contra Bernhardum abbatem, ed. J. Leclercq, ‘Etudes sur S. Bernard et le texte de ses écrits’, Analecta sacri ordinis cisterciensis, IX (1953), pp. 104–105; also ed. R. Klibansky in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, V (1961), pp. 1–27: 6–7. See also J. Leclercq, ‘Autour de la correspondance de S. Bernard, 1. La lettre des évêques de France au sujet d’Abélard’, in Sapientiae Doctrina. Mélanges de théologie et de littérature médiévales offerts à Dom Hildebrand Bascour, Leuven, Abbaye du Mont Cesar, 1980 (RTAM, numéro spécial, 1),

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f ro m pa r i s t o t h e pa rac l e t e pp.  185–192. On Bernard’s role in procuring the condemnation of Abelard see P. Zerbi, ‘San Bernardo di Chiaravalle e il concilio di Sens’. 165 Abelard, Confessio fidei ad Heloissam, PL 178, 375–378; C. S. F. Burnett, ‘Confessio fidei ad Heloissam – Abelard’s Last Letter to Heloise? A Discussion and Critical Edition of the Latin and Medieval French Versions’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XXI (1986), pp. 147–155. 166 Berengar, Apologeticus, PL 178, 1857–1870: 1862A (but printed at PL 178, 375–378). New edition by R. M. Thomson, ‘The Satirical Works of Berengar of Poitiers: An Edition with Introduction’, Mediaeval Studies, XLII (1980), pp. 89–138: 117–118. 167 ‘Nolo sic esse philosophus ut recalcitrem Paulo. Nolo sic esse Aristoteles ut secludar a Christo, PL 178, 375C, or better in Thomson, ‘Satirical Works’, pp. 117–118. 168 Letter 98, ed. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, vol. 1, pp. 258–259. Cf. Constable’s notes in vol. 2, pp. 164–165; also P. Zerbi, ‘Remarques sur l’Epistola 98 de Pierre le Vénérable’, in Pierre Abélard-Pierre le Vénérable, pp.  215–234. (Reprinted with minor corrections under the title ‘In Cluniaco vestra sibi perpetuam mansionem elegit. Petri Venerabilis Epistola 98’ in Zerbi, Tra Milano e Cluny. Momenti di vita e cultura ecclesiastica nel secolo XII, Rome, Herder, 1978 (Italia sacra, Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica, 28), pp. 373–395. Peter the Venerable wrote two letters ‘ad Petrum quendam scholasticum’, nos. 9–10, ed. Constable, vol. 1, pp. 14–17. They try to persuade one Peter to turn away from the schools and from philosophy and to embrace the spiritual life. The identification of this Peter with Abelard is (as Constable, vol. 2, pp. 101–102, notes) uncertain; it is challenged by Zerbi, ‘Remarques’, p. 216. 169 Letter of Heloise to Peter the Venerable, among the Letters of Peter the Venerable, no. 167, ed. Constable, vol. 1, pp. 400–401 (notes in Constable, vol. 2, pp. 209–210); and Peter’s reply, no. 168, ed. Constable, vol. 1, pp. 401–402 (notes in vol. 2, p. 210). 170 Letter no. 115, ed. Constable, vol. 1, pp. 303–308 (notes in vol. 2, pp. 177–178). This letter is a reply to a lost letter from Heloise. The passages exhorting Heloise to show leadership as a woman are found on pp. 304–305; see especially p. 305: ‘... nec omnino apud mortales insolitum est feminas feminis principari nec ex toto inusitatum etiam praeliari, ipsos insuper uiros ad praelia comitari’. Peter the Venerable commends the examples especially of Penthesilea among the Amazons and of Deborah among the Jews; and he expresses the wish that he could speak with Heloise on this: ‘Dulce michi esset diu tecum de huiusmodi protrahere sermonem, quia et famosa eruditione tua delector, et praedicata michi a multis religione tua longe magis allicior’ (vol. 1, pp. 305–306). Therc then follows Peter’s unforgettable account of Abelard’s humility as a monk. 171 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  105, ll. 146–147; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 259. In Letter 7, in the course of his encomium of holy women, Abelard briefly acknowledges Deborah (Judges 4:9) for compensating for the failings of men, ed. Muckle, p. 269; PL 178, 243D. Cf. Abelard, Hymn 125, stanza 3, ed. Szövérffy, vol. 2, pp. 258–259.

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Peter Abelard

Philosopher

2 PETER ABELARD

Peter Abelard received his early education in arts from Roscelin of Compiègne in the schools of Loches or Tours around the mid or late 1090s. He probably also studied at Angers, and he was taught by a magister V., who may be Ulger or Vasletus.1 He finally arrived at the most important centre for the study of dialectic, which was Paris; here he sat at the feet of William of Champeaux.2 The sharpness of his attacks on William’s realism is partly to be explained by his earlier nominalist training under Roscelin. From Abelard’s autobiography, his Historia calamitatum, we know of his struggles to establish himself as a teacher at Corbeil (1102), at Melun (ca.1104), and at Paris. We learn as well of his espousal of the study of theology, for the sake of which he went to the school of Anselm in Laon after 1113. How much of Abelard’s logical writing was done before and how much after this turn to theology is far from certain. He presumably developed his commentaries on logic while teaching at the cathedral school of Paris from ca.1116, at least until his affair with Heloise disrupted his life. His theological writings, on the other hand, were all prepared after his visit to Laon. They are important to an understanding of Abelard as a philosopher. It was on account of his application of dialectic to the study of theology that Abelard was condemned by a church council held at Soissons in 1121. For the next few years Abelard, who was now a monk, attempted to live the life of a philosopher-­hermit. His autobiography does not extend beyond the years when he was abbot of St Gildas de Rhuys in Brittany (ca.1127–ca.1131), but we know from John of Salisbury, who heard Abelard teaching dialectic on the Mont Sainte-­Geneviève in 1136, that he was still active as a logician.3 He taught in Paris again in 1140. Until then he remained busy writing works of theology, among them works to guide the nuns of the convent of the Paraclete of which Heloise was now abbess. The culmination of decades of controversy over Abelard’s teaching of theology occurred in 1140, when he was again condemned for heresy and was excommunicated by Pope Innocent II.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Abelard as a logician Abelard’s logical writings are concerned with seven basic texts: the Isagoge of Porphyry; the Categories and De interpretatione of Aristotle; and the De syllogismo categorico, De syllogismo hypothetico, De differentiis topicis and De divisione of Boethius. Only to a limited degree did Abelard use the Analytics and Sophistici elenchi of Aristotle. Not without reason was he called the Peripatetic from Le Pallet, his birthplace (Peripateticus Palatinus). M. Dal Pra has linked to Abelard’s early teaching career a series of brief glosses which Abelard may have written between 1102/5 and 1112/14 and which may be identical with those Abelard called Introductiones parvulorum or introductions for beginners in the study of logic.4 They are found in a Paris manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 13368, fols. 128r–167v, and include glosses on the Isagoge (although the final quarter of the work is lost), on the Categories (but only a fifth of the text has survived), on the De interpretatione (almost complete), and on the De divisione. Probably there were once also glosses on the De syllogismo categorico and De syllogismo hypothetico, but these do not survive. Since Abelard’s purpose in these glosses is to help beginners to become acquainted with the textbooks of logic, he rarely betrays elements of his own teaching, but from such of the prefaces as survive it would appear that when Abelard expresses himself on the nature of the subject he hovers between regarding logic as a study of language and regarding language as being related to the things which it serves to express. In another series of commentaries Abelard provides much more developed glosses on the ancient textbooks of logic. Their principal editor, B. Geyer, dated their composition to the years before 1120 and viewed them as parts of a single work, the Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ –Ingredientibus being the opening word.5 These glosses concern the Isagoge, the Categories and the De interpretatione. Originally perhaps they also included glosses on hypothetical propositions, but these have not survived. The glosses are sometimes known as the ‘Milan glosses’, since they are mostly found in a Milan manuscript, Biblioteca Ambrosiana M 63 sup., but this description is a little misleading, since Dal Pra has shown that the glosses on the De differentiis topicis which are found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 7493 also belong to the ‘Ingredientibus’ series.6 Furthermore, the complete text of the commentary on De interpretatione is preserved only in Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz Lat. Fol. 624, fols. 97r–146r; the last section of the Milan copy of this text (fols. 71rb–72rb) contains a spurious commentary which is not by Abelard.7 The ‘Ingredientibus’ glosses are roughly three times as long as the Introductiones parvulorum; in addition to providing fuller literal glosses, Abelard often goes beyond his source to pursue problems which have occurred to him or which were currently under debate by contemporary logicians. At one point, for example, Abelard refers to the teaching of William of Champeaux: praeceptor (or praecessor) noster Willelmus eiusque sequaces.8 The Milan glosses on 36

p e t e r a b e la r d Porphyry underwent revision, and of this r­ evision – ­which Geyer dates before 1125, and which he saw as the first part of a new Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’ – there survive only the glosses on the Isagoge, which are contained in a single manuscript at Lunel, Bibliothèque municipale 6.9 Abelard also wrote a major, independent, and unified treatise of logic which was free of the gloss form, although it nonetheless uses fully the seven ancient textbooks of Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius. The only known manuscript of this work, the Dialectica, is in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 14614, but it lacks both the beginning and the end of the text. The editor, L. M, de Rijk, dates the compositio of the final revision of the Dialectica to Abelard’s last years.10 Abelard may have written a work called Rhetorica and one called Grammatica, but neither has been identified in any manuscript.11 Sentences containing an analysis of a paralogism and of the use of totum have been tentatively ascribed to him and printed under his name.12 Claims have been put forward for Abelard as author of other works of logic which betray many similarities with his known writings and teachings. These include a short treatise De intellectibus13 and another gloss on the Isagoge known as Secundum vocales.14

The use of logic In his writings and commentaries on logic Abelard presents himself as an expositor of ancient logic. He nonetheless provides interpretations and emphases that are his own. He explores with formidable energy and perceptiveness the tensions he found in the traditional texts. In much of his writing he advances chains of argument and of counter-­argument, and it is not always possible to perceive his solution to problems so much as his discovery of further difficulties and opportunities that arise from past and contemporary theories. Like Cicero and Boethius, Abelard defines the art of logic or dialectic (he uses both terms indifferently) as the art of judging and distinguishing valid arguments from invalid ones in any branch of knowledge, and also of explaining why they are valid or not.15 A conclusive argument may take the form of a consequence (consecutio or consequentia) or of a syllogism. Abelard examines in detail different types of these. The presence or absence of conclusive force in an argument (vis inferentiae, vis argumenti, vis sermonis) sometimes rests on the form of the reasoning (complexio or dispositio terminorum), sometimes on the evidence brought to bear in the argument (its locus: the natura or eventus rerum or the proprietas sermonis). In the former case the argument is complexional, in the latter it is topical.16 But in either case the evaluation of the argument entails a judgement about the structure of the proposition or propositions used. The matter (res) being considered is of secondary concern to a logician.17 Enquiry into the nature of things belongs to the study of physics. But the one art is necessary to the other, for to understand words we must first 37

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r investigate things. In logic the nature of things needs to be known, not on its own account, but for the sake of finding the meaning of words before combining words into meaningful propositions.18 In his Dialectica Abelard first treats of the parts of speech (partes orationis, dictiones) and then of propositions and syllogisms. The parts of speech include the study of Porphyry’s five predicables (genus, species, difference, property, and accident), Aristotle’s categories (substance and nine accidents), and signification. Propositions and syllogisms are studied in their different forms, categorical and hypothetical, and then Abelard studies divisions and definitions.19

Vox The basic element in speech is the word. With words we signify ideas and things but words are themselves physical things. When we say ‘Socrates is reading’ our voice strikes the air and the listener through his ear interprets the sound. Not every noiseful utterance is meaningful: voiced sounds have to be intentionally organized if meaning is to be communicated. Words therefore have a psychological as well as a physical aspect; language is indivisibly physical and intellectual. The Latin word vox is therefore ambiguous, for it denotes both sound uttered at a certain time (materia vocis) and what this sound signifies (sensus). The latter is communicated to the intellect of the hearer and enters his memory. The ambiguity of the term vox led Abelard in his Logica ‘Nostrorum’ to complement it by another term, sermo. Sermo represents the second meaning of vox, its sensus.

Signification The sensus or significance of words is twofold: words generate a concept (intellectus) and also refer to something (res).20 To signify with words is to generate an idea (generare intellectum), and the idea corresponds to something that can be grasped by understanding. Of this thing (res) there must first be an idea or concept before it can be named or expressed in a word. Between reality and language lies understanding.21 For language to be able to express such understanding certain rules are required. They are partly grammatical, partly dialectical. Grammatical because sentences have to be formed, dialectical because such sentences have to make sense. The two d ­ isciplines – g­ rammar and d ­ ialectic – ­predominate in Abelard’s analyses of language, yet he was also an incomparable rhetorician or literary stylist.

Propositions Abelard discusses extensively the question of what is signified by a proposition.22 Like words, propositions have a twofold significance: they deal with things (res) and generate ideas (intellectus).23 Propositions, as distinct from 38

p e t e r a b e la r d single words, generate more complex concepts and purport to express something true or f­alse – t­rue or false, that is, according to what the proposition has to say about it. A true proposition expresses how something is in reality: it does not state the thing itself. What a proposition ­states – t­ he dictum propositionis – is not a thing but the mode in which a thing (or things) relates to another; i.e. it states the necessity or otherwise of their connection.24 And beyond these things, beyond also the understanding of them that is generated by the proposition, lies the realm of meaning, which subsists even when we do not have it in mind and even when the things that are contained in a proposition cease to exist. The significance of a proposition is only a quasi res. It is not a thing nor is it an act of thought, though it is the content of such an act. What the proposition says, id quod propositio dicit, the dictum, is not something external to the mind nor is it the mental act as such, but the objective content of such a mental act, a res in anima as distinct from a res extra animam, something held in the mind and not beyond it.25 A categorical proposition (e.g. man is an animal) loses its value if the things which it combines in a relationship cease to exist. On the other hand, a hypothetical proposition (e. g. if man is, he is an animal) is independent of the condition of existence. Such a hypothetical proposition does not refer simply to things (man, animal) or their relationship, but to their meaning, to an understanding of them (intellectus de rebus). The relationship of consequences which is proposed (the habitus consecutionis) is not a thing (non est aliquid) but it is a logical fact. Even if all men were destroyed, the consequence would still necessarily hold that ‘if man is, he is an animal’. Actual relations between things (expressed by a categorical proposition) are insufficient to produce a necessary consequence. To establish dialectical necessity Abelard goes beyond the level of things and of concepts, for logical truth lies not in existent being but in necessary and eternal consequences.26

Predication Abelard’s examination of the nature of propositions is inseparable from his analysis of predication as it is found in the De interpretatione. In a proposition (e.g. Socrates is white) something is said about something else and a relationship is proposed. The nature of this relationship, which is called predication, is a matter for debate. Abelard focusses upon the meaning and function of the verb ‘to be’ in a proposition: it functions as a copula or link which serves as a phrase-­maker and provides completeness of sense in a sentence; it also signifies as a verb with existential and temporal import. Without the verb the proposition does not exist; without the act of predication significance is not created. Abelard oscillates between regarding the verb ‘to be’ purely as a link between the subject and the predicate and regarding it as stating the existence of the subject and the predicate. In a proposition concerning non-­existent or no-­longer-­existent entities, e.g. ‘a chimera is thinkable’ or ‘Homer is a poet’, 39

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r it is clear that the copula does not signify the existence of the subject and is purely a link. A further difficulty concerning predication is the question whether in a proposition such as ‘Socrates is a man’ the copula affirms an identity of essence (the identity theory), or affirms that a universal nature designated by the p ­ redicate – m ­ an – inheres in an individual designated by the ­subject – ­Socrates – (the inherence theory). Abelard saw points for and against each approach.27

Universals Abelard’s arguments concerning universals are an aspect of his general study of propositions. In his discussion in the Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ of the question whether universal nouns are only words or whether they also refer to universal things, Abelard begins with Aristotle’s definition of the universal as ‘that which is by its nature predicable of several things’ (quod de pluribus natum est aptum praedicari).28 A universal noun is one that has been instituted expressly for the sake of serving as a predicate for several terms taken one by one. So, in the propositions ‘Socrates is a man’, ‘Plato is a man’, ‘Aristotle is a man’, the ­predicate – ­man – stands for the species, which includes any number of individual men. But what does the predicate signify that enables me to link man with individual men such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle by means of the verb ‘to be’? The predicate we give to a group of subjects results from our perception that there is in things both similarity and dissimilarity, agreement and diversity. A number of similar individuals grouped together in a species or a genus share a common nature even though as individuals they exhibit particular differences. They agree in their nature (conveniunt ex creatione naturae), for a nature, as Boethius said, is an original similarity between things (similitudo nascentium). Socrates, Plato and Aristotle share an undeniable resemblance (convenientia) as men. What they have in common, however, is not a thing called man but a state or a nature which is that of being man (esse hominem, status hominis).29 We call this ‘being man’ the status hominis, which is not a thing.30 This state of likeness is abstracted by the human mind from the evidence present to the human senses. Universal nouns perform a certain function within propositions and exist in language. They are not things. But they may not be arbitrarily attributed to any subjects, for they have a basis in or a correspondence to things. According to Abelard a thing is always individual and separate; it cannot be found (convenire) in any other thing that a universal noun can designate. There is no universal thing. Moreover, a universal name, being by definition a common name, cannot be attributed to individual things on their own. There is no thing underlying this name. As Boethius wrote, the noun ‘man’ creates difficulty: it causes us to think neither of Socrates nor of any other man nor of all men together. It produces a concept of no thing because it designates no thing. So a universal name, like a proposition, states no thing and yet both mean something. This something which is signified by 40

p e t e r a b e la r d a universal name Abelard calls a ‘common and confused image of a large number of beings’.31

Abelard’s criticism of realism In his autobiography Abelard attributes his rise to fame in no small measure to his success in combating the views of William of Champeaux on essences. Abelard’s objections to William’s views arise from his analysis of the function of words and propositions and of their relationship to non-­verbal reality. His detailed arguments are found not in the Historia calamitatum but in his Logica ‘Ingredientibus’. Here he writes that some have maintained that individual things are distinguished from one another by their forms (per formas) but that where things share likenesses as members of a species they have in common a substance which is the same in its being (essentialiter) in each individual in the species. Take away the forms and all differences would disappear between the individual things, because their matter is essentially the same.32 Thus the substance of the species ‘man’ is the same in all men, even though they are numerically distinct. Just as a piece of wax can be modelled into a figure of a man and then into a figure of a cow, so too the universal is at one and the same time wholly in all beings of which it is the substance. It is universal in itself, singular through the forms which are added to it. Without these it subsists in its nature, but cannot exist in actuality.33 To this view Abelard presents the difficulty that it is contradicted by physics (physica ... repugnat).34 If a single essential reality exists in separate species within a genus, it follows that a rational animal is an irrational animal and that contraries coexist at the same time in Socrates and in an ass. Individuality disappears.35 A single essence cannot wholly and simultaneously subsist in diverse subjects.36 To avoid these difficulties others have proposed a second doctrine which is closer to the truth: individual beings are distinct in their being and not only in their forms. No thing shares its essential matter or its essential forms with anything else. But to account for resemblances (i.e. to safeguard realism) they say that individual beings share some non-­differences in their nature, e.g. men share in being ­men – ­that is, they share the nature of humanity.37 To sustain this non-­difference thesis it is necessary first to remove what is called the doctrine of collection, that is, the doctrine that all men together or all animals together, not one by one, can be predicated of many and are respectively the species ‘man’ and the genus ‘animal’.38 Secondly, there has to be repudiated the doctrine that every individual man is himself a species and a universal, i.e. that universality and individuality can characterize one and the same thing and indicate both similarity and dissimilarity.39 So it is that in his Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ Abelard lists the different ways in which the universal may be defined and by a series of reasonings reduces to absurdity the doctrine that the universal is res. As a result the only doctrine that survives is that the universal is vox.40 In his Logica ‘Nostrorum’ Abelard 41

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r offers a renewed criticism of realism, which is very different from that found in ‘Ingredientibus’, even though the difference lies largely on the level of presentation. Here he lists three theses: (1) that universals are things; (2) that they are concepts; (3) that they are words.41 (1) and (3) find support in the writings of Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius. (2) is supported in the Timaeus of Plato, in Boethius, and in Priscian’s famous text on the forms of things which are in the mind of God (Institutiones grammaticae, XVII, 44). Abelard’s criticism of the first thesis, the sententia de rebus, overlaps at points with his criticism in the ‘Ingredientibus’ of the doctrine of essences. He once more rejects the doctrine that there are universal res which are essentially present in a plurality of subjects that are diverse in forms.42 He rejects, too, the doctrine that the universal is a thing which is present in its subjects not essentially but indifferently, i. e. that the same res is present in Socrates as in Plato, the similarity between them being their non-­difference. Such a doctrine would mean that a res is both a universal and a particular according to the viewpoint from which it is considered (diversis tamen respectibus).43 Abelard’s own view is (3): universals are words. Whereas in the ‘Ingredientibus’ Abelard called the universal vox, now in the ‘Nostrorum’ he eliminates the ambiguity by which vox can mean both the word spoken here and now, an articulated physical sound with but a fleeting existence, and the word as the carrier of signification.44 He does so by preferring the term sermo to that of vox, sermo meaning vox in its second sense as a significant word. Vox – the uttered n ­ oise – i­ s a natural thing, whereas to show or to signify is the function of sermones. ‘We say that universals are sermones because they can be predicated of several subjects and have been made for that purpose, that is, instituted by men. But neither voces nor res can in any way be universals, even though all sermones are voces’.45 Universal names designate common forms; to conceive these by means of names (nomina) is to signify. Common forms are not things nor are they intellections. The idea of signification assumes an important place in Abelard’s criticism of realism; it stands between reality and understanding: praeter rem et intellectum tertia exiit nominum significatio.46 The second thesis, that universals are concepts (intellectus), is therefore rejected, because concepts are what the universal generates. What kind of concepts?47 Abelard is closer to realism here than one might expect. Although he concludes that the universal noun is a vox or sermo, it signifies something. In the ‘Ingredientibus’ Abelard writes that a nomen appears to signify a forma and the forma is a conceptio Dei, a concept in the mind of God, who is the author of generic and specific states of nature (generales vel speciales naturae status).48 The cause of the imposition of the universal noun ‘man’ (for example) or of the universal ‘being man’ (esse hominem) is a status.49 In the last analysis the universal seems to be based on divine ideas. This is close to Platonism, although men who know things by means of their senses do not know the pure nature of things; the conceived forms which words express are not forms as they exist in the divine mind.50 Furthermore, in studying 42

p e t e r a b e la r d the relationship between what signifies (vox or vocabulum) and what is signified (res), Abelard arrives at a Platonic idea of essentia as res. He writes in the ‘Ingredientibus’ that the Aristotelian categories (substance and the nine accidents) signify a thing in its essence, for every thing subsists in its essence before being received by its subject.51 So the word ‘essence’ is used by Abelard in ways that suggest that universals name essences which underlie and are the forms of things.52 Hereby Abelard comes close to the view of William of Champeaux as we read it in the Historia calamitatum. To sum up, the universal is not a thing (res), but it is not nothing, as it is not relegated to being arbitrary. Individuals share in something, and the resemblances they share exist in the world of things (in re). These shared status or naturae objectively depend on the existence of actual individuals. Genera and species are names of material realities; they subsist in these as their names, although they stand outside them in our understanding.53

Language, not things, is the concern of logic Abelard treats logic as an art of language that is closely linked to grammar, for it deals with words and phrases. Logic itself evaluates arguments that are constructed out of words and propositions. Abelard separates logic from the study of the properties of things and of the relations between them, but he admits that logic is based on these properties and on their relations. He sees the reciprocity, not only the contrast, between logic and physics. Logic is an art of language because proofs (both topical and syllogistic) suppose relationships between terms (topical) and between antecedent and consequent propositions (syllogistic). But terms and propositions are in turn rooted in things and in the relationships between them. Arguments and consequences treat things by means of voces. Proofs are true if based on things, yet ideally they are independent of the existence of those things. When they are thus independent, they bring necessary consequences into play. Abelard begins with reflection on Porphyry, with an idea of the predicate as only a vox. He arrives at a theory of the status naturae which is expressed not by a noun (homo) but by an infinitive (esse hominem). The doctrine of the universal and the theory of proof bring into play concepts of signification and of nature. Abelard is concerned both with language from which content has been eliminated and with language as the bearer of meaning. He is concerned with pure formalism and also with real relationships between things. His nominalism in logic is not incompatible with a degree of philosophical realism.54

Logic and Christian faith Abelard attacks the opponents of dialectic (by which he means the opponents of Aristotle) in the Prologue to Tractatus IV of his Dialectica and in his Theologia.55 He writes that St Augustine himself used dialectic and that 43

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r dialectic provides faith with a sharp sword with which to counter the sophisms of the heretics. Knowledge even of wrong things can never be wrong (mala) in itself, although it can become wrong in its application (nefarium exercitium). Misused logic is sophistry. Dialectic is the means of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. In matters of Christian faith logic is subordinate to divine revelation, but logic can construct arguments that show that what faith offers is not absurd. Book I of the Theologia ‘Summi boni’ presents the objection of pseudo-­dialecticians, that the doctrine of God as one substance and three persons is a contradiction, and in Book III Abelard replies to this. Book III is full of similarities to Abelard’s logical works; here he is applying logic to matters of faith. In his autobiography, the Historia calamitatum, Abelard describes how he came to write the first version of his Theologia: I first applied myself to writing about the foundation of our faith with the aid of analogies provided by human reason, and I wrote a treatise of t­heology – ­on the divine unity and t­rinity – ­for our scholars, who were asking for human and philosophical reasons and clamouring more for what could be understood than for what could be said. They said in fact that the utterance of words was superfluous unless it were followed by understanding, for nothing could be believed unless it were previously understood, and that it was ridiculous for anyone to preach to others what neither he nor those taught by him could accept into their understanding.56 In the Theologia ‘Summi boni’, to which Abelard here refers, he declares his intention to expound the truths of faith with the aid of logic and of human reason, and to say ‘something plausible, something close to human reason’ in order to answer on their own ground those dialecticians who found the doctrine of the Trinity to be absurd.57 Neither the authority of the saints nor that of the philosophers can refute importunate arguments; only human reasonings can be used to oppose those who are swayed by human reasonings.58

Words and God Words used of God do not bear their original meaning. For example, God cannot properly be called substance because Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius teach that substance is susceptible of accidents or forms. So God eludes the rules of the Aristotelians, who have to be content with the study of creatures.59 In the successive versions of his Theologia Abelard demonstrates how the words that men use of ­God – ­words such as ‘lord’, ‘eternal’, ‘immense’, or ‘creator’ – have undergone a change from their habitual meaning. God is beyond human understanding and nomination. He is ineffable. When we say that God is anterior to the world, or that the Son is generated by the Father, 44

p e t e r a b e la r d we do not mean that God may be truly described by our notions of time or of the human person. Rather language, as here used of divine realities, undergoes a necessary alteration, or translatio, a translation of meaning.60 There do exist resemblances between creatures and the Creator, and therefore the words we use for creation may designate God without incongruity (non incongrue). But the formulas used to define Christian faith cannot be understood unless account is taken of these transpositions.

Words and the divine Trinity Dialecticians raise objections to the possibility of there being any known mode of diversity by which persons may be distinguished in an individual substance. Abelard replies that the vocabulary of philosophy is deficient when it comes to speaking of God. Nonetheless in his Theologia, in an effort to reply to other dialecticians, he examines identity and difference by constructing propositions in which the names of persons and of the divine essence enter as subject or as predicate. God is essentially identical but numerically plural in the divine persons. Father, Son and Spirit have one essence but differ in their definitions or in their propria. Abelard’s account of identity and difference varies a little from one version of his Theologia to another. In his Theologia ‘Summi boni’ he presents six modes:61 (1) Some things are identical in essence, e.g. ‘sword’ and ‘blade’;62 (2) some things are identical in number;63 (3) some things are identical by definition, e.g. a sword is a blade;64 (4) some things are identical by resemblance, e.g. species in their genus;65 (5) some things are identical by immutableness, e.g. God is always the same;66 (6) some things are the same by their effect, e.g. when two words express the same conception.67 Difference (diversum) has a corresponding set of six meanings in the Theologia ‘Summi boni’: (1) difference in essence, e.g. a part is not a whole;68 (2) difference in number, e.g. ‘Socrates’ and ‘Plato’;69 (3) difference in definition, e.g. ‘substance’ and ‘body’;70 (4) difference in resemblance;71 (5) difference by change, e.g. ‘now Socrates is standing’ and ‘now Socrates is sitting’;72 (6) difference by effect, e.g. things act diversely.73 Abelard concludes his discussion of identity and difference with a brief examination of the differences between persons in God, who is absolutely one and the same essentialiter.74 The persons in God are different by their definitions, that is by their propria or proprietates.75 The proprium of the Father is to be by himself; that of the Son, to be eternally engendered by the Father; that of the Spirit, to proceed from the Father and the Son. Identity of essence entails numerical identity but not vice versa. Identity of essence or of number does not entail identity of definition. Difference in definition is not incompatible with identity of essence. Essential difference may be compatible with identity through resemblance, e.g. of individuals in a species.76 This analysis provides Abelard with a basis for maintaining the essential unity of God and the numerical plurality of definitions or properties or persons in God. It enables him moreover to expound 45

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r the generation of the Son by the Father in terms of the production of the Wisdom of God by the Power of God (species out of genus).77

Similes and analogies God is ineffable, yet there exist resemblances between God and his creatures. When we apply to God the words we use to name creatures, these words indicate a limited resemblance but are transformed and enigmatic.78 To account for the relationship between the three divine persons in the Trinity Abelard explores the notions of identity and difference and the notion of person;79 he also illustrates the generation of the Son by the Father, and the procession of the Spirit, with the aid of analogies. These analogies are taken from things which are composed of matter and form, such as a waxen image, which comes from wax but is of identical essence with the wax,80 and a bronze seal in which the matter is bronze and the form is the figure. A bronze ­seal – ­a single ­thing – ­has two different properties and is also capable of sealing, this being a third property. As in the Trinity, the seal is in a manner generated by the bronze.81 But every analogy is imperfect (ex parte inducitur); every resemblance is dissimilar in some respect.82 There is no matter, and there are no forms, in God.83 Analogies, like words used of God, involve transpositions (translationes). Nonetheless, it was by consideration of the world that philosophers found the Trinity. Things bear the traces of God, and in studying analogies such as the bronze seal or the wax statue Abelard tries as a dialectician to establish what predications are possible in God. He argues that a belief in the Trinity is natural to all men.84

Reason and faith St Bernard saw in Abelard a rash man seeking to penetrate to the heart of divine mysteries. Some more recent scholars have on this account seen in Abelard a rationalist. A distinction should be drawn between the application of dialectic to theology and the relationship between reason and faith. Abelard applied to the content of faith procedures of interpretation and explanation which were tested in another domain. His adversaries transferred to the level of faith what was initially only a means of confronting and resolving difficulties found by dialecticians. Abelard was more concerned with the formulations of the faith and with knowledge of them (intelligentia); with showing the conformity of revelation to the laws of predication; with the task of commentary with the aid of the disciplines of the trivium; with understanding the sacra pagina through the similitudes of human reason; with human and philosophical reasons. The words used by authority give birth to questions which have to be judged before they can be invoked, even if the judgement is plausible rather than certain.

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p e t e r a b e la r d Logic and the sacred authors In the Prologue to his Sic et Non – a collection of excerpts from sacred writers who appear to disagree on matters of Christian ­belief – ­Abelard outlines some principles which may reduce or eliminate the difficulties arising from apparent conflicts of meaning. Sometimes such conflicts can be resolved on the level of logic, by determining the meaning of the terms used by different authors in varying ways. However, examination of the meaning of the teaching of the authorities should also stimulate questioning and methodical doubting which, upon enquiry, leads towards truth. Abelard’s suggestions relate to history as well as to logic, insofar as he asks his readers to consider who the authors were, in what circumstances they wrote, and how we can prove or disprove their authorship of particular writings.85

Abelard as a philosopher Logic together with physics and ethics is a branch of philosophy, and philosophy is the science of discernment (discernendi scientia). Only those who have outstandingly subtle intelligences possess this science and can know and understand the hidden causes of things.86 From Aristotle Abelard could derive little philosophy beyond what was found in the Categories and On Interpretation. In his Logica and Dialectica Abelard uses Aristotle, Boethius and Porphyry largely to explore and resolve technical questions in logic. For a wider philosophy, Abelard, like such contemporaries as William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres and Gilbert of Poitiers, relied on the writings that derive directly or indirectly from Plato: a part of the Timaeus as translated and commented on by Calcidius; Macrobius; Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy; Augustine’s City of God. He used these especially in his Theologies. In the main it was as a theologian that Abelard turned to the pagan philosophers who found God by using reason and by investigating the world God has made. Abelard liked to cite St Paul: ‘What is known of God is manifest in them for God has manifested it unto them. The invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood from the things that are made.’ Abelard also liked to explain that the pagans, using natural law, which is in human reason, had gained a knowledge of God, even of the Trinity.87 To Abelard the natural law had also a moral connotation; reason and the natural law guided the philosophers to lead lives of abstinence and continence.88 In his Theologies Abelard illustrated the moral lives led by the pagan philosophers by means of many examples taken from Jerome’s Against Jovinian and Augustine’s City of God. Among them are examples of philosophers who promoted the well-­being of their fellow-­citizens by providing good government; other examples are of philosophers who withdrew from society and held the world in contempt.89 By their lives as much as by their teaching the philosophers gained a knowledge of God and came also to believe in 47

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r the Trinity, in the immortality of the soul and in eternal retribution.90 In his Historia calamitatum Abelard tells how Heloise sought to dissuade him from marriage by invoking the examples of ancient philosophers who renounced the pleasures of this world.91 Later, in establishing his school at the Oratory of the Paraclete at Quincey, Abelard compared his pupils to the philosophers of old whom Jerome described in Against Jovinian, men who gave up the comforts of life and forsook the distractions which impeded thought about God.92 As abbot of the monastery of St Gildas, in his Sermon on St John the Baptist, Abelard offered to monks the examples of the philosophers as well as of John himself: Socrates and Diogenes lived off little and held the world in contempt.93 Heloise openly compares monks and gentile philosophers.94 Abelard’s image of the wise man in times past embraces Jews as well as gentiles. Natural law was followed by both the patriarchs and the philosophers. Before the Law was granted to Moses, natural law was followed by Abel, Enoch, Noah and his sons, by the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot and Melchisedech.95 In his Theologia ‘Summi boni’ Abelard writes that the gentile Job attested faith in the immortality of the soul, even in the resurrection of the body, more clearly than all the prophets.96 The moral precepts of the Gospels are nothing other than a reform of the natural law which has been followed by the philosophers.97 The wisdom of gentile philosophy is close to that of Christianity. In his Soliloquy Abelard explores the links between Christian faith and philosophy.98 Abelard argues that the word ‘Christian’ comes from Christ; Christ is Wisdom or Sophia; therefore a Christian is a philosopher or lover of Sophia. Moreover, since Christ is the Word and the Word is Logos, Christians are logicians and therefore philosophers.99 These arguments are found also in the Invectiva in ignarum dialectices.100 Abelard in his own career exemplified the varieties of philosopher, being himself a logician, a teacher, a hermit, a theologian and a monk.

Interpreting the writings of the pagan philosophers Abelard made generous use of the writings of philosophers in his theological works, but the perspective in which he did so needs to be understood. Much of his knowledge of pagan philosophy came through the works of the Church Fathers. What Abelard knew of the teaching of the Platonists he found largely in the works of St Augustine.101 It was not confidence in reason alone which led him to seek in the works of the Platonists the doctrine of the Trinity. The philosophers, like the prophets, had received a divine revelation which was to be complete after the coming of Christ.102 There is harmony between evangelical and philosophical teaching.103 But the meaning of the teaching of the philosophers, like that of the prophets, is presented in fables.104 The doctrine of the Trinity can be found in the writings of the Platonists only by means of an exegesis like that used to understand the allegories in the Bible.105 In both philosophical and sacred writings we find symbols hidden in veils or myths 48

p e t e r a b e la r d (involucra); and these have to be interpreted in a mystical manner (mystice) in order to appreciate their multiple meanings. The surface of the letter (litterae superficies) is heavily charged with mysteria.106 But, when properly interpreted, Plato – maximus philosophorum – and his followers may be seen to have expressed the mystery of the Trinity (totius Trinitatis summam post prophetas patenter ediderunt).107 Christian teaching on the Son of God resembles the philosophers’ teaching on nous.108 The Platonic world soul (anima mundi) adumbrates Christian belief in the Holy Spirit.109

Abelard and moral philosophy Abelard discusses the relationship between revealed and philosophical teaching about goodness in a work entitled the Dialogue of the Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian. The differences of belief and opinion which the three participants express and debate reflect a division of history into three periods: the period of the natural law, when men used only reason to establish the moral law; the period of the written law which was given by Moses to the Jews; the period of grace inaugurated by Christ. The Philosopher claims that many people were content with the natural law before the handing down of the Law by Moses; natural law, which he calls ethics, consists in the love of God and neighbour. The Philosopher rejects the Jewish Law as an unnecessary extra burden to the natural law. His debate with the Christian concentrates on the nature of the supreme goodness as it is defined by pagan philosophers in ancient Greece and Rome and by Christian authors. Pagans have called the study of goodness ethics, Christians divinity.110 The Philosopher alleges that supreme goodness, as it is defined by Christians, is that which, when attained, makes one blessed, and supreme evil is that whose possession makes one wretched. But supreme goodness has also been defined as virtue or as pleasure by non-­Christian thinkers. These differences may be differences of terminology, if it is accepted that pleasure consists in an inner peace of the soul achieved through the practice of virtue, and also if blessedness results from being excellent in virtue.111 The Philosopher raises the question whether the supreme good or supreme evil for man may be attained in this or in a future life, that is, whether man may become better or worse in an afterlife. To this the Christian replies that the time for earning merit is in this life only; the time for receiving a reward is in the future life. Now is the time for planting, then the time for gathering. The Philosopher is persuaded by the Christian that the supreme good for man is the perpetual rest or joy which the meritorious receive in a life after death. What the Epicureans have called pleasure is the enjoyment of the kingdom of heaven according to the teaching of Christ. Supreme evil for man is the supreme misery or punishment received for one’s failings.112 But the Christian is not prepared to accept a definition of the supreme good or the supreme evil for man that reduces good and evil to rewards or penalties earned by man; rather, the supreme good or 49

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r the supreme evil for man is the supreme state of inner blessedness or inner wretchedness that man can achieve. The Christian defines this supreme blessedness or wretchedness in terms of what gains for man his eternal reward, namely man’s supreme love of God, or those faults committed by him which make him bad.113 The Philosopher and the Christian next discuss the nature of supreme goodness in itself. To the Christian the supreme good is God, who alone is properly and absolutely called the supreme good and whose supreme love is extended to us. No greater good can be found than God, and unless the supreme good is God the glory and the blessedness of God cannot be supreme. Beatitude for man is therefore the vision of God.114 The Philosopher finds this acceptable and observes that this view is not unknown to philosophers. Goodness in general is defined by the Christian as that which does not obstruct the advantage or benefit of anything; evil in general is that which does so obstruct. For this reason actions are morally neutral, that is, they are neither good nor bad, because an action in itself does not promote or obstruct goodness.115 Both the tyrant and the prince wield a sword; their act of using the sword is the same and it is morally indifferent, although the tyrant uses the sword evilly and for the sake of spreading violence, whereas the prince uses it well to punish wrongdoing. Doing good and doing wrong therefore mean acting well (that is, with a good intent) or acting evilly (that is, with an evil intent). By virtue of a difference of intention the same act may be done well or evilly. Two men may hang a criminal, one because he hates him, the other in the exercise of justice. The second acts well because of his right intention; the first acts unjustly, through not acting out of love of justice.116 What it is good or wrong to do is laid down by the command of God.117 In his work called the Ethics or Know Thyself Abelard explores in greater detail the role of intentions and of consent in determining morality.118 His teaching on actions is that they only come to be called right or wrong on account of the intention of their human agent. An action cannot increase a man’s merit or guilt, because no external, physical happening can profit or blemish a man’s soul. Only the intention to conform to the law of God can win merit for man, and only the knowing consent to committing a deliberate contempt of God incurs guilt.119 Sin lies neither in being tempted to do nor in doing what is wrong; it lies between these two moments, in consenting to the initial temptation.120 Abelard eliminates a series of definitions of sin: sin is not vice nor an evil will nor an evil desire nor concupiscence. All these are incitements to sin which may be resisted. Sin itself is yielding to what the mind knows to be wrong.121 Abelard emphasizes therefore the non-­substantiality of sin.122 What matters in morality is not what we do but why we do it, our intentions rather than our acts.123 It is the modality of actions that counts, whether, that is, they are done well or wrongly, for a good intention or an evil one. As in his discussions of logic (though without direct reference to them), Abelard refers the study of ethics away from the third branch of philosophy, 50

p e t e r a b e la r d namely, physics or the study of things, towards the realm of understanding. Consent is the pivot of morality, yet it is not a thing. For consent to be sinful a man has to know that it is evil to which he consents; likewise an intention only becomes good, and therefore capable of earning merit for man, if it is in conformity with divine law. Abelard chose the provocative example of the crucifixion of Christ to argue that those who put Christ to death did no wrong, for they believed they acted rightly.124

Conclusion Over a period of about forty years Abelard extended the range of his learning and thought. In his early studies of the arts of the trivium he explored the role of language in expressing truth and falsehood, and also the double relationship of language to things and to concepts. When he came to write on ethics he similarly explored the relationship between things (actions) and mental decisions and judgements about them. He criticized a form of realism which allowed that physical acts may be the carriers of goodness or evil, just as he criticized the view that physical utterances (words) may themselves convey general ideas. In his properly theological writings Abelard was similarly disposed towards non-­realism. In respect of the Trinity Abelard raised the question whether the three divine persons exist in re or in words only, and whether there are other ways of elucidating the three aspects of God than by speaking of three persons.125 In his account of the creation of the universe, he offered a partially non-­literal account of some of the content of the opening of Genesis, and he interpreted it as a text that conveys spiritual meaning to us as well as scientific lore.126 Discussing the redemption of mankind by Christ, Abelard questioned the view that the actions of Christ, and especially Christ’s physical suffering and death, themselves liberated mankind from the grip of the devil. He apparently favoured an alternative view, that Christ provided, through the example of his preaching and his humble love of man, an incitement to fallen man to desert the ways of sin.127 In one of his poems, the lament or Planctus on the death of Samson, Abelard likewise explored not so much the fact of Samson’s tragic death as the motives which led Samson to commit suicide.128 In his autobiography and in the correspondence which he shared with Heloise, much emphasis is laid on the distinction between the external realm of happenings and the inner realm of intentions and of motives, which alone lead to rewards or to punishments. In his exploration of the writings of the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome Abelard underlines the virtuous lives led by the philosophers themselves, the purity of their motives, the goodness of their intentions. The inner meaning of their words may often be found to be in close conformity with Christian teaching once the physical layer of their words is removed. Such a penetration beyond an actual text to its underlying purpose required the use of hermeneutics; intellection was always more important to Abelard than the raw data. 51

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Abelard encountered much criticism from his contemporaries, who complained of his novelty and his departures from tradition. Much criticism of his theology was well-­grounded. Yet Abelard always defended the integrity of his motives and of his Christian faith. In a Confession of his faith he admitted that logic had made him odious to the world, but he added: ‘I do not wish to be a philosopher if it means conflicting with Paul, nor to be an Aristotle if it cuts me off from Christ.’129 Abelard’s work clearly represents more than the culmination of the old logic, for he applied logic so widely in philosophy and theology.130 He exerted a strong influence as a teacher on his immediate pupils and followers, as well as upon his critics. Yet future generations of philosophers were not much aware of Abelard’s writings or ideas. The reasons for this still await elucidation.

Notes 1 Abelard, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, 19702, Introduction, pp. xx–xxi (Ulger); M. T. Beonio-­Brocchieri Fumagalli, The Logic of Peter Abelard, Dordrecht, 1969, pp. 38–39 (Vasletus). 2 ‘. . . diversas disputando provincias, ubicunque huius artis vigere studium audieram, peripateticorum emulator factus ­sum . . . P ­ erveni tandem Parisius, ubi jam maxime disciplina hec florere consueverat, ad Guillhelmum scilicet Campellensem preceptorem meum in hoc tunc magisterio re et fama precipuum’: Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 28–34. 3 ‘. . . cum primum adolescens admodum studiorum causa migrassem in Gallias, anno altero postquam illustris rex Anglorum Henricus, Leo iustitie, rebus excessit humanis, contuli me ad Peripateticum Palatinum, qui tunc in monte sancte Genovefe clarus doctor et admirabilis omnibus presidebat’: John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, II 10, ed. C. C. J. Webb, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929, pp. 77.31–78.4; see also p. 78.6–78.7. 4 Pietro Abelardo, Scritti filosofici, ed. M. Dal Pra, Rome-­Milan, Bocca, 1954 (Nuova biblioteca filosofica, ser. II, vol. 3).* 5 Peter Abaelard, Philosophische Schriften, I, ed. B. Geyer, Münster i.W., Aschendorff, 1919–27 (BGPTMA, XXI. 1–3). 6 Scritti filosofici, pp. xxvi–xxxvii. Dal Pra has edited these glosses here on pp. 205–330. 7 See L. Minio-­Paluello, Twelfth-Century Logic. Texts and Studies II. Abaelardiana Inedita. 1. Super Periermenias XII-XIV. 2. Sententie secundum M. Petrum, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958. The spurious section in the Milan MS was edited by Geyer, Philosophische Schriften, I, pp.  497.20–503.28. Minio-­Paluello corrects and completes Geyer’s edition.* 8 Dal Pra, Scritti filosofici, p. 271.38–39. Evidence for William’s teaching in logic is discussed by N. J. Green-­Pederson, ‘William of Champeaux on Boethius’ Topics according to Orleans Bibl. Mun. 266’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-­Age Grec et Latin, XIII (1974), pp.  13–30. See also two tracts edited by L. M. de Rijk, Logica Modernorum, 2 vols., Assen, Van Gorcum, 1962, 1967, II.I, pp. 130–139 (Introductiones secundum Wilgelmum) and pp. 139–145. Some sententiae of theology written by William have been edited by O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, V, Gembloux, J. Duculot, 1959, pp. 189–227. On some aspects of Abelard’s handling of William’s teaching and on his own changes of

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p e t e r a b e la r d viewpoint see N. J. Green-­Pederson, ‘The Doctrine of “Maxima Propositio” and “Locus Differentia” in Commentaries from the 12th Century on Boethius’ “Topics”, Studia Mediewistyczne, XVIII (1977), pp. 125–163. 9 Peter Abaelard, Philosophische Schriften, II, ed. B. Geyer, Münster i. W., Aschendorff, 1933, 19732 (BGPTMA, XXI.4). Geyer’s Untersuchungen into the texts he edited are to be found here on pp.  589–633, with Ergänzungen on pp. vi–viii of the second edition (19732). 10 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. xxi–xxiii. The dating of the supposed versions of the Dialectica is much debated. See further E. M. Buytaert in his general introduction to Abelard’s Opera theologica, I, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, XI), p. xxv, n. 45. C. Mews now suggests ca.1117: ‘On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard’, AHDLMA, LII (1985), pp. 73–134: 95–104. 11 Buytaert, introduction to Abelard’s Opera theologica, I, p. xxi; Mews, On Dating, pp. 92–93. 12 Sententie secundum M. Petrum, ed. Minio-­ Paluello, Twelfth-Century Logic, pp. 109–121. These Sentences may have been a part of a lost work on fallacies to which Abelard refers in his Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 448.3–4 (primus Fantasiarum nostrarum liber). See de Rijk. Logica Modernorum, I, pp. 109–112. 13 Ed. L. U. Ulivi, La psicologia di Abelardo e il “Tractatus de Intellectibus”, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1976; also Petri Abaelardi Opera, ed. V. Cousin, 2 vols., Paris, Aug. Durand, 1849, 1859 (reprinted, Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1970), II, pp. 733–753. Both these editors favour the attribution of the treatise to Abelard; Ulivi examines the possibility very thoroughly. 14 Glossae super librum Porphyrii secundum vocales, ed. C. Ottaviano, Un opusculo di Abelardo, Florence, L. S. Olschki, 1933 (Testi medioevali inediti, Fontes Ambrosiani, III), pp.  106–207. Extracts were edited by Geyer, Philosophische Schriften, II, pp.  581–588. Geyer (pp.  610–612) notes the close similarities between these Glosses and those found in Abelard’s Logica, but concludes that they are a compilation by a follower of Abelard. C. J. Mews presents new arguments in favour of Abelard’s authorship in ‘A Neglected Gloss on the “Isagoge” by Peter Abelard’, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, XXXI (1984), pp. 35–55. The gloss Secundum vocales is found in the same Milan MS which contains the Ingredientibus glosses (on fols. 72v–81v). 15 ‘Est autem logica Tulli auctoritate diligens ratio disserendi, idest discretio argumentorum, per quae disseritur, id est disputatur. Non enim est logica scientia utendi argumentis sive componendi ea, sed discernendi et diiudicandi veraciter de eis, quare scilicet haec valeant, illa infirma sint’, Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’ ed. Geyer, Philosophische Schriften, II, p. 506.24–8. 16 Ibidem, p. 508.10–15. 17 ‘Magis enim eos qui logice deservire student, de rebus ipsis propter nomina quam de nominibus propter res agere decet’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 73.3–5. Fundamental to an understanding of Abelard as a student of language is the brilliant book of J. Jolivet, Arts du langage et théologie chez Abélard, Paris, J. Vrin, 19822 (Études de philosophie médiévale, 57). 18 ‘Hoc autem logice discipline proprium relinquitur, ut scilicet vocum impositiones pensando quantum unaquaque proponatur oratione sive dictione discutiat. Phisice vero proprium est inquirere utrum rei natura consentiat enuntiationi, utrum ita sese, ut dicitur, rerum proprietas habeat vel non. Est autem alterius consideratio alteri necessaria. Ut enim logice discipulis appareat quid in singulis intelligendum sit vocabulis, prius rerum proprietas est investiganda. Sed cum ab his rerum natura non pro se sed pro vocum impositione requiritur, tota eorum intentio referenda est ad logicam. Cum autem rerum natura percontata fuerit,

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r vocum significatio secundum rerum proprietates distinguenda est, prius quidem in singulis dictionibus, deinde in orationibus, que ex dictionibus iunguntur et ex ipsis suos sensus sortiuntur. Neque enim absque partium discretione composita perfectio cognosci potest’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 286.31–287.5. 19 I have followed here the clear analysis of L. M. de Rijk in his introduction to Dialectica, pp. xxiii–xxv. 20 ‘Nomina enim et verba duplicem significationem habent, unam quidem de rebus, alteram de intellectibus. Res enim significant constituendo intellectum ad eas pertinentem, hoc est naturam aliquam earum vel proprietatem attendentem. Intellectum quoque designare dicuntur, sive is sit intellectus proferentis vocem sive audientis eam. Nam intellectum proferentis in eo significare vox dicitur, quod ipsum auditori manifestat, dum consimilem in auditore generat’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, pp. 307.26–308.1. 21 ‘Cum enim voces duplicem habeant significationem, de rebus scilicet et de intellectibus res intellectibus naturaliter priores sunt; prius enim in rerum natura oportet constare, quod possit intellectus concipere, et qui vocabulum invenit, prius rei naturam consideravit, ad quam demonstrandam nomen imposuit. Intellectus itaque, qui rei naturam sequi debent naturaliter posteriores sunt, res vero priores. Quantum tamen ad causam impositionis nominis prima et principalis significatio intellectus dicitur, quia scilicet ideo tantum vocabulum rei datum est, ut intellectum constituat. Sed cum sit in causa impositionis nominum significatio intellectus prior, ipse tamen intellectus in natura suae substantiae naturaliter posterior est. Unde bene quantum etiam ad significationem rerum, quae naturaliter priores sunt intellectibus, primae quoque voces hic dicuntur’, ibidem, pp. 112.31–113.3. 22 Ibidem, pp. 365.13–370.22; Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 157.13–160.36. 23 ‘Sicut ergo nomina et verba duplicem significationem habent, rerum scilicet vel intellectuum concedimus duplicem esse propositionum, secundum intellectus scilicet compositos ex intellectibus partium et dicta eorum, quae sunt quasi res propositionum, cum tamen nullae penitus essentiae sint’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 367.9–13. Cf. Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 154.20–3. 24 ‘Et est profecto ita in re, sicut dicit vera propositio, sed non est res aliqua quod dicit. Unde quasi quidam rerum modus habendi se per propositiones exprimitur, non res alique designantur’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 160.33–6. ‘Socratem sedere et non sedere, quae sunt dicta propositionum, licet non sint aliquae essentiae’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 257.5–6. 25 Cf. L. M. de Rijk, ‘La signification de la proposition (Dictum Propositionis) chez Abélard’, in Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 547–555; G. Nuchelmans, Theories of the Proposition. Ancient and Medieval Conceptions of the Bearers of Truth and Falsity, Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing Company, 1973 (North Holland Linguistic Series, 8), pp. 150f. On the use of res by Abelard see J. Jolivet, ‘Notes de lexicographie abélardienne’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 531–545, at pp. 534–538. Abelard sometimes means by res a (physical) thing and sometimes what is signified (in language) by a proposition or word. It proved difficult for him to separate reality completely from the understanding of it as conveyed in language. See A. de Libera, ‘Abélard et le dictisme’, in Abélard. Actes du Colloque de Neuchâtel, 16–17 novembre 1979. Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, VI (1981), pp. 59–97. 26 ‘Omnibus enim rebus destructis incommutabilem consecutionem tenet huiusmodi sequentia: “si est homo, est animal”, et quecumque vere sunt consequentie, vere sunt ab eterno ac necessarie’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, 1970, p.  160.17–21; ‘cum omnes vere consequentie ab eterno sint vere, antequam etiam res earum

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p e t e r a b e la r d create essent’, ibidem, pp. 264.38–265.1; cf. also ibidem, pp. 278.9–16, 279.13–26, 282.25–9. Abelard devotes considerable attention to the study of topics. He defines a topic or locus as vis inferentie, from which a hypothetical proposition gets its validity. See Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 253–466; and Super topica glossae, ed. Dal Pra, Scritti filosofici, pp. 205–330. On the importance and originality of Abelard’s search for logically necessary rules see the articles by O. Bird, ‘The Logical Interest of the Topics as Seen in Abelard’, Modern Schoolman, XXXVII (1959), pp.  53–57; ‘The Formalizing of the Topics in Mediaeval Logic’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, I (1960), pp.  138–149; ‘The Tradition of the Logical Topics: Aristotle to Ockham’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIII (1962), pp. 307–323. 27 Important on this are the studies of N. Kretzmann, ‘The Culmination of the Old Logic in Peter Abelard’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. L. Benson and G. Constable with C. D. Lanham, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, pp. 488–511; K. Jacobi, ‘Peter Abelard’s Investigations into the Meaning and Functions of the Speech Sign “Est”’, in The Logic of Being. Historical Studies, ed. S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka, Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1985 (Synthese Historical Library, 28), pp.  145–180. Also K. Jacobi, ‘Diskussionen über Prädikationstheorie in den logischen Schriften des Petrus Abailardus, Versuch einer Űbersicht’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 165–179; ‘Die Semantik sprachlicher Ausdrücke, Ausdrucksfolgen und Aussagen in Abailards Kommentar zu Peri hermeneias’, Medioevo, VII (1981), pp.  41–89; ‘Abelard and Frege: the Semantics of Words and Propositions’, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Storia della Logica, San Gimignano, 4–8 dicembre 1982, ed. V. M. Abrusci and others, Bologna, Editrice CLUEB, 1983, pp. 81–96; ‘Diskussionen über unpersönliche Aussage in Peter Abaelards Kommentar zu Peri Hermeneias’, in Medieval Semantics and Metaphysics. Studies dedicated to L. M. de Rijk, Ph. D. on the occasion of his 60th birthday, ed. E. P. Bos, Nijmegen, Ingenium, 1985 (Artistarium Supplementa, II), pp. 1–63. 28 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 9.19. 29 ‘Singuli homines discreti ab invicem cum in propriis differant tam essentiis quam ­formis . . . i­n eo tamen conveniunt, quod homines sunt. Non dico in homine, cum res nulla sit homo nisi discreta, sed in esse hominem. Esse autem hominem non est homo nec res a­ liqua . . . ­in ­re . . . ­nulla possit esse convenientia’, ibidem, p. 19.21–30. 30 ‘Statum autem hominis ipsum esse hominem, quod non est res, vocamus, quod etiam diximus communem causam impositionis nominis ad singulos, secundum quod ipsi ad invicem convenient’, ibidem, p. 20.7–9. For a comparison of Abelard’s understanding of status with his understanding of the dicta of propositions, see M. M. Tweedale, Abailard on Universals, Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing Company, 1976, ch. 5. 31 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, pp. 21.27–22.6. Cf. also Logica ‘Nostrorum’, ed. Geyer (19732), pp. 524.35–527.7. The somewhat ambivalent position of Abelard was noted by B. Geyer in a study of abiding value, Die Stellung Abaelards in der Universalienfrage nach neuen handschriftlichen Texten Münster i. W., Aschendorff, 1913 (BGPTM, Supplementband, 1), pp. 101–127. Of value among more recent studies is C. Wenin, ‘La signification des universaux chez Abélard’, Revue Philosophique de Louvain, LXXX (1982), pp. 414–448. 32 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p.  10.17–25. We are reminded of Abelard’s account of the first position adopted by William of Champeaux in his dispute with Abelard, as narrated in the Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 85–89: ‘Erat autem in ea sententia de communitate universalium, ut eamdem essentialiter

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r rem totam simul singulis suis inesse astrueret individuis, quorum quidem nulla esset in essentia diversitas sed sola multitudine accidentium varietas’. 33 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, pp. 10.23–11.9. 34 Ibidem, p. 11.11. 35 Ibidem, pp. 11.10–13.17. 36 ‘. . . manifestum est eam penitus sententiam ratione carere qua dicitur eandem penitus essentiam in diversis simul consistere’, ibidem, p. 13.15–17. 37 Ibidem, pp. 13.18–14.6. This reminds us of Abelard’s report of the revised teaching of William of Champeaux, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 89–91: ‘Sic autem istam tunc suam correxit sententiam, ut deinceps rem eamdem non essentialiter sed indifferenter diceret’. 38 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 14.7–17, pp. 14.32–15.22. 39 Ibidem, p.  14.18–31, pp.  15.23–16.18; Tweedale, Abailard on Universals, pp. 113–127, calls these two doctrines the collection theory and the identity theory. 40 ‘Nunc autem ostensis rationibus quibus neque res singillatim neque collectim acceptae universales dici possunt in eo quod de pluribus praedicantur, restat ut huiusmodi universalitatem solis vocibus adscribamus’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 16.19–22. 41 Logica ‘Nostrorum’, ed. Geyer, pp. 512.19f. 42 Ibidem, pp. 515.14–518.8. 43 Ibidem, pp. 518.9–522.9. 44 Ibidem, pp. 522.10–524.10. 45 Ibidem, p. 522.28-­31. 46 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 24.29–30. 47 See on this W. L. Gombocz, ‘Abaelards Bedeutungslehre als Schlüssel zum Universalien-­problem’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 153–164. 48 Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, pp. 22.25–24.31. 49 See n. 29. 50 Cf. L. M. de Rijk, ‘The Semantical Impact of Abailard’s Solution of the Problem of Universals’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 139–151: 144–145. 51 ‘. . . rem in essentia ­significant . . . ­in eo statu essentiae qui naturaliter aliis prior est, eam significant. Omnis enim res in essentia sua prius subsistit, quam a subiecto suscipiatur’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 113.5–8. 52 See J. Jolivet, ‘Notes de lexicographie abélardienne’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp.  531–543, at pp.  538–543. Jolivet brings together a remarkable selection of passages from Abelard’s writings, e.g. ‘universalia, quae licet confusae significationis sint, quantum ad nominatas essentias, ad communem illam conceptionem status dirigunt animum auditoris’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p.  23.27–9. Also: ‘(Nomen substantia) ­habet . . . ­in rebus duas consuetas significationes, quia modo pro omni essentia sumitur iuxta illud Prisciani: “Significans substantiam cum qualitate”, modo pro illis tantum essentiis quae per se subsistunt, nulli scilicet subiectae materiae adhaerentes ut formae eorum’, ibidem, p. 140.5–9. 53 ‘Solvens ita: genera et species quaedam, non omnia in sensibilibus sunt posita, hoc est sensibilia habent appellare vel nominare, et ponuntur extra sensibilia, id est res habent significare et non cum aliqua forma quae sensui subiaceat, quia si res omnes formas sensui subiacent, amitterent, non ideo minus a genere et specie nominari possent. Sunt igitur genera et species in sensibilibus posita per appellationem, extra vero per significationem’, Logica ‘Nostrorum’, ed. Geyer, p.  527.23–29. Cf. Gombocz, ‘Abaelards Bedeutungslehre’, p.  160; de Rijk, ‘Semantical Impact’, pp. 145–146. 54 See de Rijk in his introduction to Dialectica, pp. xcviif.

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p e t e r a b e la r d 55 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 469–471. Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II, ed. H. Ostlender, Münster i. W., Aschendorff, 1939 (BGPTMA, xxxv. 2/3), pp.  28–36. Theologia Christiana, III 4–55, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, XII), pp.  195–218; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II, 2 (PL CLXXVIII, 1040–1046). On the versions of the Theologia (Theologia ‘Summi boni’, Theologia Christiana, Theologia ‘Scholarium’) see Buytaert, Opera theologica, I, pp. xiv–xviii; also C. J. Mews, ‘Peter Abelard’s Theologia Christiana and Theologia ‘Scholarium’ re-­examined’, RTAM LII (1985), pp. 109–158. The preparation of these versions extends over a long period. 56 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 82–83, ll. 690–700. 57 ‘Those who attack our f­aith . . . ­assail us above all with philosophical reasonings. It is those reasonings which we have principally enquired into and I believe that no one can fully understand them without applying himself to philosophical and especially to dialectical studies’, Theologia ‘Summi boni’, III, 5, ed. Ostlender, pp. 107.32–108.5. 58 Cf. ibidem, II, introduction, p. 36.1–3. 59 Ibidem, II 3, pp.  47–52. On substance and God see too Tchr, III 119–124; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 10 (P.L. 178, 1059B–I062A). 60 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 3, ed. Ostlender, pp.  52–53; Tchr, III, 44, 126–128; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II, 10 (PL CLXXVIII, 1062A–1063A). 61 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II, 4 ed. Ostlender, p. 54.20–6. The six modes are reduced to five in the Theologia Christiana, III 138–164 ed. Buytaert, pp. 247–255. Later Abelard reduces them to three in his Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 12 (PL 178, 1065A). 62 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4 ed. Ostlender, pp. 54.27–55.5. 63 Ibidem, II 4, p.  55.6–25 (and see the references to the Logica there cited). But identity of essence is seen as identity of number in Tchr, III, 139, and in Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 12 (PL 178, l065A). 64 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp.  55.26–56.26. Cf. Tchr, III, 142–144; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 12: ‘proprietate autem seu definitione idem’ (PL 178, 1065A). 65 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ II 4. ed. Ostlender, p.  56.26–31. Cf. Tchr, III, 145; Theologia ‘Scholarium’ II 12 (PL 178, 1065A). 66 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, p. 56.32–5. Cf. Tchr, III, 146. 67 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, p. 57.1–4. 68 Ibidem, II 4, p. 57.10–26. Cf. Tchr, III, 148. 69 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp. 57.27–59.5. Cf. Tchr, III, 149–153. 70 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp. 59.6–60.16. Cf. Tchr, III, 154–158. 71 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ II 4, ed. Ostlender, p. 60.17–18. Cf. Tchr, III, 159. 72 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, p. 60.19–21. Cf. Tchr, III, 160. 73 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp. 60.22–61. 13. This disappears in Tchr, III, 147. 74 Theologia Summi boni, II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp. 61.14–62.8. Cf. Tchr, III, 164. 75 ‘Sunt autem ab invicem diversae personae, id est pater et filius et spiritus sanctus, ad similitudinem eorum quae diversa sunt secundum diffinitiones, eo videlicet quod, cum eadem penitus essentia sit pater, quae est filius, vel spiritus sanctus, aliud tamen proprium est patris, in eo scilicet quod pater est, et aliud filii, et aliud spiritus sancti’, Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 4, ed. Ostlender, p. 61.19–24. Cf. Tchr, III, 164. 76 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ , II 4, ed. Ostlender, pp. 56, 58, 61; Tchr, III, 139, 140, 143, 153, 164. 77 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, III 2, ed. Ostlender, pp.  86–93. Cf. Tchr, IV, 82-­115; Theologia ‘Scholarium, II 13 (PL 178, 1067–71).

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 78 ‘. . . in deo nullum propriam inventionem vocabulum servare videtur, sed omnia quae de eo dicuntur, translationibus et parabolicis aenigmatibus involuta sunt et per similitudinem aliquam vestigantur ex parte aliqua inductam, ut aliquid de illa ineffabili maiestate suspicando potius quam intelligendo degustemus’, Theologia ‘Summi boni, II 3, ed. Ostlender, p. 53.5–10. In Latin rhetorical treatises translationes is a normal word for ‘metaphors’. 79 On the notion of person see Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II 5, ed. Ostlender, pp. 63–64; Tchr, III, 176–182; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 12 (PL 178, 1067BC). 80 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, III 2, ed. Ostlender, pp.  89.30–90.6. Abelard’s discussions of analogies are in part prompted by reflections on the use of analogies by Anselm of Canterbury; cf. D. E. Luscombe, ‘St Anselm and Abelard, Anselm Studies, 1 (1983), pp. 207–229. 81 Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II 13–15 (PL 178, 1068C-­1070B, 1073B–5A). 82 Theologia ‘Summi boni , II 2, III 2, ed. Ostlender, pp. 43.18–19, 94.24–6. 83 Ibidem, III 2, ed. Ostlender, pp. 96.23f. 84 Ibidem, III 5, ed. Ostlender, p. 107. 85 Sic et Non, ed. B. B. Boyer and R. McKeon, Chicago-­London, The University of Chicago Press, 1976–1977. See also Jolivet, Arts du langage, pp. 238–251. 86 Logica ‘Nostrorum’, ed. Geyer 1973, p.  506; Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 1. 87 ‘Quod notum est Dei manifestum est in illis: Deus enim illis manifestavit. Invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur, Romans 1: 19–20. Also: ‘gentes, quae legem non habent, naturaliter ea, quae legis sunt, faciunt’, Romans 2: 14. Cf. Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I 5, III 5, ed. Ostlender, pp. 11, 107.21. Also Tchr, I, 54, 58, II 6, 12–13, 19–21, IV, 85,159. ‘. . . ipse perhibet Apostolus Deum sui notitiam reprobis quoque contulisse, iuxta quod ad Romanos scribens, inexcusabilem omnem hominem esse convincit et de contemptu sui conditoris arguendum, cum eius notitiam lex ipsa naturalis, quae in ratione consistit, etiam sine scripto in ipsa operum eius exhibitionem omnibus afferret’, Tchr , V, 4. Cf. Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 15 (PL CLXXVIII, 1004D–1006A, 1007B; II, 1 (1037CD, 1039BC); III, 1 (1086D, 1087A); III, 18 (1085AB). See too Abelard’s Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, I, 19–20: the gentiles knew God without the aid of revelation (sine scripto) but by the use of reason (which is the natural law) and by knowledge of his visible works. Gentile philosophers, as the Christian Fathers have shown, found much evidence of the divine Trinity in the works of God which exhibit the divine power, wisdom, and loving kindness. However, the mystery of the divine Incarnation could not be discovered by human reason from the study of God’s works. Ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, I, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, XI), pp. 67–68. 88 ‘Quis itaque non attendat quantum in omni gente semper Deo accepta fuerit carnis integritas, et continentia ­vitae . . . ­Et quid mirum, cum hoc illis continentia vitae contulerit, si magna apud Deum promeruerit tanta philosophorum abstinentia et continentia, cum haec tanto laudabiliora in eis videantur et maiori reputanda merito, quanto minus ad haec aliorum praedicatione vel exemplis incitati sunt, sed propria ratione et naturali legis instructione commoti’, Tchr, II, 108. 89 Tchr, II, 43–115. J. Jolivet, ‘Doctrines et figures de philosophes chez Abélard’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed Thomas, pp. 103–120. 90 ‘Quod si post fidem ac moralem doctrinam philosophorum finemque seu intentionem recte vivendi ab eis assignatum, vitam quoque ipsorum inspiciamus, et quam diligenter rei publicae statum instituerint atque ipsorum civium simulque conviventium vitam ordinaverint, reperiemus ipsorum tam vitam quam doctrinam maxime evangelicam seu apostolicam perfectionem exprimere, et a religione

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p e t e r a b e la r d Christiana eos nihil aut parum recedere. Qui nobis tam rationibus morum quam nomine ipso iunctissimi reperiuntur: nomine quidem cum nos a vera sophia, hoc est sapientia Dei Patris quae Christus est, Christiani dicamur, vere in hoc dicendi philosophi, si vere Christum diligimus; fide quoque et spe morumque et honestatis rationibus secundum caritatis libertatem qui in gratia vocati sumus, non secundum servitutem Iudaicam ex timore poenarum et ambitionc terrenorum, non ex desiderio aeternorum, nobis plurimum philosophos certum est assentire, Quibus, ut diximus, et fides Trinitatis revelata est et ab ipsis praedicata, et spes immortalitatis animae et aeternae retributionis exspectata’, Tchr, II, 43. Cf. ibidem, II, 65. Also Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 6, ed. Ostlcnder, p. 24; and ibidem, II, p. 33: ‘Quod nec ipsos latuit philosophos, qui notitiam dei non ratiocinando, sed bene vivendo acquirendam censebant et ad eam moribus potius quam verbis intendendum esse suadebant’. 91 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 425–558. Cf. Tchr, II, 67, 87, 96–101; and also P. Delhaye, ‘Le dossier antimatrimonial de l’Adversus Jovinianum et son influence sur quelques écrits latins du XIIe siècle’, Mediaeval Studies, XIII (1951), pp. 65–86. 92 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1038–119. Cf. Tchr, II, 61–63, 67, 69. 93 Sermo XXXIII (PL CLXXVIII, 582–607, esp. 591C–592B). See D. E. Luscombe, ‘Pierre Abélard et le monachisme’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 271–278; J. Leclercq, ‘“Ad ipsam sophiam Christum”. Le témoignage monastique d’Abélard’, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, XLVI (1970), pp. 161–181. 94 ‘. . . apud nos vero m ­ onachi . . . ­apud gentiles autem, . . . philosophi’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 506–509. 95 Petrus Abaelardus, Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum, ed. R. Thomas, Stuttgart-­ Bad Cannstatt, Friedrich Fromann Verlag (Günther Holzboog), 1970, pp. 53–54. Peter Abelard, A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, trans. P. J. Payer, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979 (Mediaeval Sources in Translation, xx), pp.  36–37. The Dialogue may have been written between 1135 and 1139, but an earlier date has been suggested by Mews, On Dating, pp. 104f. 96 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 6, ed. Ostlender, pp. 24.35–25.3. 97 ‘. . . si enim diligenter moralia evangelii praecepta consideremus, nihil ea aliud quam reformationem legis naturalis inveniemus, quam secutos esse philosophos constat’, Tchr, II, 44. 98 PL CLXXVIII, 1876C–1880A; new ed. by C. S. F. Burnett, ‘Peter Abelard, Soliloquium’, Studi Medievali, ser. 3a, XXV (1984), pp.  857–894, In the Soliloquium Abelard refers to his (now lost) Exhortatio ad fratres et commonachos nostros: ‘Quam quidem Exhortationem quisque legerit, videbit philosophos non tam nomine quam re ipsa Christianis maxime sociatos’, PL CLXXVIII, 1878A and ed. Burnett, pp. 888f. 99 Soliloquium, PL CLXXVIII, 1878AB and ed. Burnett, p, 889. 100 Epistola XIII, ed. E. R Smits, in Peter Abelard. Letters IX–XIV, An Edition with an Introduction, Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen, 1983, pp. 271–277, at ll. 97–128; also PL CLXXVIII, 351–356: 355. Smits discusses the content of this letter on pp. 172–188 and suggests that it may have been written when Abelard was Abbot of St Gildas or shortly afterwards. 101 Tchr, II, 12; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II, 1 (PL CLXXVIII, 1039AB). See T. Gregory, ‘Abélard et Platon’, in Peter Abelard. Proceedings of the International Conference Louvain, May 10–12, 1971, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1974 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, ser. I/Studia II), pp. 38–64. 102 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ I, ed. Ostlender, p, 24: ‘Cum itaquc dominus et per

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r prophetas Iudaeis et per praestantes philosophos seu vates gentibus catholicae fidei tenorem annuntiaverit . . .’, Tchr, I, 136; cf. also Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 25 (PL CLXXVIII, 1034C); ‘hanc Trinitatis distinctionem omnibus ­annuntiatam . . . ­quam quidem divina inspiratio et per prophetas Judaeis, et per philosophos gentibus dignata est revelare, ut utrumquc populum ad cultum unius Dei ipsa summi boni perfectio agnita ­invitaret . . . ­et facilius haec fides Trinitatis tempore gratiae susciperetur ab utroque populo, cum eam a doctoribus quoque antiquis viderent esse traditam’, Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 12 (PL CLXXVIII, 998BC). Cf. Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 2, ed. Ostlender, p. 4; Tchr, I, 7. In the Tchr Abelard writes: ‘hanc divinae Trinitatis distinctionem non a Christo inceptam, sed ab ipso apertius ac diligentius traditam esse . . .’. 103 ‘. . . evangelicae ac philosophicae doctrinae concordia’, Tchr, II, 44. 104 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 5, ed. Ostlender, p.  14.22f; Tchr, I, 103f; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 19–20 (PL CLXXVIII, 1022B f). 105 Tchr, II, 15–16. 106 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 5, ed. Ostlender, pp.  13–14: ‘Hoc quippe loquendi genus (sc. involucri figura) philosophis sicut prophetis familiarissimum est, ut videlicet, cum ad arcana prophetiae pervenerint, nihil vulgaribus verbis efferant, sed comparationibus similitudinum lectorem magis alliciant. Quae enim quasi fabulosa antea videbantur et ab omni utilitate remota secundum litterae superficiem, gratiora sunt, cum magnis plena mysteriis postmodum reperta magnam in se doctrinae continent aedificationem’. Cf. Tchr, I, 98; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 19 (PL CLXXVIII, 1021C). On the notion of involucrum or integumentum in the twelfth century see also E. Jeauneau, ‘L’usage de la notion d’integumentum à travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches’, AHDLMA, XXIV (1957), pp.  35–100 (repr. in E. Jeauneau, Lectio Philosophorum. Recherches sur l’École de Chartres, Amsterdam, A. M. Hakkert, 1973, pp. 125–192); P. Dronke, Fabula. Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism, Leiden-­Cologne, Brill, 1974 (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 9) pp. 55–67. 107 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 5, ed. Ostlender, p.  13; Tchr, I, 68; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 17 (PL CLXXVIII, 1012CD). 108 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 5, ed. Ostlender, pp.  12–13; Tchr, I, 68; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 16 (PL CLXXVIII, 1009C–1012C). 109 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, I, 5–6, ed. Ostlender, pp. 13–20; Tchr, I, 69–96; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, I, 17 (PL CLXXVIII, 1013B–1021C). 110 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 88–89; cf. pp. 44 and 53; trans. Payer, p. 76; cf. pp. 24 and 36. Cf. also M. de Gandillac, Le Dialogue, in Abélard. Actes du Colloque de Neuchâtel, pp.  3–20. On the Philosopher see Peter Abelard’s Ethics, ed. and trans. D. E. Luscombe, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971, (Oxford Medieval Texts), p. xxxv, n. 6 and the references there cited. 111 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 98–99; trans. Payer, pp. 88–90. 112 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 100–106; trans. Payer, pp. 91–97. 113 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 132–133; trans. Payer, p. 129. 114 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, p. 138; trans. Payer, p. 135. 115 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 160–161; trans. Payer, pp. 158–159. 116 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 163–165; trans. Payer, pp. 161–162. 117 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 170–171; trans. Payer, pp. 168–169. 118 Ethics, ed. Luscombe pp. 22–25, 46–49. The Ethics was probably written between 1135 and 1139. Of great value to the study of Abelard’s moral teaching are R. Blomme, La doctrine du péché dans les écoles théologiques de la première moitié du Xlle siècle, Louvain, Publications universitaires de Louvain, 1958 (Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis. Dissertationes ad gradum magistri in Facultate

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p e t e r a b e la r d Theologica vel in Facultate Iuris Canonici consequendum conscriptae, ser. 3, t. 6), Pt II, pp. 101–294; O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, 6 vols., Louvain-­Gembloux, J. Duculot, 1942–1960, and P. Anciaux, La théologie du sacrement de pénitence au XIIe siècle, Louvain-­Gembloux, E. Nauwelaerts, 1949 (Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis. Dissertationes ad gradum magistri in Facultate Theologica vel in Facultate Iuris Canonici consequendum conscriptae, ser. 2, t. 41), pp. 66–67, 286–292. 119 Ethics, ed. Luscombe, pp. 52–57. 120 Ibidem, pp. 4–7. 121 Ibidem, pp. 2–17. 122 ‘Cum itaque peccatum diffinimus abnegative, dicentes scilicet non facere vel non dimittere quod convenit, patenter ostendimus nullam esse substantiam peccati quod in non esse potius quam esse subsistat, veluti si tenebras diffinientes dicamus absentiam lucis ubi lux habuit esse’, ibidem, pp. 6–7. Abelard’s dismissal of the significance in ethics of actions reminds one of his dismissal of the view that verbal utterances and status and dicta are things: ‘A man is hanged on account of a theft he performed which is now nothing and a man dies because he does not eat and is damned because he does not act rightly, yet not eating and not acting rightly are not things (non sunt essentiae aliquae)’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, ed. Geyer, p. 369.3–6. 123 ‘Non enim quae fiunt, sed quo animo fiant pensat Deus, nec in opere sed in intentione meritum operantis vel laus consistit’, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 28. 124 Ibidem, pp. 54–57. 125 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, II, 2, III, 1, ed. Ostlender, pp. 42, 67; Tchr, IV, 1–6. To some extent Abelard’s question whether the divine substance is present in three divine persons is similar to the question he faced as a logician as to whether a universal may be present in a number of individuals which belong to a species or genus. 126 PL CLXXVIII, 729–784. 127 Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ed. Buytaert, pp. 113–118. See R. E. Weingart, The Logic of Divine Love: A Critical Analysis of the Soteriology of Peter Abelard, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970. 128 PL CLXXVIII, 1820–1821. Cf. P. Dronke, Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages: New Departures in Poetry, 1000–1150, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970; London, Westfield College, 19862 (Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies, 1), ch. 4. 129 ‘Nolo sic esse philosophus, ut recalcritem Paulo. Non sic esse Aristoteles, ut secludar a Christo’, PL CLXXVIII, 375–378: 375. 130 On ‘the culmination of the old logic’ see Kretzmann, The Culmination of the Old Logic; also M. M. Tweedale, Abelard and the culmination of the old logic, in ‘CHLMP’, pp. 143–157.

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3 NATURE IN THE THOUGHT OF PETER ABELARD

As far as I am aware, Peter Abelard’s thought on nature has not been properly assessed and this Congress offers a convenient occasion, not to examine exhaustively every meaning given to the word nature by Abelard nor to place Abelard’s thought on nature in the context of twelfth-­century thought as a whole, but, rather more simply, to outline what appear to me to be the broader features of Abelard’s idea of nature.* I shall strictly limit myself to Abelard’s thought alone, without discussion of its sources in the past or of its significance in the twelfth century. I hope, however, that I shall be of some service to those who search for a synoptic view of naturalistic thinking in the medieval period and especially in the twelfth century, and I hope still more that I shall promote a better understanding of Abelard’s attitude to nature, the world, man and reason. In his Commentary on the Hexameron Abelard tells us that at the time of the creation a certain force, vis quaedam, was granted to what was then created. This was the force of nature, vis naturae, which was bestowed upon creation once and for all time. This force is also a capacity, facultas, by which the things created during the six days were made capable of development and especially of multiplication.1 The writer of the Book of Genesis tells us that the earth germinated even before the creation of the sun.2 Abelard attributes this germination to the workings of the vis naturae in its original freshness and strength.3 There is a natural process at work in the world, a pattern of causes and effects, as, for example, in the influence of the stars upon the climate of the earth. By the study of the stars we can predict the course of natural events,4 for astronomy is a species of the philosophy of the nature of things. This is not to say that we can also predict events contingent upon the human free will.5 But there is a determinism in the work of nature; if God interfered with this He would be acting contra naturam, because the force of nature has now been substituted for the divine will in the sense that nature preserves and continues the original work of the Creator.6 Nature is consequently an opifex, an operator. When a chicken is hatched, it is nature which supplies the power (affectus) which the mother bird herself lacks. And in the procreation of the human race, the development of the 63

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r substance and of the forma humanitatis of a child from the seed provided by man is the work of nature, the opifex.7 In this way, nature, the power imparted to creation by God, develops the work inaugurated by God. Abelard does not confuse nature with God, for nature is a work of God. Nonetheless, Abelard can without any confusion describe the work of nature as the work of God.8 On one occasion Abelard speaks in Platonic terms of nature as the effects of the conceptions or reasons which exist in the mind of God.9 More usually he refers to nature as a force which has been created, but the idea of the rationality of nature, which is implied in the Platonic passage, recurs elsewhere. Nature behaves rationally; reason is a dominant feature of nature, so much so that Abelard even seems to say, in his Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, that nature is itself a rational substance.10 So, not only is the work of nature the work of God; it is also rational. Moreover, it shares in the very excellence of God. It is well known that Abelard believed that this world is the best of all possible worlds. In his hymn Universorum conditor Abelard praises creation: Fit ergo mundus optimus, / Ac perfectus in omnibus; / Fit pondere, / mensura, numero, / Ne vacillet / in quoquam ratio. And then in a more Platonic vein: Opus dignum opifice, / Pulchrum, indissolubile, / Ad exemplar / fit perfectissimum, / Instar cuncta / concludens optimum.11 The world displays correspondences and similarities between the Creator and His creation; it witnesses to God.12 In the words of the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’.13 Above all, the construction and the workings of the world are characterized by rationality.14 The reason which is at work in the world belongs to, and comes from, the summum bonum. This reason has been variously called the anima mundi, the natura rerum and God.15 As with nature in the world, so too with the nature of man: from the act of creation, ex sua creatione or ex natura, man possesses reason and is guided by reason in the form of the natural law.16 By this natural law man is enabled to do two things. First, he can, by the use of his reason, know God from the evidence of creation. Secondly, he can distinguish good from evil.17 Rationality, therefore, belongs both to the nature of man and to nature in the world. Abelard’s well-­known esteem for the power of the human reason and for the intellectual achievements of the ancient pagan philosophers18 must, I think, be related to his other emphases upon both the supreme reasonableness of God Himself and the consequent rationality and perfection of the world and of nature. When Abelard writes that the natural law, the law of nature, is reason,19 he is in effect affirming that the natural is rational and the rational is natural. I stated above that Abelard emphasizes that nature is dependent upon God and was created by Him. The work of nature is the work of God. In the same sense the law of nature, which is found in the reason of men, is also God-­ given. It would be quite wrong to claim that Abelard’s lengthy boasting of the religious discoveries which the ancient philosophers made without the aid 64

n at u r e i n t h e t h o u g h t o f p e t e r a b e la r d of Biblical revelation were a denigration or criticism of revelation as such. For Abelard natural law itself is a divine revelation to man and is part of the divine creation or arrangement of the world. Abelard writes again and again as if there are two laws, the one very similar to the other: the lex naturalis and the lex scripta of the Bible.20 He repeatedly emphasizes the similarities of content between the written law and the natural law, their common injunctions to love God and one’s neighbour, and to do to others as you would have them do to you.21 The natural law even shares with the written law the capacity of sufficing unto salvation for those who do not possess the written law.22 The lex naturalis is, in short, placed by Abelard on a pedestal which is almost as high as that which contains the lex scripta. But Abelard only does this because the natural law, no less than the written law, is of divine origin. The gentiles of whom St. Paul wrote in the Epistle to the Romans, and who knew God, did so because God had revealed Himself to them through their human reason and had granted knowledge of Himself in a gift of grace.23 This revelation is a counterpart of God’s revelation to the Jews in the written law. The natural law is imparted to all men by God by virtue of their creation.24 However, if men do not recognize the dependence of this natural law upon God, if they do not recognize from whom their knowledge comes, they fail to know God properly.25 Those philosophers who, by the use of their reason, did achieve an advance knowledge of some of the truths of Christianity or who became pleasing to God by their observance of the natural law, did so because they accepted the dependence of nature upon God and understood that their natural knowledge had a divine, not a human, origin. Such philosophers were always men of virtue.26 Abelard is very far from countenancing paganism as such. The barbarians, for example, are compared to brute animals; they were polytheists who were ignorant of the natural law.27 The discovery of the natural law in the gentile world was only accomplished by some virtuous Greeks; it was in fact an unwritten revelation imparted to a comparative few. Similarly in the Semitic world before the appearance of the written law of the Old Testament (so Abelard in his Dialogus allows the philosopher to claim),28 a like knowledge of the natural law was common to Abel, Enoch, Noah and his sons, Abraham, Lot, Melchisedech, Jacob and also to the gentile Job. I do not think that in Abelard’s thought nature and the natural law, which is reason, are weapons with which man disputes with his Creator. Abelard was far too conscious of the dependence of nature and reason upon God. As a result he tended to emphasize the similarities and not the divergences between reason and revelation, between the law of nature and the written law, between the natural and the divine. In Abelard’s Dialogus the imagined philosopher who appears before Abelard in a dream, describes himself as content with the possession of the natural law alone. He professes no written law and investigates the truth and the high questions of moral philosophy by using his reason.29 He deprecates those Christians and Jews who rely only upon Scripture. But the philosopher 65

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r says that Abelard’s own Theologia is representative from the Christian point of view of the two approaches, the philosophical and the theological, the natural and the revealed, of utraque doctrina.30 This claim, or boast, is highly significant. It has always been understood that Abelard applied reason in the study of theology. It is perhaps less realized that Abelard held a kind of double source theory of revelation. Not only the written law but the law of nature and reason as well were the utraque doctrina which the best men accepted and studied. The significance of Abelard’s doctrine of nature is that it leads us to consider Abelard as a thinker who found God revealed not only in the Word, but also in the world, with its perfection and rationality, and in the divinely given reason of man.

Notes   1 ‘Nihil nunc naturam aliud dicimus, nisi vim et facultatem illis operibus tunc collatam, unde illa sufficerent ad efficiendum haec quae postmodum inde contigerunt’, Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 749C.  2 Genesis, I, 11–12.  3 In Hexaemeron, PL 178, 749BC.   4 I.e. ‘naturalia futura’ – ‘quae causam aliquam naturalem sui eventus habent, ut ex his quae praecedunt tamquam quibusdam naturalibus sui causis contingere habeant’, ibidem, 754A.  5 Ibidem, 753D–4D. Cf. Abelard, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 216–217.  6 In Hexaemeron, PL 178, 746C–747A.   7 ‘Etsi ex coitu patris quaedam portio separata sit quae formetur in hominem, patre tamen defuncto non minus natura opifex operatur in visceribus matris de infuso semine, ipsum scilicet formando et vivificando in hominem... Si quis autem dicat aves quoque creare pulIos ... fallitur. Non enim opera dicenda sunt nisi eius qui ex deliberatione et ex discretione facit nec opifex recte dicitur nisi rationalis substantia. Ex affectu vero quem natura mittit, non ex discretione rationis vivificat avis calefaciendo ovas, ignara penitus futuri effectus, quem per eam natura operatur , Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, In Categorias, ed. Geyer, p. 298. Cf. Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 429 (‘natura operatur’); Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, In Isagogen, ed. Geyer, p. 33.   8 ‘Puer ipse non hominis opus est, sed naturae, id est Dei . . .’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, In Categorias, ed. Geyer, p. 298.   9 ‘Quod formas exemplares habuerit deus in mente, ad quarum similitudinem dictus est postea operari res ipsas, quae a generalibus et specialibus nominibus appellantur. Hae quippe rationes operibus naturae, non artificis consistunt in deo. Quae conceptiones recte deo attribuuntur, cuius hae effectus sunt, quem hoc in loco naturam vocamus, idest originem et nativitatem omnium’. Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, In Isagogen, ed. Geyer, p. 514. 10 ‘Nec opifex recte dicitur nisi rationalis substantia’, Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, In Categorias, ed. Geyer, p. 298. 11 Hymni nocturni, I (PL 178, 1775B). Cf. Hymni nocturni, VI: ‘Opus magis eximium / Est naturae quam hominum, / Quod nec labor, nec sumptus praeparat, / Nec vetustas solvendo dissipat’ (PL 178, 1778A). On the excellence of creation cf. also TSch, III, 1–2; 5 (PL 178, 1086D–8D, 1093D et seq.); Tchr, V (PL 178, 1316A–8B, 1324A et seq.); Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 732D (‘mundi optima creatione ac dispositione’), 766B–767A; Expositio in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, I, 1 (PL 178, 803C, 804AB).

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n at u r e i n t h e t h o u g h t o f p e t e r a b e la r d 12 Cf. TSch, III, 1 (1085D–1088D); Tchr, V (1315B–1318A); In Hexaemeron, 732D–3A; In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (802C et seq.). Also, Hymni diurni, XI: ‘Et invisibilem auctorem omnium / Laudat visibilis effectus operum’ (PL 178, 1779D). 13 ‘God’s Grandeur’, in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. R. Bridges, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 19302, p. 26. 14 Cf. TSch, III, 1 (1087C–1088A); Tchr, V (1316B–1317B); In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (804AB); Hymni nocturni, V: ‘Rationem pro cunctis exigit/ Is qui cuncta pro nobis condidit’ (1777B). 15 TSch, III, 1 (1088A); Tchr, V (1317B). 16 Cf. In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1, 2 (802C, 814D). ‘Ex natura’: cf. the meaning given to natura in Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, ed. Geyer, p. 514: ‘origo et nativitas omnium’. 17 Cf. St. Paul, Ad Romanos, II, 14; IV, 21–23. ‘­Gentiles . . . ­naturali lege instructi, hoc est cognitione Dei ac discretione rationis, quam naturaliter, hoc est ex sua creatione habent, non ex scripta alicujus doctrina’, In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (814D). ‘Cum ejus notitiam lex ipsa naturalis, quae in ratione consistit, etiam sine scripto ex ipsa operum ejus exhibitione omnibus afferret’. TSch, III, 1 (1087A). Cf. Tchr, V (1316A) and In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (802C). In its ethical function natural law provides ‘judicium rationis et discretionem b ­ oni . . . ­et mali’, In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (809A); cf. III, 7 (896D); I, 1 (806C, 807B). In Abelard’s Dialogus natural law is considered as a moral law only: cf. the words of the Philosophus: ‘Lex vero naturalis in scientia morum, quam ethicam dicimus, in solis consistit documentis moralibus’, PL 178, 1614B. 18 Cf. TSch, I, 15–25 (1004D–1034D): Tchr, I, 5 (1139C–1166C). 19 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (802C, 805AB); TSch, III, 1 (1087A); Tchr, V (1316A). 20 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (813B–D), I, 1 (802AB). Cf. the Philosophus in the Dialogus, 1614B. 21 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (814C), V (949D). Cf. the Philosophus in the Dialogus, 1656D. 22 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (814D). Cf. the Philosophus in the Dialogus, 1622B et seq. 23 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (805AB); also I, 1 (802C). 24 Cf. note 16 above. 25 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 1 (805B–D). 26 Ibidem, I, 1 (807D–808A); TSch, I, 15 (1005AB); Tchr, I, 5 (1139CD). 27 In Epistolam ad Romanos, I, 2 (800A, 813B). 28 Dialogus, 1619C et seq. 29 Ibidem, 1611A–1613B. 30 Ibidem, 1613C.

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4 PETER ABELARD AND THE ARTS OF LANGUAGE

Joseph de Ghellinck in L’Essor de la littérature latine au XIle siècle offered a tribute to the refinement and the achievements of writers of Latin during the Renaissance of the twelfth century: La culture littéraire latine, portée si haut au début du siècle par Anselme et ses contemporains, Marbode, Baudri de Bourgueil et Hildebert de Lavardin, se prolonge au Xlle siècle par des humanistes fins et délicats, comme Jean de Salisbury, maître de cette sagesse humaine, qu’on ne retrouvera plus tard qu’avec Pétrarque (1304–1374), et par des poètes de marque comme Adam de Saint-­ Victor et Gautier de Châtillon. Les sciences sacrées sont représentées par des écrivains entraînés à la bonne education scolaire classique et qui savent écrire, comme saint Bernard, orateur puissant, un des meilleurs latinistes de son temps, comme Hugues de Saint-­Victor, à l’âme profonde et limpide, éprise de savoir et de contemplation, transparente dans son style, comme Abélard, à la plume acérée, au verbe net et tranché, féru de dialectique . . . And then, having mentioned ­Abelard – ­one of Professor Engels’ future interests in ­research – ­de Ghellinck went on to mention another of Professor Engels’ interests-­to-­be: Les sermons, la plupart en latin, et par suite d’une allure savante et étudiée plutôt que populaire, prennent dans la France du XIIe siècle et chez ses écrivains attachés aux cours anglo-­normandes, une importance qui a fait dire, non sans exagération, que jamais la chaire française ne fut plus grande qu’en ce moment.1 Invisibly reflected in these remarks is the spirit of Charles Homer Haskins. Although de Ghellinck himself generally avoided the term Renaissance he knew Haskins’ publications, including The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, in which there are three chapters on Latin: chapter 4 is on the Revival of the 69

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Latin classics, chapter 5 is on the Latin language, and chapter 6 is on Latin poetry.2 Haskins and de Ghellinck have impressed upon several generations of readers their belief that many twelfth-­century writers displayed an incomparable curiosity as regards the Latin language and culture. It is in this world of history, letters and scholarship that Professor Engels has sown and reaped so effectively. I first met Louk Eugels in 1971 in Leuven. The occasion was a conference organized by the late Professor E. M. Buytaert, OFM. To Professor Buytaert scholars owe a series of invaluable initiatives, including his own editions of writings by Abelard. During the conference Professor Engels spoke of Abelard as a writer, as écrivain.3 Nearly twenty-­three years later, the observations he then made have lost none of their stimulus and value. He demonstrated, in particular, Abelard’s interest in the relationship between language and teaching. Abelard’s works are overwhelmingly didactic in character and in purpose. In them Abelard teaches, exhorts and edifies. He presents doctrina; he displays and communicates eruditio; he engages in expositio; he pursues intelligentia. Professor Engels showed how keenly aware Abelard was of the requirement to match style and purpose, keenly aware also of the distinction between planities and eloquentia, between clear expression and eloquence. Boethius’ distinction between eloquentiae compositiones and planities, as Professor Engels noted, is echoed twice in Abelard’s poem for his son Astralabe, the Monita or Carmen ad Astralabium: ‘ornatis animos captat persuasio verbis / doctrine magis est debita planicies’4 and: ‘Planiciem quemcumque sequi decet expositorem, / quantumcumque rudis sermo sit eius in hoc’.5 Another source which Professor Engels highlighted and which encouraged Abelard to put evidentia before eloquentia is St Augustine. On a number of ­occasions – ­for example, in Sic et non – Abelard cites the fourth book of De doctrina christiana on the right way to convey doctrine.6 A second important contribution made by Professor Engels in his paper at Leuven was his discussion of the Latin auctoritates whom Abelard liked to cite. Professor Engels showed, against the general belief hitherto, that Abelard’s citations from Roman poetry are perhaps second-­hand quotations and taken from a small number of poets.7 Abelard did not have a high opinion of the study of poetry.8 He particularly attacked the ioculatores, saltatores, incantatores and cantatores turpium, who provided popular entertainment during religious festivals but who should have no place in the civitas dei.9 Christians cannot expect to learn anything good from poetica figmenta.10 Abelard regarded even the Roman prose writers as inferior models of eloquentia than the Bible.11 He reserved a special place of honour for Saints Jerome, Gregory the Great and Augustine both as excellent writers and as providers of ideas.12 Professor Engels inspired his pupil, the late Edmé Smits, to pursue Jerome’s appearances in Abelard’s letters.13 He showed, moreover, how little attention had been given by editors and others to Abelard’s use of the Bible. By implication at least we were left with the suggestion that studies 70

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e of the relationship between Abelard and the Bible, Abelard and Gregory the Great and also between Abelard and Augustine would shed further light on Abelard’s thought.14 In 1971, therefore, Professor Engels drew up an agenda for research. But in 1972 California came to Cluny: the late John Benton, then Professor in the California Institute of Technology, argued, during another important colloquium devoted to Abelard and held in Cluny, that the correspondence between Abelard and Heloise was a forgery dating from the second half of the thirteenth century.15 An old debate was thus revived and the new, fresher, broader and clearer agenda prepared by Professor Engels in 1971 was put on the back burner while the theories of Benton were debated, sometimes with feverish animation, for nearly twenty years.16 In 1969, two years before Professor Engels spoke in Leuven, Jean Jolivet published his masterpiece, the book entitled Arts du langage et théologie chez Abélard.17 Jolivet’s concern was with Abelard’s theory of language, with his theory of signification and of being, with his style of thought, with the relationship between the ­trivium – t­he three arts of l­anguage – a­ nd theology. It is remarkable that Jolivet’s study was not mentioned by Professor Engels in his ­paper – ­remarkable because their two studies independently show great originality on related themes. They are complementary because Abelard’s preference for planities when engaged in teaching or in exposition is closely linked with his theory of signification in his teaching of logic, as I shall try to explain. For much of his career Abelard was engaged in teaching the logica vetus, in the study of part of Aristotle’s logic. For much of his time as a teacher of logic, Abelard concentrated on the art of studying arguments with a view to establishing the rules for judging and distinguishing between valid and invalid arguments. The arguments may belong to any branch of knowledge from physics to theology, but to evaluate them judgement must be made about the structure of the propositions in which they are contained. The logician is less concerned with the objects themselves, with res, because his primary concern is with the meaning of words and of propositions. Words and propositions, when they mean something, when they signify, generate a concept, an intellectus. Words, propositions and understanding are then the objects of study for the ­logician – ­and understanding lies in between reality and the language which is used to convey it.18 In discussing logic as an art of language which deals with words and propositions Abelard treats it as an art that is closely linked to grammar. Grammar marshals words into propositions; logic evaluates the propositions. Dialectic is then the means of telling the difference between truth and falsehood. In matters of Christian belief dialectic is subordinate to the revelation of God. Nonetheless, dialectic can analyse the objections presented by critics of this revelation and of its formulations in texts. In his Theologia Abelard makes great efforts to summarize and to refute objections that may be put to 71

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r belief in God and the Trinity. Rational arguments, as distinct from quotations from the Bible or from the Fathers, can refute those who are swayed by objections to Christian faith that are allegedly based on logic. Not everyone in Abelard’s day shared his claims for logic as a tool for quelling doubts expressed by religious sceptics. There were religious writers who believed that, in matters of belief, dialectic should not be used to support revelation. One of the letters edited by the late Edmé Smits, Letter 13, is a letter of criticism which Abelard directed against an anonymous anti-­dialectician.19 Against him Abelard quoted some words from the De ordine of Augustine recommending dialectic to those who would study Scripture and describing dialectic as the disciplina disciplinarum: ‘Haec docet docere, haec docet ­discere . . . ­scientes facere non solum vult, sed etiam potest’.20 Abelard also turned to Augustine’s De doctrina christiana: logic along with arithmetic is the chief art needed to understand Scripture, logic because it solves problems, arithmetic because it explains the numbers used in Scriptural allegories.21 The opposite of dialectic is sophistry: sophistry results in error and deceit; dialectic discovers true arguments.22 The climax of this invective comes when Abelard writes that it is the dialectician, not his critic, who is the disciple of Christ because Christ is Truth and truth can be tested by a dialectician.23 The Son of God is the Word of God, in Greek the Logos which Abelard defines as the wisdom or the reason of God.24 The word logica is derived from Logos, just as the word Christian is derived from the word Christ.25 In Greek the wisdom of God, God the Father, is called sophia. Philosophers are lovers of sophia. By becoming incarnate and by taking our nature the supreme sophia became the Logos: the Word became flesh. The Christian logician is therefore the true philosopher, the seeker after the Logos who is the incarnate Wisdom of God.26 Abelard quotes two lines from the Pentecost hymn Beata nobis gaudia: ‘Verbis ut essent proflui / Et caritate fervidi’. Verba and caritas: by tongues of fire at Pentecost the Spirit made the disciples of Christ philosophers through love and logicians through the rationum virtus, full of love and eloquent also in every type of language.27 Christ himself had relied not solely on the power to work miracles to convince the Jews: he had disputed with them and presented reasons.28 We too must devote ourselves to the study of logic, to the ratio disserendi which, as Augustine remarked, is of the utmost value in exploring every kind of question to be found in the sacred books.29 So much for Letter 13. But neither anti-­dialecticians nor Abelard could be fully satisfied by these arguments. Both dialectical theologians and their antagonists recognized that God transcends the rules of Aristotelian logic. Language changes and loses its original meamng when we speak about God. For example, we cannot strictly call God substance since Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius have taught that substance is susceptible of accidents. The habitual descriptions of God as Lord, eternal, immense, creator and Father are based on terms that lose their usual meaning when used of God. God 72

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e cannot be described by human notions of time (eternal), quantity (immense) or person (Lord or Father). When language is applied to God it undergoes translatio, a transfer of meaning. So when we apply to God words that are also used to name creatures, their meaning becomes metaphoric and also enigmatic. Yet there are resemblances between creator and creation and the words we apply to God indicate limited similiarities. Abelard summarizes this in his Theologia ‘Summi boni’ in the following way: in deo nullum propriam inuentionem uocabulum seruare uidetur, sed omnia que de eo dicuntur, translationibus et parabolicis enigmatibus inuoluta sunt et per simililudinem aliquam uestigantur ex parte aliqua inductam, ut aliquid de illa ineffabili maiestate suspicando potius quam intelligendo degustemus.30 Words like Father, Son and Spirit, person and substance, generation and procession, when they are used of the Trinity, do not mean what they mean ordinarily when used of human beings. But these words do not entirely lose their ordinary meaning. There is ‘similitudo aliquis ex parte aliqua inducta’, a limited resemblance. However, some words used of God are deliberately mysterious. We enter a world of fable when we read the books of the Prophets as well as when we read the books of the Platonists. Both in the Bible and in the writings of some of the pagan philosophers symbols are used, and these symbols need to be interpreted. Symbols hide God behind a veil or a covering, behind an involucrum or an integumentum. To understand symbols exegesis is needed. The surface of the letter (litterae superficies) is heavily charged with mysteria.31 But if these books are read properly, they can be understood as being in accordance with Christian teaching. In particular we can find in both the Old Testament and in Plato’s Timaeus evidence of belief in the Trinity, in the Son of God and in nous or the mind of God, in the Spirit and in the anima mundi, the soul of the world. In the Theologia Abelard makes a special effort to extract from Plato’s Timaeus a trinitarian doctrine of God, by seeing in the concept of the anima mundi something close to the Christian idea of the spirit of God.32 A similar concern shows through in parts of Abelard’s Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew and a Christian. Here the focus is upon the difference between literal and prophetic or mystical interpretations of the Bible. The Christian tells the Philosopher that literal interpretation of the Bible is characteristic of Judaism but allegorical interpretation is the Christian contribution to an improved understanding. The Philosopher had just complained of the way that Christians think of heaven as a place and God as a human being. But the Christian responds by explaining that this is imagery, physical imagery that is used as an aid to intelligentia. To speak of God as having a body is not literal truth but it helps simple persons to understand that in a 73

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r sense God does see them and does speak to them and does listen to them33. Similarly the story of Dives and Lazarus with its references to fire and thirst and to weeping and gnashing of teeth has to be understood mystice, not corporaliter; the physical imagery facilitates intelligentia.34 The more one reflects on Professor Engels’ illustration of the distinction in Abelard’s writing between a plain style and rhetorical decoration, the more its importance appears to grow. One of the clearest and fullest examples in Abelard’s writings comes in the Preface to his Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Here Abelard discusses the purpose of Scripture: ‘omnis Scriptura diuina more orationis rhetoricae aut docere intendit aut monere’.35 Scripture uses the manner of rhetorical discourse, the mos orationis rhetoricae, to teach and to counsel, docere aut monere. The advisory or counselling role of Scripture takes the form of persuasion to do what is good and dissuasion from doing what is bad. From this perspective both the Old and the New Testament have three parts. In the Old Testament the Law, contained in the five books of Moses, teaches God’s commandments. Then come the Prophets and the historical books which exhort and persuade us to achieve what has been commanded. Finally we find promises and warnings and also exempla which illustrate the rewards for obedience and the penalties for transgression.36 Likewise the New Testament falls into three parts. The Gospels correspond to the books of the Law in the Old Testament: they teach the form of true and perfect justice. Secondly the Epistles and the Book of Apocalypse, like the Old Testament Prophets, exhort us to observe and to obey the teachings of the Gospel. Exemplary stories are contained in the Acts of the Apostles and also in the many narratives provided in the Gospels. So the purpose of the Gospel is to teach. The Epistles and the Acts persuade us to follow the Gospel teaching; their purpose is less to teach than to encourage. However, the Epistles and Acts do also contain teachings which are not themselves found in the Gospels. The observances of the old L ­ aw – c­ ircumcision and the ­rest – ­are not brought to an end in the Gospels but in the Epistles.37 The application here of rhetorical teaching to the exposition of the Bible is explicit. Abelard cites book 2 of Cicero’s De inventione where Cicero draws a parallel with the civitas. In the state some things are essential like fields and woods; other things however are not essential but desirable like fine buildings and a copious treasury.38 So too with Scripture: what the Gospels have to teach about faith, hope and charity or the sacraments is sufficient for salvation even without the later decisions taken by the apostles or the later teachings and the dispensations of the Fathers contained in canons and in decrees and in monastic rules. All these later writings offer admonition, not precept. They are embellishments for the church, that is the civitas, desirable but not in the final analysis necessary.39 The perspective from which Abelard sees the role of rhetoric in theology is similar to, perhaps even the same as, the perspective from which he sees the function of the study of logic. The common thread is the pursuit of 74

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e intelligentia or sensus. We see this link very clearly in a number of the prefaces or prologues which he wrote to his works of theology. For example, in the prefatory letter which heads his collection of sermons and which is addressed to Heloise, Abelard writes that he is more experienced in reading than in preaching – ‘plus quippe lectioni quam sermoni deditus’ – so he will concentrate in his sermons on expounding the plain meaning of texts rather than on rhetorical elegance: ‘expositionis insisto planitiem, non eloquentiae compositionem: sensum litterae, non ornatum rhetoricae’.40 In this way by using a plainer style he hopes to help simple people to understand: he writes in fact of facilitating paruulorum intelligentia, the understanding of little people, and this remark reminds one of the title of Abelard’s briefest set of glosses on the logica vetus, his Introductiones parvulorum.41 It is likewise in Abelard’s Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed: because the Creed is short, Abelard writes, it should be easily memorized by frequent repetition, even by people who do not yet understand all that it means: ‘nemini fidelium liceat verba eius ignorare ad confitendum, etsi nondum sufficiat ad intelligendum’.42 But, he continues, sound without understanding only soothes the ears; it does not feed or stimulate the mind: ‘sonus sine intelligentia aures tantum mulcere, non mentem reficere potest’.43 The Apostles provided a Creed with the intention of using it to teach understanding, so we who are scholars are under an obligation to try to get meaning out of the text and to provide food for the soul, to convert sonus into sensus, to transfer what is spoken and heard through the physical senses of speech and hearing to the tongues and the ears of people’s hearts, so that what is professed orally may be received into the understanding.44 For the recital of words is stupid if understanding does not follow; these words have been composed in order to provide understanding.45 Among Abelard’s writings on theology the locus classicus of his insistence that intelligentia must accompany littera is the Preface to his Theologia ‘Scholarium’. Here Abelard writes that his pupils, having enjoyed and profited from his philosophical teaching, have urged him to complete his studies by studying God. They have pleaded that knowledge of the secular arts and of the books written by the pagans, knowledge of the forms of locutio and of eloquentia and of the types of argumentatio as well as knowledge of the natures of things will all help to promote an understanding of Scripture as well as to defend and to prove truth.46 Abelard acquiesces in their wish but with the qualification that it is not truth itself that he promises to communicate so much as opinionis nostrae sensum, his understanding of his own interpretation of it.47 A similar point is made by the Philosopher in the Dialogus between the Philosopher and the Christian: the study of the supreme goodness is vastly more important than the study of all the arts. But the study of the genera locutionum and of the natures of things provide some steps which lead us towards the heights. The arts are the pedissequae from which we may climb to the summit.48 75

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Concern with the relationship between locutio and intelligentia also pervades the Prologue to the Sic et Non. The multitude of the verba spoken and written by the saints over the course of a thousand years of Christian history presents a range of challenges to our intelligentia. Among the many challenges listed by Abelard there is the fact that sometimes an inusitatus locutionis modus will be found in Christian literature. Often too a single word may possess a range of differing meanings.49 Conversely, for a variety of good rhetorical and practical reasons, a number of different words may be needed to ­ ord – ­the way in which it is d ­ eployed – ­has say the same thing.50 The usus of a w to be studied as well as its proprietas.51 Abelard cites in support Cicero and Priscian. But he also cites Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana, book 4, to issue a warning against rhetoric: wherever rhetoric may make understanding more difficult it is to be avoided.52 The purpose of the Prologue to the Sic et Non is to justify the claim that it is right and not presumptuous to judge the sensus and intelligentia of the saints, the popes and even the writers of Scripture.53 The first key to wisdom is ‘­assidua . . . ­seu frequens interrogatio’.54 This interrogatio requires a sceptical disposition. For by doubting we come to enquire and by enquiry we grasp the truth.55 Questions concerning what we can do with language lead into further questions concerning languages. In Letter 9 Abelard asked the nuns of the convent of the Paraclete to learn Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin and to study the Scriptures in all three languages.56 The letter is entirely based upon the writings of St Jerome who urged his pious lady friends in Rome to study the Scriptures in this way. The letter begins with long quotations from the advice given by St Jerome to Laeta for the guidance of her young daughter Paula. The study of Scripture in its Latin version requires a knowledge of the Latin alphabet, of pronunciation and of grammar; daily acts of memorization are recommended. Later in the letter Abelard turns from the needs of young girls to the needs of mature women and widows. He presents long quotations from the guidance given by Jerome to Principia. The concern now is with finding questions to raise, not for the sake of starting controversy but for the sake of identifying solutions. Principia is encouraged to reflect on the example of St Marcella who displayed an incredible love of Scripture, meditating upon it by day and by night. From Jerome Abelard gets his knowledge of how the saintly ladies of Rome were especially encouraged to know more than one of the Biblical languages and to trace the streams that transmit the Bible back to their spring. Blesilla, the deceased daughter of Paula, is held up as a model: when Blesilla spoke Greek you would think she did not know Latin. Of Hebrew Jerome admits that he learnt it with difficulty, unlike Origen who was Greek and who learned Hebrew not in a few months but in a few days. In these ways Abelard paints a picture of Christian Rome in the fourth century, of a society of educated ladies who, under Jerome’s guidance, had learned to appreciate not only that Biblical codices written in Latin derived from Greek and Hebrew sources but also that they had in the course of translation lost the 76

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e idiom of Greek and Hebrew. Just as there is some loss when water is poured from one jug to another so it is when a work is translated from one language into another. Moreover, it frequently happens, when discussions take place between Christians and Jews, that Christians who do not know the Hebrew Bible are easily stumped by Jewish allegations that the Latin Bible is inaccurate.57 So Abelard urges the nuns to follow Jerome’s advice and to learn these three languages. They will thus become able to solve problems arising from translation. He commends Heloise to the nuns as an example of what they should be, an example not only of virtue but also apparently the only example in Abelard’s day of a knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It was in these three languages that Pontius Pilate placed on the Cross of Calvary the name of Jesus, king of the Jews. Abelard comments that this inscription indicates how Christian teaching and worship have been communicated in these languages and in particular that the mystery of the Trinity has been revealed to the three parts of the globe where these languages are spoken. Pilate’s inscription was, as it were, an intimation of the way the New Testament would develop, as instruction for Jews, Greeks and Romans. The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Letter of James to the twelve tribes as well as other letters such as St Peter’s were written in Hebrew. But three of the Gospels were written in Greek as were several of the Epistles and the Book of the Apocalypse. Paul wrote one letter in Latin for the Romans. To know these writings well requires a return to their original language, to the source (ipse fons), rather than the use of translations (rivuli translationum). Translations are unreliable; it is not easy in a translation to reproduce the idiom of a language or its proprietas, its essential character. Spring water is pure unlike water from downstream. In broad outline these observations of Abelard and Jerome encapsulate some of the fundamental requirements for medieval studies today that have been upheld by Professor Engels and by his pupils: to study texts in a critical way and not to be content with translations, to recognize the central place of the Bible in medieval culture, to study the transmission of texts and, where necessary, the processes of translation. Learning all this is a difficult activity but applying what has been learned is also not without its problems. In Letter 10 Abelard criticized Bernard of Clairvaux for questioning the version of the Lord’s Prayer which was used at the Paraclete.58 The nuns prayed there not for daily bread but for supersubstantial bread. Bernard asked them to conform to the traditional usage. To this Abelard retorted that of the two Gospel accounts we have of the Lord’s Prayer Matthew’s is more authoritative than Luke’s. Matthew was himself present when Christ spoke on the mountain, ­Luke – ­the disciple of ­Paul – ­was not, nor was Paul from whom Luke got his information. So Matthew drank from the spring, Luke only from the stream. Matthew’s version reads in Latin: ‘Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie’, Luke’s version reads: ‘Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie’. Matthew’s is the version that 77

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r was spoken to all the Apostles, Luke’s the version given to just one disciple. Matthew’s version has all seven petitions, Luke’s only five. Five is a less perfect number than seven; five stands for the five senses, but seven for the seven gifts of the Spirit. Inserting the word quotidianum into Matthew’s account has resulted in a composite version of the Prayer, sanctioned by tradition but Biblically less correct. Moreover Matthew wrote in Hebrew, Luke in Greek; the Hebrew versions must be more authentic. And so on. Not the least of the merits of Edmé Smits as a good disciple of Louk Engels, and as a fine editor, was to point out that Abelard was here the victim of a serious misunderstanding.59 The two differing readings in the Lord’s Prayer were created in the Latin Vulgate tradition; they were not present in the Greek New Testament. Abelard’s attempt to apply his principles was a failure.*

Notes   1 J. de Ghellinck, L Essor de la littérature latine au XIle siècle, Bruxelles, Desclée de Brouwer, 19542 (Museum ­Lessianum – ­Section Historique, 4–5), p. 5.  2 C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1927.  3 L. Engels, ‘Abélard écrivain’, in Peter Abelard. Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain, May 10–12, 1971, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1974 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series, 1/Studia, 2), pp. 12–37.  4 Peter Abelard. Carmen ad Astralabium. A Critical Edition, ed. J.M.A. Rubingh-­ Bosscher, Groningen, Krips Repro Meppel, 1987, lines 13–14. Dr. Rubingh-­ Bosscher studied under Professor Engels.  5 Ibidem, ll. 869–870.  6 SN, p. 90, ll. 23–43.   7 There has not been much attention given by other scholars to this subject but Peter von Moos has written some perceptive papers: ‘Cornelia und Heloise’, Latomus, XXXIV (1975), pp. 1024–1059; ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, in Hommages à A. Boutemy, ed. G. Cambier, Brussels, Latomus, 1976 (Collection Latomus, 145), pp. 413–443. Of importance also is Peter Dronke, ‘Integumenta Virgilii’ in Lectures médiévales de Virgile. Actes du Colloque organisé par l’École française de Rome (Rome, 25–28 Ottobre 1982, Rome, École française de Rome, 1985 (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 80), pp.  313–329. Professor Dronke shows that Abelard did not turn directly to Virgil as an auctoritas but rather relied on Macrobius’ capture of Virgilian insights within a neoplatonic frame of thought. See further on this E. Jeauneau, ‘Note critique sur une récente édition de la “Theologia ‘Summi Boni’” et de la “Theologia ‘Scholarium’” d’ Abélard’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 37 (1991), pp. 151–158.  8 Tchr, II, 128, p. 192, ll. 1959–1967: ‘Quod si in breui assequi iuuat Christianos lectores tam genera constructionum quam ornatus uerborum, plene id percipient ex ipsis artibus quae ista ex integro et aperte tradunt, grammatica scilicet, dialectica, rhetorica, nec opus est diu detineri in fabulosis poetarum, ut haec colligant quae ibi aut raro aut obscure atque imperfecte notantur. Vnde nec Tullius in Rhetorica, cum de elocutione plene instrueret, poeticis uti uoluit exemplis, sed propiis, in quibus plenius, ut ipsemet ait, ars emineret’.  9 Tchr, II, 129, pp. 192–193. Abelard, of course, wrote much religious poetry himself. His Hymns have been edited on a number of occasions, and recently by Joseph

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e Szövérffy and, separately, by Chrysogonus Waddell. Other studies of Abelard’s poetry include Michel Huglo, ‘Abélard poète et musicien’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, XXII (1979), pp.  349–361, and U. Ernst, ‘Ein unbeachtetes “Carmen figuratum” des Petrus Abaelardus. Textüberlieferung –­Verfasserproblematik – ­Gattungsstruktur’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XXI (1986), pp.  125–146. Some verse was written about Abelard: see F. J. Worstbrock, ‘Ein Planctus auf Petrus Abaelard’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XVI (1981), pp. 166–173. 10 Tchr, II, 126,191, l. 1919. 11 ‘Quae sunt genera locutionum, qui ornatus uerborum quae sacra pagina non habeat, maxime parabolarum et allegoriarum aenigmatibus referta et ubique fere mysticis redundans inuolucris? Quae sunt urbanitates locutionum quae mater linguarum Hebraica non docuerit, praesertim cum Palestinae terrae etiam plebem parabolis esse assuetam non lateat, ut his quoque Dominum Iesum loqui eis oporteret cum Euangelium praedicaret?’, Tchr, II,126, 191, ll. 1919–1927. 12 ‘Quis enim, non dico poetarum, uerum etiam philosophorum maturitate dictaminis beatum Hieronymum, quis in suauitate beatum Gregorium, quis in subtilitate beatum aequiparet Augustinum? In illo quidem Ciceronis eloquentiam, in istis Boethii suauitatem et Aristotelis inuenies subtilitatem, et, ni fallor, multo amplius, si singulorum conferas scripta’, Tchr, II, 127, 191, ll. 1935–1941. 13 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 62–69, 119–120. 14 Recently Constant J. Mews has suggested that Abelard learned to become more careful when quoting from sources, especially after his trial for heresy at Soissons in 1121: increased importance was put upon extensive written quotation when he wrote his Theologia christiana in replacement of his earlier Theologia ‘Summi boni’, ‘Orality, Literacy, and Authority in the Twelfth-­Century Schools’, Exemplaria. A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, II (1990), pp. 475–500. 15 John F. Benton, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing in the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 469–511. 16 David Luscombe, ‘From Paris to the Paraclete: The Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’. Raleigh Lecture on History, Proceedings of the British Academy, 74 (1988), pp. 247–283. 17 J. Jolivet, Arts du langage et théologie chez Abélard, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1969; 19822 (Études de philosophie médiévale, 57). 18 Abelard’s analysis of words and propositions has been the special focus of several studies by Klaus Jacobi including the following: ‘Diskussionen iiber Prädikationstheorie in den logischen Schriften des Petrus Abaelardus: Versuch einer Űbersicht’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 165–179; ‘Die Semantik sprachliche Ausdrücke, Ausdrucksfolgen und Aussagen im Abaelards Kommentar zu “Peri hermeneias”’, Medioevo, 7 (1981), pp.  43–89; ‘Abelard and Frege: Semantics of Words and Propositions’, in Atti del Convegno internazionale di Storia della Logica, San Gimignano, 4–8 decembre, 1982, ed. V. M. Abrusci, E. Casari, M. Mugnai, Bologna, CLUEB, 1983, pp. 81–96; ‘Statements about Events: Modal and Tense Analysis in Medieval Logic’, Vivarium, 21 (1983), pp. 85–107; ‘Aussagen über Ereignisse, modal- und zeitlogische Analysen in der Mittelalterlichen Logik’ , Anuario Filosofico, XVI (1983), pp.  89–117; ‘Diskussionen über unpersönliche Aussagen in Peter Abaelards Kommentar zu Peri Hermeneias’, in Medieval Semantics and Metaphysics: Studies dedicated to L. M. de Rijk, on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, ed. E. P. Bos, Nijmegen, Ingenium, 1985 (Artistarium Supplementa, 2), pp. 1–63; ‘Peter Abelard’s Investigations into the Meaning and Functions of the Speech Sign “Est”’, in The Logic of Being: Historical Studies, ed. S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka, Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1985, (Synthese Historical Library, 28), pp. 145–180. See also Norman Kretzmann, ‘The Culmination of the

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Old Logic in Peter Abelard’, in Renaissance aud Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. L. Benson and G. Constable, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, pp. 488–511, and R. Pinzani, ‘Linguaggio e teoria in Abelardo. Note introduttive’, Philo(:) logica, I (1992), pp. 79–94. The history of ‘nominalism’ in the twelfth century, and thus of Abelard’s positions on words and propositions, has recently been advanced by the publication of a collection of papers in Vivarium, XXX (1992). These papers, arising from a colloquium organized by Professor William J. Courtenay at Madison, Wisconsin in 1991, fill this issue of Vivarium and are introduced by Professor Courtenay. 19 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 271–227. For appreciations of Letter 13 see ibidem, pp. 172–188 and Jolivet, Arts du langage, pp. 269–272. 20 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 271–272, ll. 23–27. 21 Ibidem, p. 272, ll. 27–44. 22 Ibidem, pp. 272–273, ll. 45–53. 23 ‘In qua profecto disputatione cum illas sophistas conuicerimus, nos dialecticos exhibebimus et tanto Christi qui ueritas est, discipuli ueriores erimus, quanta ueritate rationum amplius pollebimus’, ibidem, p. 274, ll. 97–100. 24 ‘Ipsum quippe Dei filium quem nos uerbum dicimus, Graeci λόγον appellant, hoc est diuina mentis conceptum seu Dei sapientiam uel rationem’, ibidem, p.  274, ll. 101–103. 25 ‘Cum ergo uerbum patris, Dominus Iesus Christus, λόγος Graece dicatur, sicut et σοφία patris appellatur, plurimum ad eum pertinere uidetur ea scientia quae nomine quoque illi sit coniuncta et per deriuationem quandam a λόγος logica sit appellata et sicut a Christo christiani, ita a λόγος logica proprie dici uideatur’, ibidem, p. 275, ll. 112–117. 26 ‘Quae profecto summi patris summa sophia cum nostram indueret naturam ut nos uerae sapientiae illustraret lumine et nos ab amore mundi in amorem conuerteret sui, profecto nos pariter christianos et ueros effecit philosophos’, ibidem, p. 275, ll. 119–123. 27 ‘Haec enim duo maxime ille superni spiritus aduentus in igneis linguis reuelatus eis contulit ut per amorem philosophos et per rationum uirtutem summos efficeret logicos. Vnde bene spiritus in ignis et linguarum specie est demonstratus qui eis amorem et eloquentiam in omni genere linguarum conferret’, ibidem, p.  276, ll. 135–139. 28 Ibidem, p.276, ll. 139–147. 29 ‘Rationi disserendi, hoc est logicae disciplinae, opera est danda, quae ut beatus meminit Augustinus, ad omnia genera quaestionum penetranda quae in sacris literis incidunt, plurimum ualet, ibidem, pp. 276–277, ll. 161–164. Also, Abelard, Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 92–98, ll. 1363–1503. 30 TSum, II, 78, 141, ll. 706–711; cf. Tchr, III,134, 245–246, ll. 1634–1640; TSch, II, 91, 452, ll. 1364–1369. 31 ‘Hoc quippe loquendi genus (sc. involucri figura) philosophis sicut prophetis familiarissimum est, ut uidelicet, cum ad archana prophetie pervenerint, nichil uulgaribus uerbis efferant, sed comparationibus similitudinum lectorem magis alliciant. Que enim quasi fabulosa antea uidebantur et ab omni utilitate remota secundum littere superficiem, gratiora sunt, cum, magnis plena misteriis postmodum reperta, magnam in se doctrine continent edificationem’, TSum, I. 38, 99, ll. 364–371. Cf. Tchr, I. 98, 112, ll. 1276–1283, and TSch, I. 158, 383, ll. 1837–1844. Mention may be made here of the useful work of Ursula Niggli: Peter Abaelard. Theologia Summi boni. Tractatus de unitate et trinitate divina. Abhandlung über die göttliche Einheit und Dreieinigkeit, German trans. Ursula Niggli, Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 1991 (Philosophische Bibliothek, 395). And likewise see Abélard, Du bien

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e suprême (Theologia Summi boni), French trans. Jean Jolivet, Montreal, Bellarmin/ Paris, J. Vrin, 1978 (Cahiers d’études médiévales, 4). 32 See, among many studies, T. Gregory, ‘Abélard et Platon’, in Peter Abelard, ed. Buytaert (as in n. 3 above), pp. 38–64, especially 41–44, and E. Jeauneau, ‘L’usage de la notion d’“integumentum” à travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches’, AHDLMA, 24 (1957), pp.  35–100; reprinted in E. Jeauneau, “Lectio philosophorum”. Recherches sur I’Ecole de Chartres, Amsterdam, A. M. Hakkert, 1973, pp. 127–192. More recently L. Moonan has considered afresh the perspective from which Abelard read the Timaeus, ‘Abelard’s Use of the “Timaeus”’, AHDLMA, Année 1989, pp. 7–90. Moonan urges that Abelard was not an ‘uncritical apostle’ of Plato: ‘His chosen master in method remained Aristotle, to the end. His chosen masters in d ­ octrine . . . ­were in essence the old ones of traditional christian scriptura’ (p.  90). On Abelard’s reading of texts of Macrobius (and thereby of Virgil) see Dronke, cited above in n. 7. 33 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp.  145–152, ll. 2767v2947. For a thorough review of Thomas’ edition of the Dialogus see G. Orlandi, ‘Per una nuova edizione del “Dialogus” di Abelardo’, Rivista critica della storia della filosofia, XXXIV (1979), pp.  474–494. On medieval Latin dialogues see Peter I. von Moos, ‘Le Dialogue Latin au moyen âge: l’exemple d’Evrard d’Ypres’, Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations (1989), pp. 993–1028. 34 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 153–155, ll. 2967–3014. 35 Comm. Rom. (Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. Buytaert), p. 41, ll. 5–6. Buytaert chooses mouere in preference to monere, but see R. Peppermüller, ‘Zur kritischen Ausgabe des Römerbrief-­ Kommentars des Petrus Abaelard’, Scriptorium, XXVI (1972), pp. 82–97: 85–86, and my essay on ‘The Bible in the Writings of Peter Abelard and his “School”’, in Neue Richtungen in der hoch- und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner, Munich, Oldenbourg, 1996 (Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien, 32), pp. 79–93: 88. Reprinted in this volume, chapter 8, pp. 137–51. 36 Comm. Rom., p. 41, ll. 10–26. 37 Ibidem, pp. 41–42, ll. 27–44. 38 Ibidem, p. 42, ll. 50–60. 39 Ibidem, pp. 42–43, ll. 61–78. 40 PL 178, 378–380. 41 PL 178, 379–380; Introductiones parvulorum, ed. M. dal Pra, Pietro Abelardo. Scritti filosofici, Rome, Fratelli Bocca, 1954 (Nuova biblioteca filosofica, ser. II, vol. 3), pp.  3–203; 2nd edition, M. dal Pra, Pietro Abelardo, Scritti di Logica, Florence, 1969 (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell’Università di Milano, 34. Sezione a cura dell’Istituto di storia della filosofia, 3), pp. 3–203. 42 PL 178, 620B. 43 Ibidem. 44 ‘Nos, qui litterarum scioli videmur, niti jam convenit, ut de sensu verborum sumamus animae pastum; nec tam ore corporis sonum, quam ore cordis capiamus sensum’, PL 178, 620C. 45 ‘Quassa est verborum prolatio, quam intelligentia non sequitur, quae ad hoc tantum instituta sunt, ut intelligentiam conferant audita’, PL 178, 620D. 46 Ad hoc quippe fidelibus secularium artium scripta et libros gentilium legere permissum est, ut per eas locutionum et eloquentie generibus atque argumentationum modis aut naturis rerum precognitis. quicquid ad intelligentiam ueI decorem sacre scripture, siue ad defendendam siue ad astruendam ueritatem eius pertinet, assequi ualeamus’, TSch, Preface, 2, p. 313, ll. 11–17. 47 Ibidem, Preface, 5, p. 314, ll. 38–44.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 48 ‘Longe quippe aliarum studia infra summum bonum remanent nec beatitudinis contingunt eminentiam, nec ullus in eis fructus apparet, nisi quantum huic summe deserviunt philosophie, tamquam circa dominam occupate pedisseque. Quid enim ad studium grammatice vel dialectice seu ceterarum artium de vera hominis beatitudine vestiganda? Longe omnes inferius ab hac eminentia iacent nec ad tantum se adtollere valent fastigium. Sed quedam genera locutionum tradunt vel rerum aliquas exercent naturas quasi quosdam gradus ad hanc celsitudinem parantes, cum de ipsa nobis disserendum et per aliquas rerum naturas in exemplum vel similitudinem fuerit afferendum, ut per illas ad istam quasi quodam pedissequarum ducatu pertingamus ad dominam in illis quidem progressionis nostre transitum habentes, in hac requiem et nostre fatigationis finem adepti’, Dialogus, ed. Thomas, pp. 89–90, ll. 1291–1305. 49 ‘Quid itaque mirum, si, absente nobis Spiritu ipso, per quem ea et scripta sunt et dicta atque ipso quoque, scriptoribus intimata, ipsorum nobis desit intelligentia, ad quam nos maxime pervenire impedit inusitatus locutionis modus ac plerumque earumdem vocum significatio diversa, cum modo in hac, modo in illa significatione vox eadem sit posita’, SN, Prologue, p. 89, ll. 9–13. 50 ‘Et cum juxta Tullium “In omnibus identitas mater sit satietatis”, id est fastidium generet, oportet in eadem quoque re verba ipsa variare, nec omnia vulgaribus et communibus denudare verbis; quae, ut ait beatus Augustinus, ob hoc teguntur, ne vilescant, et eo amplius sunt gratiora quo sunt studio investigata et difficilius conquisita. Saepe etiam, pro diversitate eorum quibus loquimur, verba commutari oportet; cum frequenter eveniat ut verborum propria significatio nonnullis sit incognita aut minus usitata’, ibidem, p. 89, ll. 14–20. 51 ‘Quibus quidem si ad doctrinam, ut oportet, loqui volumus, magis eorum usus quam proprietas sermonis aemulandus est’, ibidem, pp. 89–90, ll. 20–22. Compare the remarks of the Christian concerning the word ‘good’ and also the word ‘stone’ in Abelard’s Dialogus, ed. Thomas, p. 160, ll. 3136–3153 and p. 161, ll. 3169–3183: ‘Quantum estimo difficile diffiniri ea censerunt, quorum nomina vir unquam in una significatione consistere videntur. Quippe cum dicitur: bonus homo vel bonus faber aut bonus equus et similia, quis nesciat hoc nomen “bonus” ex adiunctis diversum mutuare sensum; hominem quippe bonum ex moribus dicimus, fabrum ex scientia, equum ex viribus et velocitate, vel que ad usum eius pertinent. Adeo autem ex adiunctis boni significatio variatur, ut etiam cum nominibus vitiorum ipsum iungere non vereamur od in hac malitia peragenda sit callidus vel astutus. Nec solum ad res ipsas, verum etiam ad ea, que de rebus dicuntur, hoc est ad ipsa propositionum dicta sic nonnunquam boni vocabulum adplicamus, ut etiam dicamus, quia bonum est malum esse, quamvis minime concedamus bonum malum esse. Aliud quippe est dicere: malum est bonum, quod omnino falsum est, aliud dicere malum esse bonum est, quod minime negandum est. Quid itaque mirum, si et nos sicut illi horum significationem, que ita inconstans est, diffinire non sufficiamus?’ And: ‘Difficillimum equidem est omnia fere propriis diffinitionibus sic circumscribere, ut ab omnibus aliis ea separari queant, maxime nunc, cum nobis ad diffinitiones excogitandas mora temporis non concedatur. Pleraque nominum, quibus rebus conveniant, ex locutionis usu didicimus. Que vero sit sententia eorum vel intelligentia minime assignare sufficimus. Multa etiam reperimus, quorum nec nominationem sicut nec sententias diffinitione possumus terminare. Et si enim rerum naturas non ignoremus, earum tamen vocabula in usu non sunt et sepe promptior est mens ad intelligendum, quam lingua sit ad proferendum vel ad ea, que sentimus, disserendum. Ecce omnes ex usu cotidiani sermonis cognoscimus, que res appellantur lapides. Que tamen sint lapidis proprie differentie, aut que sit

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a rt s   o f la n g ua g e huius speciei proprietas nullo adhuc, credo, valeamus assignare vocabulo, quo lapidis aliqua diffinitio seu descriptio perfici possit?’ 52 SN, Prologue, p. 90, ll. 23–43. 53 Ibidem, p. 90, l. 44. 54 Ibidem, p. 103, ll. 333–335. See B. Smalley, ‘“Prima Clavis Sapientiae”: Augustine and Abelard’, in Fritz Saxl, 1890–1948. A volume of memorial essays from his friends in England, ed. D. J. Gordon, London, Thomas Nelson and Son, 1957, pp. 93–100. 55 SN, Prologue, p. 103, ll. 338–339. 56 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 219–237. For discussion see here pp. 113–120. 57 In his Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 731–788, Abelard used Jerome’s writings to attempt to uncover primarily the literal meaning of Genesis; he sent the work to the Paraclete with a covering letter to Heloise. A. T. Canavero, in a useful study of a part of this commentary, has suggested that Abelard probably did attempt to acquire some knowledge of the Hebrew text from a contemporary Rabbi, ‘La “Ratio” nella spiegazione del racconto biblico della creazione: “Spiritus dei ferebatur super aquas”’, Rivista critica della storia della filosofia, XXXIV (1979), pp. 459–473. Abelard’s encouragement to the nuns to discuss problems found in Scripture is reflected in the Problemata Heloissae (PL 178, 677–730), a work which presents forty-­two problems following each of which Abelard provides a solution. Preceding these is a letter from Heloise to Abelard in which Heloise reports that her sisters at the Paraclete have been striving to achieve that understanding of Scripture that Jerome encouraged among the Christian ladies of Rome and which Abelard had also urged. 58 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp.  239–247. For discussion of the letter see here pp. 120–136. Knowledge of Abelard’s attitudes to the Cistercian order has been much enlarged by L. J. Engels, ‘“Adtendite a falsis prophetis” (Ms. Colmar 128, ff.152v/153v). Un texte de Pierre Abélard contre les Cisterciens retrouvé?’, in “Corona Gratiarum”. Miscellanea patristica, historica et liturgica E. Dekkers . . . oblata, Bruges, F. T. De Fries, 1975 (Instrumenta Patristica, 10–11), II, pp. 195–228. 59 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p. 133.

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5 SCIENTIA AND DISCIPLINA IN THE CORRESPONDENCE OF PETER ABELARD AND HELOISE

Disciplina In his letters Abelard uses the word ‘disciplina’ in a number of different ways.1 Learning or studying a branch of organized knowledge is one such use: ‘ingenio exstiti AD LlTTERATORIAM DISCIPLlNAM facilis’.2 Abelard claims to have a natural facility for the study of letters which was realized during his early education, which took place either in a school or through private tuition.3 He mentions education in boyhood again in his Dialectica in the course of discussing the different kinds of comparison. He has in mind the beginner’s textbooks in dialectic, including the Categories and Boethius’ De differentiis topicis: ‘Cum autem tres comparationis gradus esse A PUERILIBUS DISCIPLlNIS accepimus . . .’.4 ‘Disciplines’ thus signify the branches of study or the arts which are learned and taught in a traditional, formal and also practical way: dialecticarum rationum armaturam omnibus philosophiae documentis ­praetuli . . . ­Proinde diversas disputando perambulans provincias, ubicunque hujus ARTIS vigere studium audieram, Peripaticorum aemulator factus ­sum . . . ­Perveni tandem Parisius, ubi jam maxime DISCIPLINA HAEC florere consueverat.5 ‘Disciplina’ is here used in relation to dialectic but in the sense of a process, the process being the practice of disputation, the peripatetic pursuit of dialectical reasoning in philosophy as well as study of the art. He puts emphasis on the practice of dialectic which takes the form of disputing. He calls this practice an ­art – a­ significant point, as we shall see later. In describing how finally he vanquished William of Champeaux and attracted to himself William’s pupils, Abelard uses the term ‘disciplina’ in a sense that embraces ‘doctrina’ or the conclusions reached in teaching and disputation: Hinc tantum roboris et auctoritatis NOSTRA suscepit DISCIPLINA, ut ii, qui antea vehementius magistro ilIo nostro adhaerebant, et 85

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r maxime nostram infestabant DOCTRINAM, ad nostras convolarent scholas.6 Abelard also uses the singular form of ‘disciplina’ in general references to the liberal arts. In the Historia Calamitatum he writes ‘secularium artium disciplinam’ as distinct from ‘sacre lectioni[s] studium’. He was now a monk: Ubi, quod professioni mee convenientius erat, sacre plurimumlectioni studium intendens, SECULARIUM ARTIUM DISCIPLINAM quibus amplius assuetus fueram et quas a me plurimum requirebant non penitus abjeci, sed de his quasi hamum quendam fabricavi, quo illos philosophico sapore inescatos ad vere philosophie lectionem attraherem . . .7 In Letter 9 Abelard recalls the way in which Jerome commended the study and teaching of Greek letters to his female pupils and comments that the ‘disciplina’ of the liberal arts and knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages brought benefits to those who strove to be perfectly educated: maxime, ut arbitror, propter translacionem diuinorum librorum a Grecis ad nos derivatam, unde et discernere posset quid apud nos minus uel aliter esset et fortasse propter LIBERALIUM quoque DISCIPLINAM ARCIUM, que his que ad perfectionem doctrine nituntur, non nichil afferunt utilitatis.8 Abelard also cites Jerome’s recommendation to Laeta that she teach her daughter letters to ensure her good character: ‘ad Laetam de institutione filiae suae Paulae, propter morum doctrinam tradit hanc LITTERARUM DISCIPLINAM’.9 Educated men and women in Rome in Jerome’s day were not content to know Latin alone and had recourse to the Greek version of Scripture from which the Vulgate text was derived. Learning another language is also a ‘disciplina’: Tantum eo tempore in sanctis feminis, sicut et in uiris, studium fervebat litterarum, ut nequaquam SUE LINGUE DISCIPLINA contente ipsos scripturarum riuulos quos habebant, ab ipsis inquirerent fontibus nec inopiam unius lingue sibi crederent sufficere.10 ‘Disciplina’ is, moreover, used in the sense, found in the Vulgate, of doctrine, even command or precept or regulation. ‘Dominica disciplina’ means the teaching of Christ: ‘Quod quidem, juxta DOMINICAM EVANGELICAE REGULAE DISCIPLINAM, lumbos praecingere (Lc 12: 35), omnibus renunciare (Lc 14:33), otiosum verbum cavere (Mt 12 36)’.11 In addition, Abelard uses the term ‘disciplina’ in the sense, which it had acquired in the earlier 86

scientia and disciplina centuries, of obedience to a rule, in particular a monastic rule. In one passage he refers to the example of the Venerable Bede who wrote in his History that he applied himself completely to the study of Scripture and to the task of learning and writing between the times when he observed the monastic discipline and the daily task of singing in church: ‘Omnem meditans Scripturis operam dedi, atque inter observanciam DISCIPLINAE REGULARIS et quotidianam cantandi in ecclesia curam semper aut discere aut scribere dulce habui’.12 The role of understanding – ‘intelligentia’ – in Abelard’s advocacy of monastic discipline is always of the first importance. Bede exemplified ‘disciplina’ in an ideal way, but monastic studies at the present time are producing inveterate fools, pleased with the sound of letters but having no understanding of them: ‘Nunc vero qui in monasteriis erudiuntur adeo stulti perseverant, ut litterarum sono contenti nullam de intelligencia curam assumant, nec cor instruere, sed linguam student’.13 In his Rule for the nuns of the Paraclete Abelard gives advice on this.14 What is to be sung or said should not just be learned. It must be understood. Scripture is like a mirror of the soul. If it is read and not understood, it is as if a blind man holds it before his eyes or as if an ass plays a harp.15 Heloise, in her letter to Abelard presenting the Biblical Problemata prepared by her sisters for consideration, reminds Abelard that he has written that reading the Scriptures without understanding is like holding a mirror before someone who cannot see.16 Unless understanding is present, all the mouth does is form words on the breath of speech and song.17 Abelard attacks unnamed monasteries in which ‘disciplina’ is merely training or practice. The feeding of sheep is more important than their bleat: unde non mediocriter miramur quae inimici suggestio in monasteriishoc egit, ut nulla ibi de intelligendis Scripturis sint studia,sed de cantu tantum [si]ve de verbis solummodo formandis, non intelligendis habeatur DISCIPLINA, quasi ovium balatus plus utilitatis habeat, quam pastus.18 This reminds one of Abelard’s definition, in his Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, of ‘vox’ as mere ‘flatus vocis’ in contrast to ‘sermo’ which signifies.19 And there may also be an echo here in the Rule of Abelard’s youthful exposition of the Book of Ezechiel before his fellow students when he attended the school of Anselm of Laon. For he refers to the ways in which the Lord told Ezechiel to listen to what the Lord says, to open his mouth and ‘eat’ the book which he gives and then go and speak to the sons of Israel. Ezechiel ‘eats’ the book and it became sweet honey in his mouth (‘Et comedi illud, et factum est in ore mea sicut mel dulce’, Ez 3: 3). In the account which Abelard gives in his Historia calamitatum of his challenge to Anselm’s teaching, he expresses his contempt for Anselm’s lack of sense and reason and his own aim to use ‘ingenium’ when expounding Scripture.20 Ezechiel’s understanding, his 87

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r ‘eating’ of the book, becomes the model for monastic ‘disciplina’. Benedict’s instruction that the monks in Lent should take codices from the library and read them from end to end presupposes that they will read with understanding.21 At this point in his Rule Abelard moves from an emphasis on ‘intelligentia’ to an emphasis upon ‘scientia’. He distinguishes between those who know letters and those who do not (‘scire’/’nescire’). Knowing letters is defined as more than literacy; it includes the ability to communicate them: ‘Scire quippe litteras in claustris dicuntur, quicunque illas proferre didicerunt’.22 Abelard passes in this way from ‘disciplina’ through ‘intelligentia’ to ‘docere’. Abelard, then, uses the term ‘disciplina’ fluidly in many of its usual, diverse senses.23 ‘Disciplina’ could mean ‘doctrina’ and ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’; ‘discere’ is linked with ‘docere’. Although Abelard does not appear to have used ‘disciplina’ in reference to a philosophical school or sect, for him ‘disciplina’ embraces method and precept as well as knowledge. It conveys the sense of education, both intellectual and moral, and both secular and divine. I suspect that Marrou’s finding concerning the difference between ‘doctrina’ and ‘disciplina’ in the writings of the Latin Fathers of the ­Church – ­that they are closely connected but also distinct and that ‘doctrina’ conveys the sense of theological truth while ‘disciplina’ carries a more practical and less theoretical or speculative s­ense – i­s still valid but not obtrusive in the writings of Abelard, certainly not in his correspondence where ‘disciplina’ carries, as we have seen, a range of meanings.24 ‘Disciplina’ also suggests good order, at least in the monastery. Abelard does not appear to use ‘disciplina’ in the sense of the church’s authority or of the content of the church’s teaching or its rules or of the teaching activity of bishops and priests, although he does use it in reference to correction, chastisement or flagellation in a monastic context.25 Chenu observed the way in which writers, since at least Martianus Capella and Boethius,26 sometimes wrote of the ‘artes’ of the ‘trivium’ but of the ‘disciplinae’ of the ‘quadrivium’. Abelard does not practise this distinction nor did he show interest in Boethius’ association of ‘disciplina’ with mathematical methods.27 Nor does he use ‘disciplina’ in the way in which Chenu noted that it was beginning to be used by Hugh of St Victor, Gilbert of Poitiers, Clarembald of Arras and Dominic Gundissalinus, namely, to mean demonstration or abstraction leading to certitude.28 Nor does he use the term in its newer courtly sense of self-­restraint, composure, courteous good manners and honest behaviour.29 All in all, Abelard’s use of this term is conventional, but this is reinforced by his strong emphasis on ‘disciplina’ needing to be accompanied by ‘intelligentia’ in monasteries as much as in schools.

Scientia One of Abelard’s persistent appeals is for the promotion of a knowledge of letters. He admired the ‘litteratoria scientia’ possessed by Heloise and so rarely found among women: ‘quo bonum hoc LITTERATORIE scilicet SCIENTIE 88

scientia and disciplina in mulieribus est rarius, eo amplius puellam commendabat, et in toto regno nominatissimam fecerat’.30 In Letter 9 he appeals to the nuns of the Paraclete to study languages and literatures for the neglect of either has, since Jerome’s day, brought about the decline of both: ‘Defecit iam dudum hoc peregrinarum linguarum in uiris studium et cum negligencia litterarum, SCIENCIA periit earum’.31 Here Abelard uses the term ‘scientia’ simply in the sense of expert knowledge, erudition and learning, as he does also when he cites the call of Jerome – ‘an honour to the monastic profession’ – to love the ‘scientia litterarum’ which ensures that the vices of the flesh will not be loved: ‘Maximus Ecclesiae doctor et monasticae professionis honor Hieronymus, qui nos ad amorem litterarum adhortans, ait: “Ama SCIENTIAM LITTERARUM, et carnis vitia non amabis” [epist. 4], quantum laborem et expensas in doctrina earum consumpserit ejus quoque testimonio didicimus’.32 Heloise likewise quotes Jerome in her letter prefacing the Problemata, although here (as in Abelard’s Letter 9) it is knowledge of Scripture, not of letters, which is recommended.33 Those in the monastic life are under an obligation to obey Scripture and should have knowledge of the divine writings: ‘Qui dum DIVINORUM ELOQUIORUM SCIENTIA careant, magis consuetudinem hominum quam utilitatem Scripturae obediendo sequuntur’.34 Abelard exhorts the sisters not to be content with Scriptural knowledge but to engage in the work of teaching and instructing others: ‘. . . in tantum fodiamus, ut non solum nobis sufficiat SCIENTIA SCRIPTURARUM, sed et alios doceamus et instruamus ut bibant’.35 In addition to this knowledge of letters and of the Scriptures, Abelard encourages the nuns to know the ‘divine sciences’. Referring to the course of Jerome’s studies under Didimus in Alexandria and Barannia in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, he cites Jerome’s praise of the level of thought and understanding they had achieved and the hard work they had devoted to mastering these: ‘Scripturarum vero divinarum meditationem et intellectum, atque SCIENTIAE DIVINAE, nunquam tanta vidimus exercitia, ut singulos pene eorum oratores credas in divinam esse sapientiam’.36 He warns against the tendency to be lured into earthly thoughts and away from the ‘divinae scientiae’: ‘. . . quando nobis ad alta tendentibus immundi spiritus terrenas cogitationes ingerunt, et quasi inventam DIVlNAE SCIENTIAE aquam tollunt’.37 Here Abelard, in writing of the ‘scientiae divinae’, uses the term ‘scientia’ in the sense of a particular branch of knowledge, and does so in a way which corresponds to his use of the term ‘disciplina’ to indicate a particular subject of study. He does not specify what the ‘scientiae divinae’ comprise, but they are undoubtedly contained in the ‘opuscula doctorum’: ‘codices et distinguit diuersos, tam de canone duorum testamentorum quam de opusculis doctorum ex quorum erudicione proficiat ut consummetur’.38 He presses upon the nuns of the Paraclete Jerome’s conviction that the ability to read the different parts of the Bible in their original l­anguages – H ­ ebrew, Greek or L ­ atin – i­s a sure way of avoiding and rebutting the many disagreements in interpretation 89

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r that have arisen through the use of translations. Abelard cites Daniel 12: 4: ‘Pertransibunt plurimi et MULTIPLEX erit SCIENTlA’.39 Translations are ‘second-­best’ because they depart from the original sense and are the source of discrepant understanding. Jerome’s own translations from Greek and Hebrew have, however, made it possible to put aside the older, unsatisfactory translations. To the nuns of the Paraclete Abelard did not recommend the ‘scientia’ of dialectic but that of letters. To his ‘scholares’, on the other hand, Abelard had much to say about the former. His justification in the Historia calamitatum of the use of reason in support of enquiry into Christian beliefs conveys the outline of his views: Accidit autem mihi ut ad ipsum fidei nostre fundamenrum humanerationis similitudinibus disserendum primo me applicarem, et quendam theologie tractatum DE UNITATE ET TRINITATE DIVINA scolaribus nostris componerem, qui humanas et philosophicas rationes requirebant, et plus que intelligi quam quedici possent efflagitabant: dicentes quidem verborum superfluam esseprolationem quam intelligentia non sequeretur, nec credi posse aliquidnisi primitus intellectum, et ridiculosum esse aliquem aliis predicarequod nec ipse nec illi quos doceret intellectu capere possent, Domino ipso arguente quod ceci essent duces cecorum.40 In the Dialectica Abelard develops this theme. He writes there that dialectic is a legitimate art and a legitimate science for Christians to practise and to write about. He turns upon his critics who say that dialectic provides arguments which destroy faith but who maintain that it is permissible to read books of dialectic. Dialectic is a ‘scientia’, and ‘scientia’ is ‘veritatis rerum comprehensio’. ‘Sapientia’ is a species of ‘scientia’; truth cannot be opposed to truth; all ‘scientia’ is ‘bona’, even knowledge of evil, for knowledge of evil and of sin is necessary if evil and sin are to be avoided. There is one science (‘scientia’) which it is evil to practise, and this is ‘mathematica’, the term Abelard uses for ‘astrologia’. But knowledge of astrology, as distinct from the practice of astrology, is not evil. Why, then, are critics of the study and practice of dialectic by Christians mistaken? Abelard answers that the study of every ‘scientia’ is good, especially when the ‘scientia’ leads to the possession of what is both good and true. The ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood is the province of dialectic. Dialectic is a necessary means of repelling the sophistical arguments of schismatics. An example is the way in which dialectical arguments can refute the criticism that there cannot be three names for the divine substance. But dialectic is also a particularly difficult science; those who fail to make progress in it become envious of those who succeed. Success in dialectic, unlike success in other ‘scientie’, requires intellectual ability (‘ingenium’) even more than practice (‘exercitium’), and this ability is a gift from heaven 90

scientia and disciplina and a grace of God.41 We are reminded of Abelard’s retort to his fellow students at Laon who urged him to respect his lack of experience in exposition of the Bible: ‘Qui invito mihi consilium dantes, dicebant ad rem tantam non esse properandum, sed diutius in expositione rimanda et firmanda mihi hanc inexperto vigilandum. Indignatus autem respondi non esse mee consuetudinis per usum proficere sed per ingenium’.42 Paré, Brunet and Tremblay, in their influential book on La Renaissance du Xlle siècle, observed that an explicit distinction between ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’ only began to be made with the appearance of the Posterior Analytics.43 The authors cite, as examples of the use of the words ‘scientia’ and ‘ars’ as synonyms, passages from the writings of Hugh of St Victor and of John of Salisbury. For example, Hugh writes in his Didascalicon: ‘Dico dialectica est scientia, id est ars vel disciplina’.44 Although Abelard does sometimes use the words ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’ as if they were interchangeable (rather in the way that ‘doctrina’ and ‘disciplina’ could be used interchangeably), he also had a strong sense of the difference between ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’. Examples of ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’ appearing to have the same meaning are found in Letter 13 where Abelard attacks those who think that dialectic is incompatible with ‘sacra lectio’: Agnoscant igitur eam quam uehementius detestantur, ARTEM, hoc est DIALECTICAM quasi sacrae lectioni ­contrariam . . . ­Hanc quippe SCIENTIAM tantis praeconiis efferre beatus ausus est ­Augustinus . . . ­Idem in secundo De Doctrina Christiana cum inter omnes ARTES praecipue DIALECTICAM ET ARlTHMETICAM sacrae lectioni necessarias esse p ­rofiteatur . . . ­ DIALECTICAM ATQUE SOPHISTICAM ­ ARTEM .  .  . ­ VTRAQUE TAMEN SCIENTIA TAM DIALECTICA SCILICET QUAM ­SOPHISTICA . . . ­ARTEM DISPUTANDI ea SCIENTIA quae nomine quoque illi sit coniuncta et per deriuationem quandam a [logos] LOGICA sit appellata.45 But, in fact, in the same letter Abelard makes the point that dialectic is the only true ‘scientia’ because it alone enables us to have knowledge (‘scire’): Hanc quippe SCIENTIAM tantis praeconiis efferre beatus ausus estAugustinus ut COMPARATIONE CAETERARUM ARTIUM eam solam facere scire fateatur, tanquam IPSA SOLA SITDICENDA SCIENTIA. Vnde libro secundo De Ordine ita meminit: ‘Disciplinam disciplinarum quam dialecticam ­uocant . . . ­Scit sola, scientes facere non solum uult, sed etiam potest.46 Dialectic is both an art and a science but there is a difference between them, a difference which Abelard explores more fully in his Dialectica. Here Abelard 91

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r once more defends the study and practice of dialectic by Christian thinkers and apologists and distinguishes between ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’. By art (‘ars’) Abelard means the practice of dialectic by one instructed in it. Art therefore requires knowledge (‘scientia’) and ‘scientia’ is understanding of truth. Dialecticians may ask questions about the truth of propositions. But questions which arise from lack of knowledge (‘inscientia’) or from doubt are not proper ones for dialecticians: Neque enim in eo quod dialeticus est ac secundum ARTEM proprietate complexionis instructus, de veritate seu falsitate constructionis ­ambigit . . . N ­ on itaque dialeticorum est interrogare, sed comprobare potius. Unde etsi a dialeticis questiones huiusmodi sepe proferri soleant, quia tamen eas NON EX ARTE SED EX INSCIENTlA proferunt, artis intentioni vel negotio non sunt ascribende, ut videlicet eas in materiam et intentionem dialetice recipiamus. Qu[i]a enim DIALETICA SCIENTIA EST, SCIENTIA VERO COMPREHENSIOVERlTATIS, unumquemque, in quantum dialeticus est, scientem esse oportet [. . .] cum interrogare ad inscientiam pertineat, scire tamen interrogationem componere doctrine ascribitur. Unde nec incommode de questionibus quoque dialetici tractant, quarum tractatus a SCIENTIA non est alienus.47 A still fuller account of the distinction between art and science, although the term ‘ars’ is not used and there is no reply to critics of Christians who practise dialectic, is found in the introduction to the glosses on Porphyry which are found in the Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’. Abelard presents a ‘divisio’ of ‘scientia’ into ‘scientia agendi’ and ‘scientia discernendi’. Many, he says, can perform tasks without being very good at making judgements. Many physicians know from experience which herbal remedies can heal certain illnesses but without understanding the reason or the theory which explains their healing properties. In the animal world also, dogs lick their wounds and bees make honey without any rational understanding of natural causes. And, conversely, however intelligent men may be, they often lack practical ability. So, there is a ‘scientia agendi’ and another ‘scientia discernendi’. Philosophy is uniquely a ‘scientia discernendi’. We may call people philosophers only if by the subtlety of their intellect they possess diligent discernment. The discerning mind is one which has the power to understand and to deliberate upon the hidden causes of things, using reason more than experience. There are three species of philosophy, each of which is a ‘scientia’: physics enquires into the causes of natural things, ethics into ‘honestas’, and logic or dialectic judges arguments. Abelard emphasizes that logic is not a ‘scientia utendi argumentis sive componendi ea’, but a ‘(scientia) discernendi et diiudicandi veraciter de eis’. The logician, being a philosopher, can judge which arguments have strength and which are weak.48 92

scientia and disciplina Notes   1 The correspondence between Abelard and Heloise is now considered by many to include anonymous letters exchanged between mulier and vir which were edited by Ewald Könsgen: Epistolae duorum amantium. Briefe Abaelards und Heloises? Edition und Untersuchungen. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1974 (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 8). On this see the Supplementary Notes, p. 000, n. 28. However, these letters yield nothing that is significant for this communication.  2 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 12–13.  3 Ibidem, ll. 13–17: ‘Patrem autem habebam litteris aliquantulum imbutum antequam militari cingulo insigniretur. Unde postmodum tanto litteras amore complexus est, ut quoscunque filios haberet, litteris antequam armis INSTRUI disponeret. Sic que profecto actum est’.  4 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 430, 24–25; also p. 424, 20–23, 426, 19–21, for references to Boethius, Aristotle and Porphyry.  5 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 25–31. Cf. Abelard, Letter 13, in Letters IX– XIV, ed. Smits, p. 276, ll. 161–162: ‘rationi disserendi, hoc est logicae disciplinae’.  6 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 101–104.  7 Ibidem, ll. 668–674.  8 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p. 224 (PL CLXXVIII, 328A). Cf. Abelard, Sermo 18 (PL CLXXVIII, 511C–512A).  9 Ibidem, p. 219 (PL CLXXVIII, 325C). 10 Abelard, Letter 9, ed. Smits, p. 228 (PL 178, 330C). 11 Abelard, Letter 8 (PL 178, 258B). 12 Abelard, Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 311B). See Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. B.  Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1969 (Oxford Medieval Texts), pp. 566–567. Bede wrote: ‘. . . aut discere aut docere aut scribere . . .’. 13 Abelard, Letter 8 (ibidem, 311B). 14 Abelard, Letter 8 (ibidem, 306A–314B). 15 Abelard, Letter 8 (ibidem, 306AB).* 16 ‘Addebas insuper ad exhortationem nostram ipsam Scripturae lectionem non intellectam esse quasi speculum oculis non videntis appositum’ (PL CLXXVIII, 678B). 17 Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 306D–307C). 18 Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 307D–308A). Cf. Abelard in the Letter to Heloise which prefaces the collection of Sermons which he sent to the Paraclete: ‘Ac fortasse pura minus quam ornata locutio quanto planior fuerit, tanto simplicium intelligentiae commodior erit; et pro qualitate auditorum ipsa inculti sermonis rusticitas quaedam erit ornatus urbanitas, et quoddam condimentum saporis parvulorum intelligentia facilis’ (PL CLXXVIII, 379–380). 19 Ed. Geyer, p. 522, ll. 10 et seq. 20 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 164–221. The same points are picked up again by Abelard in his Letter to Heloise accompanying the despatch to her of his Expositio in Hexameron: the prophecy of Ezekiel is one of three items in the books of the Old Testament which are more difficult to understand (‘ad intelligendum difficiliora’). The opening of Genesis is another (‘difficiliorem esse constat intelligentiam’), but Augustine had applied his ‘perspicax ingenium’ to expound the historical sense of the latter (PL CLXXVIII, 731–732). 21 Abelard, Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 309D–310A); Regula Benedicti, c.48, St Ottilien, EOS, 1983. Abelard continues (310A): ‘Notum quippe est illud Sapientis proverbium: “Legere et non intelligere, negligere est”’. 22 Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 310B).

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 23 I have found helpful the studies by W. Dürig, ‘“Disciplina”: Eine Studie zur Bedeutung des Wortes in der Sprache der Liturgie und der Väter’, Sacris Erudiri, 4 (1952), pp. 245–279; H.-I. Marrou, ‘“Doctrina” et “Disciplina” dans la langue des Pères de l’Église’, Bulletin du Cange. Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi, 9 (1934), pp.  5–25, and M.-D. Chenu, “Disciplina”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 25 (1936), pp. 686–692. 24 G. Paré, A. Brunet, O. Tremblay, La Renaissance du XIIe siècle. Les écoles et l’enseignement. Paris, J. Vrin; Ottawa, Institut d’Études médiévales, 1933 (Publications de l’Institut d’Études médiévales d’Ottawa, 3) p. 105n, lay emphasis, perhaps too greatly, upon the sense of ‘doctrina’ as the activity of teaching, especially spoken teaching, in contrast to its content. 25 ‘Ego autem ad regularem disciplinam, si quid deliquissem, frustra me offerebam’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 980–981. 26 Martianus Capella, De nuptiis mercurii et philologiae, 2, 138, ed. A. Dick, Leipzig, Teubner, 1925; Boethius, De musica, I, 1, ed. G. Friedlein, Leipzig, Teubner, 1867, p.  181, 25; Boethius, De geometria, cap. De sphera, ed. G. Friedlein, Leipzig, Teubner, 1867, p. 425, 22. 27 Boethius, De trinitate, II, ed. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, S. J. Tester, London, Heinemann, 1973 (Loeb Classical Library), p. 8. 28 Hugh of St Victor distinguishes between ‘ars’, which leads to sustainable opinions, and ‘disciplina’ which provides certainties: ‘Vel ars dici potest quando aliquid verisimile atque opinabile tractatur. Disciplina, quando de his quae aliter se habere non possunt, veris disputationibus aliquid disseritur’, Didascalicon, II, 1, ed. C. H. Buttimer, Washington, D.C., Catholic University of America, 1939 (Studies in Medieval & Renaissance Latin, 10), p. 24, 2–5. 29 For ‘disciplina’ and the courtly ideal see C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness. Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939–1210, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985 (The Middle Ages), pp. 129–133. Jaeger notes the way in which this idea entered the vernacular. 30 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 286–288. 31 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p. 236 (PL CLXXVIII, 335A–336A). 32 Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 310CD). 33 ‘Eo videlicet amore litterarum correptae, de quo praedictus doctor quodam loco meminit: “Ama scientiam scripturarum et carnis vitia non amabis”’ (PL CLXXVIII, 678C). Cf. Abelard, Letter 9 in Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p. 219 (PL CLXXVIII, 325B): “Ama scienciam scripturarum et carnis uicia non amabis”. 34 Abelard, Letter 8 (PL CLXXVIII, 310C). 35 Ibidem (312D). 36 Ibidem (311A). 37 Ibidem (311D). By ‘scientiae divinae’ Jerome here means what he learned from Apollinaris, Didimus and Barannia. Other terms which Abelard uses include ‘sanctae’ or ‘sacrae litterae’, such as are found in the works of Jerome or in the Bible. See ibidem (314B); Abelard, Letter 9 in Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 219 and 228 (PL CLXXVIII, 325B, 325C, 330B). 38 Abelard, Letter 9 in Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p. 224 (PL CLXXVIII, 328A). 39 Ibidem, p. 235 (334C). 40 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 690–701. 41 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. 469–471. 42 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 204–209. 43 Paré, Brunet, Tremblay, La Renaissance du XIIe siècle, p. 104. On the translations of the Posterior Analytics by James of Venice (second quarter of the twelfth century) and by John (the Saracen?; before 1159) see E. Jeauneau, ‘Jean de Salisbury et la

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scientia and disciplina lecture des philosophes’, in The World of John of Salisbury, ed. M. Wilks, Oxford, Blackwell, 1984 (Studies in Church History. Subsidia, 3), pp. 77–108: 103–108. 44 Didascalicon, II, 30, p.  47. Also II, 1, p.  23: ‘Ars dici potest scientia, quae artis praeceptis regulisque consistit’, and II, 30, p.  47: ‘Dico: dialectica est scientia, id est ars vel disciplina’. Although the reference by Paré, Brunet and Tremblay, La Renaissance du XIIe siècle to the Metalogicon, I, 11, where John of Salisbury defines ‘ars’, is not instructive on this point, in II, 2–3 John uses ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’ interchangeably in discussing logic and dialectic. See Ioannis Saresberiensis Metalogicon, ed. J. B. Hall with the assistance of K. S. B. Keats-­Rohan, Turnhout, Brepols, 1991 (CCCM, 98), pp. 29–31 and 58–59. 45 Letter 13 in Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 271–272, ll. 16–29 and 45–50, p. 274, l. 100, p. 275, ll. 114–116 (PL CLXXVIII, 353BC, 353D–354A, 355A, 355B). 46 Ibidem, pp. 271–272, ll. 20–27 (353BC). 47 Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 153. For the definition of ‘scientia’ as ‘comprehensio veritatis rerum quae sunt’, see Boethius, In Categorias (PL LXIV, 229CD); Boethius, Institutio arithmetica, ed. G. Friedlein, Leipzig, Teubner, 1867, p.  7, l. 26. Also Abelard, Tchr, III, 6, p. 196; TSch, II, 29, p. 421. 48 Abelard, Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, ed. Geyer, pp. 505–507.

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6 THE SENSE OF INNOVATION IN THE WRITINGS OF PETER ABELARD

Peter Dronke, in the volume which he edited and published in 1988 on Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, emphasized ‘New perspectives’ in scientific speculation, in speculative grammar and in logic. He also emphasized the ‘Innovators’ – these being Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, William of Conches, Gilbert of Poitiers, Thierry of Chartres and Hermann of ­Carinthia – ­and, finally, he emphasized ‘the entry of the “New Aristotle”’.1 John of Salisbury remarked of the work of the masters who taught him in Paris from 1136 that ‘all things were being renewed’ (‘Ecce nova fiebant omnia’ – cf. Apoc. 2.1:5): grammar was refounded, dialectic was changed, rhetoric had become despised and new ways into the quadrivium were being presented.2 The logica nova and ­also – w ­ e now ­know – t­ he logica modernorum3 took their place alongside the logica vetus. In logic there were new sects (novas sectas), as John of Salisbury called them.4 In addition, new Latin translations of hitherto inaccessible works of medicine and astronomy were being made at this time.5 The ‘innovations’ imputed to Abelard provoked repeated criticisms throughout his career and never more so than during the final campaign against him c.1140. The letter which William of St Thierry sent to bishop Geoffrey of Chartres and to Bernard of Clairvaux in criticism of the theological writings of Abelard inveighs against his novelties: ‘Petrus enim Abaelardus iterum nova docet, nova ­scribit . . . ­novae eius sententiae de fide, et nova dogmata per provincias et regna deferuntur’.6 William complained that Abelard had used unusual novel words about the faith and had made new inventions with unheard of meanings: ‘insolitas in fide vocum novitates et novas inauditorum sensuum adinventiones’.7 William laments that almost all the good masters were now ­dead – ­William may have been thinking of Anselm of Laon and of William of Champeaux8 – with the result that Abelard has burst into a vacuum with hostile intentions and squats in a deserted landscape, in which he subjects divine Scripture to the scrutiny of the same new techniques that he had earlier developed in dialectic.9 Bernard of Clairvaux, in his letters written during the campaign to have Abelard condemned and silenced in the year 1140, also attacked novelty: ‘Magister Petrus in libris suis “profanas vocum novitates” (1 Tim. 6:20) inducit et sensuum’.10 Abelard has fashioned 97

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r a new Gospel, a new faith; he prefers his own inventions and novelties to the faith and the teaching of the Catholic Fathers.11 He has transgressed the limits set by the Fathers, and has changed, whatever he wishes to change.12 Paradoxically, however, the novelties are not new ones but old ones; the inventions are re-­inventions. Abelard’s errors concerning the Trinity are those of Arius, his errors concerning grace are those of Pelagius, and his errors concerning the person of Christ are those of Nestorius.13 By renewing the errors of the heresiarchs, Abelard is, therefore, guilty of deviance from orthodoxy. Walter of Mortagne, in a letter to Abelard in which he criticized his teaching on the power of God the Father and the power of God the Son, focussed on his departures from custom as it is upheld in the writings of the orthodox: ‘quaedam legi, quae a consuetudine scriptorum orthodoxorum discrepant’.14 The form of deviance which Walter attacks is the formulation of personal opinion about truth: ‘Quis autem orthodoxus de fide catholica tractaturus non veritatem, sed sensum opinionis suae promittat exponere?’15 The preference for personal opinion clashes with Catholic faith: ‘Quaedam etiam ibi legi, quae videntur a fide catholica discrepare.’16 Walter’s criticism is accurate. For example, at the end of the first book of his Ethica, after concluding a critical review of the doctrine of the power of the keys, the priestly power of binding and loosing the sins of men, Abelard wrote: ‘In all that I write it is enough for me to present my opinion rather than the definition of truth.’ But he added: ‘At the present time reason openly given in support of truth stirs up enough envy and hatred among those who are preeminent in the name of religion.’17 More serious still, according to Walter, were the reports emanating from Abelard’s students about Abelard’s confidence in his ability to expound, in the light of full knowledge, the profound mysteries of the Trinity. These reports seemed to be confirmed by what Walter read in Abelard’s Theologia.18 As Jolivet once wrote, this text of Walter illustrates a conflict of mentalities. For Walter theology consists of the presentation, for each topic, of pertinent Scriptural, patristic and conciliar texts which by definition present truth, not opinions. For Abelard theology also requires the clarification of obscure formulas and the refutation of false dialecticians with the arms of dialectic, using all the arts in fact to defend and strengthen truth.19 My purpose, however, is not, in fact, to examine the question whether Abelard was an innovator. He was an innovator, and the chapter that I contributed to Peter Dronke’s volume appears in the section devoted to the Innovators of the twelfth century. Rather my purpose is to consider what sense Abelard had of his own innovations and whether he saw himself as an innovator in the face of forces of conservatism and of critics of his innovativeness. How did Abelard express himself when he created the novelties with which he is credited by his contemporaries and by modern historians? Did he develop new learning in conscious opposition to old learning? We may illustrate Abelard’s own sense of innovation from the introduction he wrote to his treatment of categorical syllogisms in the first book of the 98

t h e s e n s e o f i n n ovat i o n second Tract in his Dialectica. He shows assurance and anxiety. He complains of the jealousies of his detractors20 as he sets out to remedy the defects he finds in the available ­authorities – ­in Aristotle who was too brief and obscure in what he wrote concerning categorical syllogisms and in Boethius who was too prolix when dealing with hypothetical syllogisms. The labours of both of these Abelard seeks to better. He is confident that his contributions are neither fewer nor less important than those of the writers whom the Latins have held in the greatest esteem. Although he will not depart from common teaching,21 he will elucidate what the authorities have dealt with only summarily or have completely omitted. He will correct things which they have not presented well. He will reconcile what he calls the schismatical expositions of his contemporaries and he will put to flight dissensions between the moderns. But he shows concern in the face of the hostility of others. Nonetheless, he proclaims his ability, with God’s aid, to prove that he is not inferior to the peripatetic authorities whom the Latin world admires; if in his own writings he compensates for weaknesses in theirs, if he goes beyond them or if he unravels what they have left in the form of implication, he should be judged fairly. A just exposition of words written by authority is not less fruitful than or inferior to original thought.22 As R. W. Southern has observed, Abelard ‘did not think of himself (in the phrase made famous by Bernard of Chartres) as a pygmy sitting on the shoulders of the giants of the past. He sat on the shoulders of forerunners of comparable stature to himself in the expectation of making new discoveries as great as any of theirs’.23 A similar concern is expressed in the fifth Tract of the Dialectica where, towards the end of his treatment of hypothetical syllogisms, he turns to what are called c­ onversions – t­ hat is, the transposition or swapping round of terms in hypothetical sentences. He writes that the two types of conversion used for categorical statements apply also to hypothetical statements. The first type is simple conversion: a statement such as ‘it is either night or day’, when converted becomes ‘it is either day or night’. But to convert hypothetical propositions in which there is an antecedent without which the consequence is not true we make use of negative statements: the hypothetical statement ‘if he is a man, he is an animal’, when converted or transposed becomes ‘if he is not an animal, he is not a man’, not ‘if he is an animal, he is a man’. This is conversion by contrapositio, by counterpoint. So far, so good. But there then follows one of Abelard’s outbursts against his critics. I quote part of it: There are people who protest strongly at my mentioning the conversion of hypotheticals; they are astounded because they have not come across conversions of this type in the writings of Boethius or of anyone else who has demonstrated the nature of consequences. They do not convict me of error but of a new type of conversion. They cannot show that I have spoken in opposition to authority, but they suggest that I may have gone beyond authority. Their chicanery 99

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r is unreasonable. For if they accuse me of adding something or of novelty, how can they excuse any others who, subsequent to the original accounts of any branch of learning, have made developments? Nor would they be able to accuse me of novelty in the conversion of consequences and of introducing this conversion if they remembered the statements of those whom the Latins revere in this art, namely Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius.24 Abelard’s language in this passage is rich and heated: his critics obstrepant et vehementer obstupeant; they are guilty of unreasonable calumnia; they accuse. This is the kind of writing that is familiar to us from the Historia calamitatum where also Abelard faces his various ­critics – ­Lotulf and Alberic, the monks of St Denis, the detractors of his oratory of the P ­ araclete – b ­y pointing to what authority has written but which they have overlooked. One recalls the incident during the council of Soissons in 1121 when Abelard faced his accusers who brought charges of heresy against him: they did not want to hear Abelard’s reasons or his interpretations but only words of authority; so Abelard turned to the page in his treatise where the relevant passage from St Augustine had been provided and he thus embarrassed his accusers: obstupefacti erubescebant.25 The passage in the Dialectica to which I draw attention shows that even in logic, and not only in theology, Abelard’s detractors apparently were ready to denounce innovation. To them Abelard replied that to build upon the achievements of those who provide the earliest treatments of any branch of learning should not be met by criticism. We may compare Abelard’s expression of willingness to come to the rescue of defective authority in logic with his somewhat similar ambition in the writing of hymns. His attitude to the relationship between custom and innovation is expressed in the preface he wrote to his Hymnarius Paraclitensis. On the one hand, he claims that he had not wished to write new hymns. So many old hymns are available that new ones would be superfluous. Old hymns had been written by saints, so it would be quasi-­sacrilegious for new hymns to be written by sinners. On the other hand, Abelard reproduces at some length the reasons given to him by Heloise and her sisters which have led him to change his mind. These include the obscuring of authority by custom, confusion in the selection of hymns, uncertainties over their authorship, faulty texts which make the accompanying melody almost impossible to sing, the lack of appropriate hymns for many solemn feasts and exaggerated claims made for certain saints. So he meets the request of Heloise.26 His display of reluctance to provide new hymns may be a literary conceit, a rhetorical display of humility and reluctance followed by a gracious yielding to the pressures of her arguments. But the arguments cited are exaggerated: there was in fact no lack of hymns for some of the feasts which he mentions and it was not normal in liturgical books to name the authors of hymns.27 Abelard’s preface is a clever means of suggesting that his composition of 133 new hymns28 is justified by 100

t h e s e n s e o f i n n ovat i o n the unsatisfactory state of existing conventions and was not an act of disrespect for authority. But it was a deliberate innovation. A distinction should be drawn between deliberate innovation on the one hand, as we find it expressed here in the preface to the Hymnarius and also in the Dialectica, and, on the other hand, the adoption of a radical and unpopular position or an unusual and controversial opinion which may involve the discovery or the revival of a doctrine that has not hitherto found much favour. An example of the latter in the writings of Abelard, that is, of the adoption of a controversial position unacceptable to his critics but not necessarily innovative, is Abelard’s special interest in the Holy Spirit. There is evidence of a growing interest in the Holy Spirit in the liturgy in the twelfth century, in Rome, at the abbey of St Denis and elsewhere.29 Abelard furthered this movement by naming his oratory at Quincey the oratory of the Paraclete. His critics complained that, according to ancient custom (‘secundum consuetudinem antiquam’), a special dedication of a church was only allowable if it was made to God the Son alone or to the Trinity as a whole, but was not allowable if it was made to the Holy Spirit or to God the Father.30 Abelard sought to correct this error with a number of reasons. One of these was that his critics failed to distinguish between the Paraclete as a name for the divine Trinity and the Paraclete as a name for the Holy Spirit in particular.31 Another reason is that St Paul writes that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, but never are they described as the temple of God the Father or the temple of God the Son.32 Abelard concluded that the dedication of his oratory in memory of his own consolation was not done against reason, although it does not have the support of tradition: ‘non . . . rationi adversum, licet consuetudini incognitum’.33 A still more controversial aspect of Abelard’s writing about the Holy Spirit was his interpretation of the idea of the ‘anima mundi’ found in Plato’s Timaeus as a beautiful allegory of the Holy Spirit.34 Abelard maintained that in this respect he was following Christian tradition. Plato was, according to the Fathers, close to Christianity and to Christian belief in the Trinity in what he had taught.35 Abelard cites in support Claudian Mamertus,36 Salvian of Marseille37 and Augustine.38 He compares the teaching of the Timaeus with select passages from the Bible.39 He pressed the case for reading the Timaeus as an allegory which sheds light on Christian doctrine, but he always maintained that he was following the Fathers.40 C. Stephen Jaeger, in his book The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe 950–1200,41 has depicted what he calls the ‘Old Learning’ which prevailed during the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and which declined during the eleventh and early twelfth century and which was replaced by the ‘New Learning’. By the ‘Old Learning’ Jaeger meant a school education based on the seven liberal arts which became located increasingly in cathedral schools and which had as its aim the formation of ‘civil manners’ (‘civiles mores’) and the provision of future administrators in secular and ecclesiastical courts and households. Its contribution to rational thought and 101

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r original speculation or to critical and sceptical enquiry was minimal; teaching relied heavily on the personal authority of the master, and its cultural contribution lay largely in the formation of the social values of the aristocracy. By the ‘New Learning’ of the twelfth century Jaeger meant the shift to rational enquiry and systematic critical thought that took place in the independent schools of Paris as the episcopal monopoly over teaching and teachers was removed. Auctoritas made way for intelligentia. We find a celebrated illustration of this type of clash in the Historia calamitatum. Abelard insisted that his students demanded ‘something intelligible rather than mere words’ because ‘nothing could be believed unless it was first understood’.42 Alberic’s retort during the council of Soissons – ‘we take no account of human reasoning nor of your interpretation in such matters; we recognize only the words of authority’43 – was a complete repudiation of this. Intelligentia and auctoritas were then pitted in opposition against each other. Jaeger sees Peter Abelard as an example of the ‘New Learning’ who set out to destroy the culture of personal charisma and authority. In his Carmen ad Astralabium Abelard advised Astralabe: Care not who speaks but what is the value of his words. Things said well give an author a reputation. Do not put your faith in the words of a master out of love for him, nor let a learned man hold you in his influence by his love alone. We are nourished not by the leaves of trees but by their fruit. The rhetoric of ornate words may successfully capture minds, but true learning prefers plain speech.44 Abelard here puts understanding above eloquence and critical evaluation above personal affection. The same message underlies his assessment in the Historia calamitatum of the character of Master Anselm of Laon: Anyone who knocked at his door to seek an answer to some question went away more uncertain than he came. Anselm could win the admiration of an audience, but he was useless when put to the question. He had a remarkable command of words but their meaning was worthless and devoid of all s­ ense . . . ­he was a tree in full leaf which could be seen from afar, but on closer and more careful inspection proved to be barren. I had come to this tree to gather fruit, but I found it was the fig tree which the Lord cursed.45 In these conflicts between Abelard and other masters we see reason pitched against authority. Nonetheless, I have two difficulties with Jaeger’s thesis about a clash between ‘Old’ and ‘New Learning’. First, the period over which the old is substituted by the new is too long. Reason did not replace authority over a long time scale lasting four centuries. Giles Constable has written about the popularity of the idea of generational change in the Middle Ages, about 102

t h e s e n s e o f i n n ovat i o n the ‘gap across which the young cannot easily talk to the old who grew up in a different world’. Between the year 1040 and the year 1160 he distinguishes different types of ecclesiastical reform activity and concern in successive thirty-­year periods from 1040 to 1070, 1070 to 1100, 1100 to 1130 and 1130 to 1160.46 Within each thirty-­year period, attitudes to reason and to authority which appear to be irreconcilable and contradictory coexisted side by side, sometimes in conflict with each other, sometimes not. We need not call one old and the other new. At times of radical and rapid change contradictory tendencies or practices generated conflicts and quarrels; but at times of relative stability or slow change, before 1040 and after 1160; the contradictions could be tolerated without opposition. Old ways endured alongside new ones. Secondly, however often Abelard defended innovation, the accounts given in the Historia calamitatum of the quarrels between Abelard and a whole series of antagonists from William of Champeaux to the unreformed monks of St Gildas de Rhuys do not usually portray conflicts between what is old and what is new, but conflicts between usus or consuetudo on the one hand and ingenium on the other. The clashes in matters of logic between William of Champeaux and Abelard may have resulted in the creation of a new philosophical creed, but they took the form of engagement over a range of positions relating to genera and species. A typical clash between masters might arise, therefore, not directly from a quest or otherwise for newness, but from a testing and working-­out of assertions and expressions in much-­debated areas. When newness is mentioned in the Historia calamitatum – in reference to the two novi apostoli who derided Abelard’s way of life in the oratory at Q ­ uincey – ­it is ridiculed.47 Novelty had an ambiguous value. In a letter to Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, Abelard ridiculed the novel observances introduced by the Cistercian order and which the Cistercians held to be revivals of good monastic practice. The letter was a reply to Bernard’s criticism that the nuns of the Paraclete had altered the conventional wording of the Lord’s Prayer and that this remarkable novelty was due to Abelard himself.48 Abelard claimed that his reasons for preferring Matthew to Luke, panem supersubstantialem to panem quotidianum, did not amount to presumptuous novelty49 but represented fidelity to old reasons and old authorities.50 Usage, Abelard writes, should not have priority over reason nor custom over truth.51 Abelard marshals three powerful authoritative statements in support of this. First, Justinian’s Code: consuetudo and usus longaeuus are not weak arguments but they are not stronger than ratio or lex.52 Secondly, Augustine’s De baptismo: when people are vanquished by ratio, they invoke consuetudo as if consuetudo is greater than veritas; in fact, ratio and veritas should be put before consuetudo.53 Thirdly, Pope Gregory VII’s letter to Guitmund of Aversa which contains a celebrated declaration of the priority of truth over custom: ‘Si consuetudinem fortasse opponas, advertendum fuerit quod Dominus dicit: “Ego sum”, inquit, “veritas”; non ait: “ego sum consuetudo”.’54 Usus/ratio and consuetudo/veritas form a pair of matching antitheses. In different terms 103

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r in the prologue to his Sic et Non Abelard presents a similar contrast between intelligentia and locutio. Over the course of the centuries a multitude of verba and dicta had been spoken and written by the saints; these now presented challenges to human intelligentia and it is right that the sensus and the significatio of their sayings and writings should be interrogated and that truth should be found thereby.55 The quest for t­ruth – o ­ ld ­truth – ­was more pressing for Abelard than innovation; proud though he was to be an innovator, seeking, discovering and correctly interpreting the meaning of authority came first.

Notes  1 A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988.   2 ‘Ecce noua fiebant omnia, innouabatur grammatica, dialectica immutabatur, contemnebatur rethorica, et nouas totius quadruuii uias, euocatis priorum regulis de ipsis philosophiae adytis proferebant’, Metalogicon, I, 3, ed. J. B. Hall with the assistance of K. S. B. Keats-­Rohan, 1991 (CCCM, 98), p. 17, ll. 67–70.  3 Logica Modernorum: A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist Logic, 2 vols., ed. L. M. de Rijk, Assen, van Gorcum, 1962–1967.  4 Metalogicon, I, 3, ed. Hall, p. 16, l. 55.  5 B. G. Dod, Aristoteles latinus, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, and J. Pinborg. Associate Editor: E.  Stump, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp.  45–79; M.-T. d’Alverny, ‘Translations and Translators’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. L. Benson, and G. Constable with C. D. Lanham, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 421–462; Rencontres de cultures dans la philosophic médiévale. Traductions et traducteurs de l’antiquité tardive au XlVe siècle. Actes du Colloque international de Cassino 15–17 juin 1989 organisé par la Société Internationale pour l’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale et l’Università degli Studi di Cassino, ed. J. Hamesse and M. Fattori (University Catholique de Louvain: Università degli Studi di Cassino, Louvain-­la-­Neuve – C ­ assino, Brepols, 1990 (Publications de l’Institut d’Etudes M ­ édiévales – T ­ extes, Etudes, Congrès, 1­ 1 – ­Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale, 1).   6 Printed among the letters of Bernard as Letter 326 in PL CLXXXII, 531–533; new edition by J. Leclercq, ‘Les Lettres de Guillaume de Saint-­Thierry à Saint Bernard’, Revue bénédictine, 79 (1969) pp. 375–391: 377.  7 Ed. Leclercq, ibidem, p. 377.   8 Mabillon in his edition of the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux (as J. Jolivet, ‘Sur quelques critiques de la théologie d’Abélard’, AHDLMA, 1963, pp. 7–51: 23, n. 51, pointed out) referred the reader to Letter 4 by Hugh Metellus to Pope Innocent: ‘Mortuo Anselmo Laudunensi et Guilielmo Catalaunensi, ignis verbi Dei in terra defecit’.  9 ‘Emortuis quippe ex Ecclesia omnibus paene doctrinae ecclesiasticae magistris, quasi in vacuam rempublicam Ecclesiae domesticus irruens inimicus, singulare sibi in ea magisterium arripuit, agens in Scriptura divina quod agere solebat in dialectica, pro prias adinventiones, annuas novitates», ed. Leclercq, Les Lettres de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, p. 377. 10 Letter 192, Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, vol. VIII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, p. 43; also Letter 190, I. 2, ibidem, p. 18. 11 ‘Novum cuditur populis et gentibus Evangelium, nova proponitur fi ­ des . . . ­in

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t h e s e n s e o f i n n ovat i o n sugillationem Doctorum Ecclesiae, magnis effert laudibus philosophos, adinventiones illorum et suas novitates catholicorum Patrum doctrinae ac fidei praefert . . .’, Letter 189, 7, 3, ibidem, pp. 13, 14. 12 Letter 193, ibidem, p. 45. 13 Letter 192, ibidem, p. 44; Letter 330, ibidem, p. 268. Cf. Letter 331, ibidem, p. 270; 332, ibidem, p. 272; 336, ibidem, p. 276; 338, 2, ibidem, p. 278. 14 Epistola Gualteri de Mauritania episcopi ad Petrum Abaelardum, ed. H. Ostlender, Bonn, P. Hanstein, 1929 (Florilegium Patristicum, 19), pp. 34–40: 34. 15 Ibidem, p. 35. 16 Ibidem, p. 35. 17 ‘Sufficit mihi in omnibus que scribo opinionem meam magis exponere quam diffinicionem ueritatis promittere. Satis hoc tempore manifesta quoque ratio ueritatis in inuidiam uel odium eos etiam qui nomine religionis preminent accendit’, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 126. Cf. TSch, Praef., 5, p. 314, ll. 42–44, III. 46, p. 519, ll. 619–621; TSum, III.101, p. 201, ll. 1354–1356; Tchr, IV. 161, p. 346, l. 2571. 18 Epistola Gualteri, p. 34, ll. 2–5, 7–9, 14–20. 19 Jolivet, ‘Sur quelques critiques’, p. 20. 20 ‘Nec propter aemulorum detractationes obliquasque invidorum corrosiones nostro decrevimus proposito cedendum nec a communi doctrinae usu desistendum. Etsi enim invidia nostrae tempore vitae scriptis nostris doctrinae viam obstruat studiique exercitium apud nos non permittat, tum saltem eis habenas remitti non despero, cum invidiam una cum vita nostra supremus dies terminaverit, et in his quisque quod doctrinae necessarium sit, inveniet’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, II, 1, p. 145. 21 ‘Nec propter emulorum detractationes obliquasque invidorum corrosiones nostro decrevimus proposito cedendum nec a communi doctrinae usu desistendum’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, II, I, p. 145. 22 ‘Nam etsi Peripateticorum Princeps Aristoteles categoricorum syllogismorum formas et modos breviter quidem et obscure perstrinxerit, utpote qui provectis scribere consueverat, Boethius vero hypotheticorum complexiones eloquentiae latinae tradiderit, Graecorum quidem Theophrasti atque Eudemi operum moderator, qui tum de his scripserant syllogismis, uterque quidem, ut ipse ait, moderatae doctrinae terminos excedens ita ut hic lectorem brevitate, ille vero prolixitate confunderet, – post omnes tamen ad perfectionem doctrinae locum studio nostro in utrisque reservatum non ignoro. Item quae ab eis summatim designata sunt vel penitus omissa, labor noster in lucem proferat, interdum et quorundam male dicta corrigat, et schismaticas expositiones contemporaneorum nostro uniat, et dissensiones modernorum, si tantum audeam profiteri negotium, dissolvat. Confido autem in ea quae mihi largius est ingenii abundantia, ipso cooperante scientiarum Dispensatore, non pauciora vel minora me praestiturum eloquentiae peripateticae munimenta quam illi praestiterunt quos latinorum celebrat studiosa doctrina; si quis nostra eorum scriptis compenset, et quid ibi sit et qualiter quidve nos ultra ponamus, aut qualiter eorum implicitas sententias evolvamus, aeque diiudicet. Neque enim minorem aut fructum aut laborem esse censeo in iusta expositione verborum quam inventione sententiarum’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, II, I, pp. 145–146. 23 R. W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. With notes and additions by Lesley Smith and Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. vol. 2: The Heroic Age, Oxford, Blackwell, 2001, p. 108. 24 ‘Sunt tamen nonnulli qui ad nomen conversionis ipoteticarum obstrepant et vehementer obstupeant eoquod de earum conversionibus Boetium tractare non viderint nec alium quemquam qui consequentiarum naturas ostenderet. Unde nos quidem

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r non ex falsitate, sed ex novo conversionis nomine redarguunt; nec me quidem contra auctoritatem locutum, sed fortasse ultra auctoritatem ostendere possunt. Nec est quidem eorum calumnia rationabilis. Si enim ex additamento vel novitate me accusent, quomodo et illi absolvi possunt quicumque ad alicuius scientie perfectionem ex se aliquid post primos tractatores adiecerunt? Sed nec ex novitate conversionibus consequentiarum me accusare poterunt quasi huius conversionis invectorem, si singulorum dicta quos in arte Latini celebrant, memoria confirmavernt, Aristotilis videlicet seu Porphirii seu Boetii’, Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, IV, 1, p. 496. 25 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 84–88, ll. 751–781: 770. 26 ‘Ad tuarum precum instantiam, soror mihi ­Heloisa . . . h ­ ymnos . . . composui; ad quos quidem me scribendos cum tam tu quam, quae tecum morantur, sanctae professionis feminae saepius urgeretis, vestram super hoc intentionem requisivi. Censebam quippe superfluum me vobis novos condere, cum veterum copiam haberetis et quasi sacrilegium videri antiquis sanctorum carminibus nova peccatorum praeferre vel a­ equare . . . H ­ is vel consimilibus vestrarum persuasionibus rationum ad scribendos per totum anni circulum hymnos animum nostrum vestrae reverentiae sanctitas compulit’, Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, vol.1, Libellus primus, praefatio, pp. 11, 13; Hymns, ed. Waddell, vol. 2, pp. 5, 9. 27 Szövérffy, in Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, vol. 1, pp. 30–32, comments that the dissatisfactions which Abelard reports are exaggerated and dramatized. Cf. ibidem, vol. 2, p. 10, nn. 7, 9 and 29. 28 Or no. 129 according to Hymns, ed. Waddell, vol. 1, Introduction and Commentary, p. 5. 29 J. O. Braganca, ‘L’Esprit saint dans l’euchologie médiévale’, Didaskalia, 3 (1973), pp. 231–246, repr. in Le Saint-Esprit dans la liturgie, Rome, 1977, pp. 39–53. This study is cited by L. Moonan, ‘Abelard’s Use of the Timaeus’, AHDLMA, 1989, pp. 7–90: 71–72. 30 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 94–97, ll. 1120–1195. 31 ‘Ad quam nimirum calumpniam hic eos error plurimum induxit, quod inter Paraclitum et Spiritum Paraclitum nichil referre crederent, cum ipsa quoque Trinitas et quelibet in Trinitate persona, sicut Deus vel adjutor dicitur, ita et Paraclitus, id est consolator, recte nuncupatur’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 95, ll. 1130–1135. 32 I Cor., VI, 17, 19; Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 96, ll. 1167–1177. 33 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  97, ll. 1194–1195. Abelard wrote eight sermons for the feast and octave of Pentecost for the nuns of the Paraclete; five of these survive (nos. 18–22; PL 178, 505–524). This is the largest group of sermons in the surviving collection. See D. Van den Eynde, ‘Le recueil des sermons de Pierre Abélard’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp. 17–54: 34–36. In his Hymnarius Paraclitensis Abelard wrote four hymns for the feast of Pentecost, the same number as for other major feasts. The hymns are nos. 69–72 in Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, vol. 2, pp. 147–159, and nos. 53–56 in Hymns, ed . Waddell, vol. 2, pp. 75–79. 34 ‘pulcherrimam involucri figuram’, TSch, I, 157, p. 383. 35 TSch, I, 123, 181, pp. 368, 394–395. 36 De statu animae, II, 7 (PL 53, 736D–737A); TSch, I, 124, p. 368. 37 De gubernatione dei, I, i, 1 and 4 (PL53, 29 and 30); TSch, I, 150–151, pp. 380–381. 38 De civitate dei, IV, 31; VIII, 11 (PL 41, 138, 235); De doctrina christiana, II, 28, 43 (PL 41, 56); Confessiones, VII, 9, 13 (PL 32, 740–741); TSch, I, 152, 181, 182, 188, pp. 381, 395, 397. 39 Wisdom, I, 7; TSch, I, 144, p. 378. 40 Moonan, ‘Abelard’s Use of the Timaeus’, with full references; also T. Gregory,

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t h e s e n s e o f i n n ovat i o n ‘Abélard et Platon’, in Peter Abelard, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1974 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series I/Studia II), pp.  38–64. R.  W. Southern has brilliantly described the rise and fall of the allegory of the ‘anima mundi’ in the writings of William of Conches; see Scholastic Humanism, vol. 2, pp. 73–77. 41 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania University Press, 1994. 42 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 83, ll. 690–701: ‘Accidit autem mihi ­ut . . . ­quendam theologie tractatum De Unitate et Trinitate divina scolaribus nostris componerem, qui humanas et philosophicas rationes requirebant, et plus que intelligi quam que dici possent efflagitabant: dicentes quidem verborum superfluam esse prolationem quam intelligentia non sequeretur, nec credi posse aliquid nisi primitus intellecrum, et ridiculosum esse aliquem aliis predicare quod nec ipse nec illi quos doceret intellectu capere possent’. 43 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 84, ll. 757–759: ‘Non curamus, inquit ille, rationem humanam aut sensum vestrum in talibus, sed auctoritatis verba solummodo’. 44 Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, p. 107, ll. 7–18:    ‘non a quo sed quid dicatur sit tibi cure:     auctore nomen dant bene dicta suo;    nec tibi dilecti iures in verba magistri     nec te detineat doctor amore suo    Fructu, non foliis pomorum quisque cibatur     Et sensus verbis anteferendus erit.    Ornatis animos captet persuasio verbis;     Doctrine magis est debita planities’. 45 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 68, ll. 165–176. 46 G. Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 299–300, where he also cites David Riesman, Abundance for What? And Other Essays, Garden City, N.Y., 3964 (1964), p. 309. 47 ‘quosdam adversum me novos apostolos, quibus mundus plurimum credebat, excitaverunt; quorum alter regularium canonicorum vitam, alter monachorum se resuscitasse gloriabatur’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 97, ll. 1201–1204. The new apostles are commonly thought to be Norbert of Prémontré and Bernard of Clairvaux; see J. Miethke, ‘Abaelards Stellung zur Kirchenreform. Eine biographische Studie’, Francia 1 (1972) pp. 158–192: 167–169; Constable, ibidem, p. 25n. 48 ‘. . . me super hoc quasi de nouitate quadam notabilem uideri, Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247: 239, ll. 12–13. 49 ‘Si quis itaque me nouitatis super hoc arguat’, Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 242, ll. 92–93. 50 ‘tam rationibus quam auctoritatibus uetustatis potius quam nouitatis arguendus uideor et minus de praesumptione censendum, qui tam Dominum quam apostolos et manifestam Grecorum prouidentiam in hoc praecipue sequor’, Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 242–243, ll. 103–107. 51 ‘nec usum rationi nec consuetudinem praeferendam esse ueritati’, Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 243, ll. 123–124. 52 ‘Consuetudinis ususque longaeui nec uilis auctoritas est, uerum nec usque adeo sui ualitura momento, ut aut rationem uincat aut legem’, Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 243. Codex lustiniani, VIII, 52 (53), 2, ed. P. Krueger, Corpus Iuris Civilis, II, Berlin, Apud Weidmannos, 1877, p. 792; also found in Ivo of Chartres, Panormia II, 163 (PL 161, 1120C). 53 Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 243, ll. 128–133. Augustine, De baptismo, 4, 5, 7, (CSEL 51, 228); also found in Ivo of Chartres, Decretum II, 163 (PL 161, 315A). Cf. Abelard, Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 241–292: 266, l. 13.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 54 Letter 10, ed. Smits, p.  244. Gregory VII, Letter 67, ed. H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972 (Oxford Medieval Texts), p. 151. This letter is found in Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, IV, 213 (PL 161, 311BC) and Panormia II, 166 (PL 161, 1121A). See also Abelard, Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, p. 266, l. 18. 55 SN, pp.  89–89, 103; cf. Abelard, Collationes, ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, pp. 206–208.

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7 PETER ABELARD AND THE POETS

Over twenty years ago Jean Jolivet discussed the presentation by Peter Abelard of the philosophers of antiquity, their personalities and their teachings.1 Jolivet explored the relationships which Abelard forged with these figures in the light of his Christian faith. By their reason and by the uprightness of the lives which they led, the philosophers of antiquity had come to a knowledge of God. Unlike the prophets of the Old Testament they did not know the written law, but they had knowledge of the natural law. Albeit obscurely and unwittingly, their writings bore witness and provided premonitions of the divine Trinity. They also promoted virtue and the particular qualities which Christians associate with the requirements of the monastic life: poverty, solitude, study and continence. Ranged alongside them were Biblical figures such as Solomon, a sage, and Job, a pagan. Moreover, the philosophers included poets. Abelard was himself a poet of distinction. His youthful love songs composed for Heloise were said by her to have been sung in every Parisian home and said by him to be sung still in many places, especially by people whose conduct is similar to what his own had been.2 These claims, made around the year 1130, have spurred a search by modern scholars for surviving testimonies.3 Some of Abelard’s later poetry does at least survive and it shows considerable diversity. For his son Astralabe, Abelard wrote a poem of moral instruction, the Carmen ad Astralabium, which epitomizes his moral philosophy.4 He wrote a short poem on the Incarnation, arranged to fit a geometrical design;5 another poem in praise of the Virgin Mary is attributed to him in the manuscripts.6 Raby wrote that Abelard ‘holds a high place’ among the hymn writers of the Middle Ages, and that his six Planctus on Old Testament themes are ‘remarkable’ – judgements which would find very wide endorsement.7 Unlike the hymns, Abelard’s Planctus are not accompanied by prefaces which explain their purpose, although they appear to reflect Abelard’s personal difficulties in life. In presenting his hymns to Heloise and her sisters at the abbey of the Paraclete Abelard complained of the confusion that surrounded traditional hymns whose authors were often uncertain. The hymns written by known 109

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r authors such as Hilary, Ambrose and Prudentius were frequently so corrupt in their transcription that they could not be fitted to melodies. He therefore wrote a new collection in which he attempted to enshrine the main features of Christian history and doctrine.8 For the Paraclete Abelard also appears to have written sequences; these are currently coming to light and are being identified.9 In addition, Abelard was himself a figure who stimulated the writing of poetry by others. A poetic lament for Abelard, following his condemnation for heresy at the council of Sens (Plange planctu nimio), even adopts the form of Abelard’s own Planctus David.10 The author of the Metamorphosis Goliae episcopi, in his dream-­vision, represented Abelard (the Palatine), at the time of his trial, as absent from the wedding feast attended by his bride, Philology (in whom the figure of Heloise is found), and by a company of classical philosophers and poets, including Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus and Catullus: Mournful Ovid brought with him his Gothic lass, Propertius brought his Cynthia, Tibullus Delia, Cicero brought Terentia, Catullus Lesbia – The sages had assembled here, none without her who was his own. But the Palatine is absent, silenced by monastic enemies and by Bernard of Clairvaux: Against this philosopher, many learned men cry out: the cowled chief of the cowled populace – all like onions sheathed in their triple tunics – it was he who enforced silence on so great a sage.11 Nonetheless, poetry was problematic for Christians. In his Theologia, although Abelard found in the writings of the Fathers support for the view that the secular arts are useful in Biblical study, whatever detractors might still claim, with regard to poetry he only found heavy and forceful condemnation.12 In the long discussions in book II of the Theologia christiana as well as in book II of the Theologia ‘scholarium’, in the course of replying to critics of the supposed philosophical testimonies which support belief in the divine Trinity, he praises the kinds of lives which the philosophers had led and also evaluates positively the kinds of society which they promoted. But he cites Augustine’s De civitate dei, II, 14 on Plato’s view that poets are the enemies of the state (civitas saeculi) and should be expelled from it.13 And he cites the opening scene of The Consolation of Philosophy where Lady Philosophy banished the Muses of Poetry – ‘hysterical sluts’ (scenicas meretriculas) – from Boethius’s bedside.14 He notes that the saints entirely forbid the study of poetic figmenta by Christians, except for the purpose of learning grammar in childhood: they contain falsehoods; they are inane; they lead to temptations 110

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s and they distract from the study of Scripture.15 Jerome called poetry the food of the devil; he abhorred the thought that Christians could playfully talk of pagan gods and he censured priests who read comedies.16 Isidore also declared that reading poetry is forbidden to Christians.17 Abelard writes that Christians should learn the liberal arts but should not be detained by poetic fables or by rare, obscure and imperfect constructions. Cicero, he writes – Auctor ad Herennium – deliberately refused to illustrate his manual of rhetoric with examples taken from the poets.18 Abelard expressed disapproval of the episcopi and religionis Christianae doctores of his own time who tolerate poetae, ioculatores, saltatores, incantatores and cantatores turpium within the civitas dei.19 In his Commentary on Romans 13:13, where Paul denounces orgies and licentiousness (‘not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy . . .’ ), Abelard rounds on Ovid as the advocate of sexual impurity.20 Even pagan prose writers, rhetoricians and philosophers are less useful as models of eloquentia than the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. The Bible offers all the genera locutionum and all the ornatus verborum; it contains especially enigmatic parables, allegories and mystical involucra. Hebrew is our mother language and it teaches urbane expression. The people of Palestine were familiar with parables, and Christ thus spoke to them in parables. The Scriptures offer abundant sustenance and delights as well as perfect doctrine on three l­evels – t­he levels of pleasant composition (which may be learned more fully and easily from there than from the poets), moral rectitude and edification of the soul. Moreover, none of the poets and none of the philosophers compares with Jerome in maturity of style or with Gregory in charm or with Augustine in sublimity. In selecting these models of eloquentia and ornatus, Abelard follows what Augustine had written in the fourth book of his De doctrina christiana, with the qualification, noticed by Louk Engels in the course of his perceptive discussion of Abelard as a writer, that his preferred models are Jerome, Gregory and Augustine, whereas Augustine himself had chosen Paul, Cyprian and Ambrose:21 Si iuvat Christianum legere ad eruditionem locutionum vel sententiarum, numquid hoc plene efficere non potest nisi poeticis studendo figmentis et inanibus fabulis? Quae sunt genera locutionum, qui ornatus verborum quae sacra Pagina non habeat, rnaxime parabolarum et allegoriarum aenigmatibus referta et ubique fere mysticis redundans involucris? Quae sunt urbanitates locutionum quae mater linguarum Hebraica non docuerit, praesertim cum Palestinae terrae etiam plebem parabolis esse assuetam non lateat, ut his quoque Dominum Iesum loqui eis oporteret cum Evangelium praedicaret? Quae deesse fercula possunt spirituali Domini mensae, id est Sacrae Scripturae, in qua, iuxta Gregorium, et elephans natat et agnus ambulat? Cuius quidem intelligentia ita omnium alimentorum et deliciarum copiis exuberat, ut sola ipsa triplici expositione perfectionem 111

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r teneat doctrinae, in qua quislibet et dictaminis suavitatem multo amplius et facilius quam apud poetas addiscat, et simul morum honestatem et aedificationem animae plene percipiet. Quis enim, non dico poetarum, verum etiam philosophorum, maturitate dictaminis beatum Hieronymum, quis in suavitate beatum Gregorium, quis in sublimitate beatum aequiparet Augustinum? In illa quidem Ciceronis eloquentiam, in istis Boethii suavitatem et Aristotelis invenies subtilitatem, et, ni fallor, multo amplius, si singulorum conferas scripta. Quid de eloquentia Cypriani sive Origenis et aliorum innumerabilium ecclesiasticorum doctorum, tam Graecorum quam Latinorum, in omnibus liberalium artium studiis eruditissimorum?22 In spite of these warnings and reservations Abelard revelled in poetry without ever saying why he did so.23 His use of Christian poetry was perhaps restrained,24 but, as Engels saw, Abelard liked to use and re-­use a stock of quotations from classical poetry, possibly having taken these quotations from a secondary source and certainly for the sake of ornatus verborum.25 The quotations included the familiar lines that had been impressed on many minds at an early age and pervaded the everyday world of cultivated, proverbial usage. Juvenal’s easily remembered quips were among those used in passing to sharpen an argument or enhance a comment: ‘nothing is more unbearable than a wealthy woman’;26 ‘love of money grows along with the money itself’.27 Virgil is cited to illustrate a point of grammar.28 Ovid is cleverly turned inside out, and in the direction of a philosophical nominalism supported by a characteristically Abelardian distinction between vox and substantia, to pinpoint the dilemma facing him in his exile at Quincey: ‘though my person lay hidden in this place, my fame travelled over all the world, resounding everywhere like that poetic invention, Echo, so called because she has a large voice and no substance’.29 Ovid also provides moral edification: ‘we always strive for what is forbidden and desire what is denied’.30 Virgil’s ‘to spare the vanquished and put down the proud’ is included in the poem of advice which Abelard wrote for his son.31 Lucan’s praise of Cato in the second book of Pharsalia provides the Philosopher in Abelard’s Dialogus with an illustration of justice: justice seeks the common good rather than one’s own, and Lucan’s Cato, the ascetic husband and father of the state (urbi pater, urbique maritus) who worshipped justice and practised virtue without compromise, illustrates the ideal of Stoic apathy brought into the service of his country and of the world.32 Horace is habitually cited for the sake of moral edification: his warning about money – ‘more money brings more worry’ – precedes the example taken from Juvenal in Abelard’s Commentary on Romans.33 The moral usefulness of poetic illustration is particularly evident in the way in which Abelard in his Ethics presents Horace’s line: ‘good persons hate to sin because they love virtue’ as ‘the poetic view of honourable behavior’.34 Likewise Abelard presents Amiclas as an example of security provided by poverty35 and Cato, although thirsty, as 112

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s an example of generosity in giving water to others.36 He cites Juvenal to show that pagans punished priestesses who were unfaithful.37 To illustrate demons and magic in his Sermon on the Epiphany (Sermon IV) he names ‘Lucanus’ and, borrowing from Isidore, cites him: ‘incantations destroy a mind undefiled by a horrid draught of poison’.38 Abelard also, although far less often, exploits classical mythology. He refers to Daedalus and Icarus to illustrate the folly of excessive ambition39 and to Thersites and Achilles.40 He mockingly likens himself to Ajax the braggart when describing the outcome of his disputes with William of Champeaux: ‘if you wish to know the outcome of this struggle, I was not the loser’.41 Quotations from and allusions to classical sources are, then, made frequently.42 Quotations are usually introduced anonymously with a brief reference such as poeta, ipse poeta, poete dictum, poetica sententia, satiricus ille, comicus, scriptum est, illius poetici figmenti or illud poeticum. These are standard means of signalling a quotation which has been entirely detached from its written context and source and which is not usually submitted to further enquiry or discussion. The borrowings are not always easily recognizable, ­although – ­as F. Chatillon remarked in his discussion of the role of Terence’s Eunuch in Abelard’s a­ utobiography – ­the reminiscences sometimes enjoyed proverbial status.43 In her edition of the Carmen ad Astralabium Dr Rubingh-­ Bosscher identified more than a dozen ‘silent’ borrowings from the Distichs of Cato within the poem along with many other adaptations of, and allusions to, other works. Moreover, she found many instances when these allusions reappear in other writings of Abelard. The themes for which Cato himself provides seasoning in the Carmen include: following the sayings of the learned and the deeds of the good (l. 25), being true to oneself (ll. 163–164), old age (ll. 311–312), the repentance of Heloise (ll. 379–384),44 avarice and generosity (ll. 401–404), how wives relate to their husbands’ friends (l. 485), avoidance of harm to others (ll. 495–496), the speed with which hard-­earned gains can be dissipated (ll. 733–734), not teaching what one does not know (ll. 801–802), loquacity (ll. 823–824), and anger (ll. 987–988).45 Abelard particularly liked to bring together patristic, Biblical and classical references. Lucan’s ‘Caesar was everything’ leads into Paul’s teaching that God is ‘all in all’ in the Theologia ‘Summi boni’.46 Ovid’s Metamorphoses was put to use to castigate unworthy bishops who claim the power of the keys but who fail to use them to good effect: ‘skills which help mankind fail to help their lord’.47 Jerome’s remark on how we enjoy praise while saying that we are unworthy of it is coupled with a reference to the lusty Galatea running off to hide in the willows but hoping to be seen first.48 On another occasion, following Jerome again, Abelard quotes both Apostolus and Comicus to show that truth hurts.49 He supports Jerome’s explanation of Nabuchodonosor doing God’s will with one of Juvenal’s Satires.50 Similarly in Letter 6 Heloise takes from Persius’s first Satire a tag (illud poeticum) to balance a reference to Psalm 55:12: ‘look to no one outside yourself’.51 Statius is mentioned, along with 113

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite, Augustine, Hermes, Macrobius and Lucan, and cited in reference to the unknowability of God and to the altar raised to the unknown God.52 The frequency of quotations from Horace is especially striking. Abelard twice uses Horace’s ‘lightning strikes the highest heights’, once in reporting the warning that Geoffrey of Lèves, bishop of Chartres, gave to Abelard’s accusers at the council of Soissons, that they were striking at a more eminent figure than they realized, and again before his second trial for heresy, in a defiant letter defending his Theologia against all the abuse heaped upon it by Bernard of Clairvaux and others.53 He uses Horace’s epistles repeatedly to show that lessons learned while young last a long t­ ime – ­which can be, as he writes in Epistola IX, good or, as he writes in the Dialogus, bad54 – and that one should not rely on the words of a master55 nor trust a bigger faction over a better one;56 to condemn greed and pride57 and to commend moderation over self-­indulgence;58 to counsel against being too quick to teach and write;59 to make the point that the Law was given to achieve a good life, not the perfect one, and to argue that, even after the saints have provided so many treatises on the faith, there will still be doubts to overcome;60 to say that epicurean habits followed by monks are wrong61 and that virtue is the mean between opposing vices.62 Heloise also quotes Horace on envy: after mentioning the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:15) who complained when others who worked fewer hours received the same wage, she cites him: ‘the envious man grows lean when his neighbour grows fat; tyrants in Sicily invented no torture worse than envy’.63 The collected correspondence of Abelard and Heloise would lose much of its value if it did not have poetic colouring. Peter Dronke and Helen Laurie have both written vividly of the familiarity Heloise shows for Ovid’s Heroides, for the letters and dramatic monologues Ovid wrote for absent husbands. Heloise, in her first two letters to Abelard, expresses ‘a heroine’s affective states’ and was ‘fully familiar w ­ ith . . . t­ he Ovidian tradition’64 – perhaps more so than Abelard. Abelard, nonetheless, could sparkle with Ovid as when he writes of the success of his teaching in Melun and of ‘the jealousy which chases the highest, the winds that swirl round summits’.65 Abelard and Heloise are famously skillful in their selections of people and passages for the purpose of passing judgement or lighting a scene, and Lucan’s verse was a rich source for their purposes. Peter von Moos has shown that its use by Abelard served his need to cut out ‘dead wood’: Anselm, the barren fig tree condemned by Christ in the Gospels,66 and Pompey, the venerable oak standing dead in the middle of a field of corn, are brought together: ‘There stood the shadow of a noble name’.67 But, silently comparing himself to Caesar, Pompey’s younger, victorious rival, Abelard adds: ‘I did not lie idle in that shadow for 1ong’.68 Abelard’s is an aggressive ethic and von Moos calls the object of Abelard’s aggression ‘quietism’, whether found in the domains of knowledge or of behaviour.69 Danger strikes when least expected. ‘There will always be heresies’, Paul wrote (I Corinthians 11:19), and Pompey fell when 114

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s at the height of power; the Fathers built defences round the Church but an enemy always lurks: ‘nondum tibi defuit hostis’.70 Lucan brings to a climax Abelard‘s attacks on complacent theologians. Examples from Roman history also served the purpose of illustrating the need to preserve and serve communities.71 Pompey’s Cornelia, as played by Heloise, posed a threat both to Abelard and to herself. As Heloise unwillingly hastened to the altar to receive the veil, she spoke Cornelia’s last words before her suicide: O noble husband, Too great for me to wed, was it my fate To bend that lofty head? What prompted me To marry you and bring about your fall? Now claim your due, and see me gladly pay . . .72 Shaken by Abelard’s fear that death will strike him at any moment, Heloise also recited Cornelia’s wish: The poet prays to God, saying ‘Whatever you prepare for us, make it sudden; let the minds of men be blind to the future’.73 Abelard’s reply was Pompey’s reproach: Cornelia still had him.74 Cornelia had lost Pompey’s fortune, not Pompey. Heloise should mourn for Christ who died, not for his servant who lives. Abelard thinks once more on this in his Commentary on Romans: ‘whatever hardships we face, so long as we have God, the cause of love, love cannot be diminished’.75 Abelard cannot entirely escape the charge of being inconsistent and self-­ contradictory. The condemned uses to which poetry may be put and which he cited in his Theologia are deployed in his own writings, although he does not dally with impure tales or dwell on pagan deities. Greater riches are to be found in the Bible and in Christian literature, but these do not make poets worthless: as Ovid wrote, and Abelard cites him in relation to the philosophers, ‘it is permissible to be taught by the enemy’.76 Lucan and Ovid excepted, and they are exceptions of considerable importance, the poets Abelard valued most were, in his eyes, themselves philosophers.77 Horace is clearly accepted as a philosopher who greatly helps towards doing good things: ‘good men’, he wrote, ‘hate to sin out of love of virtue’.78 Horace taught contemptus mundi and belongs in the company of Socrates, the Psalmist and the apostles.79 Virgil appears as philosophus in the Carmen ad Astralabium, teaching the hidden causes of things.80 In the Logica, where Abelard attributes to philosophers the ability to judge and understand these causes by subtle intelligence, he names and cites Virgil.81 Dionysius Cato is a sage who advocated the purification of the mind in preparation for fitting worship of God. The writings of poets – scripta poetarum – proclaim man’s duty to live a good life to glorify God.82 115

p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r Most important is the discussion of the uses and types of fables found in Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Poetic fables may convey falsehoods and pander to base pleasure, but they may also communicate philosophical truth. Philosophers can sometimes accept fables, although they are untrue, for fables sweeten the experience of listening, and similes and examples offer ways of speaking about God and the soul and spirits. Fables can provide a way of expressing something about God which transcends human thought83 and Virgil, in particular, provided at one and the same time poetic fiction and philosophical truth.84 Abelard accepted this just as he accepted that the philosophers had advanced in the same directions as Jewish and Christian thinkers. Both poets and philosophers presented truths of deep significance that sometimes lay hidden beneath veils of obscurity. They were not necessarily themselves aware of these hidden meanings any more than the Old Testament prophets had always understood the full meaning of what they foretold, since it was the Holy Spirit who spoke through them.85 Abelard also accepted that some poets are prophets. The sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, the Sybils and the fourth Eclogue had often been interpreted as a testimony to Christian truth, and Abelard enthusiastically followed tradition.86 In the eighth Eclogue Abelard saw evidence of the divine Trinity.87 His reasoning here, as Peter Dronke has written, became labyrinthine88 but his conclusion is plain. Anchises’s teaching indicated a world soul who is the Holy Spirit who vivifies creation: First you must know that the heavens, the earth, the watery plains Of the sea, the moon’s bright globe, the sun and the stars are all Sustained by a spirit within; for immanent mind, flowing Through its parts and leavening its mass, makes the universe work.89 Abelard used Virgil in the service of Christian Platonism most fully in his Theologia ‘Scholarium’.90 He was guided by Macrobius who, Abelard thought, had discerned in Virgil’s presentation of the world soul almost everything that Christians believed about the Holy Spirit. For the neoplatonist Macrobius the world soul was the Creator; the world soul is said to be created or born but this way of speaking equates to procession from God the Father and from Nous who is God the Son. St Paul’s teaching that God is above all things and in all things is the same as that of the Stoics as expressed by Virgil.91 He believes that Virgil probably knew a Sybilline prophecy because, in his fourth Eclogue, Virgil appears to predict the marvellous birth of an infant who will descend from heaven to earth, will take away the sins of the world and inaugurate a new age.92 Virgil, Abelard writes, perhaps did not know what the ­Sybil – ­or the Holy ­Spirit – ­proclaimed. But, with the aid of hindsight, Virgil’s words, which are wrong if they are taken literally, can be seen to refer to the birth of the Son of God.93 The Sibyls, moreover, were women. In his third Letter to Heloise Abelard relates the role of these women to that of other 116

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s women such as Mary Magdalen, ‘the apostle of the apostles’, and Elisabeth and Anna, ‘the prophets of the prophets’. Pagan though the Sybils were, they too were prophets who had received revelation about Christ, and grace which surpasses all the grace that men have received.94 In his feminism also Abelard wove together threads found in pagan poetry with those found in Christian teaching.

Notes  1 ‘Doctrines et figures de philosophes chez Abélard’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 103–120.   2 ‘Me plateae omnes, me domus singulae resonabant’, Letter II, ed. Muckle, p. 73. ‘Si qua invenire liceret, carmina essent a­ matoria . . . q ­ uorum etiam carminum pleraque adhuc in multis, sicut et ipse nosti, frequentantur et decantantur regionibus, ab his maxime quos vita similis oblectat’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 355–359.  3 The Carmina burana and the Ripoll collection have been favoured hunting grounds. Peter ­Dronke – ­to whom my own work owes so ­much – ­has suggested that no. 169 in the Carmina burana (Hebet sidus) may be by Abelard (Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric, 2 vols. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 19682, I, pp. 313–318. G. Ladner supported this possibility, ‘Terms and Ideas of Renewal’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. Benson and G. Constable with C. Lanham, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, p. 16, n. 91. T. Latzke has proposed Carmina burana, 95, 117 and Ripoll, no. 22; ‘Abaelard, Hilarius und das Gedicht 22 der Ripollsammlung’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XXI (1986), pp.  125–146. See also J. Barrow, C. Burnett, D. Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise and Other Works closely associated with Abelard and his School’, Revue d’Histoire des Textes, XIV–XV (1984–1985), pp. 183–302: 256, 268, items 313, 353.  4 Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher. John Marenbon has remarked on the way in which in the Carmen Abelard has distilled his ethical teaching, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, University Press, 1997, pp. 315–316.  5 Ed. E. Ernst, ‘Ein unbeachtetes Carmen figuratum des Petrus Abaelardus’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XXI (1986), pp. 125–146.   6 ‘Lux orientalis/Et amica specialis’, ed. V. Cousin, Petrus Abaelardus. Opera, 2 vols., Paris, Aug. Durand, 1849, 1859; reprinted Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970, I, pp. 329–330.  7 F. Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry from the Beginnings to the Close of the Middle Ages, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953, pp. 319–326: 319, 321. Cf. Peter Dronke, Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970, pp.  116–118. The Planctus have been edited on more than occasion, e.g. by W, Meyer in Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellateinischen Rythmik, I, Berlin, 1905, pp. 347–352, 366–374. Dronke has edited Planctus 1, 4 and 6 in Poetic Individuality, pp, 148, 119–123, and 203–209. W. von den Steinen has edited Planctus 3 in ‘Die Planctus A ­ baelards – ­Jephthas Tochter’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, IV (1967), pp. 122–144: 142–144, and L. Weinrich has edited Planctus 6 in ‘Dolorum solatium. Text und Musik von Abaelards Planctus David’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, V (1968), pp. 59–78.  8 The most recent in a long series of printed editions of the Hymnarius are the Hymns, ed. Waddell. The first of two volumes consists of an Introduction and Commentary; for Abelard see chap.  2 (pp.  7–85). The Paraclete Breviary in MS

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 31 in the Bibliothèque municipale at Chaumont, which contains most of the hymns, was also edited earlier by Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky 1983–1985 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 3–7). See too the Hymns, ed. Szövérffy. For all the merits of this ­edition – o ­ n which see Waddell in the Introduction and Commentary which I have just mentioned (pp. V–VI, 21–23) – the reader needs to be aware of faults which were pointed out by Peter Dronke in his review of the work in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XIII (1978), pp.  307–311. For other information and details of other studies see Barrow, Burnett and Luscombe, ‘Checklist’, no. 291 and C. Burnett, ‘Notes on the Tradition of the Text of the Hymnarius Paraclitensis of Peter Abelard’, Scriptorium, XXXVIII (1984), pp. 295–302.  9 C. Waddell, ‘Epithalamica: an Easter sequence by Peter Abelard’, Musical Quarterly, LXXII (1986), pp. 239–271: 241–242, presents three sequences that may have been written by Abelard. See also Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, I, pp. 125–126, 298–299, 349–350. Also P. Dronke (ed.), Virgines caste, in Lateinische Dichtungen des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts. Festgabe für Walther Bulst zum 80. Geburtstage, ed. W. Berschin and R. Düchting, Heidelberg, Schneider, 1981, pp.  93–117 (edition reprinted in Dronke, Latin and Vernacular Poets of the Middle Ages, Aldershot, Variorum, 1991 (Collected Studies, 352)). 10 Ed. F. J. Worstbrock, ‘Ein Planctus auf Petrus Abaelard’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XVI (1981), pp.  166–173. For two other poems about Abelard which show correspondences with his Historia calamitatum, and also for the poetic epitaphs written for Abelard and for Heloise, see P. Dronke, ‘Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies’, in Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1992 (Storia e Letteratura, 183), pp.  247–294: 262–267, 280–285. Dronke’s editions of the poems found in Orleans, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 284 are completed, with further studies by J. Benton and E. Pellegrin, in ‘Abaelardiana’, AHDLMA, XLIX (1982), pp. 273–294. 11    Secum suam duxerat Getam Naso pullus,    Cynthiam Propercius, Delyam Tibullus,    Tullius Terenciam, Lesbiam Catullus,    Vates huc convenerant, sine sua nullus.            

Nupta querit ubi sit suus Palatinus, Cuius totus extitit spiritus divinus, Querit cur se subtrahat quasi peregrinus, Quem ad sua ubera foverat et sinus.

   Clamant a philosopho plures educati:    Cucullatus populi Primas cucullati    Et ut cepe tunicis tribus tunicati,    Imponi silencium fecit tanto vati ed. R. Huygens in Studi Medievali, 3a serie, III (1962), pp.  764–772: 770–771. See also P. Dronke, ‘Medieval Testimonies’, pp. 260–262 with an English translation which I have followed. For other discussions of this poem see J. Benton, ‘Philology‘s Search for Abelard’, Speculum, L (1975), pp.  199–217; P. von Moos, ‘Palatini quaestio quasi peregrini’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, IX (1974), pp.  124–158; W. Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century. The Literary Influence of the School of Chartres, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 128–134. 12 TSch II.19–35. These passages are similar to ones found in Tchr II, 117, 117–a, 118–122, 123–124–a, 124–125, 125–a, 54–55, 125–bc, III, 6–8, 8–abcde. I have amended the parallels indicated by Buytaert and Mews in the concordance they

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s provide in the introduction to their excellent edition of TSch at p. 304, and in the apparatus to the text as edited by them at pp. 414–424. 13 TSch II, 26; Tchr II, 54, 125. 14 De Consolatione Philosophiae, I, I, 7–12; TSch II, 27; Tchr II, 55. 15 TSch II, 22, 24; Tchr II, 120, 122. 16 TSch II, 24; Tchr II, 122. 17 Isidore, Sententiae, III, 13 (PL LXXXIII, 686); TSch II, 25; Tchr II, 124. 18 Tchr II, 128. 19 Tchr II, 129. 20 ‘Ad has maxime comessationes et ebrietates, impudicitiae praedicator Ouidius fornicarios uenire adhortatur, ut inde facile fornicationum suarum occasionem assumant’, Comm. Rom. IV (XIII, 13), p. 295, ll. 316–319. Cf. Ovid, Amores, I, 4. 21 De doctrina christiana, IV, 20–1 (PL XXXIV, 107–114); L. Engels, ‘Abélard écrivain’ in Peter Abelard, Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain, May 10–12, 1971, ed. E. M, Buytaert, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1974 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series l/Studia 2), pp. 12–37: 29–30. 22 Tchr II, 126–127. 23 The author of the Ysagoge in theologiam, clearly a follower of Abelard’s teachings, nonetheless commended the positive, ethical benefits of poetry: ‘Poesis autem est scientia claudens in metro orationem gravem et illustrem. Que per satiram vicia eliminat et virtutes inserit; per tragediam tolerantiam laborum et fortune contemptum. Communiter autem omne poema fortium et ignavorum exempla proponit’, Ysagoge in theologiam, ed. A Landgraf, Ecrits théologiques de l‘école d‘Abélard. Textes inédits, Louvain, “Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense”, 1934 (Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 14), p. 72, ll. 20–24. 24 Caelius Sedulius is cited by name in the course of discussions of the Trinity: ‘Non quia qui summus pater est, et filius hic est, sed quia quod summus pater est, et filius hoc est’, Carmen paschale I, 319–320 in TSch 1,20; Secundum M. Petrum Sententie, XX, ed. L. Minio-­Paluello, Twelfth Century Logic. Texts and Studies II: Abaelardiana inedita, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958, pp. 116–117. He is called egregius versificator and passages on the resurrection are cited from the Carmen paschale, V, 315–318, 323–327, 358–366 and V, 376–385 in SN LXXXVI, 5, 6, 7 and LXXXVIII, 2. Sidonius likewise is cited by name, in praise of virginity, Carmen 24 in Tchr II, 106 and Letter VII, ed. Muckle, pp. 240–281: 276. 25 Engels, ‘Abélard écrivain’, p. 27. 26 ‘Intolerabilis nihil est quam femina dives’, Satire, VI, 460, cited in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, l. 1476. Cf. the imitation in the Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 525: ‘intolerabilius nichil est quam uita superbi’. 27 ‘Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit’, Satire XIV, 139 in Comm. Rom. III (VII, 5), p. 189, l. 94. Another example is from Satire X, 342 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 150, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 373–375, Letter VIII, ed. McLaughlin, p. 255, ll. 18–19 (from Jerome, Letter 147, 10 (PL XXII, 1203)). 28 Aeneid, VIII, 161 (‘Praeneste sub ipsa’) in Comm.Rom. IV (IX, 24), p. 244, l. 410. 29 ‘. . . illius poetici figmenti quod Equo dicitur instar penitus retinente, quod videlicet plurimum vocis habet sed nichil substantie’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1197–1200. Cf. Metamorphoses, III, 359: ‘corpus adhuc Echo, non vox erat’. 30 ‘Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negate’, Ovid, Amores, III, 4, 17 in Tchr II, 21; Dialogus, ed. Thomas, l. 529; Comm. Rom. III (VII, 9), p. 198, l. 381; and Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p.  275. Heloise cites Ovid, Ars amatoria, I, 233–234, 239–240, 243–244, to display the dangers for chastity of feasting and drinking wine, Letter VI, ed. Muckle, p. 242.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 31 ‘parcere subiectis et debellare superbos’, Aeneid, VI, 853, in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­ Bosscher, l. 259. 32 Pharsalia II, ll. 377–378, 380–383, 388–390 in Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2194–2195, 2195–2117, 2199. See Peter von Moos, ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, in Hommages: André Boutemy, Brussels, Revue d’études latines, 1976 (Collection Latomus, 145), pp. 413–443: 431–437. Abelard reads the text itself (‘Et post aliqua’). 33 ‘Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam’, Carmen III, 17 in Comm.Rom. III (VII, 5), p. 189, l. 92. 34 ‘oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore’, Epist. I, 16, 52, in Ethica, ed. Luscombe, p. 72 (‘­poeticam . . . ­sententiam de morum scilicet honestate’); also cited in Tchr II, 27 and Letter VII, ed. Muckle, p.  277. Cf. Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 543–544. 35 Lucan, Pharsalia, V, 520ff. in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 39l. 36 Lucan, Pharsalia, IX, 498–510 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 61–64; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 257, ll. 5ff. 37 Satire, IV, 9–10 in Letter VII, ed. Muckle, pp. 277–278: ‘­Juvenalis . . . ­in quarta satira contra Crispinum’. 38 ‘Mens hausti nulla sanie polluta veneni/Incantata perit’, Pharsalia VI, 457; Isidore, Etymologiae, VIII, 9, 9–10 in Sermo 4 (PL CLXXVIII, 410B). See von Moos, ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p. 416, n. 6. 39 Metamorphoses, VIII, 183ff; Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 659–660. 40 Juvenal, Satire, VIII, 269–271 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 244. 41 ‘si quaeritis huius/Fortunam pugne, non sum superatus ab illo’, Metamorphoses XIII, 89–90; Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 151–152. 42 See W. G. East, ‘Abelard‘s allusive style’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, XXXIV (1999), pp. 41–49. Also, Szövérffy‘s Introduction to Abelard‘s hymns, ‘Recurrent Features and Peculiarities’, in Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, I, pp. 85–137. 43 F. Chatillon, ‘Notes abélardiennes’, IV, Revue du Moyen Age Latin, XXI (1965), pp. 98–103: 99; Chatillon relates ‘res ­ipsa . . . ­indicat’ in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 153–154 to Terence, Eunuch, 705, and ‘si agnam teneram famelico lupo committeret’, ibidem, ll. 323–324 to Terence, Eunuch, 832 (‘ovem lupa commisti’). 44 Cf. Heloise, Letter IV, ed. Muckle, p. 80, l. 17f. 45 Other allusions to Cato have been found at ll. 5–6, 72, 823–826. 46 ‘Omnia Caesar erat’, Pharsalia III, 108, ‘omnia in omnibus’, I Cor. 15, 28 in TSum II, 101. 47 ‘Nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes’, I, 524 in Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 111. 48 Jerome, Letter 22, 24 (PL XXII, 410) and Virgil, Ecloga III, 65 in Abelard, Letter V, ed. Muckle, p. 87. 49 Jerome, De exodo (PL XL, 1203), cites Terence, Andria I, 1, 41 (‘Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit’) and Galatians 4, 16 (‘Inimicos vobis factus sum, uerum dicens’) in Comm.Rom. IV (XVI, 18), p. 334. 50 VI, 223 in TSch III. 33 at l. 465 (not, as in the apparatus, ll. 460–461); Tchr CT V, 35d. 51 ‘Ne te quaesiveris extra’, Satire I, 7 in Letter VI, ed. Muckle, p. 251. 52 ‘Urbi fuit media nulli concessa potentum/ara deum’, Thebaid, XII, 481–482 in Tchr III, 45. 53 ‘feriuntque summos fulgura montes’, Carmina II, 10, 11–12, cited in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 803–804 from Jerome, Letter 60, 16 (CSEL 55, 329, 5); Letter 108,18 (CSEL 54,570,1); Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim, praef. (PL XXVIII, 983B); cf. Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 327. And in Epistola contra

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s Bernardum, ed. R. Klibansky, ‘Peter Abailard and Bernard of Clairvaux. A Letter by Abailard’, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, V (1961), pp.  1–27: 7. Here ‘fulgura’ is more rightly written than ‘fulmina’. 54 I, 2, 69–70 in Letter IX, in Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, p.  223, ll. 111–112 and in Dialogus, ed. Thomas, l. 113. Marenbon and Orlandi in their edition of the Dialogus give the reading: ‘Quo semel est imbuta, recens seruabit odorem testa diu’ in preference to Thomas (and others): ‘Quo semel inbuta est recens, servabit odorem testa diu’ (see Collationes, 7, ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, p. 10). Jerome alludes to these lines also in Letter 107, 4 (CSEL 55, p. 295, ll. 10–13). 55 ‘non iurare in verba magistri’, Epist. I, 1, 14 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 9. Cf. Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 266, ll. 25ff. 56 Epist. I, 1, 48 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 253–254. 57 Epist. I, 3, 18ff. in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 505–510. 58 1, 4, l5f. in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 43–48. 59 I. 17, 3ff. in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 27–30. 60 ‘Est quodam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra’, Epist. I, 1, 32 in Comm. Rom. III (VII, 13), p. 200, l. 442 and TSch II, 61. 61 Epist. I, 4, 15–16 in Sermo 32 (PL CLXXVIII, 607A). Cf. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum II, 12 (PL XXIII, 315). 62 Epistolae I, 18, 9 in Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, p. 376, l. 16. Another example of use of Horace‘s Epistolae is I, 1, 39 at Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, l. 535. 63 Epistolae, I, 2, 57–59 in Problemata Heloissae, 12 (PL CLXXVIII, 693C). 64 Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, pp. 107, 108; also pp. 126–127. Cf. H. Laurie, The Making of Romance. Three Studies, Geneva, Droz, 1991 (Histoire des idées et critique littéraire, 290), esp. pp. 95–119. 65 ‘Summa petit livor, perflant altissima venti’, Remedia amoris 369 in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, l. 121. 66 Mark 11:13–14, 20–21; Matthew 21:19; Luke 13:6 –9. 67 ‘Stat, magni nominis umbra/Qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro’, Pharsalia I, 135–136, cited in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 178–179. 68 ‘non multis diebus in umbra eius ociosus iacui’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 180–181. 69 ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p. 437. 70 Pharsalia, I, 23 in TSch II, 61, l. 975. Cf. von Moos, ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p. 430. 71 In the Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p.  251, Abelard cites Pharsalia I, 84–86, 89–93. (‘Lucanus in primo sic meminit’) to illustrate the need for religious communities, like Rome, to avoid divisions through lack of a single ruler. Cf. also the reference to Cato (already mentioned) forsaking a drink of water while others were thirsty: ‘suffecitque omnibus unda’, Pharsalia, IX, 510, cited in the Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 257. In the fourth Sermon (on Epiphany, PL CLXXVIII, 410B), in speaking of the Magi and of the dangers magic presents to the mind, Abelard cites ‘Lucanus’ (Pharsalia VI, 456–457) from Isidore, Etymologiae, VIII, 9, 9–10. Cf. von Moos, ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p. 416, n. 6. 72   O maxime coniux!   O thalamis indigne meis! hoc iuris habebat   In tantum fortuna capud? Cur impia nupsi,   Si miserum factura fui? Nunc accipe penas   Sed quas sponte luam Pharsalia, VIII, 94–98 cited in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 634–638, trans. B.  Radice, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1974 (The Penguin Classics), p. 76. See P. von Moos, ‘Cornelia und Heloise’, Latomus, XXXIV (1975), pp. 1024–1059, and ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, pp. 438–440.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : p h i l o s o p h e r 73 ‘Sit subitum quodcunque paras; sit caeca futuri/Mens hominum fati: liceat sperare timenti’, Pharsalia, II, 14–15 cited in Letter. IV, ed. Muckle, p. 78. See P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, University Press, 1984, p. 122. 74 ‘Vivit post praelia Magnus!/Sed fortuna perit. Quod defles, id amasti’, Pharsalia, VIII, 84–85, cited in Letter V, ed. Muckle, p.  92. See von Moos, ‘Cornelia und Heloise’ and ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p. 417, n. 7. 75 Pharsalia VIII, 85 in Comm.Rom. III (VII, 13), p. 204, l. 567. A further allusion to Pharsalia I, 125–126 (‘Nec quemquam iam ferre potest Caesarve priorem/ Pompeiusve parem’) is found in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, ll. 513–514 (‘cor miserum liuor, detractio possidet ora/dum non maiorem ferre paremue potest’). 76 ‘fas est et ab hoste doceri’, Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, 428 in TSch II, 33; Tchr CT III, 8e; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 266, l. 33. 77 Abelard often couples poets with philosophers. In the course of writing the Prologue to his Sic et non, and in advising that saints often report views which are not their own, he remarks that this is true also of poets, such as Ovid, and of philosophers, such as Boethius: ‘Poeticae quoque seu philosophicae scripturae pleraque ita iuxta opinionem loquuntur, quasi in veritate consistant, quae tamen a veritate penitus discrepare liquet. Unde est illud Ovidianum:   Fertilior seges est alienis semper in agris   Vicinumque pecus grandius uber habet. Boethius quoque in tertio Topicorum accidens et substantiam duo prima rerum genera cum dixerit, ad opinionem potius quam ad veritatem aspexit’, SN, Prologue, p. 95; Ovid, Ars amatoria, I, 349–350; Boethius, De differentiis topicis III (PL LXIV, 1197C). 78 ‘philosophi ad bona nos maxime cohortantur opera ... quorum quidem unus, cum honestatis formam traderet, egregie ait: Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore’, Horace, Epist. I, 16, 52 in Tchr II, 26–27. 79 ‘Quorum quidem unus diligenter attendens quid distet inter habere pecuniam et seruire pecuniae iuxta quod et psalmista ait: Diuitiae si affluent, nolite cor apponere, inter cetera meminit dicens: “Et mihi res, non me rebus supponere conor”’, Epist. I, l, 19 in Tchr II, 69. 80 Georgicon, II, 490 in Carmen, ed. Rubingh-­Bosscher, I. 95: ‘Philosophus causas rerum dicernit opaces’. 81 ‘. . . illud Vergilii existimat: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas’, Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’, ed. Geyer, p. 506, l. 17. 82 ‘Vnde et per sapientem quendam adhortantem non digne deum excolere, nisi mente scilicet a uiciis purgata et uirtutibus adornata, pulchre in ipso sue adhortationis et discipline exordio dictum est:   Si deus est animus nobis, ut carmina dicunt,   Hic tibi precipue sit pura mente colendus. Ac si aperte filium instruens dicat: cum deus sit nobis animus, hoc est uera et spiritalis uita, sicut et ipsa perhibent scripta p ­ oetarum – ­uelut illa Virgilii uerba que super hoc ipsum Macrobius inducit, sicut postmodum ­ostendemus – ­hunc precipue, scilicet deum, bene uiuendo glorifica’, TSch I, 153; Tchr I. 94. When citing verses from the De consolatione philosophiae he calls Boethius ‘philosophus’ (TSch I, 134–135, II, 73, III, 67; Tchr, 1, 78–79, III, 105; TSum II, 58). 83 In somnium Scipionis, I, ii, 7–21; TSch I, 163–164; Tchr I, 103–104. 84 ‘et poeticae figmentum et philosophiae veritatem’, In somnium Scipionis, I, ix, 8. 85 The concepts of involucrum and integumentum have been well studied in respect of the early twelfth century. See especially, E. Jeauneau, Lectio philosophorum. Recherches sur l’École de Chartres, Amsterdam, A. M. Hakkert, 1973, pp.  127–193; P. Dronke, Fabula. Explorations into the Use of Myth in Medieval

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e p o e t s Platonism, Leiden, Brill, 1974 (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 9), pp. 23–28, 48–52, 56–57, 61–64, 119–122; Dronke, ‘Integumenta Virgilii’, in Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1992 (Storia e Letteratura, 183), pp. 63–78. 86 In TSum I, 60–61 Abelard cites in support Quodvultdeus, Sermo 10, Adversus quinque haereses, 3 (PL XLII,1103), Augustine, De civitate dei 18, 23 (PL XLI, 579–581) and Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, IV, l8 (PL VI, 505–507). In Tchr I, 126–128, and in TSch I, 189–191 Abelard, like Augustine, adds citations from Virgil‘s fourth Eclogue. Cf. Abelard, Letter VII, ed. Muckle, pp. 271–272. On the close similarities of expression found in these passages see Engels, Abelard écrivain, pp. 117–118. On the ten Sybils and virginity Abelard cites Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, I, 41 (PL XXIII, 283) in Letter VII, ed. Muckle, p. 276. 87 VIII, 73–75 in TSch I, 193. 88 Intellectuals and Poets, p. 71. 89 ‘. . . Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus./Mens agitat molem et magna se corpore miscet’, Aeneid VI, 724–731 in TSch I, 176–178; Tchr CT I, 87a, I, 115. 90 TSch I, 171–180, 189–193; Tchr I, 110–117, 126–129; Tchr CT I, 87–a. Cf. Dronke, Intellectuals and Poets, pp. 69–73. 91 Ephesians 4, 6, Georgics IV, 221–122: ‘Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris’, TSch I, 178; Tchr CT I, 87–a. 92   Iam redit et uirgo, redeunt saturnia regna.   Iam noua progenies celo dimittitur alto, Ecloga IV, 5–6 in TSch I, 191; Tchr I, 128; Letter VII, ed. Muckle, p. 272. However, in SN XXV he quotes a passage in which Jerome (Epistola ad Paulinum 53, 7, PL XXII, 544–545) expressed his opposition to the view that the poets propounded belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation (incongrua testimonia). 93 ‘Hoc profecto Sibille uaticinium, ni faIlor, maximus ille poetarum nostrorum Virgilius audierat atque attenderat, cum in quarta Egloga futurum in proximo sub Augusto Cesare, tempore consultans Pollionis, mirabilem cuiusdam pueri de celo ad terras mittendi, qui etiam peccata mundi tolleret et quasi seculum nouum in mundo mirabiliter ordinaret, precineret ­ortum – ­admonitus, ut ipsemet ait, Cumei carminis uaticinio, hoc est Sibille que Cumea siue Cumana ­dicitur . . . ­Que apertissimam de incarnatione filii dei continent prophetiam, ipso fortassis poeta ignorante quid in Sibilla uel in eo spiritus sanctus ­loqueretur . . . ­Facillime autem ex subsequentibus conuinci potest hanc Eglogam de nullo ueraciter aut conuenienter accipi posse, nisi de incarnato unigenito dei typice, more prophetico dicantur, cum apertissime falsa et omnino impossibilia deprehendantur esse, si ad litteram exponantur . . .’, TSch I, 191–192 with citations from Eclogue IV, lff., 11–14, 17; cf. Tchr I, 128–129. 94 Letter VII, ed. Muckle, pp. 271f.

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Peter Abelard

Theologian

8 THE SCHOOL OF PETER ABELARD REVISITED

My concern in this paper is not with works of logic associated with Peter Abelard but with writings of a theological kind containing material which is similar to that also found in Abelard’s own writings.1 To these works of theology, largely collections of sentences but also including some works of Biblical commentary, I gave attention in a book which I published in 1969 under the title The School of Peter Abelard and with the sub-­title The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period.2 After the passage of more than twenty years I welcome Professor Courtenay’s mandatum to me to revisit what I called, following a well-­established convention, the school. Whether or not this school looks any different now than it did two decades ago is one legitimate concern of this colloquium which seeks to raise new questions and to explore different possibilities than I have previously done. When John of Salisbury, as he tells us in his Metalogicon, made a return visit to the Mont Sainte-­Genevieve after an absence of twelve years to see again the contemporaries and pupils of Abelard, he was disappointed to find that they had not progressed one bit; John’s enquiries revealed nothing that had not been known earlier.3 Perhaps not in the case of John and the logicians from 1136 to 1148, but my hope is that a fresh return visit to Abelard’s followers in theology will reveal some fresh considerations. When considering the theological literature of the twelfth century in all its diversity and quality, we should remember that the writings which are either ascribed to Abelard or which contain features characteristic of his teaching are not especially numerous or very much copied but they were remarkable in their contents and character and caused considerable controversy. We have knowledge, in the first place, of Abelard’s own books, especially his Theology in its many successive versions4 and his Ethics.5 Then there are the various collections of sentences. Of prime importance here are the Sentences called the Sentences of Master Peter Abelard (SPA).6 From time to time they have been called the Sentences of Hermann because a certain Hermann names himself in one version of the work. But Peter Abelard names himself in another version.7 Clearly this collection of sentences represents the teaching given by Abelard to students as reported or copied, perhaps by some 127

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of those students. This is a well-­written work; it is far from being a set of loose reportationes. Other collections of sentences also summarize Abelard’s theological teaching in more or less similar ways to that found in SPA: the short Sentences of St Florian (SF) for example,8 the Sententie Parisienses edited by Landgraf and which I call SP1.9 In this way we may distinguish the first collection of the Paris Sentences from SP2, which is a second collection of Sentences also reporting Abelard’s teaching and found in the same MS of the Bibliothèque nationale, latin 18108.10 All the features that are common to these sentence works derive from Abelard and from Abelard alone. Of especial concern to Abelard’s critics towards the end of his career was a lost work which was simply called Liber sententiarum magistri Petri (LS). Abelard denied having written it. It was taken into account by Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St Thierry and Thomas of Morigny as they prepared for the condemnation of Abelard. Some of the work can be reconstructed on the basis of the quotations taken from it by Abelard’s accusers, and an edition of as much of the text as survives in this way was published by Constant Mews in 1986.11 Some additional texts have also come to light. In the British Library MS, Cotton, Faustina A.X (saec. XII1) there are lengthy loose notes, written in the margins of an Anglo-­Saxon work, which report Abelard’s ethical teachings.12 This is not a structured sentence collection like those I have just mentioned, merely a set of reportationes or jottings. They show an especial interest in the notion that sin is not act or deed, that forgiveness is not obtained by anything that man or the church does. This writer usefully amplifies, although in small ways, what we otherwise know mainly from Abelard’s little work on Ethics, the Scito te ipsum. I showed in my book on The School that in addition to the narrow but consistent stream of sentence works which contain neat doses of Abelard’s own teachings, there also developed another narrow and less consistent stream of hybrid sentence collections which mixed together sentences of Abelard and teachings from the school of Hugh of St Victor.13 Leading examples of this current of writing are the Sentences of Roland (SR)14 and the Sentences of Omnebene (SO).15 As recently as 1988 Charles Burnett brought to light another such collection, a Summa sententiarium by a certain Alberic who was a monk in the Veneto.16 His collection is sometimes long-­winded. It cites magister Petrus explicitly on seven occasions, and incorporates passages from Abelard’s Theologia as well as from SPA. Alberic also includes passages that correspond to a version of SPA that has not so far come to light. This means, incidentally, that Alberic’s Summa has now to be taken into account in constructing the new edition of SPA. Like all the writers of all the other sentence works from Abelard’s school, Alberic distinguishes sins from acts and from will; and like all the other followers of Abelard he attaches the properties of power, wisdom and love to the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost respectively. 128

t h e s c h o o l o f p e t e r a b e la r d r e v i s i t e d These, then, are some of the texts that have to be taken into account both collectively and singly when, as historians of medieval thought, we try to evaluate the trends or the tendencies for which Abelard may be held to have been responsible. We have a recognisable body of material, large enough to enable comparison and cross-­checking of contents to take place. There is a second preliminary consideration that I wish to propose. This owes everything to the work of Jean Jolivet and especially to the closing pages of his justly celebrated book on the Arts du langage et théologie.17 Jolivet argued that Abelard is better represented as a non-­realist rather than as a nominalist, as a dereifier, especially in logic. However, at the end of his book Jolivet widened the scope of his enquiry beyond grammar and logic. He suggested that in all his thought, including his theology and his ethics, Abelard was always dereifying, always evading res, always evacuating terms of the thingness which people tended to put into them, always seeing in words the power to convey meaning flexibly and variably. This is as much part of Abelard’s effort in the Prologue to his Sic et non, in his Theologia and Ethics as it was in his commentaries on the logic of Boethius. One identical method, one unified philosophy of language, was employed throughout Abelard’s oeuvre. To this moment Jolivet’s is the most dominant and convincing general interpretation of Abelard’s thought. It still occupies a uniquely important position. It does contain some troublesome spots, as when Jolivet on p. 362 goes beyond his demonstration of the unity of Abelard’s method and style to speak of ‘un système bien articulé’. In fact Abelard tended to fire away at almost every possible target. Opportunism and consistency marched together, but he had diverse inclinations to try to keep in step. On earlier pages (p. 353, p. 354, n. 59) Jolivet described Abelard’s thought as a curious amalgam which preserves, along with the dereifying impulse, elements of Platonism and which recognizes relationships or habitudines that are real, although beyond time and language. He left behind a number of unresolved issues. With these two preliminaries stated, I would like in the main part of this paper to bring together some illustrations, taken from the various sentence collections associated with the school of Abelard, of how Abelardian ‘non-­realism’ was applied within his school to a range of issues belonging to the realm of Christian belief and doctrine. The common features and the common structure as well as contents of the sentence collections of the school should be kept in mind. Christian belief, what is needed for salvation, consists of three ­things – ­faith, charity and sacrament.18 The sentence collections are accordingly divided into three parts: first, a section on God, the Trinity and Christ; then sections on sacraments and on ethics. Of the greatest interest, and also among the best preserved in the manuscripts, are the discussions of God and Trinity, and I shall delay commenting on these until I have considered some other matters more briefly. These matters relate to the redemption, charity, merit, virtue, vice, sin and the remission of sin. On these matters 129

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Abelard’s main viewpoints are shared by his school, though often with some loss of nuance. First the redemption and the attack made by Abelard, as previously also by Anselm of Canterbury, on the theory of the devil’s right. The devil had no ius whereby to hold captive fallen mankind. This view is prominent in the third fragment of the Liber sententiarum: the devil held fallen mankind captive until the death of Christ but only because God had permitted him to do so.19 As Roland writes, ius has its propria significatio, and the term is not used properly in this context of the power exercised by Satan. Dominium is the correct term, the fact of domination over fallen man, not a rightful lordship.20 What ratio, therefore, needs to be discovered for Christ’s Incarnation, life and death? Was there any necessitas or opus for either the Incarnation or the crucifixion as a means of redeeming mankind? For God could have redeemed mankind sola iussione or solo verbo.21 In fact God chose to take on a human nature in order to display divine love and wisdom to mankind tam verbo quam exemplo, the example being an example of obedience even unto death, the verbum being preaching and spoken teaching.22 Moving on to ethics, R. Wielockx has drawn attention recently to certain interesting aspects of the Abelardian notion of caritas.23 These are picked up in the sentence collections in the school. The Ciceronian distinction between honestum and utile was familiar enough to moralists in the Middle Ages; in defining caritas as amor honestus, and not as caritas pursued propter aliquam utilitatem, the sentence collections were following in the stoic tradition. But amor honestus was set in a Christian context as well: caritas is love of God for God’s sake and love of one’s neighbour also but for God’s sake. We should do nothing, whether it be eating food, going to sleep or getting married, for any other reason than for God’s sake. Augustine had written of charity that it has its climax in and ultimately consists in the enjoyment or fruitio of God himself. But the Abelardian school distills out all notion of recompense or reward. Charity is love of God for God’s sake; it is therefore defined simply and strictly for what it is, not for what it entails.24 A similar comment may be made about Abelardian perspectives concerning merit and blame. Merit and blame are not conditional upon human achievement. Merit, for example, is not attached to the act of martyrdom or the practice of fasting. Rather, as SPA say, it consists in the will alone: a good will brings its own reward; merit and blame are not created by external conduct. This is not only because merit and blame are independent of the sphere of behaviour external to the human ­will – t­ he sphere of ­acts – ­but also because the fragility of creation is such that merit and blame are functions of divine grace which enable or disable the human will. But man can h ­ imself – ­using free will and reason (with which to choose between good and evil) – accept or not accept God’s grace.25 The decoupling effected by Abelard (especially in his Ethics) of the notion of sin from res is well enough known. Abelard’s followers similarly remove 130

t h e s c h o o l o f p e t e r a b e la r d r e v i s i t e d the notion of sin from the sphere of acts and locate it inwardly in the mind which knowledgeably opts for contempt of the creator. Sin is distinguished from vice, from all external materia such as temptation or concupiscence. Like Abelard, the school worked hard to purify the concept of sin of all non-­ essential ingredients.26 Likewise the economy of forgiveness is separated from the external spectrum of requirements comprising confession, ecclesiastical absolution and satisfaction. Forgiveness by God and the human sigh of remorse are simultaneous and coincident and inside the mind; an external frame of requirements is needed but to serve wider purposes.27 These examples show how Abelard and his school scraped away all superficialities that may obscure the thinking mind of the knowledgeable believer. A clear, knowing choice or consent or even contempt that is exercised in response to the grace proferred, and to the perfection of the goodness displayed, by God is all that ultimately counts. The place of externalities in relation to the workings of reason, conscience and understanding was sharply circumscribed. Finally, I must turn to God about whom it was always necessary for the Abelardians to say at once that God is beyond language. As SP1 explain, the art of division, the use of vocabula, the rules of the arts, are of no help to philosophers who try to learn about God.28 This was in fact like an ‘official health warning’: the Abelardians did not in practice prohibit the use of vocabula. The school, like Abelard, defended a theory of transference or translation of meaning. Thus, we continue to use personal n ­ ames – f­ ather, son and s­ pirit – t­ o designate three persons in the Trinity. Nonetheless, the names of Father, Son and Spirit sunt translata a propriis significationibus in order to signify persons in the Trinity.29 Yet the dissimilitudines that are thereby created are not total; the names reflect limited likenesses: res ille, as both the author of SP2 and SO write, quarum nomina sumuntur debent habere aliquam similitudinem cum re ilia ad quam significandam sumuntur.30 Thus the Father is like a father who begets a son from own being; the Spirit is like the breath with which a mother shows her feelings to her creature. Nonetheless, such personal names are used improprie of God. By the time Abelard’s censors had h ­ ighlighted – i­f indeed they did not themselves ­provide – ­that adverb in the Liber sententiarum in 1139 to 1140 it was easy, although wrong, for William of St Thierry to allege that Abelard and his supporters had denied three divine persons.31 Several of the compilers of the sentence collections go to some trouble to reproduce Abelard’s summaries of differing notions of persona. In grammar, a person is one who speaks to another, is spoken to by another, is spoken about. In rhetoric, a person is someone about whose actions or speech someone else argues or speaks. In Boethius, a person is substantia rationalis individua.32 For all their many resemblances, it is here on God and the Trinity that Abelardian sentence collections most display characteristic differences of selection and emphasis. The SPA, which have a good claim to represent the actual teaching 131

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of Abelard, are in fact the closest of all to being an anthology of quotations from the Bible and the Fathers. SP2, on the other hand, boldly eschew quotations from the authorities and are seriously philosophical. What, they ask, does individua mean in Boethius’s definition of a person as substantia rationalis individua? Individuum means that which non potest dividi. An atom is individuum because it is too small to be divided. Steel which is too adamantine to be fractured is individuum. Anything that is predicable of one thing only is an individual.33 SP2 painstakingly examine, in the light of Boethius’ definition, the question of persons in the Trinity: a divine person is not individua, because God the Son was joined to man in unam personam through the Incarnation; yet there had not been two separable persons, God and man, before the Incarnation occurred. That was one reason for questioning the use of the noun, person, in the Trinity. A second reason is that, on Boethius’s definition of person, there would be not one but three rational substances in one God.34 Why, then, if the word ‘person’ raises problems when used of the Trinity, do Christians use it? The sentence collections, even where they blend Abelardian with Victorine teachings, are reasonably consistent and persistent in their answer. Person, in the Trinity, means not substance but property. The distinctions within God are not distinctions into three individual, rational substances, but distinctions into three properties which are power, wisdom and charity. Together these three properties of power, wisdom and charity constitute perfection of being; they constitute the summum bonum.35 Still, the writers of the sentence collections are not content to let the matter rest there, having challenged the notion of person in the Trinity and having reproduced Abelard’s idea that three properties together constitute the summum bonum, they also raise, like Abelard, the question why there is a Trinity, not just one undivided permanent substance. The properties of power, wisdom and charity constitute a supreme goodness, but why cannot one divine person be this power, wisdom and charity? Why three persons? The answer given is that in order to persuade men to worship God a display of a diversity of properties is helpful: people will fear God if they perceive his power, they will love him if they learn of his wisdom and experience his love. And, although the sentence collections are not fully explicit on this point, an appreciation of God’s properties will be easier if each of the three properties is specially and properly associated with one of three divine persons, power with the Father, wisdom with the Son and charity with the Spirit.36 The problems associated with use of names for God are very dominant in the sentence collections. They distinguish two principal types of name. On the one hand there are personal names which are the particular names of each of three divine persons: Father, Son and Spirit. On the other hand, there are natural or substantial names which are common names of the essence of God.37 These latter are of two kinds. One of these is of names secundum se or ex se: thus when we say God is immense or omnipotent or just or wise or eternal we apply names to God’s substance. The second kind of natural 132

t h e s c h o o l o f p e t e r a b e la r d r e v i s i t e d names of God is of names which arise in respect of the relationship between God and creation: examples are just, merciful, creator, etc.38 In SPA these names secundum nos or respectu creaturarum are either temporal names such as creator or lord, or they are eternal names such as provident or prescient.39 However, SP2 are not so easily satisfied. To say that God is immense and just and eternal is certainly to use names secundum se because if there was no creation God would still be eternal, just and immense. But these same names are also names secundum nos: God is immense respectu rerum que non sunt immense, he is eternal respectu temporum.40 And this leads SP2 to take the further unusual step of qualifying Abelard’s argument that the distinctions in God are distinctions between complementary properties. The distinctions between (for example) God’s wisdom, justice and mercy are not distinctions between different properties but distinctions between the diverse intellectus which men form in the light of their diverse reactions to God acting wisely, judging justly and forgiving mercifully.41 Once again we see, as in Abelard’s Ethics, the switch from nouns to adverbs, from what to how. An effort is made in the school of Abelard to define the names of God from both an intrinsic and an extrinsic viewpoint. Moreover, SP2 find the plurality of the non-­ personal names of God somewhat unnecessary. Before leaving this matter of names, one final point must be made about the Incarnation. The Incarnation for the Abelardians is not a union of two persons. Abelard’s followers deny that two natures or two substances are fused in one person. Divinity joined to humanity remains divinity just as bones joined to flesh remain bones. So it is improper or figurative to say, à propos of Christ, that God was made man or was made flesh.42 Out of this objection was born the doctrine usually known as Christological nihilism.43 Nowhere in the Abelardian sentence collections need we expect to find brand names such as nominales or Abelardiani. But the resemblances between the texts of the school and Abelard’s own writings speak louder than any label in favour of the existence of a distinctive school of thought which was inspired by Abelard himself. For a while in the twelfth century considerable interest was shown in Abelard’s teachings. This interest dwindled after the 1170s or so. The Victorines and Peter Lombard had by then provided a counterbalance; the condemnation of Abelard in 1140 had identified troublesome spots. This does not mean that Abelard’s followers achieved little. To be overtaken is not necessarily to fail; Abelard and his school had radically changed the agenda of theological discourse. Their new agenda was largely about names, as I have tried to show. As Otto of Freising wrote in his Gesta Friderici (I, 47), Abelard had at the time of his first condemnation at Soissons in 1121 appeared to reduce the persons of the Trinity to vacua nomina tantum – whereas the church faithfully taught that the three persons were res distinctae suisque proprietatibus discretae. And Abelard had, as Otto wrote, incautiously applied the sententia vocum seu nominum to theology.44 In 1139–1140, William of St Thierry complained that Abelard was still attenuating the 133

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n reality of the divine persons by speaking of their nomina as impropria and by focussing on what is significativam potius quam realem.45 Here was a powerful current of theological thought. It was not called nominalist but it was much concerned with nominal issues.

Notes  1 See Julia Barrow, Charles Burnett, David Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise and Other Works closely associated with Abelard and his School’, Revue d’histoire des textes, XIV/XV (1984–1985), pp.  183–302. Part 3 of this Checklist (pp.  259–261) gives information about a few works which put forward doctrine identifiable as Abelard’s; Part 2 gives information about Abelard’s own writings (pp.  240–258). See also Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard. The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, New Series, 14): chapter 3 (‘The Diffusion of Abelardian Writings’, pp. 60–102) includes some details of writings on logic and theology inspired by Abelard as well as of those written by him; chapters 5 and 10 (pp. 143–172, 224–260) examine works of theology from Abelard’s school.   2 See n. 1 above.  3 ‘Iucundum itaque uisum est, ueteres quos reliqueram et quos adhuc dialectica detinebat in monte reuisere socios, conferre cum eis super ambiguitatibus pristinis, ut nostrum invicem ex collatione mutua commetiremur profectum. Inuenti sunt qui fuerant et ubi. Neque enim ad palmum uisi sunt processisse. Ad quaestiones pristinas dirimendas, nec propositiunculam unam adiecerant. Quibus urgebant stimulis, eisdem et ipsi urgebantur, Profecerant in uno dumtaxat, dedicerant modum, modestiam nesciebant. Adeo quidem, ut de reparatione eorum posset desperari’, John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, II.10, ed. J. B. Hall with the assistance of K. S. B. Keats-­Rohan, Turnhout, Brepols, 1991 (CCCM, 98), ll. 83–93.  4 TSum, Tchr, tsch, TSch.  5 Peter Abelard’s Ethics. An Edition with Introduction, English Translation and Notes by D. E. Luscombe, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971 (Oxford Medieval Texts).*   6 Most recently edited by S. Buzzetti, Sententie magistri Petri Abelardi (Sententie Hermanni), Florence, La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1983 (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Milano, 101. Sezione a cura dell’Istituto di Storia della Filosofia, 3). Also PL 178, 1695–1758.*  7 Buzzetti, Sententie, pp. 4–6, explains the problem of authorship and suggests that one magister Hermannus revised the text of the Sentences of Abelard and that, in so doing, he substituted his name where the name of Petrus appears in one group of manuscript copies of the work. See further Constant J. Mews, ‘The Sententie of Peter Abelard’, RTAM, 53 (1986), pp. 130–184.*  8 Sententie Florianenses, ed. Heinrich Ostlender, Bonn, P. Hanstein, 1929 (Florilegium Patristicum, 19).  9 Ed. Arthur Landgraf, Écrits théologiques de l’école d’Abélard. Textes inédits, Louvain, Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1934 (Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense (Études et documents, 14). 10 Ed. J. Trimborn, Die Sententiae, Quoniam misso, aus der Abaelardschule, Cologne, 1962. 11 Mews, ‘The Sententie’, pp. 168–183.* 12 N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957, pp. 194–196.*

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t h e s c h o o l o f p e t e r a b e la r d r e v i s i t e d 13 The School of Peter Abelard, especially chapter 10 (‘Abelard’s Disciples and the School of St Victor’, pp. 224–260). 14 Ed. A. M. Gietl, Die Sentenzen Rolands, Freiburg, Herder, 1891 (reprinted Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1969). 15 These are unedited although extracts were printed in the notes to Gietl’s edition of SR and Dr Julia Barrow (University of Nottingham) has prepared for me a full edition, as yet unpublished, based on all the known manuscripts. 16 Cf. S. F. Burnett, ‘A new text for the “School of Peter Abelard” Dossier’, AHDLMA, 1988, pp. 7–21. 17 Arts du langage et théologie chez Abélard, Paris, J. Vrin, 1969; second edition 1982 (Études de philosophie médiévale, 57). I refer to the second edition. 18 ‘Tria sunt, ut arbitror, in quibus humane salutis summa consistit, scilicet fides, caritas et sacramentum’, SPA c.l, ed. Buzzetti, p. 25; PL 178, 1695A. Cf. SF c.l, ed. Ostlender, p.  1; SP1, ed. Landgraf, p.  3; SP2, ed. Trimborn, p.  146; SR, ed. Gietl, p. 1; SO, ed. Barrow (Munich Staatsbibliothek Cod. sim. 168 (= M), p. 151; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale MS VII C 43 (= N), fo. 1). Also, TSch, I.1, ll. 1–2; tsch, 11. 19 LS, Fragment 3, ed. Mews, pp. 177–178. SPA, c. XXIII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 102–103, ll. 14–37; PL 178, 1730C–1731A: SF, c. 30, ed. Ostlender, p.  14. Also, Abelard, Commentary on St Paul, Epistle to the Romans, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica 1, Turnhout, Brepols, 1969 (CCCM, 11), pp. 114–115 (this work is abbreviated henceforth as Comm. Rom.). Likewise the anonymous Ysagoge in theologiam (= YT), 11, ed. Arthur Landgraf, Écrits théologiques de l’école d’Abélard, p. 156. 20 SR, ed. Gietl, pp. 161–162. 21 LS fragment 4, ed. Mews, p. 178; Comm. Rom., p. 116. 22 LS fragments 6–9, ed. Mews, pp. 178–179; SPA c.XXIII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 103–105, PL 178, 1731A–1732A; SF, c.31, ed. Ostlender, p. 15. Cf. Abelard, Comm. Rom., pp. 117–118. 23 R. Wielockx, ‘La sentence De caritate et la discussion scolastique sur l’amour’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, LVIII (1982), pp.  50–86, 334–356; LIX (1988), pp. 26–45. 24 SPA c.l, XXXI, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 25–26,139–140, PL 178, 1695B–D, 1747C–1748A; SF c.2, ed. Ostlender, pp.  1–2; SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp.  5, 48–51; SR, ed. Gietl, pp.  314–322. See also Abelard, Tchr, V. 51–52, pp.  369–370; tsch, 13–15, p.  405; TSch, I, 3–8, pp. 319–321. Wielockx (see previous note) shows that Abelard and his followers were influenced by writings more recent than Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, III.10.16, ed. J. Martin, Turnhout, Brepols, 1972 (CCSL, 32), p. 87. See also YT 1, ed. Landgraf, pp. 85–91. 25 LS fragments 15–16, 21, ed. Mews, pp. 180–182, 183; SPA c.XXXIV, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 153–155, PL 178, 1754–1756; SF, c.27, ed. Ostlender, p. 13; SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp.  57–60; YT, ed. Landgraf, pp.  91–92. Cf. Abelard, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, pp. 26–29, 48–51; Comm. Rom., pp. 240–242. 26 LS fragments 24–25, ed. Mews, p. 183; SPA, c.XXXIII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 150–151, PL 178, 1753A–D; SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp. 55–56; YT, ed. Landgraf, pp. 106–109. 27 SPA, c.XXXV–XXXVII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 156–163; PL 178, 1756A–1758D; YT, ed. Landgraf, pp.  207–216; SR, ed. Gietl, pp.  243–249. Cf. Abelard, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, pp. 98–127. 28 SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp.  6–7. Cf. TSum II. 64–74, ll. 546–678; Tchr III. 115–130, ll. 1338–1570; TSch II. 75–93, ll. 1138–1399. 29 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 176, ll. 22–24. Cf. SPA, c.XV, ed. Buzzetti, p. 73, l. 4; PL 178, 1716D. SO is very similar to SP2, ed. Barrow (M p. 163, N fo.27v).

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n 30 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p.  176, ll. 25–27 (Trimborn prints creaturae illius instead of cum re illa). SO, ibidem. 31 LS fragment 1, ed. Mews, p. 177. 32 SPA c.XIII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 70–71; PL 178, 1715D–1716C; SF c.l0, ed. Ostlender, p.  5; SP1, ed. Landgraf, p.  30; SP2, ed. Trimborn, p.  182; SO, ed. Barrow (M pp.  164–165, N fo.29). Cf. Abelard, TSum II. 106–112, ll. 1003–1059; Tchr III. 174–181, ll. 2153–2231; TSch II. 104–109, ll. 1520–1612. 33 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 182. Cf. SO, ed. Barrow (M p. 165, N fo.29–29v). 34 SP2, ed. Trimborn, pp. 182–186; SO, ed. Barrow (M p. 165, N fos. 29v–30). 35 LS fragment 1, ed. Mews, p.  177; SPA c.V, ed. Buzzetti, pp.  34–36, PL.178, 1699C–1700D; SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp.  7–13; SP2, ed. Trimborn, pp.  188–204; SR, ed. Gietl, pp. 21–25, 46; SO, ed. Barrow (M pp. 158–159, N, fos. 12–13). Cf. Abelard, TSum I .2–9, ll. 20–97; Tchr I. 4–7, ll. 49–101; TSch I. 30–35, ll. 336–389. 36 SPA c.V, ed. Buzzetti, pp.  35–38, PL.178, 1699D–1702A; SP2, ed. Trimborn, pp. 188–194; SO, ed. Barrow (M pp. 158–159, N fos. 12–13). Cf. Abelard, TSum I.2–4, ll. 21–49; TChr I. 4–6, ll. 49–87; TSch I. 28–35, ll. 324–389. 37 SPA c.XIV, XVII, ed. Buzzetti, pp. 72, 79–80; PL.178, 1716CD, 1720A–B; SP2, ed. Trimborn, p.  174; YT, ed. Landgraf, pp.  258, 260, 263–264; SR, ed. Gietl, pp. 43–48; SO, ed. Barrow (M pp. 163–164, N fos. 27–28v). 38 SF c. 9, ed. Ostlender, p. 4 (‘Quaedam nomina competunt Deo ex se, quaedam ex Nobis’); SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 176. 39 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 176. 40 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 176. 41 SP2, ed. Trimborn, p. 180. 42 SPA c. XXIV ed. Buzzetti, pp. 106–109, PL 178, 1732–1734; SF c. 34 ed. Ostlender, pp. 16–17; SP1, ed. Landgraf, pp. 31–32; SR ed. Gietl, pp. 72–79; SO, ed. Barrow (M p. 187–189, C (= Monte Cassino, Archivio della Badia MS 386) pp. 69B–70B). Cf. Abelard, TSch III.74–81, ll. 991–1112. YT does not follow Abelard in this, ed. Landgraf, p. 164. 43 See Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, pp. 250–252, 272–273. 44 Gesta Frederici imperatoris, I. 47, Hanover, 1868 (MGH, Scriptores, XX), p. 376. Abelard certainly regarded the question of whether the Trinity consisted of a real diversity of persons as being of great concern to his contemporaries: ‘Aut enim, inquiunt, hee diversitas personarum in solis uocabulis consistit, non in ­re . . . ­aut in re sola et non in uocabulis, aut simul in re et in uocabulis’, TSum II.44 (‘prima obiectio aduersus trinitatem’), ll. 397–401. Cf. Tchr III. 90, ll. 1148–1151. 45 Disputatio adversus Petrum Abaelardum, PL 180, 532A, 256D.

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9 THE BIBLE IN THE WORK OF PETER ABELARD AND OF HIS ‘SCHOOL’

Beryl Smalley did not devote a section of The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages to Abelard and his name does not loom large in the index. He got only scattered references. She acknowledged that he was an outstanding figure in a period that gave scope to personality,1 that he was a thoroughgoing dialectician with a sharper mind and a very different temperament from Anselm of Laon whom he found wordy and second-­rate.2 But she also recognized that Abelard himself followed current traditions and was less original than he might appear: in introducing quaestiones into his commentary on Romans he did no more than was usual at Laon.3 But quaestiones were to multiply in number in the second quarter of the twelfth century. ‘Each pupil enlarges on his master’, she wrote referring by way of example to the Commentarius Cantabrigiensis written by a disciple of Abelard.4 She noted that Dom Lottin had suggested that all the teaching of theology at Laon consisted of lectures on sacra pagina: discussions of questions concerning the creation, the angels, the fall, would take place within the framework of lectures on the Hexaemeron, while most other doctrinal matters would arise naturally from the text of the Letters of St Paul.5 She might have added that Abelard himself wrote commentaries on both the Hexaemeron and on Romans. On the other hand she clearly contrasted the conservatism of Laon with the progressive spirit of Abelard who had ‘a great preference’ for the quaestio as an exegetical instrument over straightforward commentary and gloss.6 Abelard’s brush with Anselm of Laon was over the superficiality and the pretentiousness that go with overlaying the text with unnecessary quotation and explanation. His choice of the Book of Ezekiel as the subject of his lectures at Laon7 is a further example of creativity because the schools of the time neglected the Prophets and many other books as well and concentrated somewhat narrowly on the Psalter and on the Letters of St Paul. Beryl Smalley wrote with interest of the relations between Christians and Jews and she cited Abelard’s Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum as an example of Christian tolerance and appreciation of the Jewish point of view.8 She reminded us that he lived in the early days of ‘a great movement’ to translate works out of Greek and Arabic into Latin, to convert 137

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n the infidel, to increase Latin scholarship in philosophy and science and to correct the texts of the Bible. Scholars went off to Spain, southern Italy and Sicily in search of Arabic learning; they also consulted Jews on their doorstep at home.9 She noticed that Abelard told Heloise that he had once listened to a Jew commenting on a text of Kings.10 She noticed too that one of Abelard’s pupils, the writer of the Commentarius Cantabrigiensis, reported that his master had questioned Jews.11 She cited the Ysagoge in theologiam, a work which makes frequent reference to Abelard’s theological teaching, on account of its presentation of quotations in Hebrew from the Ten Commandments and from the Prophets.12 In addition Abelard recommended that Heloise and the sisters of the Paraclete should learn the Biblical languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, in order to understand Scripture in the original and to restore the scholarly ideal of lectio divina as taught by St Jerome.13 Abelard’s injunction to the nuns of the Paraclete was almost certainly too ambitious but the general trend of his efforts and those of o ­ thers – a­ t the new abbey of St Victor, for ­example – ­was in favour of Biblical scholarship. It is fair to observe that Dr Smalley never fully confronted Abelard as a commentator on the Bible. On the other hand her portrait of Abelard as a Biblical scholar is just and her stimulus to more recent study of the Bible in the Middle Ages has been enormous. In the Preface to the third edition of her book14 she herself added nothing on Abelard but her Bibliography cites new work by R. Peppermüller15 and by E. Kearney.16 The present essay is intended to be a selective consideration of four subjects which are: the relationship between scholastic and monastic elements in Abelard’s exposition of Scripture; his use of textual or literary criticism; his reference to non-­Christian and especially pagan learning to enhance the understanding of Scripture; and finally the ways in which Abelard used the Bible to shape his views about society, and especially about women. Peter Abelard was both a schoolman and a monk: a schoolman at Melun, Corbeil and on the Mont Ste Geneviève; a monk at St Denis, St Ayoul, the Paraclete, St Gildas, Cluny and St Marcel. His writings reflect both his scholastic and his monastic experiences and commitments; so does his Biblical exegesis. He appropriated non-­Christian learning in his study of the Bible, Jewish scholarship in particular and also the religious, moral and scientific views of the ancient pagan or gentile philosophers. He formulated principles of textual criticism, He also developed Biblical exegesis into a means of commenting upon society. In particular he developed distinctive views about the role of the Christian scholar and about women. Abelard’s first foray into Biblical exegesis was his exposition of Ezekiel.17 This involved three improvised lectures at Laon where, interestingly, we are told that his hearers eagerly made copies of his glosses. The glosses (which have not survived) were extended and found readers on Abelard’s return to Paris, thus marking the point where Abelard could claim to have acquired a competence in sacra lectio to complement his position as a philosopher. 138

t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ After entering the abbey of St Denis in 1117/18 following his castration, Abelard withdrew to a cell of the monastery where he resumed teaching. In his autobiography Abelard repeats his claim to be no less accomplished in the lectio of divina scriptura than of secularis and he justifies his continued teaching of the secular arts, although now a monk, on the ground that he used them as a hook to bring his pupils into the study of true philosophy, following the example of Origen, the greatest of all Christian philosophers.18 While at St Denis Abelard would appear to have embarked upon writing his Sic et non. In his Prologue to this work Abelard discusses at some length the principles of textual criticism. The work seeks to investigate the diversities of doctrine contained in the authorities, including Scripture. Boyer and McKeon in their edition of the Sic et non provide an excellent index of the sources cited by Abelard including his quotations from Scripture. These are relatively few, about one hundred and fifty or so (or about 10 per cent of the total number),19 and especially few from the Old Testament. It is often assumed that the Sic et non is the quarry from which Abelard obtained the quotations he used when writing the later versions of his Theologia. But I can find only about thrity-­five of these Scriptural quotations in the index which Dr Mews gives in his edition; these are often from Matthew and Paul.20 However, when citing the Fathers Abelard often cites their commentaries on Scripture in which quotations from the Bible are abundant. These Scriptural quotations contained within Patristic works are not included in the index of Boyer– McKeon. For example, in quaestio CXVI (‘Quod peccata patrum reddantur in filios et contra’) Abelard cites a short passage from Ezechiel 18:1–2 but also cites a long string of passages from Jerome’s Commentary on Ezechiel21 and these Jerome passages include Scriptural quotations. The relative paucity of Scriptural quotations in the Sic et non reflects the fact that Abelard found more cases of apparent disagreement between post-­Scriptural writers than he found in Scripture itself; there were anyway more post-­Scriptural texts to draw upon than there were books in the Bible. The lessons taught in the Prologue to the Sic et non are well known to all medievalists: the verba of the saints sometimes seem both diversa and adversa. But this does not mean that they are untruthful or wrong, for we may lack understanding, understanding (for example) of unusual modes of speech or of alternative meanings of words. Nonetheless, mistakes can be found even in Scripture. Matthew 13:34–35 puts into the mouth of Jesus a saying which Matthew attributes to Isaiah, but in fact it belongs to Asaph; Matthew 27:9 refers to Jeremiah instead of Zachariah. The evangelists differ over the hour of the crucifixion.22 But Jerome shows that these mistakes were made by copyists. The early church contained many uneducated gentiles who did not know their Old Testament; their scribes easily confused Asaph with Isaiah, Jeremiah with Zachariah, one Greek number for another. Sometimes the words of Scripture can mislead us if we do not make allowance for colloquialism as when Mary mentions Joseph as Jesus’ father23 or for modesty as when 139

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Paul calls himself a fool for Christ24 or for unavoidable ignorance as when the author of Hebrews speaks of Melchidesech having neither father nor mother, having no genealogy, no beginning and no end to his days25 or for context as when the witch is said in I Kings 28:12 to see Samuel who was in fact dead as the story itself makes perfectly clear.26 Gregory the Great in his first Homily on Ezechiel gave examples of the Prophets sometimes speaking with the spirit and grace of prophecy and sometimes without it: St Peter himself lapsed into error over the observance of the old rituals such as circumcision and had to be publicly corrected by St Paul.27 Abelard quotes at length from St Augustine to prove that the Scriptures contain errors but never intentionally mislead; and he writes (characteristically): ‘magis iuxta intentionem loquentis quam secundum qualitatem locutionis Deus, qui cordis et renum probator est, pensat, non tam ea quae fiunt quam quo animo fiunt attendens’.28 The authority of the Bible would collapse if it contained deliberate deceit.29 So, to understand the Scriptures we have to question them and in this we have to follow the example of Christ himself who at the age of twelve questioned the doctors in the Temple: ‘quaerite et invenietis, pulsate et aperietur vobis’. Behind a master and a preacher, even in the case of the perfect wisdom of God, lies a disciple and an enquirer.30 At about the time of starting to write the Sic et non Abelard was also engaged in writing his Theologia ‘Summi boni’.31 In the Theologia Abelard brings together exposition of Scripture and the ‘lectio philosophorum’. The work provides philosophical solutions to questions about faith.32 It also includes many Scriptural references and these were to recur in the later versions of the work which are known by the titles Theologia Christiana and Theologia ‘Scholarium’.33 The work includes, by way of introduction in Book 1, a powerful interpretation, in a trinitarian sense, of passages from the Law and the Prophets as well as from the writings of the gentile philosophers.34 It is well known that Abelard detected in Plato’s idea of a world soul the basis of the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit. He justified his interpretation by arguing that it is necessary to pierce behind the surface of the letter, behind its integumentum. A mystical interpretation is needed where a true or easy interpretation is unavailable.35 Likewise, the Prophets expressed arcane truths, not in popular style (‘vulgaribus verbis’) but with the aid of similitudes (‘comparationibus similitudinum’) which provided a beautiful wrapping (‘per pulcherrimam involucri figuram’). They did so to make themselves more attractive to readers. What the Prophets and the philosophers wrote must seem mere fable and utterly meaningless when read superficially in a literal way (‘secundum litterae superficiem’). But when readers realize that they are full of great mystery they will warm to them and welcome them on account of their great contribution to teaching. The wrapping keeps them clean, as Augustine wrote.36 The Lord likes to rest in the shade: hidden there he appears more welcome to those who see him. The greater the difficulty experienced with the Scriptures, the greater the merit their readers acquire. As Proverbs say (25:2), ‘Gloria Dei est 140

t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ celare verbum et gloria regum investigare Sermonem’. So the obscurities of Scripture are like the shade in which God rests and where he will be found. Proverbs 1:6 also invite us to investigate them: ‘Sapiens animadvertet parabolam et interpretationem, verba sapientium et aenigmata eorum’. The wise man shall understand a parable and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their mysterious sayings. The greater the effort spent in understanding, the sweeter it is.37 Abelard adds a quotation from St Jerome which explains the opening of Proverbs as an invitation to us to understand words of wisdom, plays upon words, parables, obscure speech, saws and enigmas –which are the domain of dialecticians and philosophers (‘quae proprie dialecticorum et philosophorum sunt’).38 The Apostles understand the mystery of God’s kingdom: others hear parables only.39 Dr Mews has written that Abelard’s favourite Scriptural text in his Theologia ‘Summi Boni’ is Romans 1:18–21: that which is known of God is manifest in them; the invisible things of God have been revealed to the gentiles. Abelard turns this text ‘into a eulogy of pagan philosophical insight’.40 Abelard cites the text three times in this work and its principal appearance is at the close of the third and final book where Abelard suggests reasons why Jews and gentiles have been able to perceive the trinitarian nature of God even without the knowledge of the Incarnation which is needed to make such a perception clear.41 The appeal of Paul’s remarks appears to grow upon Abelard in the course of writing his Theologia Christiana and his Theologia ‘Scholarium’ where he exploits them more frequently and fully.42 The theme unfolds clearly in the second book of the Theologia Christiana: on the authority of Paul, Abelard suggests that God had revealed to the gentiles what was invisible about him, namely his Spirit. The gentiles, precisely because God has revealed to them invisible truth concerning the trinity, are not infidels. True, the gentiles had no ‘legis scriptum’ but according to Paul (Romans 2:14–15) they did ‘naturaliter quae legis sunt’; the ‘legis scriptum’ was written on their hearts. The gentiles, even without the written law, and even without circumcision, can be justified through faith.43 To support this view that the gentiles living before the coming of Christ could obtain some knowledge of the truths upheld by Christians, Abelard also provided evidence of the virtuous lives led by pagan philosophers as well as by illiterate men, living by the natural law alone. He drew his e­ xamples – o ­f Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras and ­others – ­largely from book 8 of Augustine’s City of God. Plato in particular identified the aim of the good life as the love of God.44 In the second book of the Theologia Christiana Abelard uses non-­Biblical sources to define the social roles of men and women in association with Biblical texts. He sees in the care given by gentile philosophers to the well-­ being of cities and their citizens an expression of evangelical and apostolic values which is not at odds with Christian teaching.45 The philosophers did not know about the Incarnation or the sacraments or the Resurrection but 141

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n the moral teachings of the Gospel are ‘nothing other than a reformation of the natural law’ which the philosophers upheld.46 The gentile philosophers organized cities into what may be called ‘convents of married people’ ruled by rectors who should themselves be celibate and abstinent like modern monks and clergy. These cities were fraternities upheld by charity like the communities of Christians described in the Acts of the Apostles 4:32.47 In book 2 Abelard also builds up the ideal of the philosopher-­hermit. The Theologia Christiana was written while Abelard was living at Quincey, in a small, isolated, rural hermitage, living as a monk but teaching philosophy and the Scriptures. At this time he developed his vision of virtue as the path to wisdom. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, requires isolation from the world and commitment to prayer, study and the practice of virtue, if perfection is to be attained.48 Many of the pagan philosophers, many pagan women also, set examples of conversion from the world.49 Some ten years later, when Abelard wrote his autobiography, he reproduced some examples from this large repertory of gentile seekers after wisdom. He attributed them to Heloise as he told the story of how she had begged Abelard not to marry her. In this context the similarities that Abelard wished to highlight between the examples of continent living among gentile philosophers, Jews and Christians are more clearly presented: among the Jews, the Nazarenes and the followers of Elijah, the Pharisees, the Saducees and the Essenes, all present examples of lives that Christians would call monastic but which gentiles would call philosophic.50 At about the same time, as abbot of St Gildas, Abelard uses the same repertory of examples in his Sermon on St John the Baptist.51 He invokes Job and the figure of the wild ass, ‘non domestlcus sed silvestris’,52 free not fettered, like a monk free of sexual ties and of the responsibilities of a wife and family. ‘Who hath sent out the wild ass free? (. . .) To whom have I given a house in the wilderness (. . .)? He scorneth the multitude of the city’.53 From this generic example of the monastic ideal Abelard passes to the specific figure of John the Baptist (‘summo illo monachorum principe’).54 But he refers first to the Old Testament figures of Elijah and Elisha, who lived in solitude in the countryside, and to the early Christian monks, Paul, Anthony, Hilarion and Macharius, who are all models of the monastic life which is the ‘Christian philosophy’.55 Of John the Baptist Abelard wrote: ‘in eremo philosophatur (. . .) Non vult cum hominibus conversari, in eremo cum angelis philosophatur’ – ‘he philosophized in the hermitage (. . .) He did not wish to converse with men. He philosophized in his hermitage with the angels’.56 Abelard uses these examples of perfection to criticize the monastic sociely of his own day, with its greed to acquire parishes, its involvement in lawsuits, its close association with the affairs of cities and castles. Abelard wrote four expositions of Scripture. His glosses on Ezekiel do not survive; his commentary on the Pater noster is short,57 but those on Romans and on the Hexaemeron are substantial.58 142

t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ Abelard lectured on the Letters of Paul, not only on Romans. He did so famously, if one takes into account the work of his hearers. One of these, the author of the Commentarius Cantabrigiensis, heard his lectures and makes frequent reference to Abelard whom he calls simply philosophus.59 Another was Robert of Melun who was clearly inspired by Abelard’s commentary on Romans when he wrote (c.1157 or earlier) his Questiones de epistolis Pauli.60 Rolf Peppermüller has brought to light an anonymous commentary on Romans and on Corinthians (to II Cor. 10:12) from the late twelfth century, found in three manuscripts and not printed, in which Abelard’s commentary on Romans is followed as a source word for word on more than eighty occasions. Another source used in this commentary is Robert of Melun but neither Abelard nor Robert is named.61 In addition, Peppermüller has shown that books 6–8 of the Allegoriae super novum testamentum, printed among the works of Hugh of St Victor in volume 175 of the Patrologia latina, and very widely copied in the Middle Ages, are nothing other than an abridgement of these commentaries.62 However, the only surviving commentary by Abelard on Paul to have been identified so far is the commentary on Romans.63 A disciple of Abelard wrote an abridgement of this commentary which Landgraf edited and published.64 In the Prologue to his commentary on Romans Abelard offers a broad statement as to what the Scriptures are and what they do.65 They are a form of rhetoric. They aim to teach and to urge (‘docere’, ‘mouere’). Scripture teaches what should be done and what should not be done. Scripture tells us to refrain from wrong and to devote ourselves to doing good. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament achieve this end through a similar tripartite arrangement: first, the Law and the teachings of the Lord are provided in the five books of Moses and in the Gospels. Secondly, exhortation is provided in the prophetical and the historical books of the Old Testament and in the Epistles and the Apocalypse in the New Testament. Thirdly, the historical books of the Old Testament and the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament give exempla in narrative form in order to show what rewards there are for virtue and what punishments there are for transgressions. Paul’s Letter to the Romans was written to advise the Romans to obey the teaching of the Gospel. To do this Paul stresses the importance of divine grace over that of human action. The Letter is entirely about divine grace and human ­action – t­o advise the proud Romans not to glorify their own achievements but rather to glorify the Lord. When E. M. Buytaert edited this Expositio of Romans in 1969 he described it as ‘a literal interpretation of the Epistle as it was understood in those days, but with a good many theological or theologico-­exegetical questions interspersed. The originality of the Commentary resides more in the questions inserted than in its exegesis proper’.66 Peppermüller showed that there is a lot of theology and also a lot of ethics in the Commentary.67 Abelard uses auctoritates (Augustine, Origen, Haymo, Ambrosiaster, Jerome etc.),68 and follows 143

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n closely the text of the Letter, but it is the questions that Abelard raised which most reveal his purpose.69 And frequently Abelard refers the reader to another work of his in which he promises to pursue a question further. On eight occasions, for example, he promises answers to questions on grace, sin, providence and predestination in his Theologia; he promises answers to questions about Christ and the redemption in his Anthropologia, and, on three occasions, to questions about grace, virtue, sin and merit in his Ethica.70 Undoubtedly the two most important questions which Abelard raises in his Expositio are questions about redemption and about original sin.71 Buytaert worked hard on his edition of the Expositio. But he was also preparing at the time an edition of Abelard’s Theologia.72 The introduction which Buytaert wrote to his edition of the Expositio is largely about Abelard’s Theologia, about the questions raised in the Expositio in this regard and about the references found there to the various ­versions – ­both written and yet to be ­written – ­of the Theologia.73 Buytaert argued that the questions which Abelard raised in the Expositio related to the three divisions of all Scriptural knowledge: faith, charity and sacrament.74 Around these three divisions Abelard structured his Theologia as well as his Sentences. I find this less than convincing. It is true that in the Expositio Abelard raises questions that are about faith, about charity, about sacrament. But in the Prologue Abelard describes the Gospels as contributing to salvation through what they say about faith, hope and charity or the sacraments (‘de fide et spe et caritate seu sacramentis’)75 – a different division. It does not seem to me that Abelard consciously grouped his questions in the Expositio around the three divisions of theology which he introduced into his Theologia and his Sentences. In the Expositio in Hexaemeron we see Abelard’s monastic and scholastic interests coming together. Abelard wrote this Commentary for the nuns of the Paraclete. In his Preface he explains that Heloise had asked him to explain Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram.76 We know from Letter 9 that Abelard exhorted the nuns to study Scripture.77 They had done so and they had found the beginning of the Book of Genesis too hard. So Abelard wrote a commentary for them.78 To a considerable degree, Abelard’s work is a development of the work of Augustine. But Abelard’s approach included an interest in the natural science aspects of the account of the creation of the physical universe and thereby offers similarities to the thought and writings of such twelfth-­century philosophers as Adelard of Bath and Thierry of Chartres. Augustine focussed upon his doctrine of seminal reasons; Abelard, like some of his scientific contemporaries in the twelfth century, focussed upon the idea of natural causes, upon the power or the force of nature, the vis naturae.79 The will of God, voluntas Dei, is the cause of all that happens during the six days. However, when the natures of things have been established by God, he rests and the force of nature suffices to keep creation in being. Abelard defines nature as ‘a force and capacity invested in those works at that time [i.e. creation], so that they should be sufficient in themselves for effecting what 144

t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ happens consequently’.80 He uses the theory of the four elements, ‘heaven’ being interpreted as the elements of fire and air, ‘earth’ as the elements of water and earth.81 To begin with, the newly created elements are mixed up. This is what Genesis 1:2 calls the abyss and what classical poets and philosophers call chaos.82 The relationship of the elements to chaos or hyle is one of the problems that Abelard tried to tackle. Eileen Kearney, in a fine article published in 1980,83 showed that Abelard did more than provide a literal exposition of the Hexaemeron.84 He considered as well the typological and moral implications (moralitas). Thus, the image of the spirit ‘warming the waters’ in Genesis 1:2 prefigures the action of the ‘waters of baptism’ which give new life to man.85 Abelard also provides a mystical interpretation (allegoria).86 He uses for this purpose Augustine’s De Genesi contra Manichaeos in which Augustine interprets the six days of creation as the six ages of world history. Dr Kearney also noted that Abelard’s Commentary parallels the first book of Hymns that he wrote for the nuns of the Paraclete. Joseph Szövérffy, in the Introduction to his edition of the Hymnarius Paraclitensis, has elucidated these important parallels very well. The nocturnal hymns are based upon the narrative of the six days of creation but the diurnal hymns (which have a different rhythm and a different melody) contain allegorical and moral interpretations of the six days as the six ages of salvation and the six ages of man from infancy onwards.87 There exist two versions of the Commentary on the Hexaemeron, one shorter and the other longer. It is conceivable that Abelard wrote first the shorter version in which attention is especially given to the doctrines of the pagan philosophers, especially Plato. Later, when Heloise asked for a commentary, Abelard may have expanded his work and made it appropriate for the nuns of the Paraclete by adding more material from the Bible and the Fathers. But this can only be a hypothesis, and another view is that the shorter version is an abbreviation written by a disciple. In either event, the longer version which was despatched to the Paraclete reflects both the philosophical enquiries of contemporary philosophers and the spiritual requests of Heloise and the nuns.88 Heloise, in the first letter she wrote to Abelard following her discovery of his epistola consolatoria, asked him for help and guidance: she asked him to share with her s­ isters – h ­ is ­daughters – i­n the convent of the Paraclete the knowledge he had of treatises which the Fathers had written to instruct, stimulate and console religious women.89 Abelard’s guidance was powerfully shaped by the example of St Jerome who in the fourth century had advocated the study of the Bible to the Christian ladies of Rome.90 In his reply he asked Heloise and the sisters to present to him their enquiries about the Bible.91 Apparently the nuns did so, for Heloise wrote a letter to Abelard to say that she and the sisters were studying Scripture and were following the example that Jerome had set.92 This letter introduces forty-­two Problemata which are questions 145

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n that the nuns have not been able to answer in the course of their studies. Some of these questions fall into groups (10–12, 14–20, 25–26, 30–39) and some of these groups focus upon certain parts of the Bible. Professor Dronke has shown that there is a personal, autobiographical streak in some of these Problemata.93 The last, for example, asks whether anyone can sin in doing something that has been permitted or even commanded by her lord.94 Heloise was perhaps reflecting on the command (iussio) she received from Abelard to marry him and then to enter religion.95 Abelard’s answer is a defence of marriage. The second Problema (James 2:10 –11: whoever offends in one point of the Law becomes guilty in all) raises a question which Heloise was concerned about in her third letter.96 The fourteenth, about the Beatitudes, gives Abelard an opportunity to declare that those who are pure in heart can be blessed even in yielding, in marriage, to sensual desire.97 The eleventh questions the nature of true repentance.98 31–34 concern Anna, ‘mulier nimis infelix’,99 the eighth concerns the woman taken in adultery,100 the twentieth is about the command ‘do as you would be done by’.101 Professor Dronke advises that we should be careful not to read too much personal involvement into these Problemata, many of which are purely exegetical, but there can be no doubt that they do represent an endeavour to find answers to ethical as well as to textual questions and to raise the level of Biblical knowledge in a female community.102 This last point bears upon the general theme of the relationship between the medieval study of the Bible and the position of women in medieval society. Abelard’s contribution was a personal one and no generalizations should be derived from it. But the days have long gone since Abelard was regarded as antifeminist on account of his heartless treatment of Heloise. There are numerous examples in his writings where Abelard searches the Scriptures for examples of women who were pleasing to God.103 Szövérffy has shown in his study of Abelard’s Hymnarius Paraclitensis that women are portrayed in the hymns as strong personalities who often surpass men. Although man was created in the image of God and woman only in his likeness, and although the female sex is weaker than the male, women have shown greater constancy and courage in professing their faith than men. Jephtha’s daughter inspires one of Abelard’s beautiful Planctus. Other exemplary female figures whom Abelard extols in his hymns are Esther, Debra, Anna and Elisabeth, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt.104 These ideas come together in the last two letters in the collected correspondence of Heloise and Abelard, Letter 7 in which Abelard outlines to Heloise the origins of nuns and Letter 8 in which Abelard sends to Heloise his Rule for the convent of the Paraclete. Letter 7 argues especially that the Gospels highlight how close women were to Christ and how prominent they are in the Gospel stories on account of their charity and faithfulness. Abelard fills page after page with examples. And he scours as well the Acts of the Apostles, for women supported the Apostles too: ‘eas ipsi pariter cum apostolis quasi inseparabiles comites adhaerere. Demum (al. Deinde) vera huius 146

t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ professionis religione in feminis pariter ut in viris multiplicata, in ipso statim Ecclesiae nascentis exordio aeque sicut viri’.105 And then Abelard turns back to the Old Testament to underline the greatness of Debra, Judith and Esther: ‘quo naturaliter femineus sexus est infirmior, eo virtus est Deo acceptabilior, et honore dignior’.106

Notes 1 B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Oxford, Blackwell, 19522, p. xvii. 2 Ibidem, p. 51. 3 Ibidem, p. 73. 4 Ibidem 5 Ibidem. 6 Ibidem, pp. 73–74. 7 Ibidem, p. 77 (but correct the dates given there to 1112–1113). 8 Ibidem, p. 78. 9 Ibidem, p. 81. 10 Ibidem, p. 78; Problemata He1oissae, 36 (PL178, 718A). 11 Smalley, Study of the Bible, p. 78; Commentarius Cantabrigiensis in Epistolas Pauli e Schola Petri Abaelardi, ed. A. M. Landgraf, 4 vols., Notre Dame, Indiana, The University of Notre Dame Press, 1937–1945 (Publications in Mediaeval Studies. The University of Notre Dame, 2), vol. 1, p. 65. 12 Ysagoge in theologiam, ed. A. M. Landgraf, Ecrits théologiques de l’école d’Abélard, Louvain, Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense,1934 (Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 14), pp. 61–289. 13 Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp.  79, 81–82. Abelard, Letter 9, ed. E. R. Smits, Peter Abelard. Letters IX–XIV, Groningen, Bouma, 1983, pp. 219–237; PL178, 325–336. 14 Oxford, Blackwell, 1982. 15 R. Peppermüller, Abaelards Auslegung des Römerbriefes, Münster, Aschendorff, 1972 (BGPTMA, Neue Folge, 10). 16 E. F. Kearney, Master Peter Abelard, Expositor of Sacred Scripture. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1980. 17 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 164–251. 18 Ibidem, ll. 663–689. 19 SN, pp. 653–655. 20 TSum, TSch, pp. 557–570. 21 SN, pp. 376–378. 22 Ibidem, pp. 91–92. 23 Luke 2:48; SN, p. 94. 24 I Cor 4:10; SN, ed. p. 95. 25 Heb:7.3; SN, p. 95. 26 SN, p. 95. 27 Ibidem, p. 97. 28 Ibidem, p. 99. This is probably the earliest known occasion on which Abelard wrote this phrase, which he was to use again and again in his later writings on ethics. The words qui cordis et renum probator are from Jer:20.12; cf. Prov. 24:12; the source of the later part of the phrase is Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, ii.13, n. 46 (CCSL, 35), p. 137 (PL 34, 1289); it is found in writings from the school of Anselm

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of Laon. See Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 28, n. 3. See too ibidem, pp. 28, 40; Comm. Rom., pp.  65, 306; Dialogus, ed. Thomas, p.  163. Also, Heloise, Letters 1(2), in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, l. 116; Letter 5(6), PL 178, 223C. 29 SN, pp. 101–102. 30 Ibidem, pp. 103–104, Matt. 7:7. 31 TSum, ed. H. Ostlender, Peter Abaelards Theologia Summi Boni, Münster, Aschendorff, 1939 (BGPTMA, 35. 2–3), intro., p. 21; ed. Buytaert and Mews, p. 3. For the date see C. Mews, ‘On dating the works of Peter Abelard’, AHDLMA, (1985), pp. 73–134: 127. Mews states that the SN was probably begun after the council of Soissons in 1121 at which Abelard’s Theologia had been condemned, but a start before 1121 is also a possibility. 32 See Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 690–708. 33 See the index biblicus which Mews provides in the edition of TSum and TSchol, pp. 557–570. 34 TSum, I, 5, 6–12, 13–29, ll. 56–62, 63–113, 114–293. 35 Tchr, I, 117, TSch, I, 180, p. 394. 36 TSum, I. 37–38; Tchr I. 97–98; TSch I. 157–158. 37 TSum, I. 39–40; Tchr I. 100–101; TSch I. 160–161. 38 Tchr I. 102; TSch I. 162; Cf. Jerome, Epist. 70, CSEL, 54, p. 701; PL 22, 665. 39 Mark 4:11 –12; Tchr I. 105; TSch I. 165. 40 TSum, introduction, p. 52. 41 TSum III. 100. Cf. also TSum I. 32, III. 67; Tchr IV. 159, I.58; TSch II. 183, I. 98. 42 Tchr I. 54, II. 6, II. 12–13, IV. 85, V. 4; TSch I. 94, 100, II. 6, 12, II. 110, III. 4. 43 Tchr II. 13–22. 44 Ibidem, II. 23–42. 45 Ibidem, II. 43–59. 46 Ibidem, II. 44: ‘Si enim diligenter moralia Euangelii praecepta consideremus, nihil ea aliud quam reformationem legis naturalis inueniemus, quam secutos esse philosophos constat, – cum lex magis figuralibus quam moralibus nitatur mandatis, et exteriori potius iustitia quam interiori abundet. Euangelium uero uirtutes ac uitia diligenter examinat, et secundum animi intentionem omnia sicut et philosophi pensat’. See for further discussion D. Luscombe, City and Politics Before the Coming of the Politics, in Church and City: Essays in Honour of Christopher Brooke, ed. D. Abulafia, M. Franklin and M. Rubin, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 41–55. 47 Tchr II. 45: ‘Instituerunt autem, iuxta euangelicam praedicationem, tam coniugatorum quam rectorum quam continentium uitam, cum et ciuitatibus quasi coniugatorum conuentibus modum uitae assignauerunt, et quales ipsi rei publicae rectores esse oporteret definierunt, et in se ipsis continentium atque abstinentium uitam expresserunt, quam nunc clerici siue monachi profitentur’. 48 Ibidem, II. 60. 49 Ibidem, II. 61–115. 50 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 425–558. Cf. Tchr II. 67, 71. In both Tchr and Historia calamitatum Abelard relies largely upon Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum. 51 Sermon 33, PL 178, 582–607. 52 ‘Onager quippe non domesticus, sed silvestris asinus dicitur’, Sermon 33, PL 178, 582C. 53 ‘Quis dimisit onagrum liberum, et vincula eius quis solvit? Cui dedi in solitudine domum, et tabernacula ejus in terra salsuginis? Contemnit multitudinem civitatis, et clamorem exactoris non audit. Circumspicit montes pascuae suae, et virentia quaeque perquirit’, Job 39:5–7.

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t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ 54 Sermon 33, PL 178, 585A. 55 ‘Ab ­his . . . ­ducibus nostri propositi, seu principibus hujus philosophiae christianae tam in veteri quam in novo populo studio sunt exorta’, Sermon 33, PL 178, 585BC. 56 Sermon 33, PL 178, 585D. 57 Expositio orationis dominicae. The Prologue begins: ‘Multorum legimus orationes . . .’ The text begins: ‘Pater noster qui es in celis. Cum pater potius dicit’. C.S.F. Burnett has convincingly established Abelard’s authorship of this work and provided an edition, ‘The Expositio Orationis Dominicae “Multorum legimus orations”: Abelard’s Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer?’, Revue bénédictine, XCV (1985), pp.  60–72. See Julia Barrow, Charles Burnett, David Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise and other Works closely associated with Abelard and his School’, Revue d’Histoire des Textes, XIV–XV (1984–1985), pp.  183–302: 184–185, 248 (no. 287). One of Abelard’s Sermons (14, PL 178, 489–495) incorporates a further but similar exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. The Expositio orationis dominicae which begins ‘Inter omnia quae fragilitas’ and which is printed alongside Abelard’s commentaries on the Apostles’ Creed and on the Athanasian Creed in PL 178, 611–618 is probably by Richard of St Victor; see Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, Checklist, pp. 184–185, 265–267 (no. 348). 58 A number of uncertainties still surround two other commentaries that have at one time and another been attributed to Abelard; these are listed in Barrow, Burnett, Luscombc, Checklist, pp. 267–268, nos. 349, 350. 59 Commentarius Cantabrigiensis in Epistolas Pauli, ed. Landgraf, vol. I, introduction, pp. xi–xiii. 60 Oeuvres de Robert de Melun, ed. R. J. Martin, 4 vols., Louvain, ‘Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense’, 1932–1952 (Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, Etudes et documents, 13, 18, 21, 25), vol. II. 61 ‘Zum Fortwirken von Abaelards Römerbriefkommentar in der Mittelalterlichen Exegese’, in Pierre Abélard-­ Pierre le Vénérable, pp.  557–568. Peppermüller, ‘Abaelard (1079–1142)’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, I, pp. 7–17: 14. The MSS are Vatican lat. Ottobonianus 445, Troyes Bibl. mun. 770, Paris Arsenal 534. 62 PL 175, 879D–924. Peppermüller, ‘Zum Fortwirken’, pp.  565–567; Abaelard (1079–1142), p. 14. Peppermüller also finds traces of the anonymous commentary in the Quaestiones in epistulas Pauli printed under the name of Hugh of St Victor in PL 175, 431–634. 63 The best edition is provided by Buytaert (Bibliography: Comm. Rom.). For comment on and criticism of this edition see R. Peppermüller, ‘Zur kritischen Ausgabe des Römerbrief-­ Kommentars des Petrus Abaelard’, Scriptorium, 26 (1972), pp. 82–97. For a full study of the commentary see Peppermüller, Abaelards Auslegung des Römerbriefes. The Prologue has been translated into English in Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100–c.1375. The CommentaryTradition, ed. A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott with the assistance of David Wallace, Oxford, Clarendon, 1988, pp. 100–105. A. J. Minnis comments on the Prologue in: Medieval Theory of Authorship. Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Age, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 19882, pp. 59–63.* 64 Petri Abaelardi Expositionis in Epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanos Abbreviatio, ed. A. M. Landgraf, ‘Bohoslavia’, XIII (Lemberg, 1935), pp. 1–45. 65 Comm. Rom., pp. 41–46. At l. 6 Buytaert chooses the verb mouere. Peppermüller, Zur kritischen Ausgabe, pp. 85–86, prefers monere. 66 Comm. Rom., p. 16. 67 Abaelards Auslegung.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n 68 Comm. Rom., pp. 20–21. 69 Peppermüller, Abaelards Auslegung, pp.  12–14, conveniently lists twenty-­nine questions in the sequence in which they occur in the commentary. Buytaert, in Comm. Rom., introduction, pp. 17–20, classifies them as questions about faith, charity or sacrament. 70 Buytaert, in Comm. Rom., pp. 27–28. 71 Comm. Rom., pp. 113–118, 163–175. 72 The fruits of Buytaert’s labours on the Theologia, brought to completion by Mews, are contained in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II and III. 73 Comm. Rom., pp. 16–20, 27–33. 74 Ibidem, pp. 17–20. 75 Ibidem, p. 42, l. 62. 76 PL 178, 731–732. This Preface is addressed to Heloise.* 77 Letters IX–XIV, ed. Smits, pp. 219–237. 78 PL 178, 731–784. 79 J. Jolivet, ‘Elements du concept de nature chez Abélard’, in La Filosofia della natura nel Medioevo. Atti del III. Congresso internazionale di filosofia medievale. Passo della Mendola (Trento) – 31 agosto–5 settembre 1964, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 1966, pp. 297–304; D. E. Luscombe, ‘Nature in the Thought of Peter Abelard’, in La Filosofia della natura nel Medioevo, pp.  314–319 (see item 2 above). T. Gregory, ‘Considérations sur ratio et natura chez Abélard’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 569–584. 80 ‘Nihil nunc naturam aliud dicimus, nisi vim et facultatem illis operibus tunc collatam, unde illa sufficerent ad efficiendum haec quae postmodum inde contigerunt’, Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 749C. 81 Ibidem, PL 178, 733C. 82 Ibidem, PL 178, 735A. 83 E. F. Kearney, ‘Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator: A Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 199–210. 84 Ibidem, pp. 203–204; Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 737A. 85 Expositio in Hexaemeron, 771D–772A. 86 Kearney, Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator, p. 200. 87 Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, vol. I, pp. 33–34. See too Hymns, ed. Waddell. 88 The Expositio has been edited from all the MSS by M. P. Romig, A Critical Edition of Peter Abelard’s Expositio in Hexaemeron, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Southem California, Los Angeles 1981. The edition in PL 178, 731–784 is based on Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 135. The two versions of the Expositio (of which the shorter survives only in fragmentary form) are found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 17251; see E. M. Buytaert; ‘Abelard’s Expositio in Hexaemeron’, in Antonianum, XLIII (1968), pp. 163–194 and Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘Checklist’, pp. 247–248, 259, nos. 286, 325. 89 ‘Quot autem et quantos tractatus in doctrina vel exhortatione seu etiam consolatione sanctarum feminarum sancti patres consummaverint, quanta eos diligentia composuerint, tua melius excellentia quam nostra parvitas novit’, Letter 2, ed. Muckle, p. 70; PL 178, 184B. 90 Letter 9, ed. Smits, pp. 219–237; PL 178, 325A–336A. 91 ‘­Sin . . . i­n iis etiam quae ad Deum pertinent magisterio nostro atque scriptis indiges, super his quae velis scribe mihi ut ad ipsam rescribam prout mihl Dominus annuerit’, Letter 3, ed, Muckle, p. 73; PL 178, 187C. ‘(. . .) imitamini saltem et amore et studio sanctarum litterarum beatas illas sancti Hieronymi discipulas Paulam et Eustochium quarum precipue rogatu tot voluminibus ecclesiam praedictus doctor illustravit’, Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, p. 292; PL 178, 314B.

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t h e b i b l e i n a b e la r d a n d h i s ‘ s c h o o l ’ 92 Problemata Heloissae, PL 178, 677–730; Heloise’s prefatory letter is printed here at cols. 677–678. 93 P. Dronke, ‘Heloise’s Problemata and Letters: Some Questions of Form and Content’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp.  53–73: 60–61; reprinted in Dronke, Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe, Rome, Storia e Letteratura, 1992 (Storia e Letteratura, 183), pp. 295–322. Cf. also P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 134–139. 94 Problemata Heloissae, 42, PL 178 723–750. 95 Heloise, Letters 2 and 4, ed. Muckle, pp. 72, 81; PL 178, 186C, 197D. 96 PL 178, 679C–680A; Letter 6, ed. Muckle, p. 243; PL 178, 214CD. 97 PL 178, 696–702: 701C. 98 PL 178, 692–693. 99 PL 178, 714–716. 100 PL 178, 689–691. 101 PL 178, 708–709. 102 Dronke, Heloise’s Problemata, p. 61. 103 M. M. McLaughlin, ‘Peter Abelard and the Dignity of Women: Twelfth Century “Feminism” in Theory and Practice’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 287–334. 104 Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, pp. 114–121. Planctus 3, PL 178, 1819–1820. For a more recent edition of Planctus 3 see W. von der Steinen, ‘Die Planctus ­Abaelards – ­Jephthas Tochter’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, IV (1967), pp. 122–144. 105 Letter 7, ed. Muckle, pp. 13–14; PL 178, 233D. 106 Ibidem, ed. Muckle, p. 34; PL 178, 245A.

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10 PETER ABELARD AND THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

The Philosophy of Nature in the Middle Ages was the theme of the Third International Congress of Medieval Philosophy organized by the Société Internationale pour 1’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale, at Passo della Mendola in 1964. Opening this Congress Bruno Nardi offered a panoramic view of this theme.1 Nardi held that in the patristic period there was no understanding on the part of Christian thinkers of cosmic order or of causation. Moreover, there was an almost insurmountable difficulty in the way of defending Biblical cosmography and the Mosaic account of creation in the face of the dominant philosophies of the Greco-Roman pagan ­world – S ­ toicism, Epicureanism, Aristotelianism and Platonism. To take one instance, the aquae quae super caelos sunt, the waters put by God above the firmament, created immense puzzlement among Christians themselves from at least the time of Origen. Moreover, the theological and mystical concept of physical nature which prevailed until the thirteenth century in the Christian  West was  of no use to manufacturers, farmers, architects or medical doctors. Only in the thirteenth century and with the arrival of Aristotelianism in its Latin form did a system of thought about nature and about natural causes become available. In the thirteenth century the theological concept of ­nature – ­of nature as the free act of the divine ­will – ­ceased to enjoy a monopoly. In the same Congress in 1964 Tullio Gregory, in his lecture on ‘L’idea di natura nella filosofia medioevale prima dell’ingresso della filosofia di Aristotele’, gave the qualifications to Nardi’s portrait of developments for which Gregory has for long been well-­known.2 Certainly, religious and symbolical thinking dominated the appreciation of the natural world in the early Middle Ages. Works such as the De natura rerum of Isidore of Seville and the vast De universo of Rabanus Maurus expounded the allegorical significances of the facts of nature. The physical world was sometimes projected as if it were a book written by God and containing religious and moral guidance in the form of figurae and symbola. Hugh of Saint Victor wrote: ‘universus mundus iste sensibilis quasi quidam liber est scriptus digito D ­ ei . . . ­et singulae creaturae quasi figurae quaedam sunt non humano placito inventae, sed 153

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n divino arbitrio institutae ad manifestandam invisibilem sapientiam’.3 Alan of Lille likewise wrote in his well-­known verses: Omnis mundi creatura quasi liber et pictura nobis est, et speculum; nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis, nostri status, nostrae sortis fidele signaculum.4 Nonetheless, Tullio Gregory departed from Nardi’s view by finding in the twelfth century, not in the thirteenth, the beginnings of a polemic against the symbolical mentality which had perceived the naturae rerum as signa and sacramenta. The polemic was begun in the writings of William of Conches, Adelard of Bath and Thierry of Chartres. It was based on the study of the Timaeus of Plato and it favoured the study of the cosmos as a network of causes and as an organism possessing a soul. As Gregory wrote: il mondo fisico non è più, o meglio non è più solo un tenue e trasparente tessuto di simboli che si dileguano alla prinia interpretazione allegorica; è un complesso di forze, un vigore che organizza e conserva il cosmo, oggetto di sensibile delectatio, cantata dai poeti nelle sue più sottili seduzioni, ma soprattutto oggetto di una ricerca fisica, fecondo campo in cui trova piena esplicazlone una ratio prima ignota.5 Since 1964 much more has been written about the twelfth-­century ‘découverte de la nature’.6 Perhaps the best synthesis of these studies is to be found now in the volume edited by Peter Dronke in 1988 under the title A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, a volume which includes a chapter on ‘The Platonic inheritance’ written by Tullio Gregory.7 The ‘découverte de la nature’ had considerable implications in art and in legal thought, not only in philosophy and science. But my concern on this occasion is more modest since I wish to signal a new edition which I have made with others of one of the texts which most repays study of the thinking about nature and man that was developing before the middle of the twelfth century.8 The work is the Expositio of the Hexameron which Peter Abelard wrote for the sisters of the convent of the Paraclete during the 1130s. Abelard composed this commentary in full knowledge of the monumental commentaries upon the Hexaemeron written by Basil of Caesarea and translated from Greek into Latin by Eustathius, by Ambrose of Milan, by Augustine of Hippo and also by Bede.9 In his own preface, addressed to Heloise, Abelard highlighted the exceptional difficulty of understanding Genesis, and the need to bring to the text maturity of judgement. He 154

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e c r e at i o n o f t h e w o r l d evidently would have appreciated a point made by Bede near the beginning of his own commentary on the Book of Genesis. Bede wrote: ‘We must carefully consider, when giving attention to allegorical meanings, how much one can overlook, through allegorizing, the obvious evidence of history’.10 Bede then turned to explain what heaven is. Abelard, who acknowledged that there are many mystical or moralizing explanations of Genesis, wrote that only Augustine impressed him for grappling with the historical sense. Difficult though it is, Abelard proposes as his first task to establish the historical root of Genesis, the truth of what happened.11 The priority which Abelard gives to the historical sense in writing his commentary is not the least of the similarities he shows with the writing of Thierry of Chartres, his contemporary and, indeed, his teacher. Thierry also sought to shift attention away from allegory to the literal sense, by studying the creation narratives in the light of physics.12 The ‘discovery of nature’13 to which so many contemporary thinkers contributed was, as I have just indicated, stimulated by the development of an interest in the translation, with commentary, by Calcidius of Plato’s Timaeus. With some help from this source, Thierry of Chartres presented in his Tractatus a creation which was completely naturalistic after God had created the four elements on the first day. Air and water were intermediate agents through which fire acted, both on them and on the earth, although water possessed the greatest power of creating things. The creation proceeded under the action of fire: on the second day the heat of fire evaporated some of the water and it rose up and was supported by the underlying air; the fresh earth which had emerged was heated by the fire imparted to the air and on the third day the earth conceived the power to produce plants and trees. On the fourth day the stars were made of water and their motion gave added vital heat (uitalis calor), first to the waters on the earth, whence came, on the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds, and then, on the sixth day, to the earth, from which the land animals and man were made. After the sixth day, God continued to work not by fresh creation but through seminal causes which had been implanted during the creation. This short creation theory is followed by a verse-­by-­verse explication of Genesis which breaks off after Genesis 1:3. There are many points of similarity between Thierry and Abelard as to the structure of the initial universe and the procession from formlessness to formation. These similarities are even more obvious in an abbreviated version of Abelard’s commentary, which we call Abbreuiatio Expositionis Petri Abaelardi in Hexameron and which is also edited in this volume. In particular, Abelard writes that, when the natures of things have been prepared by the will of God, that is, after the sixth day and when God rests, the power of nature itself will suffice to do the things which we today say are the result of natural causes and which Thierry called seminal causes. Abelard writes that this seminarium will even suffice to produce new forms of animals, such as the mule, or to produce maggots out of rotting matter or to regenerate the phoenix 155

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n (332–333). Abelard’s definition of nature (151) as ‘a power and a capacity invested in those works at the time [of creation], so that they should suffice for effecting what consequently happens’14 is similar to that of some contemporary thinkers. For Hermann of Carinthia, for example, nature is ‘a perpetual aptitude [habitudo] of everything that has come to be, for propagating and conserving itself, as far as this is inherent’.15 And Clarembald of Arras writes that ‘the force invested in the elements (vis insita elementis) or in those things which are made from the elements is called the “natural aptitude” by which this ­happens . . . F ­ or the aptitude, which is the “seminal reason”, is the seed by which certain things produce other similar things’.16 Abelard’s work is most heavily influenced by the commentaries on Genesis by St Augustine. It was written in answer to a request by Heloise to explain Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram, and it can, to a large extent, be seen as a work developing out of that of St Augustine. According to St Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram, lib. I, during the creation God communicated with the angels, who are represented by the word ‘heaven’ and who became able to receive knowledge of his work after the creation of light. Light also signifies the separation of things formed from those unformed. The entire creation took place in one act in the beginning – in principio – and the ‘days’ which followed were successive repetitions of the action of the first ‘day’. The first ‘day’ is when ­heaven – ­the spiritual c­ reation – a­ nd ­earth – t­ he material c­ reation –w ­ ere made. Through the Word the angels are able to perceive what God did. Abelard’s commentary retained these symbolic interpretations of light and day. In the beginning God conceived the entire rational plan of creation in his coeternal Wisdom. But this plan had to be implemented in a way which made his work visible and which causes us to become aware of the Creator. Creation took place in a logical way which is expressed in terms of temporal sequence and of formation. As Abelard writes, ‘matter had to be created before it could be formed’ (74). The ‘one day’ of Genesis 1:5 is considered to be the day when the entire creation took place; the ‘days’ that follow are understood as differentiations of the act of creation. Each evening God conceived what he would do on the following morning: ‘From the innermost recess of his seclusion God brings forth one thing at a time, showing in action what he had first conceived in his mind’ (70). For Augustine the confused primitive mass out of which everything is made is formless and unsubstantial.17 Earth (terra) is an amorphous watery mass which lies open to the activity of the creator. It is enshrouded in the darkness of obscurity. Over this mass, which is called the ‘waters’ in Genesis 1:2, moves the Holy Spirit. The transit of the Spirit causes the confusion to be sorted out into component elements which are in their proper place in order to be used to create material forms. After this is done, light appears, and light is interpreted to be the light of understanding. In Abelard’s Hexameron 15–16 and 25–26 the elements are formed when God makes heaven (fire and air) and earth (water and earth) (Genesis 1:1). But they are confused and the confusion 156

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e c r e at i o n o f t h e w o r l d of the elements on earth is the dark and deep ‘abyss’ of Genesis 1:2 which Abelard equates with the ‘chaos’ of classical poets and philosophers (25). He suggests two ways of imagining this chaos: as an instable mass of fluid nature which could be called ‘waters’ (28), and as an egg which contains within itself substances analogous to earth, water, air and fire, but which needs incubation before these substances produce life (31–32, 342). The difficulty of reconciling Plato’s idea of hyle with Abelard’s own interpretation of chaos is apparent in the long addition on the relationship of the elements to hyle, which is found in MS V of the Expositio and in the Abbreuiatio. While the elements remain confused and darkness prevails, nothing could see or hear. In 50–51 Abelard, not unlike Augustine, interprets the creation of light and the distinction between light and darkness (Genesis 1:3) as the end of confusion between the elements, which now become distinguishable and visible. With the creation of light God speaks for the first time and gives his first command. The remaining stages of creation are also visible, distinguishable and the results of spoken commands. The firmament received an elaborate treatment by Abelard in what appears to be a heavily edited portion of the Hexameron (80–127). He cited patristic authority and the Scriptures, and gave physical arguments as to its nature, the nature of the upper waters, how they stay there, and what their purpose might be. He describes the firmament as a heaven composed of air and ether (80); the waters floating above it are a very light and vaporous fluid (82–83). He disagrees with writers who have claimed that the upper waters became hard and solid crystal (93–98) as well as with those who thought that the upper waters were to cause the Flood (99–105, 127). He suggests instead that their purpose was to moderate the heat of the firmament (106). Finally (120–123 and cf. 150–151, 191), he asks how, if the upper waters had become solid, this could have happened.18 This leads into a discussion of God’s will, which creates, and of the uis naturae which God implanted in creation; during the six days of creation the only uis was God’s will. In the commentary on the fourth day (166–209), on the ‘lights made in the firmament of heaven’, Abelard, like Augustine (De Genesi ad litt., lib. II, 14, and also Basil and Ambrose) agreed that the luminaries were useful for predicting some natural events; they usefully aid navigators (169), farmers and physicians (199–200). But he launches himself into an attack on excessive predictions which amount to a misunderstanding of the description in Genesis 1:14 of the luminaria as signa: they are signs of some events in nature, but not of future contingent events. ‘Astronomers’ sometimes tell the truth by an unconscious power given by the devil, but horoscopic astrology is wrong and evil (192–208).19 He did not use Augustine’s arguments against astrology, but instead he presented other arguments based on logic, using cause and effect to argue against the kind of determinism which had been favoured by such contemporary writers as Bernardus Silvestris.20 His commentary as to whether the planets were animated or not was taken entirely from Augustine’s writings; both left the question unresolved (178–191). 157

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Like the commentary on the third day and the creation of the botanical world (136–165), the commentary on the fifth day and the creation of the animals is relatively short (209–241); portions of the descriptive material for the latter came from Ambrose’s Hexameron.21 For the sixth day (242–328) Abelard, following Augustine, used traditional ideas in his commentary on the creation of man: the ‘us’ in ‘Let us make man’ refers to the Trinity (251–253); man was made more worthy than woman, for she was not made in the image of God, but in his likeness alone (256–267). Furthermore, since the divine persons had cooperated in man’s creation, man received more of God’s wisdom and goodness and hence he could not be seduced by the serpent (265). Finally, Abelard reproduced (295) the traditional explanation found in Augustine for the eating of flesh by both animals and men after the Flood: man’s sin resulted in coercive domination by creatures of other creatures, even in the animal world. Many other instances of borrowing from Augustine are ­evident – ­for example, at 325–328, the perfection of the number six. Twenty years ago Dr Eileen Kearney pointed out that Abelard’s purportedly historical interpretation of Genesis goes beyond literal exposition, and treats of the typological and moral implications of the opening of Genesis.22 In particular, the regeneration of man through the waters of baptism is prefigured (38, 135) in the image of the spirit ‘warming the waters’ in Genesis 1:2. Elements of moral interpretation are found throughout Abelard’s historical exposition; they are brought together and either summarized or filled out in a separate section which is called Moralitas in the manuscripts (341–350). Here heaven and earth are interpreted as man’s soul and body: at first the body is dominant over the soul, but, through the activity of the Holy Spirit, man achieves first the light of faith, then, in turn, hope, charity and the performance of good works, so that at last he is able to enter the celestial paradise. The moral interpretation is followed by the mystical interpretation, which is called Allegoria in the manuscripts (351–359). For this Abelard used Augustine’s De Genesi contra Manichaeos in which the six days of creation are interpreted as the six ages of the world.23 The exposition of the second version of the creation story (360–502; Genesis 2:4–25) does not rely so heavily on Augustine’s literal commentary. Rather, Abelard used Augustine’s other works, as well as Isidore’s Etymologies and Bede’s In Genesim, 2. At Genesis 2:17 Abelard raises questions about the prohibition of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (452–460). He contrasts the slightness of original sin with the vast penalties as well as the large benefits which are its consequences. He writes easily about this, his discussion being similar to some of that found in his Commentary on Romans and in his Ethics. One of his comments concerns Eve (454): one woman is now worth more in God’s eyes than many thousands of men would be if there had not been sin and the need to fight victoriously against it.24 At 483 Abelard comments briefly on the formation of Eve from one of Adam’s ribs (Genesis 2:21): the rib, being taken neither from the top nor from the bottom of the 158

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e c r e at i o n o f t h e w o r l d body of Adam, signifies woman’s relationship to man before the Fall: she is his companion and collateral, neither superior nor inferior. The subjection of woman to man is a consequence of sin. As regards the making of woman out of man Abelard also notes (491–492) that the soul cannot pass from one person to another, although common personality traits (‘like father, like son’) appear to suggest otherwise. Abelard speculates that non-­physical ­qualities – ­behavioural and ­moral – w ­ hich may be shared by parents and their children are generated naturally (‘per quandam id efficiendi naturalem uim atque facultatem’) in successive generations but are not transferred (‘non tamen per traducem’). Otherwise the exposition of Genesis 2: 4 –25 is straightforward. Abelard’s Expositio combines elements taken from earlier spiritual interpretations of Scripture with elements taken from recent developments which gave prominence to the vis naturae and to the vis insita in rebus. Abelard was, of course, writing for the nuns of the Paraclete and his Expositio is part of a substantial body of writing which sought to edify as well as to educate them. In giving priority to the literal and the historical sense of Genesis he showed, as he did so often, his inclination to tackle harder, neglected questions rather than easier, familiar ones. But we should note the care with which Abelard moderated positions on which Thierry took a more literal and scientific stand. Abelard did not restrict God’s activity in creation to the work of creating the four elements on the first day. Nor did Abelard provide a purely naturalistic or physical interpretation of the work of the six days. Indeed, Abelard denied that the vis naturae started to work on the first day. He wrote that the only vis which, was at work during the six days was the will of God. Certainly Abelard studied physical causation, and he was inquisitive about the physical character of the universe. For example, he considered the various theories about the nature and the purpose of the waters above the firmament. But he also described how God reflected each evening on what his plan was for the next day. In this way Abelard appears to preserve a balance between the work of the voluntas Dei and the power of the vis which God inserted into creation. Unlike William of Conches and Adelard of Bath, he does not engage in polemic with less scientific commentators; his only polemic is against the astrologers who went too far in the direction of physical determinism.

Notes   1 B. Nardi, ‘Sguardo panoramico alla filosofia della natura nel Medioevo’, in La filosofia della natura nel Medioevo. Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medioevale, Passo della Mendola (Trento), 31 agosto–5 settembre 1964, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 1966, pp. 3–23.  2 Ibidem, pp. 27–65.  3 De tribus diebus (printed in PL as Book VII, ch. 3 of Hugh’s Didascalicon), PL 176, 814.  4 Rythmus, PL 210, 579. L’idea di natura, p. 51.  5 L’idea di natura, p. 51.  6 The phrase is that of M.-D. Chenu who first used it in 1952 in ‘La nature et

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n l’homme’, AHDLMA, 19 (1952), pp.  39–56 (revised and reprinted in La théologie au douzième siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1957 (Etudes de philosophie médiévale, 45), pp. 19–51.   7 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, ch. 2, pp. 54–80.  8 Petri Abaelardi Expositio in Hexameron, ed. M. Romig with the assistance of David Luscombe. Abbreuiatio Petri Abaelardi Expositionis in Hexameron, ed. Charles Burnett with the assistance of David Luscombe, CCCM 15 (2004). In his preface to his commentary on Genesis Bede listed these commentaries and Abelard used them too.   9 In his preface to his commentary on Genesis Bede listed these commentaries and Abelard used them too: ‘De principio libri Genesis, in quo mundi huius creatio descripta est, multi multa dixere, multa posteris ingenii sui monimenta relinquere, sed praecipue, quantum nostra pusillitas ediscere potuit, Basilius Caesariensis quem Eustathius interpres de Greco fecit esse Latinum, Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Augustinus Hipponensis episcopus (quorum primus libris nouem, secundus uestigia eius sequens libris sex, tertius libris duodecim, et rursum aliis duobus specialiter aduersum Manicheos descriptis), prolixa legentibus doctrinae salutaris fluenta manarunt, completo in eis promisso ueritatis quo dicebat, Qui credit in me, sicut dicit scriptura, flumina de uentre eius fluent aquae uiuae. E quibus Augustinus etiam in Libris confessionum suarum, in libris quoque quos contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum, eximie composuit; sed et in aliis sparsim opusculis suis nonnullam eiusdem primordialis creaturae memoriam cum expositione congrua fecit’, Praefatio, in Libri quatuor in principium Genesis, ed. Ch.W. Jones, Bedae Venerabilis opera, Pars II. Opera exegetica, CCSL 118A (1967), 1, p. 1. Jones, ibidem, p. VIII, dates the work to c.725. 10 ‘Sed diligenter intuendum ut ita quisque sensibus allegoricis studium impendat, quatenus apertam historiae fidem allegorizando derelinquat’, In principium Genesis, lib. I, CCSL 118A, p. 3. 11 ‘Cum enim multi multas in Genesim misticas uel morales conficerent explanationes, solius apud nos beatissimi Augustini perspicax ingenium historicam hic aggressus est e­ xponere . . . ­Immensam igitur habissum profunditatis Geneseos triplici perscrutantes expositione, historica scilicet, morali et ­mistica . . . ­Primo . . . rei geste ueritatem quasi historicam figamus radicem’, Expositio, 5, 8 (references to Abelard’s Expositio are to the sections into which the late Mary Romig’s edition (Bibliography: Expositio in Hexameron) has been divided). 12 ‘De septem diebus et sex operum distinctionibus primam Geneseos partem secundum phisicam et litteram ego e­ xpositurus . . . ­ad sensum littere hystorialem exponendum ueniam ut et allegoricam et moralem lectionem que a sanctis doctoribus aperte execute sunt ex toto pretermittam’, Tractatus de sex dierum operibus, in Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School, ed. N. M. Haring, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Studies and Texts, 20), p.  555. Haring dates this Tractatus to 1130–1140 (ibidem, pp. 46–47). 13 ‘La découverte de la nature’ became a favourite theme of scholarly discussion through its presentation by M.-D. Chenu, ‘La nature et l’homme’, AHDLMA, 19 (1952), pp.  39–66 and Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, 2 (1954), pp.  313–325; represented in Chenu, La théologie du douzième siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1957 (Etudes de philosophie médiévale, 45), ch. 1. A. Speer supported Chenu’s thesis in Die entdeckte Natur. Untersuchungen zu Begründungsuersuchen einer “scientia naturalis” im 12. Jahrhundert, Leiden, Brill, 1995 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 45). Speer does not include Abelard’s Hexameron commentary in his discussions.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e c r e at i o n o f t h e w o r l d 14 ‘Nichil nunc naturam aliud dicimus nisi uim et facultatem illis operibus tunc collatam, unde illa sufficerent ad efficiendum hec que postmodum inde contigerunt’, Expositio, 151. 15 Hermann of Carinthia, De Essentiis, ed. C. S. F. Burnett, Leiden, Brill, 1982, p. 152. 16 Clarembald, Tractatulus super librum Genesis, chapter 27, ed. N. M. Haring, Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras, a Twelfth-Century Master of the School of Chartres, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1965 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts, 10), p. 238. 17 See Augustine, De Genesi imperfectus liber, 4, 12–13 and 5, 19–20, CSEL 27, Sect. III, pt. 2. 18 Although Abelard upheld the traditional position that there are waters above the firmament (‘aquae quae super coelum’, Psalm 148:4; ‘fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum et dividat aquas ab aquis’, Genesis 1:6), some of his contemporaries including Thierry of Chartres and William of Conches denied their existence. See T. Gregory, ‘Considérations sur ratio et natura chez Abélard, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 569–584: 577–579. 19 For further remarks on Abelard’s attitude towards astrology see M.-T. D’Alverny, ‘Abélard et l’astrologie’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 611–630. 20 ‘­Credimus . . . ­planetas . . . fata unicuique in sua dispositione donare’, Bernardus Silvestris, Experimentarius, ed. M. Brini Savorelli, ‘Un manuale di geomanzia presentato da Bernardo Silvestre da Tours (xii secolo): l’Experimentarius’, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, 14 (1959), pp. 283–342: 313. 21 Ambrose, Hexaemeron 5, 2, CSEL 32, i, pp. 142–143. 22 ‘Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator: a Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 199–210. 23 De Genesi contra Manichaeos, I, 23–24, PL 34, 190–193. Abelard omits Augustine’s seventh age, which begins with the second coming of Christ. 24 Mary McLaughlin has used this passage along with others in the writings of Abelard to suggest that Abelard was less of an antifeminist than we have been led to believe; and that he elevated women as much as possible within the confines of the Scriptures and writings of Paul. See Mary M. McLaughlin, ‘Peter Abelard and the Dignity of Women: Twelfth Century “Feminism” in Theory and Practice’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 287–334.

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11 PETER ABELARD’S CARNAL THOUGHTS

The twelfth century generated much new thought about cosmogony and this has been excitingly considered in some excellent recent studies, especially those by Peter Dronke in his Fabula1 and by Tullio Gregory in Anima mundi.2 Abelard was one of several twelfth-­century writers, others being William of Conches and Hugh of Amiens, who wrote a commentary on the Hexaemeron in which they attempted to provide both a literal and a moral interpretation of the creation. Abelard drew a clear distinction between the process of creation for man on the one hand and for all other living beings on the other. Living beings other than man were created out of the elements with their bodies being produced at the same time as their souls. Their life comes, like their bodies, from the elements. We can speak of the elements providing life or animation; for example if we think of the air which blows as wind, we sometimes speak of this as if it is alive, as when we speak of a breath of wind or a breath of fresh air.3 And, of course, all living beings would be dead without water. Properly speaking, although other living beings were created, man was not. Man’s body was formed out of mud and slime (‘homo de humo; de limo terrae; de terra humida’); later a soul was added or infused into this body and at this stage we have the whole man. Form was added to matter, so the process should be called one of formation, not creation.4 This is a staged process and strictly ­speaking – ­Abelard w ­ rites – ­the author of the Book of Genesis was incorrect in stating ‘creavit Deus hominem de limo terrae’, because it is not the whole homo, body and soul, the inner and the outer man, which is created out of slime, but only the body which in Hebrew is called Adam and in Latin homo.5 Woman on the other hand was not made in the same way as man. Woman was not created per se because she was taken from the side of man (vir).6 Moreover, man was created outside of Paradise, in the slime of the earth. Woman, on the other hand, was created in Paradise after man had been brought into the Garden of Eden. However, although woman was created in the more desirable place, she behaved more badly than man in getting both of them evicted.7 The relationship between soul and body is clearly one of the fundamental issues in medieval thought. There was (as we have just seen) the problem of 163

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n understanding the process of creation with the aid of the theory of the four elements and also with the idea of the vis or power of nature.8 There was also a problem of personal identity. If man is defined as a rational animal and if an animal always has corporeality, then man would appear to cease to be man if soul and body were to separate, as they do separate at the moment of death, according to Christian theology. Then there is the problem of the definition of a person. Boethius provided the most influential definition: a person is an individual substance of a rational nature.9 There is no hint of a body in this definition or of a link with the animal kingdom. By rational nature Boethius meant to exclude the animal world but also to include the divine persons in the Trinity. And if Boethius did not bother much about the angels, his ­definition – i­ndividual substances with a rational ­nature – ­fitted them perfectly: substances without b ­ odies – s­ ubstances without ­matter – m ­ ay be persons. But this leads straight into the problem of the resurrection of the body. Why defend the resurrection of the human body at the end of time if going to heaven means being with God, who is pure, incorporeal being? And of what kind of seeing do we speak when we describe the supreme good for man as the visio Dei, the beatific vision? Man’s first entry into Paradise, in the Garden of Eden, involved both body and soul. Further problems were presented by the Arab philosophers. They stoked up the debates that ran through the thirteenth century about the relationship between form and matter. Our matter, as a human being, is our body which exists in space and undergoes change. To be a body is to have the form of a body: a body is a body whether it is dead or alive. When it is alive, however, is the soul another form? How many f­ orms – o ­ ne or m ­ ore – a­ re needed to define a rational animal? There is also the question of the relationship between the mind and the senses. This takes us to the heart of the problem of knowledge. Is the human intellect truly individual? Or is it networked into some huge information system that downloads into the individual intellect and enables it (by and large) to recognize things in roughly the same way as other people do? Is any of our knowledge implanted in the mind directly by God? Augustine believed that it was, that God impressed divine ideas into the human mind, like seeds pressed into the soil. And this doctrine of the divine illumination of the human mind, the doctrine of seminal reasons, found favour especially with the Franciscan masters of theology in the thirteenth century. The doctrine owed something ultimately to Plato’s image, largely unknown in the Middle Ages, of the cave, that vision in which Plato suggested that the knowledge that came to man, through his physical senses, amounted to no more than a sight of the flickering shadows and reflections of light playing upon the darkened wall of a cave, not the light itself which was outside the cave, that is, beyond the world in which human beings experience mortality. Pitted against this in the Middle Ages was, of course, Aristotle’s theory of abstraction: knowledge enters the human mind through the senses. Is it 164

p e t e r a b e la r d ’ s c a r n a l t h o u g h t s really the case that the human mind can only develop knowledge if the senses present the mind with sensible evidence? Are there no innate ideas? What about intuition as a source of knowledge? Is intuition reliable? What about imagination as a source of knowledge? Can we imagine anything that is completely free of knowledge coming via the senses? Can we dream anything that is not in some way derived from our senses? For an Aristotelian, the mind is active but also passive; it receives data which it then acts upon, by classifying it, abstracting from it, forming ideas and making connections between them, and inventing intelligible means of communicating thought through the senses such as speech. It follows from this that the mind can only build knowledge on what the body, as it were, bumps into. The mind can construct a concept of truth or love or beauty by determining what is true about things or lovable about them or beautiful. But the body, being placed in this material world, cannot know absolute Truth or enjoy pure Love or see the perfection of Beauty. In the thirteenth century these matters were clarified through the identification of the transcendentals such as Being, One, Truth and Beauty. But man who sees only through a glass darkly cannot comprehend them. Abelard lived before many of these problems and issues became extensively known and discussed in the West, unlike Islam. What Abelard knew about the mind he largely gained from the translations and commentaries of Boethius. In general, we may say that Peter Abelard, through the works of Boethius, followed Aristotle on the problem of knowledge. He distinguished between things, words and thoughts, and wrote that the human mind attaches words like labels to the physical objects that the body encounters, having first generated concepts. It can then communicate those words in physical speech or writing to others, but there can be no communication between the communicator and the person being communicated with except through the senses.10 The relationship between mind and body also presented problems to moral philosophers and theologians. Fallen man, as Augustine had shown, had contracted the universal virus of original sin. As a result the human free will was unable to control the disorders of human passion and desire. Everyone was gripped by concupiscence; no one could get rid of it. There was nothing that could be done, at least in an ultimate sense of obtaining a complete recovery. Baptism could remove the stain of original sin, but not its consequence or penalty. Divine grace could wash away further sins as they occur and divine providence could predestine some to eternal happiness, but no one, not even the elect, was emancipated from sin before death. Throughout the Middle Ages tribunals and confessors, in trying to curb crime and sin, reached conclusions on the basis of evidence of what people had done, that is, with the help largely of material facts. The Penitentials of the early Middle Ages laid down the penalties for wrongdoing. Physical offence was punished by physical correction. Peter Abelard tried to break out of the trap that was presented by definitions of acts that are wrong.11 It is undoubtedly his best known contribution to moral philosophy. But, before attempting to explain it, we should 165

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n note the close link with what he thought as a logician about the relationship between mind and body. When it comes to forming concepts and finding words and propositions to communicate them, the mind, as it were, scans the sense data first. The primary evidence is out there, in the external world, not here in the mind. This distinction is crucial to Abelard’s ethical theories. Abelard agrees with Augustine that men fall foul of temptation which arrives through the bodily senses even when the imagination is hard at work. People are unavoidably in the grip of desires and suggestions; the devil is always at work like a magician. Good habits can only be formed by hard practice and even the most virtuous of men are far from confirmed in all their good habits or free from concupiscence. But, Abelard insisted, we make a mistake if we confuse our appetites and even our will with sin. The body inclines the will to all sorts of pleasures. But to want to have sex or to have power over others is not to commit sin; it is part of fallen nature. From the moral point of view, the fact that our will is disordered is not basically a fact of our own choice. What matters in personal morality is the response of the mind to suggestions or desires represented through the body by the will to the brain. If the mind decides to follow human desire and have, say, illicit sex, most medieval theologians would say that that is sin. But not Abelard, who complained that the mind–body distinction has not been rightly understood. He would dispute the use of phrases such as morally good or bad acts. Acts are acts, full stop; they are neither morally right nor wrong because they are physical events. What are right or wrong, and never morally neutral, are the decisions taken by the mind, e.g. to have sex licitly or to have it illicitly. The point is made effectively in Abelard’s discussion of the killing of one person by another. This too is purely a physical act, and as such it is one hundred per cent morally neutral. The blade of a sword goes into a body and death follows; what has happened is neither right nor wrong. What is right or wrong is the decision taken by the person wielding the sword. He may have swung the sword accidentally; he may have been acting under orders; he may have failed to understand properly what his orders really meant; he may have acted in self-­defence; he may invincibly have mistaken his victim’s identity; he may have surrendered to the desire to murder someone he loathes. What matters finally, at least in the sight of God, is why he did it, not what is done.12 But even after making this correction Abelard went further and argued that even this is not a fair interpretation of what creates morality or immorality. ‘Why he did it’ is not the final test. It is not the reason for the killing that takes place that makes for right or wrong; the killing does not have to be carried out for the motive to be confirmed. There are many circumstances in which we may consent to act wrongly without being able to fulfil this consent in deed, and there are many situations in which we may intend to do something good but are thwarted in fulfilling our intention. What matters is what is in the mind, not what the body then does about it, at least in the sight of God. The final test is not why one does something, but why one decides to do it. 166

p e t e r a b e la r d ’ s c a r n a l t h o u g h t s In one sense Heloise in her correspondence with Abelard turned all this on its head and made it look nonsensical. When she wrote, she was fully installed as the abbess of the convent of the Paraclete; she was properly veiled and professed; she was protected and recognized by charters and privileges; she was highly respected by other religious leaders such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable. But, even so, she wrote that she was not a nun. She had not consented to be one; it had been forced upon her. She called herself a hypocrite.13 We shall return to Heloise, but there is another issue to do with mind and body that needs to be brought in. One of the best known debates in Augustine’s De civitate Dei (xix, 1; viii, 8) is about the definition of supreme goodness and of supreme evil. Augustine turns to the now-­lost Liber de philosophia written by Marcus Varro and to his identification of 288 possible sects offering as many different definitions of supreme goodness and supreme evil given by earlier pagan philosophers. Some of these thought that supreme happiness comes through physical well-­being, others through happiness of mind, and others found it in a mixture of mental and physical well-­being. Augustine, of course, throws out all these approaches, and all their derivatives and variants, because none could provide one essential factor: permanence. A man can be perfectly fit, supremely intelligent and entirely virtuous, but he might in the next few minutes suffer a stroke or have a mental break-­ down. Supreme happiness or supreme misery are only attained when there is no possibility of either being taken away. Having established this, Augustine moves on to his vision of the two loves which establish the two everlasting cities; on the one hand the supreme love of God which creates the city of God, and on the other hand the supreme love of self which creates the city of the earth, the former providing everlasting peace and beatitude, the latter eternal wretchedness. Abelard, for whatever reason, was not interested in the idea of the two cities, but he was intensely interested in Augustine’s De civitate Dei and especially in the investigations made by Socrates and the Platonists into the summum bonum. Book ii of his Theologia christiana manifests this interest,14 but nowhere is it more in evidence than in the Dialogus that he wrote in which a Philosopher and a Christian debate between themselves the nature of supreme goodness and of supreme evil. It is the Philosopher who turns to the De civitate Dei where in Book viii Augustine records that some pagan philosophers call the supreme goodness virtue and others pleasure or voluptas.15 The latter view is that of the Epicureans, although the Philosopher is quick to point out that it is a mistake to think, as many do, that by pleasure the Epicureans meant physical pleasure. The Epicurean definition of voluptas is an inner peace in the soul which enables it to be untroubled by any external bodily suffering or by any internal sense of sin or vice, so that the soul can achieve what it wills to achieve and so that the will is not frustrated or contested.16 Pleasure understood in this sense is really another name for virtue, because excellence in virtue brings peace and pleasure to the soul.17 167

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n As the debate between the Philosopher and the Christian reaches its climax, the Philosopher states his agreement with the Christian that, properly and absolutely speaking, the supreme good is God and the supreme good for man is the vision of God which makes man truly happy. But the Philosopher asks why, if this vision of God is enjoyed through the eyes of the mind and is not a physical sight, Christians proclaim the doctrine of the resurrection of the bodies of the saints in heaven? What is the point of the souls of the just in Paradise having their bodies restored to them when the lack of bodies does nothing to lessen the happiness of the angels? To this the Christian replies that everything God does is done not to increase our happiness but his glory. The resurrection of our bodies does not increase the happiness of the saints but it is not without purpose since God is glorified when what were once weak instruments beset by passion become indissoluble and immune to passion.18 However, after the resurrection, bodies are, in a certain way – quodammodo – subtle, spiritual things, just as Christ’s body became an immortal and impassible body after his resurrection.19 There is no activity left for the senses since all desires are satisfied by the vision of God.20 So, through the person of the Christian in the Dialogus, Abelard gives a spiritual interpretation to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and likewise to the descent of souls into hell. We talk loosely of heaven and hell as places when we speak of heaven being up in the sky or of hell being somewhere below the earth. Some people do think of heaven and hell in terms of physical place, but others (more rightly) understand these expressions as ways of indicating the immense gulf that separates the spiritual height and summit of happiness from the spiritual depths of misery and abjection.21 As for the fate of the damned, there is much in both the Old and the New Testament that cannot be taken literally: including the famous verse in Isaiah (66:24), ‘vermis eorum non monetur, et ignis eorum non extinguetur’ (‘their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched’), and Luke’s account (16:19) of the story of Dives and Lazarus with its depiction of the breast of Abraham, the parched tongue of the rich man, the finger of Lazarus, the drop of water and the inextinguishable fire. All this can only be interpreted mystically or spiritually, not literally or physically. The souls in hell have no bodies. The wicked angels likewise have no bodies; as demons they molest us and we call them powers of the air but the sense of the word is the same as when we talk of earthly princes, meaning not princes who are made of earth but men who rule over the world. Airy demons do not actually fly in the air but they are as invisible as air.22 In the correspondence between Heloise and Abelard, a sharp distinction between interiority and exteriority, between soul and body, between the moral/conceptual world and the physical world is repeatedly made. Their correspondence concludes with three Letters (5, 6, 7 with Abelard’s Rule for Heloise and her nuns at the Paraclete) which are almost entirely concerned with problems to do with female monasticism. Sir Richard Southern once described these letters as ‘by no means readable’ and ‘seldom read’.23 He was 168

p e t e r a b e la r d ’ s c a r n a l t h o u g h t s right to say that they are seldom read; in the Penguin Classics translation of Letter 6, the late Betty Radice merely summarized in three pages what takes up more than thirty columns in the Patrologia latina. In Letters 2 and 4 Heloise delivered her complaints and in Letters 3 and 5 Abelard’s response was always to ask Heloise to consider the power of prayer and of contemplation. With this in mind in Letter 5, Abelard turned to the opening of the Song of Songs, to the words ‘Nigra sum sed formosa’, ‘I am black but ­beautiful . . . t­herefore the king has loved me’. The point of the text is that it illustrates the beauty of a contemplative soul, such as Abelard wanted Heloise to become. The Ethiopian woman, Abelard writes, looks less lovely than a white woman as regards her exterior appearance; she is discoloured and disfigured by sunlight, and worn down by bodily tribulation and by lack of prosperity. But within she is lovelier. She has softer skin, better bones and her teeth are whiter than milk; in humility she is a lily of the valley.24 Of his past relationship Abelard writes (in strong contrast to Heloise) that he is glad to be rid of the aspect of carnal desire. The Lord prefers eunuchs in his house (Isaiah 56:4–5). By his castration (he writes in Letter 4) he is now cut off from filth and more fit to approach the holy altar. He has not been so much deprived of the ‘parts of shame’ as cleansed and purified. Unlike Origen who misguidedly castrated himself, someone else, through God’s compassion, castrated Abelard. I deserved death, he adds, but gain life.25 He also expresses a certain disdain for biological motherhood and childrearing, and writes that it would have been a hateful waste if Heloise had clung to carnal pleasure and had in suffering given birth to a few children for the world. Now as a spiritual mother she is able to deliver numerous progeny for heaven. She has turned the curse of Eve into the blessing of Mary.26 Finally, in Letter 5 Heloise calmed down and asked Abelard for advice. The advice he gave is full of reflection on the distinction between the inner and the outer self, between mind and body. The abbess has the care of bodies as well as of souls.27 No death is more grievous than that of the soul, but sin enters the soul by means of the five senses. A lying tongue, for example, is death to the soul (Wisdom 1:11).28 One of the most important topoi in monastic thought and writing in the Middle Ages is the theme of the desert, and one of Abelard’s most striking illustrations of this is the image of the wild ass which loves the freedom of the wilderness.29 The wild ass, as it appears in the Book of Job 39:5–8, disdains the noise of the city and roams the hills as its pasture. The wild ass stands for the monk and for the solitary, celibate life. It lives in the saltings of the lands, that is, its members are parched and dry through abstinence. Solitude is a means of protecting human frailty from three kinds of assaults on the flesh, those which come through the senses of hearing, speech and sight. This leaves only the heart to fight against.30 Letters 5 and 6, as well as the Rule which follows Letter 7, show a great concern to sort out the chaos and to dispel the vagueness of traditional rules 169

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n and guidance for running convents of nuns. As Heloise writes in Letter 5, in the Latin church women as well as men try to follow the Rule of St Benedict. But Benedict’s Rule was written for men alone and what his Rule says about work, clothing, strong drink and hospitality cannot be observed in detail by women without danger.31 The yoke that is suitable for the neck of a bull is unsuitable for that of a heifer; those whom nature has created unequal cannot properly be given equal work.32 Benedict adopted the principle of moderation and allowed for adjustments to be made to suit changing requirements and circumstances, but with men only in mind.33 This gave Heloise her cue: if Benedict had adopted as one of his principles the principle of adjustability, could not Abelard advise her how to adjust the Rule to suit the needs of her own sisters? There is a particular focus in Heloise’s request to Abelard to review the Rule of Benedict on four i­ ssues – ­work, clothing, food and wine. First, Heloise asks Abelard for guidance on women and work. She wants the nuns to be free for the work of praising God and only to have to do other work if necessary. They should be supported from church funds as they would be supported by their husbands if they were married. They should not have to work to earn a living. St Benedict prescribed manual labour for monks but Heloise appears to think that her nuns should not have to do it.34 In his Rule Abelard gives his guidance on this matter: there should be attached to the monastery a community of brothers who support the nuns and do men’s work as necessary outside the nuns’ buildings. The sisters should confine themselves to indoor work such as making clothes, cooking and washing, as well as light farmyard tasks such as looking after the hens and the geese.35 On clothes Abelard warns against vanity and excessive cost but insists on cleanliness.36 He accepts, without going into detail, that the garments Benedict prescribes for men are unsuitable for women. On food Heloise is most concerned with the question of meat. Her argument is that meat is not good or evil in itself, but indifferent. Her point is exactly the same as Abelard’s about the morality of physical acts: there is no morality attaching to material things. It is not in the spirit of the Gospel to create compulsory dietary observances nor did Christ lay down for the Apostles any dietary restrictions.37 In his Rule Abelard agreed: no foods are forbidden; only excess must be avoided.38 Meat may be allowed. The discussion of wine is perhaps a little humorous. Heloise cites two passages from Macrobius’s Saturnalia (vii.6, 16–17 and 18): ‘Aristotle says that women are rarely intoxicated, but old men often. Woman has an extremely humid body, as can be known from her smooth and glossy skin, and especially from her regular purgations which rid the body of superfluous moisture. So when wine is drunk and merged with so general a humidity, it loses its power and does not easily strike the seat of the brain when its strength is extinguished’. And then: ‘A woman’s body which is destined for frequent purgations is pierced with several holes, so that it opens into channels and provides 170

p e t e r a b e la r d ’ s c a r n a l t h o u g h t s outlets for the moisture draining away to be dispersed. Through these holes the fumes of wine are quickly released. By contrast, in old men the body is dry, as is shown by their rough and wrinkled skin’. From this Heloise concludes that women can drink more safely than men.39 Nonetheless, wine presents risks and Heloise gives several texts to illustrate the view that it should be forbidden to priests and monks. But St Benedict had allowed it to monks, so what should nuns do?40 Biblical texts warning against liquor are also assembled, and in greater number, by Abelard when he gives his guidance in his Rule. He opts again for moderation, not prohibition. Abelard takes his cue from Heloise and Macrobius: wine has less power over women than over men, therefore what is allowed to monks should be allowed to women. Moderation is preferable to total abstinence and for the purposes of the sick total prohibition is inadvisable anyway. Drinking wine is not in itself wrong; what is wrong is excess. Nonetheless, wine is a turbulent thing and can present risks to both continence and silence. So, if total abstinence is not adopted, wine should be taken mixed with water.41 Abelard also offers advice on silence. One of the parts of the body over which control is difficult to maintain is the tongue. ‘At all times’, wrote St Benedict (Rule, Ch. 42), ‘monks ought to practise silence’. To which Abelard adds that practising silence means more than keeping silent.42 He assembles a few texts including James the Apostle (3:2), ‘If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man’, and then concludes: ‘Words impart understanding to the soul, so that it may direct itself towards what it understands and adhere to this by thinking. By thinking we speak to God as we do in words to men. Although we tend towards the words of men, we need to be led away from there, for we cannot tend towards God and man at the same time’.43 There is much in this passage on the link between words, concepts and understanding, on the human level of speech or ­writing – ­the level of ­language – ­and also on the level of God and of thought about God which takes place beyond ordinary language. The two levels are respectively body-­orientated and God-­ orientated. The tongue, Abelard writes, is one of the most mobile parts of the body, although smaller and more sensitive than other parts of the body. It forms words. And it is more flexible and sensitive in soft bodies, that is, in women than in men. Paul writing to Timothy absolutely forbade women to speak in church. Woman must be a learner, not a teacher (I Timothy 2:11–12).44 In the light of this, and of Paul’s view that women are gossips, Abelard imposes perpetual silence on the nuns of the Paraclete at prayer, in the cloister, in the dormitory, in the refectory, and during meals and cooking. Only signs, not words, may be used in these places and at these times.45

Notes  1 Fabula. Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism, Leiden and Cologne, Brill, 1974.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n  2 Anima mundi. La filosofia di Guglielmo di Conches e la Scuola di Chartres, Florence, G.C. Sansoni, 1955 (Pubblicazioni dell’Istituto di Filosofia dell’Universitâ di Roma, 3).  3 Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 774D.  4 Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 774B–D.  5 Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 775A.  6 Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 774C.  7 Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, 776BC.   8 Cf. T. Gregory, ‘L’idea di natura nella filosofia medievale prima dell’ingresso della fisica di Aristotele -il secolo Xll’, J. Jolivet, Elements du concept de nature chez Abélard, and D. E. Luscombe, Nature in the Thought of Peter Abelard, all in La filosofia della natura nel medioevo, Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medioevale, Passo della Mendola (Trento), 31 agosto–5 settembre 1964, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 1966, pp. 27–65, 297–304, 314–319.  9 Boethius, Liber de persona et duabus naturis contra Eutichen et Nestorium, cap. ii, in PL 64, 1342–1343. Cf. H. Chadwick, Boethius. The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 192–193. 10 See D. Luscombe, ‘Peter Abelard’, in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 279–307. 11 See especially his Ethics, ed. D. Luscombe with an English translation, Peter Abelard’s Ethics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971. 12 ‘Non enim homines de occultis, sed de manifestis iudicant, nec tam culpae reatum quam operis pensant effectum. Deus uero solus qui non tam quae fiunt, quam quo animo fiant adtendit, ueraciter in intentione nostra reatum pensat et uero iudicio culpam examinat’, Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 40.* 13 Letter 3, ed. Muckle, p. 81. 14 Tchr, II.32–39. At II.34 Abelard writes: ‘Vbi quidem et de Platonica disciplina quam diligenter Deum inuestigaverit et ipsum summum bonum esse definierit, in quo tota beatitudinis summa consistit, et quam recte philosophari determinauerit amare Deum, ut omnium quoque bonorum finem amorem Dei constituat, placet nunc subinferre ex eodem, scilicet VIII De ciuitate Dei...’, Tchr, pp. 145–146. 15 Petrus Abaelardus. Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum, ed. R. Thomas, l. 1525. There exists an English translation by P. J. Payer, Peter Abelard. A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979 (Medieval Sources in Translation, 20). 16 ‘Non ut plerique estimant carnalium illecebrarum inhonestam et turpem oblectationem, sed quandam interiorem anime tranquilitatem, qua inter adversa et prospera manet quieta et propriis bonis contenta, dum nulla eam peccati mordeat conscientia’, Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 1528–1532. Cf. the Philosopher at ll. 1647–1663: ‘Et fortassis hoc fuit Epicuri sententia summum bonum voluptatem dicentis, quoniam videlicet tanta est anime tranquillitas, ut nec exterius eam corporalis afflictio nec interius mentem aliqua peccati conscientia inquietet vel vitium obstet, ut optima eius voluntas omnino compleatur. Quamdiu autem voluntati nostre aliquid obsistit vel deest, vera beatitudo nequaquam est’. 17 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 1542–1550. 18 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2584–2621. 19 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2667–2676. 20 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2906–2947. 21 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2956–2967. 22 Dialogus, ed. Thomas, ll. 2967–3014.

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p e t e r a b e la r d ’ s c a r n a l t h o u g h t s 23 The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, in R. W. Southern, Medieval Humanism and Other Studies, Oxford, Blackwell, 1970, pp. 86–104: 101. 24 Letter 4, ed. Muckle, pp.  83–95. See the English translation by B. Radice, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1974 (Penguin Classics), pp. 138–141. I have followed the numbering of the letters found in the editions which are cited here; if one were to number the Historia calamitatum (with which the correspondence began) as Letter 1, then all other numbers would be increased by one. 25 Letter 4, ed. Muckle, pp. 89–90, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 148–149. 26 Letter 4, ed. Muckle, p. 90, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 150. 27 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 255, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 204. 28 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 255, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 205. 29 Sermon 33, on St John the Baptist, PL 178, 582–607, especially cols. 582–585. See also Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 247, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 191–192. 30 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 250, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 196. 31 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 242–243, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 160–161. 32 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 243–244, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 162. 33 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 243–244, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 162–163. 34 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, p. 252, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 176–178. 35 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 259, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 213. 36 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 280–282, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 248–251. 37 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 248–249; trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 170–172. 38 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 278–280, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 244–248. 39 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, p. 246, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 166. 40 Letter 5, ed. Muckle, pp. 247–248, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 168–170. 41 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 277 and cf. p. 278; trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 242–243 and cf. p. 245. 42 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 245, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 187. 43 ‘Verba quippe intellectum animae immittunt, ut ei quod intelligit intendat et per cogitationem haereat. Cogitatione vero Deo loquimur sicut verbis hominibus. Dumque huc verbis hominum intendimus, necesse est ut inde ducamur, nec Deo simul et hominibus intendere valemus’. Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 245, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 188. 44 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 245–246, trans. Radice, Letters, pp. 188–189. 45 Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 246, trans. Radice, Letters, p. 189.

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12 ST ANSELM AND ABELARD A restatement

Abelard seldom refers to Anselm. Points where they overlap in discussion are difficult to identify. Some modern scholars have found in Abelard’s works evidence of a negative reaction against Anselm. But there are also grounds for suggesting that Anselm interested Abelard and that he contributed to give shape and direction to Abelard’s writing. It is this contribution that I wish to reconsider. I first gave it consideration in Anselm Studies in 1983,1 following an earlier gathering of the ‘friends’ of Anselm at Canterbury. There has since appeared an intriguing study by Dr Michael Clanchy who has subtly and eruditely suggested that Abelard mocked Anselm of Canterbury no less definitely although far less visibly than he m ­ ocked – i­ n the pages of his Historia calamitatum – his erstwhile master Anselm of Laon.2 In reviewing Dr Clanchy’s very stimulating suggestions I shall also restate my own differing viewpoint in their regard. But questions relating to Anselm’s importance and his influence among his contemporaries and successors do remain open to further enquiry and I fully recognize the scope there is for other approaches. There is, to begin, the question whether there was any basic disagreement between Anselm and Abelard in what they wrote on the relationship between reason and faith. Dr Clanchy has resurrected this question and, noting that Abelard’s pupils seemed to demand understanding of faith as a condition of faith, he has alleged that by responding to this demand, and indeed by using it as a pretext, Abelard challenged Anselm as if he were ‘a ridiculous, blind Pharisee’. As result of this mockery Abelard was repaid in the same coin by St Bernard of Clairvaux in later years.3 There is, I am sure, too heavy a reliance put by Dr Clanchy upon a very small number of turnings of phrase in the writings of Anselm and Abelard to demonstrate what is not by any means a reversal of Anselm. A broader view should be taken and with the aid of some further readings than those selected by Dr Clanchy. Anselm wrote in his Cur deus homo: ‘sacra pagina nos ad investigandam rationem invitat: ubi dicit: “nisi credideritis, non intelligetis”, aperte nos monet intentionem ad intellectum extendere’.4 In his Epistula de incarnatione Verbi Anselm objected to those who criticize the Catholic faith without 175

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n understanding it. Such people seek the reason for faith. Their criticisms arise both from a lack of understanding and from the weakness of their faith.5 Abelard also described in the preface to his Theologia the demand of his pupils that he, having written well on philosophical matters, should now lead them to an understanding of the Scriptures and of faith with the aid of reason and of the secular arts.6 Difficult questions implicit in Christian belief may be addressed with the powerful strength of reasoning. Abelard indicates in his preface his wish to try to meet his students’ concerns. In his Historia calamitatum Abelard says that his pupils demanded understanding of faith: they asked for reasons. However, they seemed to say that what is preached should be intelligible and that understanding must precede assent, that nothing can be believed unless it is first understood.7 The relationship between faith and understanding had been considered by St Augustine who wrote that, while indeed faith opens the way to much understanding, it does itself require some prior understanding.8 To focus upon the ­latter – ­a prior ­understanding – i­s not necessarily to reject the ­former – ­faith that leads to further understanding. Likewise, Dr Rudolf Thomas showed that there is no antithesis or confrontation between Anselm’s ‘fides quaerens intellectum’ and Abelard’s ‘rationibus fides astruenda’.9 In so doing Thomas offered texts from Abelard’s Dialogus inter philosophum, iudaeum et christianum, a work of which Thomas himself had earlier prepared an edition.10 He thereby extended the range of writings by Abelard that Martin Grabmann had earlier used in his own masterly discussion of the point. Grabmann presented Anselm as a man who found through contemplation, speculation and piety, an inner harmony and mildness that Abelard never attained.11 He fully saw that Abelard’s dialectical explorations of the Trinity led him in directions that Anselm never pursued and that his ­critics – ­William of Saint Thierry and Bernard of ­Clairvaux – ­were indeed provoked to complain that Abelard had sought to pierce and to devalue the element of mystery in faith.12 But Grabmann firmly denied that Abelard, whatever his students pressed upon him, replaced Anselm’s ‘credo ut intelligam’ with an opposite ‘intelligo ut credam’.13 A second issue concerns the use by Anselm and Abelard of analogies in the course of elucidating the content of the Christian faith. Dr Clanchy suggests that when Abelard wrote the Theologia christiana he was, at least in part, reenacting his trial for heresy that had taken place at the council of Soissons in 1121.14 And this is surely true. In giving expression to his immense disappointment at the outcome of this conflict, Abelard heaped criticisms upon the failings of recent and contemporary masters. In his discussions of the Trinity, and of the available analogies used to illustrate the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit, Abelard first indicates the defects of the analogies found in a sermon of St Augustine,15 but then turns to Anselm.16 And Dr Clanchy argues that he taunts Anselm in the very ways he used when describing the failings of other masters: ‘there was someone’ 176

s t a n s e l m a n d a b e la r d : a r e s tat e m e n t – ‘fuit et quidam’. This was how Abelard ridiculed other unnamed masters of his time, using such phrases as ‘quemdam non parvi nominis’, or ‘­quidam . . . i­nter divinos celeberrimus magistros’, always in derision or scorn.17 But now it is the turn of Anselm and he had lived ‘novissimis temporibus nostris’. ‘Novissimis temporibus’ is, as Dr Clanchy explains, quite likely to be an echo of the warning given earlier in the Theologia christiana that these were the ‘last days’ and the ‘perilous times’ of apocalyptic expectation of the reign of Anti-­Christ.18 Dr Clanchy asks us to read this phrase ‘fuit et quidam novissimis temporibus nostris’ as it was designed to be read out loud to an audience of students with a pause at this point to allow his hearers to wonder whom Abelard going to mock next. Then after a short pause he names his victim, ‘Anselmus videlicet’; then there is another pause to allow the audience to laugh or snigger covertly, perhaps thinking that Abelard is about to outwit Anselm of Laon. But he goes on to say ‘Cantuariensis metropolitanus’ to the accompaniment of gasps of surprise: ‘fuit et quidam novissimis temporibus ­nostris – ­Anselmus ­videlicet – C ­ antuariensis metropolitanus’.19 In this way Abelard introduces St Anselm in order to make him look a fool, like the other distinguished men he had earlier attacked. The particular occasion of Abelard’s attack on Anselm was an analogy. This analogy, Abelard writes, St Anselm seemed to have introduced as a more valid or stronger analogy than others which he had mentioned for supporting the unity of God’s substance. It was that of the River Nile: one Nile, one river, one nature, one water; and yet spring, river and pool are three. But Abelard, Dr Clanchy writes,20 insinuates that Anselm had ‘plagiarized’ in taking this analogy from St Augustine: ‘Cuius, ni fallor, similitudinis fundamentum a beato sumpsit Augustino scribente ad Laurentium papam’.21 In reality this may not be an accusation of plagiarism, merely a suggestion of the source from which Anselm may have drawn the makings of his idea. More importantly Dr Clanchy alleges that Abelard reduced to absurdity that part of Anselm’s analogy which expressed the river as running through a fistula, a pipe, and which expressed the Son of God incarnate in human flesh as being like a river entering a pipe. ‘Posuit etiam rivum in fistula quasi Filium in carne humana, ac si rivum infistulatum dicamus Verbum incarnatum’.22 And in Abelard’s phrasing Dr Clanchy finds three further blows against St Anselm.23 Firstly, to call Anselm merely ‘archbishop’24 a few lines after having described him as the ‘metropolitan of Canterbury’ suggests a legalism which perhaps has relevance to the Canterbury/York primacy dispute which was contentious in the 1120s. Secondly, the use of the word ‘posuit’ suggests a caricature of St Anselm as a builder who was physically constructing drain pipes or water pipes, or who was, at least by implication, explaining the Incarnation of the Son in terms more appropriate to the building of elaborate systems of water pipes in monastic communities for the disposal of sewage. Thirdly, Dr Clanchy finds in Abelard’s critique of Anselm’s analogy an exploitation of the ambiguity surrounding the kinds of liquid, including urine, which might enter 177

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n such a passage. So Abelard deliberately re-­expressed, Dr Clanchy asks us to believe, the analogy of the incarnate Word used by an embattled archbishop in order to allow it to seem not only patently absurd but also covertly obscene. Abelard appears, then, to introduce Anselm to his audience in a hostile manner. He goes on to criticize the analogy of the watercourse as a whole. Abelard does this on the grounds that, whereas a spring of water becomes a stream and finally becomes a pool or a lake over the course of time, in the Trinity the substance of the Father is simultaneously and always the substance of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.25 Anselm’s analogy therefore suggests intervals of time in the differentiation of persons within the Godhead, as if what is eternal can be understood through something temporal. Furthermore, the analogy possibly gives very strong support to that heresy (the heresy of Sabellius in fact) which so mixes up the properties of the persons over the course of time that it can arbitrarily call one and the same person Father or Son or Holy Spirit.26 This association of Anselm with heresy, writes Dr Clanchy,27 was Abelard’s riposte for his own condemnation for heresy in 1121. So, Dr Clanchy suggests, there is a pattern in Abelard’s exposition that is the product of deliberate irony: following the presentation of a catalogue of stupid masters earlier in the work, Anselm is introduced as a mere somebody, ‘quidam’, initially confusable with another Anselm, Anselm of Laon; he is associated with the last days before Anti-­Christ; the use of the word ‘videlicet’ is legalistic, and it is hinted that Anselm is a plagiarist. Moreover, pipes are crude and perhaps foul things. This analogy of the Incarnation perhaps also very strongly supports heresy. But what motive can there be for Abelard to treat St Anselm in this way in his Theologia christiana? To this question Dr Clanchy offers the following answer.28 Like Anselm, when he wrote his Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, Abelard wrote his Theologia ‘Summi boni’ to refute the same heresy of Roscelin of Compiègne. But whereas Anselm had protected himself successfully against counter-­criticism, Abelard found in 1121 that his book was censured at a synod at Soissons. So Abelard must have had Anselm in his mind when years later he described, in his Historia calamitatum, his condemnation and trial. That Abelard was thinking of Anselm is apparent from the way in which, in the Historia calamitatum, he reports that his students were saying that something cannot be believed unless it is first understood – ‘nec credi posse aliquid nisi primitus intellectum’29 – and Abelard wrote his book in order to satisfy them. Abelard must also have been thinking of Anselm when he reported in his Historia calamitatum that his students wanted to be able to ‘grasp with the intellect’ (‘intellectu capere’) what is taught to them, whereas Anselm castigated people who question Christian faith whenever they could not ‘grasp it in the intellect’ (‘intellectu capere’).30 When Abelard in his Historia calamitatum reports that his students criticize teachers who are blind leaders of the blind, Dr Clanchy interprets these references about lack of vision as references to Anselm who seems to be like a ridiculous, blind Pharisee.31 178

s t a n s e l m a n d a b e la r d : a r e s tat e m e n t To the question why Abelard in his Theologia christiana should attack St Anselm so many years after his ­death – A ­ nselm died in 1109 but the council of Soissons took place in 1­ 121 – D ­ r Clanchy answers that Anselm ‘participated posthumously’ in the prosecution of Abelard in 1121 by having previously justified papal pre-­censorship of books and the suppression of free discussion and reasoning in matters of faith and by having thereby made possible the condemnation of Abelard’s book on the very grounds that it had not been earlier submitted to the pope for approval.32 Moreover, in his Historia calamitatum Abelard betrays an awareness of his own vulnerability to criticism on this account.33 That Abelard did often mock and make jokes about those with whom he disagreed there can be no doubt whatever. He insulted and savaged William of Champeaux, Roscelin of Compiègne, Anselm of Laon, monks of St Denis, Bernard of Clairvaux and Alberic of Rheims. Nor do his jests and his aggressive rhetoric belong only to the earliest years of his career. So Dr Clanchy contends that Abelard’s mockery of Anselm is in keeping with the way he usually dealt with those with whom he disagreed. But has Dr Clanchy forced an interpretation of a brief passage in the Theologia christiana? Has he given adequate consideration to the larger role of the writings and the memory of St Anselm during the years that followed his death in 1109? These were (for some scholars) years of fierce continuing disputes that were perhaps only brought to a close when a more reliable body and tradition of teaching developed in the Parisian schools of theology under the pervasive influence of Hugh of St Victor and of his colleagues and successors. Disputes did not cease then, of course, but in the period before Hugh gained his ascendancy disputes were more endemic, rivalries more bitter and careers more unpredictable. Anselm of Canterbury was not immune from attacks either before or after his death, even from Abelard. But in general Abelard was attentive to what he knew about him and was even his supporter and defender, although not without important qualifications and differences. To make this clear, we must go back to the passage in Abelard’s Theologia christiana where Anselm’s analogy of the watercourse is considered and found defective. Theologia christiana IV consists of a lengthy examination of the relationship between three divine persons in one substance. Earlier in his Theologia ‘Summi boni’ Abelard had justified the use of analogies, ‘similitudines’, in discussing the creator. Since creation resembles the creator, analogies such as those of a wax image, or of the sun and its brightness, do help men to understand God and also to refute pseudo-­logicians, even though every analogy contains a degree of dissimilarity as well as of similarity between the subjects being compared.34 Later in life Abelard was to describe his earlier work, Theologia ‘Summi boni’, as an attempt to explain the basis of Christian faith by means of ‘similitudines’ invented by human reason.35 However, Abelard also engaged in the Theologia ‘Summi boni’ in a critique of currently used analogies. He put on one side the analogy of the wax image. 179

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n This analogy does to a certain extent illustrate the generation of the Son from the Father without compromising the sameness of their essence, since the image formed on the wax is of course identical in substance. But the image on the wax comes into existence later than the wax itself whereas the Son is eternal with the Father and the generation of the Son is not a development that takes place in time.36 Later in the Theologia christiana Abelard returns to this discussion to offer a criticism of Anselm’s use of the available analogies. He explains again that the currently available analogies have been recently receiving some critical attention. He mentions the analogies of the cithara and of the sun and he attributes them to St Augustine.37 Anselm in his De processione Spiritus sancti had taken up and supported the analogy of the sun.38 However, in the Theologia christiana Abelard associates himself with critics of the analogy of the sun and also of that of the cithara; he does so on the ground that such analogies do not explain or illustrate the Incarnation or how only one of the divine persons became incarnate when divine substance entered human flesh. They also seem to illustrate the differences between divine persons better than they show the identity of the divine essence.39 Then Abelard goes on to say (in the passage we have seen) that Anselm, the metropolitan of Canterbury, has come up with a better analogy, one which has the merit of safeguarding the unity of the divine substance. This is the analogy of the watercourse. Anselm used this in his De processione Spiritus sancti.40 Earlier, in the Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, Anselm had also used it in the form of the River Nile.41 Neither of Anselm’s books is named by Abelard, only their author, who, Abelard says, had obtained the analogy from St Augustine. Moreover, this analogy also illustrates the Incarnation because the river flows through a ‘fistula’ just as the Son enters human flesh. What, then, is the drawback of this analogy? That there must be a disadvantage in each analogy is certain because every analogy illustrates similarities by reference to dissimilarities. In the case of this analogy of the watercourse, as it is developed by Anselm, Abelard says that it is in fact the best available to date, though it does perhaps (‘fortassis’) also give very strong support to heresy. And in his later work, the Theologia ‘Scholarium’, when Anselm’s analogy of the watercourse reappears, Abelard again comments that it does perhaps (‘fortasse’) support heresy through implying that the divine persons succeed each other in time.42 And this leads Abelard in the Theologia ‘Scholarium’ towards the invention of a new analogy, the analogy of a bronze seal. He organizes Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II, largely around the presentation of this new, replacement analogy of the bronze seal and around its justification as an improved way of illustrating three properties in one essence, the three properties being bronze, the potency to seal and the actuality of sealing which proceeds from the bronze and the potency to seal.43 This analogy, as is well known, provoked fierce opposition towards the end of Abelard’s life. To say, as Dr Clanchy does, that Abelard’s reference to Anselm in his Theologia christiana is highly scornful and mocking, and that Abelard tries 180

s t a n s e l m a n d a b e la r d : a r e s tat e m e n t to make Anselm look a fool, seems to me to be an exaggeration. Unlike the unnamed objects of Abelard’s loathing vaguely mentioned on earlier pages of the Theologia christiana, A ­ nselm – a­ nd he a­ lone – i­s properly named and clearly identified, by his customary title as archbishop as well as by the less customary title of metropolitan.44 Not all those who live in the last days belong to Anti-­Christ. Like Anselm, Abelard uses the terms ‘fistula’ and ‘infistulatus’ somewhat apologetically (he writes: ‘ac ­si . . . ­dicamus’).45 Moreover, the word ‘fistula’ does not necessarily or even usually have a foul and obscene connotation, suggesting smelly passages in the human body or monastic drains or suchlike. Fistula means a tube or pipe or passage or gap. Liturgically, fistula signified the pipe used for giving the blood of Christ to those communicating under two kinds. I see no other implication in the use of the word fistula in the analogy with the Incarnation than that of extending the image of the river that flows from the spring in order to describe how the river on its way down from the spring to the lake flows through a passage just as the second person of the Trinity also was enclosed on entering human flesh before the coming of the Spirit. The terms ‘rivus’ and ‘fistula’ are Anselm’s terms and Anselm would have found them in Augustine. He writes in the Epistula de incarnatione Verbi: Si enim rivus per fistulam currat a fonte usque ad lacum: nonne solus rivus, quamvis non alius Nilus quam fons et lacus,ut ita dicam infistulatus est, sicut solus filius incarnatus est, licet non alius deus quam pater et spiritus sanctus?46 All Abelard does is to reproduce in similar words the words Anselm himself used, following Augustine: Ponit itaque praedictus archiepiscopus quasi tria eiusdem substantiae, fontem videlicet, riuum et stagnum. . . . Posuit etiam riuum in fistula quasi Filium in carne humana, ac si riuum infistulatum dicamus Verbum incarnatum.47 This is a fair and faithful summary of Anselm’s analogy, one which was only a few lines earlier commended as possibly a stronger analogy, a ‘ualidior similitudo’, but which also a few lines later receives criticism on the ground that it perhaps very strongly supports heresy also: Immo fortassis haec similitude illi maxime suffragatur haeresi quae ita per tempora proprietates personarum commiscet, ut eamdem personam dicat quando uult esse Patrem, quando uult Filium uel Spiritum Sanctum.48 I see in this passage evidence of criticism, sharp no doubt, but not mocking and not vindictive. 181

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n In any event, we have to bear in mind the breadth of the general influence exerted over Abelard by the thought of Anselm. I do not base my view about this broad influence on the evidence only of a letter which Abelard wrote to the bishop of Paris after the year 1116. In this letter of complaint about the bitter attacks of Roscelin upon himself Abelard happened to praise Anselm as a magnificent doctor of the church and archbishop of Canterbury.49 The letter shows little of Abelard’s awareness of previous quarrels between Roscelin and Anselm. We know very little about the circulation of copies of Anselm’s writings in the schools of Paris and in other schools which Abelard attended. It is not by any means certain that Abelard ever read any of Anselm’s works. He may indeed only have heard reports of them from a few monks or clerics who may themselves only have heard something about these from others. And it might be suspected that here Abelard exaggerated or overemphasized his praise of Anselm in order to strengthen or to enhance his disapproval of Roscelin. At least one modern ­scholar – ­Rolf ­Peppermüller – ­has doubted whether Abelard, whose views on the redemption clearly invite comparison with Anselm’s own, ever read Anselm’s Cur deus homo.50 But praise Anselm Abelard certainly did. By whatever means and however accurately a knowledge of Anselm’s teachings (or of some of them) came to Abelard, he nonetheless allowed them to pervade some of his own most important work. Indeed Dr Mews, in editing Abelard’s Theologia ‘Summi boni’, acknowledges that Abelard was in book two of that work reproducing a good deal of Anselm’s invective against Roscelin and other false dialecticians as found in the Epistula de incarnatione Verbi.51 And we should not forget that Abelard had known and had quarrelled with Roscelin. It is above all in his Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos that Abelard shows his interest in Anselm, whether this interest is based on a direct knowledge of Anselm’s personal contributions to debate on the atonement or not. Here, although without naming Anselm, Abelard joins him in rejecting the notion that the Devil had rights over fallen mankind and in rejecting also the notion that Christ paid a ransom to the Devil in order to release captive mankind from subjection and slavery. Abelard asks some of the same initial questions, as Anselm had done, with Boso’s help, in his Cur deus homo and in virtually the same words: (Abelard) Primo itaque quaerendum videtur qua necessitate Deus hominem assumpserit ut nos secundum carnem moriendo redimeret.52 (Anselm) qua scilicet ratione vel necessitate homo factus sit, et morte ­sua . . . ­mundo vitam reddiderit.53 (Abelard) Quae itaque necessitas aut quae ratio vel quid opus fuit, cum sola iussione sua divina miseratio liberare hominem a diabolo potuisset?54 182

s t a n s e l m a n d a b e la r d : a r e s tat e m e n t (Boso) Plures mecum petunt: qua necessitate scilicet et ratione deus, cum sit omnipotens, humilitatem et infirmitatem humanae naturae pro eius restauratione assumpserit.55 Also Abelard rejects the theory of the Devil’s right using Anselm’s example of servants or serfs who have been lured away from the service of their lord by a fellow servant who then assumes authority over his disobedient companions and taunts or tortures them.56 And furthermore Abelard, like Anselm, adopts an exemplarist approach to the understanding of the redemption of mankind. ‘Quanta nos mirabilius [Christus] restituit, tanto maiorem dilectionem erga nos et pietatem monstravit’: these words, which are in fact found in the Cur deus homo,57 could easily be mistaken for words in Abelard’s Commentaria. I realize fully that scholars have claimed important differences between the ways in which Abelard and Anselm regarded the atonement, so much so that Sir Richard Southern contended that ‘Abelard’s view stands as a protest against all the essential elements in Anselm’s thought’ and Richard Weingart believed that Abelard was biased against Anselm and tried to abandon Anselm’s talk of ‘necessary reasons’ for the Incarnation.58 Abelard in fact argues that God could not have chosen any other way to redeem mankind than the way he chose. He wrote, like Anselm, of the Incarnation in terms of its necessity: ‘ut necessario Christus ad auferendam quoque abundantiam peccatorum descenderet.59 Necesse erat ut ueniret Christus qui est finis et consummatio legis’.60 Abelard draws together the links between an ‘exemplarist theory’ of the atonement and the view that God only acts in the way that he does. The Incarnation is necessary: in this Abelard and Anselm stand together against Roscelin. When it is appreciated how extensively and pervasively Abelard drew upon the resources of Anselm’s thought on God and the Trinity and the Incarnation, Anselm’s reflected influence on the debates that occurred in the northern French schools during the earlier decades of the twelfth century can be seen to be considerable. That Abelard had words of scorn for many masters is obvious. But he stops short of these in trying to evaluate the potential created by Anselm. There were tensions in the mind of Abelard regarding the contributions of Anselm on a number of issues. To inflate these tensions to the level of mockery is probably both unnecessary and misleading. But Dr Clanchy is to be congratulated on writing so intriguingly about this possibility.

Notes   1 ‘St Anselm and Abelard’, Anselm Studies, 1 (1983), pp. 207–229.   2 M. T. Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery of St Anselm’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 41 (1990), pp. 1–23.  3 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, pp.  17–19. Cf. M.T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, p.  36: ‘Abelard insisted on the priority

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of understanding over faith and he knew that this was a reversal of St Anselm of Canterbury’s rule: “I believe so that I may understand (credo ut intelligam)”’. See also ibidem, p.  266: ‘Through his students, Abelard w ­ as . . . ­challenging the Anselmian tradition of respectful inquiry through faith’. Also ibidem, p. 273.  4 Cur deus homo, commendatio operis, ed. F. S. Schmitt, S. Anselmi opera omnia, 6 vols, Edinburgh, Thomas Nelson and Sons,1946–1961, vol. 2, p. 40.  5 Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, 1, ed. Schmitt, Anselmi opera, 2, pp. 6–8.  6 TSchol, prefacio), pp. 313–316: 313: ‘Cum enim a nobis plurima de philosophicis studiis et secularium litterarum scriptis studiose legissent et eis admodum lecta placuissent, uisum illis est ut multo facilius diuine pagine intelligentiam siue sacre fidei rationes nostrum penetraret ingenium quam philosophice abyssi puteos, ut aiunt, exhausisset. . . . Quo enim fides nostra, id est christiana, inquiunt, difficilioribus implicita questionibus uidetur et ab humana ratione longius absistere, ualidioribus utique munienda est rationum presidiis, maxime uero contra impugnationes eorum qui se philosophos profitentur; quorum quanto subtilior uidetur inquisitio, tanto difficilior ad soluendum et ad perturbandum fidei nostre simplicitatem facilior invenitur.’  7 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 692–700: ‘quendam theologie tractatum De Unitate et Trinitate divina scolaribus nostris componerem, qui humanas et philosophicas rationes requirebant, et plus que intelligi quam que dici possent efflagitabant: dicentes quidem verborum superfluam esse prolationem quam intelligentia non sequeretur, nec credi posse aliquid nisi primitus intellectum, et ridiculosum esse aliquem aliis predicare quod nec ipse nec illi quos doceret intellectu capere possent’.  8 Enarratio in Psalmum CXVIII, Sermo XVIII, 3–4: PL 37, 1552–1553; Sermo XLIII, VII, 9, PL 38, 257–258.   9 R. Thomas, ‘Anselms fides quaerens intellectum in Proslogion und Abaelards rationibus fides astruenda et defendenda im Dialogus inter philosophum, iudaeum et christianum. Eine Vergleichserörterung’, Analecta Anselmiana, 5 (1976), pp. 297–310. 10 Dialogus, ed. R. Thomas. 11 M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, 2 vols., Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder, 1911; reprinted Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1957, vol. 2, pp. 174–175. 12 Ibidem, pp. 171–172. 13 Ibidem, pp.  177–193. D. Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought, London, Longman, 1962, p.  123 (2nd edition by D. E. Luscombe and C. N. L. Brooke, London, Longman, 1988, pp. 112–113), writes that Abelard, ‘though he does not mention (Anselm’s) motto, credo ut intelligam, would certainly have it echoed it, though perhaps on a slightly more superficial level and with more emphasis on the last word’. 14 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, p. 3. 15 Tchr, IV, 82, pp. 303–304. 16 Ibidem, IV, 83, p. 304. 17 Cf. Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, p. 4; Tchr, IV, 79–80, p. 302, ll. 1147, 1160–1161. Also, Clanchy, Abelard. A Medieval Life, p.  91: Abelard’s ‘mocking style is best seen in his attack on St Anselm of Canterbury and other masters in Theologia Christiana’. 18 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, pp. 4–5. Cf. Tchr, IV, 73, pp. 298–299. 19 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1206–1207. 20 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, p. 6. 21 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1209–1211. Anselm’s analogy appears in Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, XIV, p. 13. 22 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1118–1120.

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s t a n s e l m a n d a b e la r d : a r e s tat e m e n t 23 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, pp. 6–8. 24 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, l. 1214: ‘Ponit itaque praedictus archiepiscopus’. 25 Ibidem, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1220–1233. 26 Ibidem, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1229–1233: ‘Immo fortassis haec similitudo illi maxime suffragatur haeresi quae ita per tempora proprietates personarum commiscet, ut eamdem personam dicat quando uult esse Patrem, quando vult Filium uel Spiritum Sanctum’. 27 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, p. 9. 28 Ibidem, p. 11: ‘a ­motive . . . ­is difficult to find’. 29 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 697–698. 30 Ibidem, ll. 698–700; Anselm, Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, I, pp. 6–8. 31 Clanchy, ‘Abelard’s Mockery’, pp. 17–18. 32 Ibidem, pp. 14–18. 33 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 848–851. 34 TSum, II, ii, 49, p.  130; II, iii, 65 and 77–78, pp.  135–136 and 140–141; III, ii, 71–74, pp. 187–189. Cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV, 59, ed. F. Marx, S ­ tuttgart – ­Leipzig, Teubner, 19232, p. 175: ‘similitudo est oratio traducens ad rem quampiam aliquid ex re dispari simile’. 35 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 690–695. 36 TSum, III, 54–61, pp. 180–183. 37 Tchr, IV, 82, pp. 303–304. 38 De processione Spiritus Sancti, VIII, pp. 199–201. 39 Tchr, IV, 82, pp. 303–304. 40 De processione Spiritus Sancti, IX, pp. 203–205. 41 Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, XIII-­XIV, pp. 31–33. 42 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304; TSch, II, 120, pp. 467–468. 43 TSch, II, 112–116, 138–147, pp. 462–465, 476–480. 44 On Anselm’s title as metropolitan, see C. Marabelli, ‘Ecclesia Mater – Ecclesia Mater Cantuariensis. Concezione della Maternità Ecclesiale di Canterbury’, in Anselm. Aosta, Bec and Canterbury, ed. D. E. Luscombe and G. R. Evans, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1996, pp. 162–169: 165 and 167; R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm. A Portrait in a Landscape, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 340, n. 17. 45 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, l.1219. 46 Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, XIV, p.  33. Cf. Augustine, De haeresibus, XI, CCCM, 46, p. 295: ‘Christum autem a patre missum, id est a profundo, spiritale uel caeleste corpus secum attulisse nihilque assumpsisse de uirgine Maria, sed per illam tamquam per riuum aut per fistulam sine ulla de illa assumpta carne transisse’. The heresy here described by ­Augustine – ­the belief that, during his passage through Mary’s womb, Christ did not receive a human ­body – ­is that of the followers of Valentinus. 47 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1214–1215, 1218–1220. Anselm’s lacus becomes Abelard’s stagnum but stagnum needs mean no other than pond or pool or lake. Cf. Isidore, Etymologiae XIII, 19, De lacis et stagnis, 9, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1911: ‘Lacus autem idem et stagnus, ubi inmensa aqua convenit’. In any case stagnum is the word found in a similitudo where Anselm commends human self-­discipline in terms of the control of a water course; see Liber Anselmi Archiepiscopi de humanis moribus per similitudines, 123, in Memorials of St, Anselm, ed, R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt, London, Oxford University Press, 1969 (Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 1), p. 85. 48 Tchr, IV, 83, p. 304, ll. 1229–1233. 49 Letter 14, ed. Smits, pp. 279–280: 280; PL 178, 355–358: 357: ‘magnificum ecclesie

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n doctorem Anselmum Cantuariensem archiepiscopum’. For a general discussion of the letter, see Smits, ibidem, pp. 189–202. 50 R. Peppermüller, Abaelards Auslegung des Römerbriefes, Münster, Aschendorff, 1972 (BGPTMA. Neue Folge, 10), pp.  91–92 (also, on predestination and free will, p. 64). R. E. Weingart, The Logic of Divine Love. A Critical Analysis of the Soteriology of Peter Abailard, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 89–93, thought it probable that Abelard knew the Cur deus homo but Weingart was puzzled by what appears to be Abelard’s misunderstanding of parts of it. 51 Introduction to TSum in CCCM, 13, pp. 45–46. 52 Comm. Rom. pp. 113–114. 53 Cur deus homo, I, 1, p. 48. 54 Comm. Rom., p. 116. 55 Cur deus homo, I, 1, p. 48. 56 Comm. Rom. pp. 114–115; Cur deus homo, I, 7, p. 57. J. Rivière, Le Dogme de la Rédemption, Études critiques et documents. Louvain, Bureau de la Revue, 1931 (Bibliothèque de la Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 5), pp.  151–152, noted the close similarity between Tertullian’s recognition of the possibility that God granted the Devil his right to tempt and torment mankind and Abelard’s observation that the Devil may have been permitted to act as man’s torturer or jailer. Cf. Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione, II, PL 2,127: ‘Aut enim ex causa probationis conceditur ei ius tentationis provocato vel p ­ rovocanti . . . a­ ut ex causa reprobationis traditur ei peccator quasi carnifici in poenam’ (2 Kg 16:2). Also, Comm. Rom., p. 115: ‘videtur quod diabolus in hominem quem seduxit nullum ius seducendo acquisierit, nisi forte, ut diximus, quantum ad permissionem Domini pertinebat, qui eum illi quasi carcerario vel tortori suo ad puniendum tradiderat’. 57 Cur deus homo, I, 3, pp. 50–51. 58 Southern, Saint Anselm, p. 211; Weingart, The Logic of Divine Love, pp. 90–93. 59 Comm. Rom., p. 175. 60 Ibidem, p. 191. J. Rivière demonstrated that both Abelard and Anselm shared a common aim in criticizing a traditional popular and prevalent belief in the rights of the Devil. See Rivière, Le Dogme de la Rédemption au début du moyen âge, Paris, Vrin, 1934 (Bibliothèque Thomiste, 19; Section historique, 16), pp. 27–29: ‘Abélard, tout comme saint Anselme, s’est heurté pour la combattre à une sotériologie r­ eçue . . . ­Cet accord entre deux théologiens par ailleurs si différents serait à lui seul, une suffisante garantie d’exactitude historique’ (p. 29). See also p. 63: ‘commun accord’; p. 64: ‘leur commune critique des “droits” du d ­ émon . . . ­le voisinage de noms aussi disparates que ceux d’Anselme et d’Abélard’; p. 97: ‘un objectif commun’. In spite of the fact that the Cur deus homo is solidly and soundly based on notions of sin, sacrifice and satisfaction and that Abelard’s sketchy presentation relies excessively on dialectical methods and did not receive the same welcome as did Anselm’s work, Rivière concludes (p. 128) that ‘Abélard se range aux côtés de saint Anselme pour avoir, comme lui et à sa suite, tant bien que mal combattu l’antique sotériologie basée sur les “droits” du démon’; p. 131: ‘Profondément divergentes dans leur ­direction . . . ­Anselme et Abélard avaient pour point de départ commun l’abandon systématique des “droits” du démon’. R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm, pp. 95–97, observes (no less strongly) that Abelard follows Anselm in rejecting the theory of the Devil’s rights but ignores and passes over other key arguments expressed in the Cur deus homo.*

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13 A NEW STUDENT FOR PETER ABELARD The marginalia in British Library MS Cotton Faustina A.X Charles Burnett and David Luscombe In his Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957, reissued with supplement 1990), pp. 194–196, N. R. Ker revealed that the British Library manuscript, Cotton Faustina A.X, sheds light on the teachings of Peter Abelard. The two-­manuscript volume is a composite. One part of it contains on fols. 3–100 Aelfric’s grammar and glossary, probably copied in the second half of the eleventh century. A second part, which was written in the first half of the twelfth century and which probably joined the first part of the volume later in the twelfth century, and just conceivably at Worcester,1 contains a translation by St Aethelwold of the Rule of St Benedict (fols. 102–148) as well as an account of the revival of monasticism in England in the tenth century (fols. 148–15lv). There are in this second part various marginal and interlinear additions written in the twelfth century in Latin. Among these and in the margins of fols. 106–111v are twenty-­two theological questions in eleven of which Master Peter Abelard is mentioned on account of opinions attributed to him. A further reference to Abelard appears in the margins, on fol. 151. We publish these questions here for the first time. The forms in which Abelard’s name is here written include: magister p. AbaGs, Magister Ps Abags., M.P., magister, P., Abagel., Abagelardus, Abag., m.P. Abag., Abags. The name Pet(ri) abagel(ardi) is also found in a twelfth-­century copy of Abelard’s Exposition of the Hexameron, probably made in Denmark, and now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen (Det Kongelige Bibliotek, e don. var. 138 4°).2 Many of the questions show resemblances to questions which Abelard discussed in his writings and especially in his Ethica or Scito te ipsum, and the views which are here attributed to A ­ belard – ­as well as some which are not so attributed to ­him – ­are frequently ones which Abelard is known to have debated. They include questions about original and actual sin, intention, contempt, consent and confession, and also about literal and figurative expressions concerning the hands of God and the location of hell. Several 187

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of the (sometimes spicy) examples which Abelard used in his Ethica to illustrate human situations and events which require careful moral judgement are found here also. But we also find questions and comments which may reflect remarks made by Abelard in places or on occasions of which we have no independent knowledge. This is one reason for publishing and studying these questiones. A second reason for doing this is that these notes are questiones rather than sententie. That Abelard’s ‘school’ of disciples left collections of sententie, and that these collections pursued questiones arranged according to an overall tripartite plan of theology comprising faith, sacrament and charity, is well known.3 Such sentence collections contributed to the growth of systematic theological teaching in the period, and their circulation was partly responsible for bringing about Abelard’s condemnation for heresy at Sens in 1140. But hitherto no series of questiones has been found which can be called Abelardian other than Abelard’s Sic et non, which contains in its differing versions up to 158 capitula which are arranged according to the overall tripartite plan, and other than the Problemata Heloissae, which contain an assortment of forty-­two Scriptural problems presented to Abelard by Heloise for his resolution.4 In the Sic et non problems are introduced in the form of antitheses (‘Quod... sit et contra’), and almost the only material that follows the headings in the Sic et non consists of citations from authoritative texts which reveal a range of points of view. In the Problemata Heloissae questions are typically introduced with a phrase such as: ‘Quid est illud in Evangelio Lucae...’. In the Cotton Faustina manuscript, on the other hand, we find a miscellany of questions which often begin with the word Queritur or with the juxtaposition of different viewpoints and which are then followed by the student’s report of Abelard’s opinion on the matter. Sometimes the questions and the references to authoritative texts reflect parts of the Sic et non and seem to be valuable evidence for the use of that large collection of auctoritates. Four further points may be suggested. First, it is likely that the sparse glosses in Latin on the main ­text – ­the translation into Anglo-­Saxon of the Rule by St ­Aethelwold – ­are written by the same hand as that which wrote out the questiones and, if that is not the case, that this hand is contemporary and similar; the glosses had been added before the margins came to be filled with the Abelardian question material which at times is worked around them. Secondly, it is possible that the questions are a series of exercises, and that the writer was seeking answers on the basis of his experience of having been taught by Abelard and of reading work provided by him or as a result of coming into contact with one of his pupils. Thirdly, some of the parallels between the materials found in this question collection and also in Abelard’s Theologia ‘Scholarium’ relate only to the final sections of the Theologia which were possibly written just before Abelard finally stopped teaching in Paris and before he faced his accusers at Sens in 1140.5 It is possible, therefore, that this writer, or the student who was his source, was one of the last students to be 188

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d taught by Abelard and at the time when clouds had thickened over his head. Finally, in these questiones the student reports instances (especially in questio 4) when Abelard takes issue with St Augustine. In his own writings Abelard generally and frequently sought Augustine’s support for his own views. Perhaps when speaking with students he would question more freely.6 These jottings, written in the margins of a manuscript containing Anglo-­Saxon, are at the least an example of how (as St Bernard complained7) Abelard’s teachings spread both widely and rapidly. The questiones have been transcribed (in some places ‘deciphered’ might be a better word) by Charles Burnett. In the notes we have attempted to show the sources on which the student drew, whether directly or indirectly, and also to indicate similar passages found in some other works written by Abelard’s closest disciples.8 We have not succeeded in identifying all of these and we hope that some of our readers will be more successful and will let us know. The student wrote in an unpolished way as if he was engaged in a practical exercise, perhaps drafting answers to questions that had been set for him by a teacher and using such notes and books as he had to hand. The evidence of the corrections (which have been indicated in our edition) suggests that he copied the notes from elsewhere. He does not correct as he writes but afterwards, and at one stage (in question 16) he leaves a space, evidently because he could not read what was in the exemplar. We have attempted to reproduce what he wrote and have emended his text where it seems right to do so, but in places we are unsure that we have done this well or that the student has expressed himself clearly and coherently. Where we are uncertain we have written (?). Matter written above the line in the manuscript we have enclosed between sloping lines \ /. Additions and omissions for which we are responsible are indicated by round brackets ( ) for additions and by square brackets [ ] for omissions. We have introduced our own punctuation, having first paid attention to that found in the manuscript. And we have divided the text into questions, paragraphs and sections on the following basis: each question has been numbered; Abelard’s solution to the question is introduced with a new paragraph, whilst another paragraph sometimes introduces an ancillary to Abelard’s solution. The sections, which are here separated by blank spaces, correspond to the sections in the manuscript, most of which are prefixed by a bold paragraph marker. Quotations from the Bible are printed in italics. Other references to written sources –these are usually works of St ­Augustine – ­normally take the form of paraphrases rather than quotations and (unlike Abelard himself in his writings) the student does not name his precise source. The student’s use of the word dicit in some of his reports of Abelard’s opinions and arguments suggests that he had sat at Abelard’s feet or had at least come to know well someone else who had done so.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Questiones in the margins of the British Library MS, Cotton, Faustina A. X, fols. 106–111v and 151   1. Cum Christus plenitudinem bonorum habuit, queritur \quid/ sit illud quod ait Evangelista: Ihesus autem proficiebat etate et s(apientia) a(put) d(eum) et h(omines).9 Ubi enim plenitudo bonorum erat, profectu opus non erat. Ad quod magister P. AbaGs. dicit quod Ihesus ad etatem veniebat in qua per sapientiam homines reconciliaturus erat, et ita est illud evangelii exponendum. Set si dixisset tantummodo hoc: ‘Ihesus autem sapientia et etate profic(iebat)’, nichil aliud aponendo, tunc questio de profectu inde posset oriri. Set quod aposuit ‘aput deum et homines’, questionem abolevit, set (for scilicet?) intelligendo quia Ihesus in etate profic(iebat) quia per sapientiam homines deo reconciliaturus erat.   2. Queritur utrum melius sit abstinere a venialibus quam a criminalibus et utrum aliquis sine venialibus possit esse.10 Magister Ps. Abags.: Quanto magis aliquid vitandum est, tanto maioris meriti est abstinere, quanto magis in agendo offenderet et contempneret quis deum. Nota quod multi sine criminibus esse possunt et fuerunt, sicut Iohannes bapt(ista), sicut innocentes, et sine venialibus nemo adultus fuerit, tamen potest esse. Nulia enim \peccandi/ necessitas hominibus indita est, quia deus talem hominis fecit naturam ut ab omni peccato posset abstinere; ideo omnia ei interdixit. Alioquin interdicta non essent. Notandum est quod nemo sine criminali peccato damnari potest. Criminale est si aliquis nimis rideat vel bibat, ita etiam quod ei in mentem et in memoriam veniat creatoris sui contemtus de illo opere. Criminale est, set si necessitate aliqua vel oblivione vel casu aliquo hoc faciat, veniale est. Sancti dicunt11 omne peccatum voluntarium, id est, non necessarium, id est non in(e) vitabile, quia omne peccatum vitari potest. Hoc autem ideo determinatur quia quidam dicunt quia nullus sit reus alicuius peccati nisi quod ex voluntate fecerit. Falsum est, ut in sequentibus determinatur. Amplius,12 cum peccatum sit contra conscientiam agere, cum illi qui martires interfecerunt se bene agere crederent, iusta illud quod v(er)itas dicit:13 Venit hora ut omnis qui interficit vos arbitretur se obsequium prestare deo.   3. Queritur an peccent. Sola cogitatio et intencio peccatum est.14 M.P. dicit quod peccant et illi similiter qui ydola colebant. Unde magister P. dicit (fol. 106v) quod cum contra conscientias suas non faciant, et non peccent, et tamen damnabuntur quod sine peccato damnantur, \inde/ ob solum quia creatorem non cognoverunt. Ad quod dicitur quia eadem causa debent damnari illi qui stulti sunt et insani et numquam discretione utuntur, sicut Baldricus.15 Ad quod magister dicit quia huiusmodi stulti per baptismum salvantur quamvis cognitionem (MS: cogitationem) dei non habeant. Unde Propheta: Homines et iumenta, id est ydiotas, salvabis, domine.16 190

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d   4. Queritur an Adam plus peccavit quam Eva, quod videtur posse probari hoc modo: Adam plus scivit et cognovit quam Eva. Item Eva erat Ade in custodiam, non Adam Eve. Item plus mali venit de peccato Ade quam Eve. Item servus sciens voluntatem domini sui et non faciens plagis vapulabit multis. Item Petrus Apostolus: melius est viam veritatis non agnovisse quam post agnitam retro abisse,17 et ideo Satanas gravius punitur quia agnovit veritatem et cognitam (et cognitam repeated and erased) contemsit. Ex his videtur quia primus homo plus peccaverit quam uxor sua. Ex alia parte videtur \h/aberi a Sanctis quod uxor plus peccaverit quam vir. Dicit enim Aug(ustinus):18 Adam minus peccavit quam uxor sua quia Adam ideo comedit pomum quia uxor iam inde comederat et quia noluit eam contristare et de penitencia cogitabat. Item Apostolus: Eva seducta fiat, sed Adam seductus non fuit.19 Ad hec magister P. dicit: Ignotum esse quis plus peccaverit, nec sciri (corr. from scire) posse, quia nescitur in quo maior fuerit contemptus, quia qui rnagis contempnit magis peccat. Immo etiam20 si monacus aliquis adulterium committat et laicus similiter, dubium est quis magis peccet. Si enim iste contemptus sit in laico quod ille laicus, si habeat habitum et cucullam monachi et voluisset, non ob hoc, tamen propter deum adulterium quod fecit non dimittet, nec propter habitum dimitteret, eadem culpa et idem peccatum. Item,21 si aliquis concumbat cum aliqua vacua, id est non coniugata, et alius quicumque sit iaceat cum coniugata, si ille qui cum vacua iacuat talis sit quod propter \ deum non/ dimitteret explere voluntatem suam in coniugata si occurreret illi quando vacua occurrit, idem est peccatum. Unde beatus Aug(ustinus) dicit22 quod Iohannes baptista non minus premium martirii \habet/ quam si tormenta cum Petro suscepisset, quia paratus fuit suscipere. Item Aug(ustinus) dicit23 Habraam non minus premium virginitatis habuisse quam lohannes bapt(ista), quia Abraam paratus fuit continere sicut \et/ lohannes, set, quia tempore Habrahe pauci fideles erant et intellexit quod opus erat crescere iustorum numerum et quod ipse generaret filios et instrueret in dilectione dei, ideo coniugium contraxit. Ut si aliqua (fol. 107) mulier voverit castitatem et vis fuerit ei facta, nichil ei diminuitur de premio et sequetur agnum q(uocumque) i(erit).24 Unde beatus Aug(ustinus) de Lucrecia ait:25 mirabile dictu, duo in lecto uno et unus adulterat, alius integer surgit. Constat igitur deum ad opera non converti si ipsum qui cordium scrutator est et intencionem tantum intueri. Unde impossibile est sciri nisi a deo uter plus peccavit, quia si in pari contemptu extiterit cum Eva, idem est peccatum. Quod si in minori, minus. Quod autem maius peccatum proveniret de peccato Ade quam Eve non propter id quod sequitur de peccato quantitas peccati iudicatur, set pro contem\p/tu et negligentia. Ut si quis det alicui alapam, et inde civitas commoveatur et inde multi occidantur, alius vero adulterium committat 191

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n de quo nullum homicidium venit, tamen adulter magis peccavit. Quia de facto inde magnum bonum venit, nec tamen bonum fecit. Quod autem B(oetius) de consolatione dicit:26 Malum velle malum est et facere malum peius est. Ad quod dicit P. quod hoc bene dictum retorquendum ad hoc: Pena maior datur pro malo perpetrato quam pro cogitato, quod sit ad terrorem et correctionem. Sicut27 si aliqua mater filium suum in lecto suo secum ponat ex caritate et dilectione, ea scilicet intencione quod non habeat tantum pannorum unde sibi et filio sufficienter providere possit (corr. from -sunt) et, cum ipsa angela non sit, velit nolit dormiet, et dormiens filius opprimetur, non fecit peccatum et tamen iniungitur ei penit(entia), non quia peccaverit, set ut alie matres cautiores in huiusmodi sint, et per negligentiam tale periculum incurrant. Adeo autem ad intencionem in his recurritur quod legimus quosdam discretos presbiteros parrochinis suis in penitentia iniunxisse assiduam et copiosam delectabilium ciborum comestionem, eo quo gravius hoc ferebant quam si abstinentiam in pane et aqua iniunxissent eo quod abstinentia erant assueti. Quod autem Aug(ustinus) dicit28 Adam minus peccasse dicit mag. P. se eum non intellexisse, et ipse Aug(ustinus) dicit29 quod tales vult alios in scriptis suis qualis ipse est in scriptis aliorum. Quis Aug(ustinus) etiam scripta Ieronimi in multis refutat.30 (fol. 107v) Quod autem Apostolus dicit31 Evam deceptam fuisse, Adam autem non, sic intellige: Quia Eva credidit se fore immortalem si pomo illo vesceretur, sicut Diabolus ei promiserat, set Adam hoc numquam credidit, set ideo de fructu illo comedit quia volebat morem gerere uxori, ne eam contristaret, et non credidit de tam levi peccato tam graviter indignari deum et de penitencia confidebat.  5. Queritur an aliquis contemptus sit sine voluntate.32 Quod si negetur, probabitur sic: Si aliquis33 ab aliquo tiranno cogatur interficere hominem quem nisi interficeret (corr. from -iat) ipse a tiranno interficeretur, et ideo hominem interficiat ilium ut mortem evadat, ipse peccat, quia cum sciat dimittendum [dimittendum] propter deum hoc non dimittit, peccare enim est contra conscientiam agere. Ad quod magister P. dicit34 quia peccat ille qui interficit licet non velit eum interficere, quia in potestate sua est dimittere et cum velit dimittere et possit, tamen non dimittit propter deum propter quem scit esse dimit-­ tendum. Unde si aliquis raptus et positus in carcere iuraverit se non esse egressurum nisi licencia custodis, ipse potest discedere [exire] et vult exire et tamen non exit. Similiter ille et potest non interficere et vult non interficere, et tamen interficit. ‘Interficit ex voluntate’ duo sunt sensus.35 Si dicas quod interficere velit, mentitur. Set si dicat quod ex voluntate evadendi mortem interfecerit, verum est. Nonne etiam bona fuit voluntas illius qui vult evadere mortem a tiranno, bona quidem set tamen ex quibusdam bonis venit quiddam malum, sicut ex bono nascitur superbia. Ad hec cum 192

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d Deus Habrahe precepisset quod immolaret filium suum, quia Habraham numquam voluit facere quod deus precepit ei, quia numquam voluit interficere filium, et tamen quia paratus fuit facere quod deus preceperat ei, et tantum diligebat deum quod nichil poterat ei negare, et voluntatem divinam sue preposuit voluntati, ideo magis probatur dilectio sua erga deum.36 Sicut Christus dicit:37 Pater, non sicut ego volo, s(et) s(icut) t(u). De huiusmodi dicit beatus Aug(ustinus):38 Nemo potest esse perfectus nisi habeat voluntatem contrariam deo ex toto, ut ille qui videt patrem suum vel fratrem mori et nullo modo vult eum mori.39 Cum tamen illa voluntas sit contraria divine voluntati et dispositioni,40 quia deus vult eum mori, ex caritate enim procedit (fol. 108) et etiam propter deum diligit ille patrem suum quod etiam non potest non dolere de morte patris sui. Omnes enim lacrime irraciona\bi/les essent,41 si ad dispositionem dei qua nichil melius potest fieri quam fit,42 respic(er)etur. Set si ad caritatem quam filius habet in patrem respiciatur, non sunt irrationabiles. Unde Apostolus:43 Gaudere cum gaudentibus, f(lere) cum f(lentibus). Precepit Apostolus tantum habere affectum erga proximum ut et asperitati compatiantur et prosperitati \con/gaudeant. Unde illud:44 Vox in Rama audita est p(loratus) et u(lulatus), R(achel) p(lorans) f(ilios) s(uos) et noluit cons(olari). Inde collige: Sume deo placere et perfectissimorum esse, quod gravissimum est et contrarium sue voluntati, hoc propter deum velle, id est sustinere, et ita habendo voluntatem contrariam deo penitus, sicut habuit Abraham. Placemus deo suam voluntatem nostre preponendo et (non?) faciendo aliquid contra voluntatem suam, sicut qui, invitus et coactus hominem interficit, ut mortem vitet, deum per homicidium offendit.  6. Queritur an Eva oblita mandati domini potuerit comedere de vetito pomo, quin esset inobediens. Dicit Abagel. quia posset comedere de pomo vetito sine inobedientia, si forte contingeret eam vel fuisse oblita mandati vel putaret non esse vetitum pomum, immo aliquid aliud pomum quam de ligno vite. Ut si aliquis concumbat cum uxore alicuius et non putat eam esse alicuius coniugis non est reus adulterii, nisi talem habuerit voluntatem quod etiam si sciret eam esse coniugatam, nichilominus cum ea concumberet,45 sicut ille adulter est qui cum rogaret ancillam de concubitu, ancilla autem rogata domine sue hoc manifestavit, scilicet uxori illius qui rogaverat (corr: from - it) eam, et interposuit pro se dominam, ille nichilominus, quamvis cum uxore sua concumberet, sicut dictum est, adulter est.46 Et notandum quod si Eva vellet comedere de pomo vetito, cum deus voluntatem comedendi non interdixisset, si Eva voluntati sue divinam voluntatem preposuisset, non solum non peccaret, set etiam ad meritum verteretur, et magis promeretur quam si non voluisset. Nullus enim (fol. 108v) magni meriti est qui per omnia ad voluntatem suam se inclinat. Set cum aliquis aliquid velit si non consentiat non peccat. Consensus autem est si ad finem quod voluit producit. Immo etiam etsi non perficiat, 193

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n si id animi habeat quod non propter deum dimitteret si haberet oportunitatem, consensus est.   7. Queritur utrum ex fide promereatur aliquis \salutem/. Et si quis hoc dicat, proceditur: Sola caritas promeretur. Igitur non promeretur fides. Ad quod Abagelardus:47 Ex fide promeretur aliquis. Hec pro(posici) o duos sensus habet. Unum causale, sic: Fides promeretur sic quia fides causa et origo dilectionis est. Set si dicatur ‘ex fide salutem promeretur aliquis et credere est esse dignum salute’, falsum est, quia demon credit. Ut si dicatur: ‘Ex infirmitate fit pallidus, id est infirmitas est causa palloris, et tamen infirmitas non est pallor’. Item dicatur: ‘Ex albedine fit album,48 id est, album esse est habere albedinem et econverso’. Item ex fide promereri salutem duos sensus habet.   8. Nota quod omne peccatum fit in consensu. Opponitur de eo quod dicit Aug(ustinus):49 De peccato primi hominis quod dicitur peccasse sugestione, delect(atione) et opere. Ad quod magister P. dicit50 quia peccatum non est nisi consensus eius operis cui non est consentiendum. Beatus Aug(ustinus) dicit,51 cum de peccato primi hominis loquatur, [dicit] Evam tribus gradibus ad peccatum pervenisse, primo suggestione, id est persuasione, ut si quis dicit alicui nolenti furari: ‘veni et accipiamus thesaurum illius divitis et erimus nos divites et in honore qui modo sine honore sumus’, et sic inmittit ei voluntatem quam non habebat. Delectatione affectus quern aliquis habet de aliqua re quam credit esse bonam, ut si monachus videt delicatos cibos et bene scit quod saporis boni sunt tales cibi et tota caro titillat pro dilectione ciborum, et neutrum inde horum peccatum est. Non enim proibuit deus homini ut non delectaretur nec apeteret cibum ilium, set ne vesceretur.52 Maioris enim meriti est qui sue voluntati reluctatur quam qui suam voluntatem sequitur.53 Iusta illud:54 post concupiscentias tuas non eas et a v(oluntate) t(ua) a(vertere). Iusta illud:55 Diffusa gratia in labi is t(uis). Item:56,57 latum mandatum tuum nimis. Quia in Moyse et in veteri lege caritas stillata est quia non venit in eis dilectio nisi usque ad proximum, cum etiam usque ad inimicum dilectio per evangelium extendatur (corr. from -um), iusta illud:57 Benefacite his qui oderunt vos. Non precipitur homini ut (fol. 109) voluntatem suam deponat. Hoc enim non est peccatum quod nat(ur)ale est, sicut aliquem cibum velle vel uxorem, vel dormire, set precipitur (corr. from -ere) avertere a sua voluntate, id est voluntati non consentire.58 Unde aliud apparet esse peccare, aliud peccatum perpetrare. Perpetrare enim peccatum est consensum ad opus perducere. Set peccare est consentire, id est paratum esse facere quod non est faciendum, si oportunitas se conferat.59 Similiter peccare opere est consensum suum ad affectum perducere et licet opus non sit peccatum, tamen peccare opere est peccare quia est et consensum habere, sicut habere caput et (MS id est) manus est habere caput.60 Quid est igitur quod dicitur in sollemni et in cotidiana confessione: ‘Peccavi verbo, delectacione vel cogitacione 194

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d et opere (MS consensu)’? Peccare verbo est consentire aliquibus \nocivis/ (corr. from novivis) verbis [illis] vel a se vel ab aliis dictis, id est placere ei verba illa. Peccare delectatione, consensus. Peccare opere est con¬sensum ad affectum perducere. Non igitur peccatum est illi cui sugeritur set qui suggerit, non qui delectatur, nisi consensum adibeat, peccat. Opponitur illud Apostoli:61 Caro concupiscit adversus animam (corr. from spiritum), et spiritus adversus carnem militat. Spiritus hic nomen est rationis que contraria est concupiscensciis carnalibus, id est dilectationibus et passionibus que sunt in anima ex fragilitate carnis cui anima unita est. Ut cum monacus scit esse de nocte surgendum ad matutinas ratione persuadente hoc quod surgit possibilitas que est in anima ex came retrahit. Caro enim nichil vult vel concupiscit, quia nec potest, set anima tantum, at si malum est ex carne, si vero bonum ex spiritu, et ita fit gravis lucta in anima. Si quis opponat illud de Evangelio:62,63 Si quis credit in me, opera mea faciet et maiora faciet. Nota: non esse dictum quia opera vel mereantur vel ofendant, set promittit deus gratiam miraculorum credentibus in se, sicut Petrus sanavit umbra,63 licet Christus fimbria.64  9. Beatus Aug(ustinus) dicit65 quod Petrus plus amavit dominum quam lohannes, et tamen legitur quod deus plus amavit Iohannem quam Petrum. Iusta illud:66 Iohannes apostolus et evangelus (et) virgo (non?) est electus a domino et a(?) c(?) m(?) d(?), et ita videtur deus fecisse contrarium quam ipse dixit(?):67 Ego diligentes me diligo. Ad quod magister P. dicit68 quia diligere accipitur quandoque pro affectu caritatis (?; MS: iyayi),69 et hoc proprie, quandoque pro familiaritate. Unde Christus dixit Iude:70 Amice, ad quid venisti? Vocat amicum quia habuerat familiarem et in mensa et in pensa et in aliis. Item vocat71 Christus Iudeos vineam electam pro eo quod exibuerat [deus expunged] ludeis magnam familiaritatem. Similiter Iohannem dicitur72 diiexisse magis eo quod magis habebat eum familiarem eo quod iuvenis erat et egebat confortacione, (fol. 109v) et insuper per mundicia corporis sui, quia virgo erat. Christus enim eum de nuptiis extraxerat.73 Set tamen magis dicitur Christus dilexisse Petrum quam Iohannem quia Petrus maiorem exibuit dilectionem deo quam Iohannes,74 iuxta illud:75 Maiorem hac dilectione nemo etc. Petrus autem suam pro Christo posuit animam. De Iohanne autem nescitur an eius paciencie posset esse si (MS: set) ad penas ventum esset.76 Multi enim fuerunt quos deus sus\ce/pit in minori caritate qui, si ad tormenta impliciti essent, forsitan retro abissent. Sciendum est quod licet Iudas ad tempus Christum amaverit, tamen numquam Christus amavit Iudam, quia quem deus semel amat numquam postea odit. Quod autem dicitur deum diligere diligentes \se/, sic accipe: id est, perseverantes in dilectione.77 Non caritas ad salutem suficit, sed perseverancia (corr. from -tes) caritatis. Unde:78 qui perseveraverit usque in finem etc. 10. Unde etiam queritur quod si aliquis diligat deum perfecte et non habeat sacramentum baptismi, an possit esse salvus. 195

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Ad quod Abag. dicit quod Aug(ustinus) dicit80 duo tantum generalia esse precepta salutis, scilicet martirium secundum illud veritatis:81 Qui perdit animam suam in hoc mundo propter me inveniet eam, (et) baptismum, unde illud:82 Qui non fuerit renatus ex aqua et spiritu sancto non i(ntroire) [t] (potest) in r(egnum) c(eli). Inde colligitur quod non potest salvari homo nisi per alterum istorum. 11. Queritur ideo an aliquis habens caritatem damnetur cum possit haberi caritas sine istis sacramentis. Ad quod m. P. Abags. dicit quia non potest esse quod aliquis \h/abeat caritatem quin deus ante mortem necessaria ei ad salutem sacramenta provideat, sicut centurioni et Cornelio.83 12. Item si contingat quod aliquis per duas horas vel per dua momenta habeat caritatem et usque ad mortem duret (corr. from -at), damnabitur, cum nemo manens in caritate possit dampnari?84 Ad quod magister P. dicit se non intelligere hoc posse esse, et tamen si ita sit, dicit magister P. quod in ipso articulo mortis perdit caritatem, quia videt penam sibi paratam, et ideo desinit diligere deum, quia beatus Aug(ustinus) dicit,85 quandoque in ipso extremo vite articulo aparere animabus in quam partem iture sint, et si bonam partem sibi paratam viderant, diligunt sicut inceperat, et cotidie magis et magis diligendo maiorem dei cognitionem promerentur. Unde beatus Aug(ustinus) dicit:86 Angelos primum non esse confirmatos, set postea magis et magis diligendo promeretur confirmacionem. Similiter impiorum quia post mor¬tem corporalem deum de die in diem magis et magis odiunt, inde eternaliter puniuntur, quia in hac vita deum nemo odit et nemo vellet deum non esse, set post mortem anime adeo deum odio habent quod etiam vellent non esse et eius gloriam perire et magestatem, alioquin deus vel iuste pro temporali culpa eternaliter hominem puniret. (fol. 110) Si vero penam speratam anima viderat, odit statum et sic non perseverat usque in finem, non dico vite set \usque/ in finem, id est usque ad a\d/ bravium et ita non dampnatur qui habet caritatem, set perdit.87 13. Queritur, cum deus non possit facere nisi quod facit,88 an possit magis punire reum quam punit? N(on). Neque reus punitur quantum debet ipse puniri a deo. Set tamen deus punit reum quantum ipse deus potest et debet eum punire, scilicet cum hoc verbum ‘debet’ refertur ad deum, quia ipse misericorditer facit quicquid facit. Tunc potest dici quod deus punit quantum ipse debet, id est, misericorditer punire. Set si ad reum referatur, tunc dicitur quod reus non punitur quantum ipse debet puniri, id est quantum meruit. Sicut89 si aliquis ante aliquem iudicem acusetur de adulterio, et si iudex sciat et certum sit illum qui acusatur esse innocentem et tamen si acusator testes habeat sufficientes et qui refutari non possint, iudex, licet conscius innocentie illius, damnat eum et iuste dampnat eum qui iniuste damnatur et iudex debet eum damnare, quia facit quod suum (corr. from fac-) est, set tamen ille non debet dampnari, 196

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d id est non meruit. Locutio enim non potest habere alium sensum. Unde et Apostolus ait:90 Iudicium dei est secundum veritatem, quia deus nullum innocentem dampnat. Ipse enim est qui probat corda.91 Set homo, cum falli possit (ipse expunged), legibus astringitur et docetur iudicare secundum quod proceditur in causam. Sic igitur determinatum est in deo quod nichil potest facere nisi quod facit92 cum eius posse et velle paria sunt. Iusta Aug(ustinum):93 Cum tibi subest velle, subest et posse. 14. Queritur an dici possit quod deus tantum bonum fecerit sua incarnatione quantum malum \Adam/ fecit per inobedientiam. Dicitur contra: quod maius bonum fecit deus quam malum sit quod Adam fecit, et probatur ita: Sicut beatus Augustinus dicit:94 Deus omnia fecit eo modo quo meliora esse (non) poterant, et ideo Filium genuit ex se equalem sibi. Alioquin invidus esset si, cum in potestate sua esset aliquid bonum facere minus bonum faceret quam posset. Sicut et Plato dixit:95 ‘Optimus erat, ab optimo porro longe relegata est invidia’. (fol. 110v) Cum ergo in potestate dei esset servare [servare] Adam ab illo peccato quod fecit, quo posteros in penam intrusit, si deus vidisset hoc esse melius et non faceret, procul dubio irividie argui posset. Set licet Adam melior esset et plures forsitan in paradiso quam modo, tamen vidit deus quod melior esset (added below the line: erat) futurus homo unus examinatus in his tribulationibus quam multi essent sine exercicio virtutum. Ut videlicet plus habere glorie Vincentium et Stefanum quam multe anime habeant fidelium que sine magno agone transierunt. Ut etiam vide(mus) multo plus valere unum structum (sic) auri quam valeant multo plura alterius metalli. 15. Nec tamen presumimus nos sufficere ad reddendas rationes quare deus singula fecerit quia penes eum sunt. Ut si quis dicat quare arborem illam plantari in loco ubi non prodest vel fructu vel umbra, et non in civitate ubi multo magis valeret, et quare de nimia humiditate huius terre et nimia siccitate alterius terre simul coniunctis et mixtis non fecit terram temperatam, nescimus. Set hoc scitis: Videmus quia melior resurgit peccator post lapsum quam ante fuerat, sicut Petrus melior [or] extitit (post)quam deum negavit quam ante extitisse, ut aparuit in ipso Petro qui ita audacter Romam invasit et certavit et sustinuit crucis patibulum, qui prius vocem ancille expaverat. 16. Queritur an in baptismo dimittantur omnia peccata, scilicet tarn originale quam actuale.96 Conceditur ergo est causa quare baptizatus pene subiaceat alicui cum peccatum tantum causa sit pene. Ad quod breviter respondetur97 quia peccatum remit(titur) (lacuna of about 12 letters) pro eo non damnari eternaliter, set tamen temporalis pena non remittitur. Immo etiam cum aliquis penitet de suo peccato, remittetur ei suum peccatum, et tamen pre(s)biter penitenciam iniungit, id est penam et satisfactionem pro delicto suo. Si autem concedatur in oposicione sic: peccatum non est, non est igitur causa quare ille (aliquis expunged) puniatur, ad hoc ita respon¬detur: Quia non esse causam quare aliquis puniatur est ipsum 197

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n irrationabiliter puniri et licet peccatum non sit, tamen peccatum est causa quare ille puniatur. Sicut licet victoria non sit, tamen victoria est causa quare pugnetur. Sicut cum furtum iam preteritum sit (est added above the line), tamen furtum est causa suspentacionis (sic) illius. 17. Notandum98 quod si aliquis aliquid peccatum faciat et illud non audeat confiteri, propterea quod sciat ruinam p(at)rie proventuram inde, timens levitatem presbiteri, et hoc faciat propter deum, quia timeat ofendere deum si faciat talem confessionem unde tot homicida proveniant, non ideo damnatur, cum constituerit deum finem huius rei. Set si propter periculum parentum suorum et non propter deum hoc faciat, dampnatur. Ut etiam \si/ dimittat propter utilitatem sui, ne inde vilior habeatur, dampnatur, quia non est ille paratus ad omnem sati(s)faccionem propter deum, cum etiam confiteri erubescat. Unde beatus Ambrosius super Lucam dicit:99 legimus lacrimas Petri, (fol. 111) sati(s)factionem vel confessionem Petri non legimus. Set lacrime et venie consulunt et pudori. Venie consulunt quia veniam prestat devocio, que lacrimas mittit, et pudori que faciunt sperare misericordiam. Petrus vero100 ob aliud non est confessus (MS: conversus) nisi pro deo, scilicet pro scandalo ecclesie quia sciebat se esse profuturum secum ecclesie et dici posset contra deum. Sapiens enim fuit qui talem elegit ecclesie principem qui ad vocem ancille negavit eum, vei etiam alii (corr. from sancti) apostoli qui non dum confirmati erant tali deinceps obedire, qui caput suum tam cito, tam impudenter negaret. Propter hoc autem non Petrus confessus, non propter se quia ad omnem satisfactionem paratus erat. Potuit enim Petrus postea dicere ad aliquem lapsorum confortandum sic: ‘Non est desperandus (MS: -um) lapsus, quia potest resurgere. Ego sic negavi deum, et tamen fecit deus suam misericordiam in me’. 18. Cum deus unicuique retribuat pro meritis queritur si tantum puniat unumquemque quantum potest? Quod si conceditur, potest inferri quod non exibet misericordiam (corr. from caritatem). Item, si iuste potest eum plus punire quam puniat, non exercet iusticiam si non procedit. Iusticia enim dei est ut faciat quicquid sibi conveniat, scilicet misereri, et non tantum punire quantum iusticia hominis exigeret. Non enim condigne sunt passiones. 19. Queritur an aliquis cum aliquo facto penitea[n]t, ut de adulterio, et aliud retinet, si salvetur ab illo et non propter illud puniatur.101 Ad quod Abags.: Nullo modo non potest aliquis salvari nisi habeat caritatem. Caritas autem non h(abetur) ab aliquo nisi ab eo qui totis viribus paratus est placere deo, et vitare ea per que deus offendatur. Qui autem unum retinet peccatum non est paratus omnia dimittere et vitare que deum offendunt, et nisi omne peccatum vitet propter caritatem, nec aliquod etiam vitet. Si autem dicatur: Nisi omne dimittat propter deum, nullum dimitatur propter deum, istud ‘propter \deum/’ potest esse causale, ut dicitur penam vel propter premium sit aliquid. Set si dicatur ‘propter 198

a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d caritatem’ non dimittitur (corr. from -atur) aliquid peccatum, nisi omne etiam dimittatur vel fugiatur, verum est. Quod potest videre si te ad caritatis (corr. from caritate) diffinitionem convertas, quia caritas est dilectio dei et proximi - dei super omnia, proximi tamquam \se/. Deus autem super \omnia/ diligi non potest nisi omnia que deo displicent propter deum vitentur. 20. Solent quidam dicere quod si aliquis ita peniteat ad tempus quod paratus sit ad omnia propter deum, et talis sit qui post labatur in peccatum, si homo ille tunc (labatur expunged) moreretur, non esset salvus. Verum (?;MS: visi), hoc habere a beato I\e/R(onimo):102 penitere est commissa flere et flenda non committere. (fol. 111v) Inde videtur quod ille non sit salvus qui in penitencia moritur. Set hic est quod ille in peccatis [in peccatis] iterum relapsurus esse. Abomi(ni) bilis et pessima sententia et contra Sanctos qui dicunt deum (permittere ?) aliquem hominem transire ad vitam quasi adhuc in scintilla caritatis ne postea multa flagicia unde damnetur committat. Iuxta illud:103 Raptus est de medio ne malicia immutaret animum eius. Superior autem sentencia, scilicet penitere est commissa flere et flenda non committere, sic intelligatur: quia de illis et contra illos dictum est, qui quedam peccata flent et quedam retinent, et tales non penitent. Ad hoc enim quod peniteant, oportet ut non fleant commissa, set etiam quod non committant tunc flenda, quod faciunt aiiqua peccata retinendo. 21. Queritur an deus sit mutabilis.104 Non. Ita tamen probare nituntur. Deus aliter habet se erga istum et aliter erga illum. Igitur diversis modis habet se erga diversos. Non sequitur, quia hec proposicio ‘deus habet se diversis modis erga istos’, id est diversa paravit istis, quia huic pena(m), illi premium, ut si dicam ‘iudex iste est mitis huic homini et est asper huic reo, igitur iste iudex \est/ et mitis et asper’, vel ‘homo est bonus michi et malus tibi, igitur idem homo est bonus et malus’. Item deus potest ofendi ab isto, igitur potest ofendi, set potest ofendi est inpot\en/tie. Ad quod Abags.: Deus potest ofendi, id est punire aliquos, quod non est impotencie. 22. Item querimus an timor servilis donum dei sit. Dicimus quod est, et tamen nichil meretur, sicut dialectica et omnis sciencia dona dei sunt, et tamen nichil meretur per eas, sicut quedam mala que non mereretur penam, ut febris, hebetudo et similia. Unde Ambrosius in predicamentis,105 huiusmodi sunt sciencie vel virtutes, nomine virtutum designans idem quod meremur, nomine sciencie id quod non meremur. Videtur tamen timor servilis promereri, ideo quia in eo qui habet caritatem, et timor est iehenne et ille timor etiam ad multa trahit eum. Verum utique nullum non timere gehennam (i written above g), preter illos qui certi sunt de corona. Ut Apostolus:106 Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo. Et Martinus: Nichil in me reperiet inimicus set s(?) h(?) m(?) suscipiet. Alii autem omnes iehennam timent et pro timore illo serviunt deo, set propter 199

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n deum principaliter in quo finis est ponendus. Sicut hospicium pauperum et propter proximum facimus, et propter deum principaliter, et ita nichil impedit vel nocet. 23. (fol. 151) an incomplete and largely unreadable question or note is found in the margins: Manus... AbaG.: Certum est quod manus domini q(ue clavis fi) xe corporales debe(ant in)telligi.108 Set manus domini que homine(m) fecerunt non est nisi spiritus sanctus. Corporali manu non f[r]abricavit hominis figuram. Hec igitur relatio non aliud nisi nominis repeticio est,110 ac si dicat ‘Manus mee vos fecerunt’ et ‘manus mee confixe sunt clavis’, licet hoc nomen ‘manus’ aliud et aliud significet. Item. Mulier que damnavit salvavit, id est: mulier damnavit et mulier salvavit. Item. I(e)R(onimus):111 digito illo scribebat in terra,112 que tabule [tabule] testamenti scripte sunt, id est digito scripte sunt tabule terre et digito scribebat in terra[m], Aug(ustinus):113 Spiritum sanctum descendisse in uterum Virginis est spiritum ad inferiorem naturam recipiendam se humiliasse.114 Non aliquid de sua divinitate deposuit. Idem est in Salmo: Minuisti eum paulo minus a(b) a(ngelis),115 id est: in assumendo naturam inferiorem angelis humiliasti.116 Dicitur enim deus descendere vel inclinari quotiens human(e) fragilitati aliquid miscuerit(?) p(?). Item Beatus Aug(ustinus):117 Anima Christi descendisse ad inferos(?) non est aliud nisi per passionem liberasse illos qui in tenebris erant. Exire animas de inferno (after corr. from inferno) non erat localiter118 m(?) immo que anime usque ad passionem non viderant lunem, id est divinitatem, post domini eam passionem viderunt, id est cognoverunt s(?) iusticia dei per fidem in sanguine eius per redentionem. Nulli enim ad salutem profuit vel fides vel sacramentum dix(?) natis nisi passio domini secuta esset. (fol. 151 v, left margin) mostly impossible to read: ...Disponit... compescitur Ade omnia ... Ade irascitur non significant nisi passionem(?) pene vel preparatio(nis) ... ade penitendum fuisse ... liberum arbitrium est facultas agendi voluntate119 quod ex ... faciendum. The last note on fol. 15lv gives a date: annus a nativitate domini millesimus centesimus quadragesimus octavus. This has been written with a thicker pen than the Abelardian material but appears to be in the same hand as one who wrote glosses in the manuscript. A date of 1148 would be quite appropriate. Warburg Institute, London University of Sheffield

Notes 1 Ker does not suggest a Worcester provenance, but using the evidence assembled by Ker, R. Gameson cautiously raises the possibility in The Manuscripts of Early Norman England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, nos. 383–384, p. 99.

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a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d 2 Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Romig, pp. xxxi–xxxvi. 3 See D. E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969; also cf. S. F. Burnett, ‘A new text for the “School of Peter Abelard” Dossier?’, AHDMLA, 55 (1988), pp. 7–21. 4 PL 178, 677–730. 5 On the question of when Abelard stopped teaching see J. Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 25–26. 6 Some contemporaries such as Jocelyn (later bishop of Soissons) thought Abelard a mischievous teacher; see Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, pp. 10–11. 7 ‘VoIant l­ibri . . . ­Urbibus et castellis ­ingeruntur . . . ­Transierunt de gente in gentem et de regno ad populum alterum’, Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 189, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, Opera Sancti Bernardi, VIII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, p. 13. 8 For Abelard’s ‘closest disciples’ see Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, chapter 5. Other disciples who left writings which show the influence of Abelard’s teaching also show influences from the school of St Victor. Our new student is not one of these. 9 Luc. 2, 52. Cf. SN 73 (‘Quod humanitas Christi non creverit in sapientia vel quod tantumdem scierit quantum divinitas et contra’); Ysagoge in theologiam (=YT), ed. A. Landgraf, Ecrits théologiques de l’école d’Abélard. Textes inédits, Louvain, Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 1934 (Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 14), pp. 169–170. 10 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 48–49; ed. Luscombe, pp.  72–76. Also SPA, 271; also ed. S. Buzzetti, Sententie magistri Petri Abelardi (Sententie Hermanni), Florence, La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1983 (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell’Università di Milano, CI, Sezione a cura dell’Istituto di storia della filosofia, 31), p. 151. And Sententie Parisienses (= SP), ed. Landgraf, Ecrits théologiques de l’école d’Abélard, pp. 56–57. 11 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 10, 1 and 8; I, 4, 3; ed. Luscombe, pp.  16, 6; SN 143, 5 (=Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 19–22, ed. E. Woefflin, Leipzig, Teubner, 1869, p.  94), 145, 4 (=Augustine, De vera religione, I, 14, 27, CCSL 32, p.  204; PL 34, 133), 145, 6 (=Augustine, Retractationes I, xiii, 5, PL 32, 603–604, and SN, Excerpta Retractationum, p. 543, l. 339–p. 544, l. 355); Comm. Rom., III (VII, 16), ll. 635–650; TSch III, 107, ll. 1422–1424. 12 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 36, 1; I, 37, 1; I, 45, 4; ed. Luscombe, pp. 54, 66; Comm. Rom. IV (XIV, 23), ll. 326–348. Also, Capitula haeresum Petri Abaelardi, no. 11, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, 2 (CCCM, 12), p.  479; Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistolae 77, 17 and 190, cap.  9, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, Sancti Bernardi Opera VII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1974, p. 197, VIII (1977), p. 39. 13 Ioh.16:2. 14 ‘Sola cogitatio et intencio peccatum est’ has been added alongside ‘Queritur an peccent’. Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 42, 4; I, 44, 3 ,7–8; ed. Luscombe, pp. 62, 66; Comm. Rom. IV (XIV, 23), ll. 326–348. 15 Not identified. 16 Ps. 35:7. 17 2 Petr. 2:21. 18 Augustine, De Genesi ad. litteram, XI, 42, 58–60, PL 34, 452–454. Cf. also Augustine, Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum, VI, 23, PL 45, 1555–1557. 19 1 Tim. 2:14. 20 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 29, 2; ed. Luscombe, p. 44; SP, p. 59. In the Victorine

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Summa Sententiarum, PL 176, 41–174, where the same question about the sin of Adam and Eve is discussed (III, 6), a different example of murders committed by a layman and by a priest is presented (PL 176, 98C). 21 For another example see Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 10, 6; ed. Luscombe, p. 16. 22 Augustine, De bono coniugali, xxi, 26, PL 40, 391. 23 Augustine, ibidem. 24 Apoc. 14:4. 25 Augustine, De civitate dei, I, 19, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb (CCSL, 47), p. 20: ‘Mirabile dictu, duo fuerunt et adulterium unus admisit’. Cited in SN, 143, 12. 26 Not found. 27 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 24, 3–4; ed. Luscombe, p. 38. 28 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XI, 42, 58–60, PL 34, 452–454. Cf. SP p. 57, ll. 14–15. 29 Cf. Augustine, Epistola 67: ‘. . . si forte aliqua in aliquibus scriptis meis reperiuntur, in quibus aliter aliquid quam tu sensisse ­reperiar . . . ­paratissimus sim, si quid te in meis scriptis moverit, frateme accipere quid contra sentias’, PL 33, 237. 30 Cf. Augustine, Epistolae 28, 40, 71, 73, 82, 166 and 167 in PL 33. 31 1 Tim. 2:14. Cf. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XI, 42, 58–60, PL 34, 452–454 cited in SN 55, 1, and in TSch I, 39, ll. 427–428. 32 Cf. SN 145 and 157. 33 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 5, 1; ed. Luscombe, p. 6; SN 156 and 157, 5 (=Augustine, De libero arbitrio I, 4, 9, PL 32, 1226), 11 and 12; Comm. Rom. III (VII, 16), ll. 643–647, 661–665. 34 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 5, ­2 – ­I, 6, 1 and I, 10, 9; ed. Luscombe, pp. 6–8, 16; SN 145, 8, ll. 85–88 (=Augustine, Retractationes, I, 15, 3, PL 32, 609). 35 Cf. SN 145, 6, ll. 30–32; Comm. Rom. Ill (VII, 16), ll. 661–665. 36 Gen. 22:1–12. 37 Matt. 26:39. 38 Not found. 39 Cf. TSch III, 117, ll. 1574–1579; SP p. 25, l. 12. 40 Cf. TSch III, 117, ll. 1560–1561. 41 Cf. SPA 156, ll. 171–172; ed. Buzzetti, p. 94, l. 156. Also SP p. 25, l. 16. 42 Cf. TSch III, 27 et seq.; SPA 149, 151; ed. Buzzetti, p.  92. Also Sententie Florianenses, ed. H. Ostlender, Bonn, P. Hanstein, 1929 (Florilegium Patristicum, fasc. 19), 21, 23, 24, and SP pp. 20–21. 43 Rom. 12:15. Cf. TSch III, 117, ll. 1563–1565; SPA 156; ed. Buzzetti, p.  94; SP p. 25. 44 Matt. 2:18; Ier. 31:15. Cf. TSch III, 117, l. 1565; SPA 156; ed. Buzzetti, p. 94; SP p. 25. 45 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 15, 1–2; ed. Luscombe, p. 24. 46 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 9, 6–7; ed. Luscombe, p. 14. Cf. also Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 190, cap.  19, ed. Leclercq, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, VIII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, p. 40, and Abelard, Confessio fidei ‘Universis’, XVII, ed. C. Burnett, ‘Peter Abelard, Confessio fidei ‘Universis’: A Critical Edition of Abelard’s Reply to Accusations of Heresy’, Mediaeval Studies, 48, pp. 111–138: 138. 47 Not found. 48 Cf. Abelard, Dialectica, V, 2: De diffinitionibus, ed. de Rijk, pp. 596–597; also de Rijk in his introduction, ibidem, pp. XCI–XCII. 49 Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, I, 12, 34, CCSL, 35, pp.  36–38; Ennarationes in Psalmos cxliii, 6, CCSL 40, pp. 2076–2078; PL 37, 1859–1860; De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2, xiv, 21, PL 34, 207.

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a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d 50 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 2, ­9 – ­I, 3, 1; I, 16, 1 and 7; ed. Luscombe, pp. 4, 24, 26. Also Capitula haeresum Petri Abaelardi, no. 13, 1, ed. Buytaert, p. 480. 51 See the references to Augustine in note 49 above. Also, Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 21, 3–5; ed. Luscombe, p.  32; SN 82, 2 (=Gregory the Great, Homiliae XL in Evangelia, I, 16, PL 76, 1135C). Also, Capitula haeresum Petri Abaelardi, no. 13, 1, ed. Buytaert, p. 480. 52 Cf. Abelard, Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 9, 1–5; ed. Luscombe, p. 14. 53 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I. 8. 3; ed. Luscombe, p. 14; Comm. Rom. I (I, 18), ll. 687–688; Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1606–1609; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 244, ll. 16–23. 54 Eccli. 18, 30. Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 8, 6; ed. Luscombe, p.  12; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 244, ll. 26–27. 55 Ps. 44:3. 56 Ps. 118:96. 57 Matt. 5:44. 58 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 8, 6–7; I, 9, 4–7; I, 3, 1; ed. Luscombe, pp. 12, 13, 4. 59 Cf. Abelard, Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 9, 7; ed. Luscombe, p. 14. 60 Abelard gives manus and caput as examples of ‘­partes . . . ­vel instrumenta’ in his Dialectica, I, ii, De relativis, ed. de Rijk, p. 85, l. 29 et seq. 61 Galat. 5:17. 62 Ioh. 14:2. 63 Act. 5:15. 64 Matt. 9:20–22, 14, 36; Marc. 6:56; Luc. 8:44. 65 Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CCXXIV, 4–7, CCSL, 36, pp. 682–687. 66 The sense seems to be that, although Jesus loved John more than Peter, he did not choose John to be the leader of the Apostles. Cf. Jerome, Adversus lovinianum, I, 26, PL 23, 247AB, 246BC. 67 Prov. 8:17. 68 Dilectio and caritas are discussed, but without mention of Peter and John, in SPA, 245–250; ed. Buzzetti, pp. 139–143; SP pp. 48–51. 69 Caritatis is a conjecture; animi is a possibility; cf. SP p.  49, ll. 18–19: ‘caritas nostra est motus animi’. 70 Matt. 26:50. 71 Jer. 2:21. 72 Joh. 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20. 73 Cf. Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, 1, 26, PL 23, 246BC, 247AB, 248A. Contrast Augustine, In lohannis Evangelium Tractatus, CXX1V, 7, CCSL 36, p.  687, ll. 25–32. 74 Cf. Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus, CXXIV, 4, CCSL 36, p.  682, ll. 12–27. 75 Joh. 15:13. 76 Cf. Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, I, 26, PL 23, 246C–247A. 77 Cf. SPA 247, ll. 19–20; ed. Buzzetti, p. 142, ll. 17–18; SP p. 49, ll. 24–25. 78 Matt. 10:22. 79 Cf. SN 106; YT pp. 186–188. 80 Augustine, De civitate dei, XIII, 7, CCSL 48, pp. 389–390, cited in SN 106, 8. 81 Matt. 10:39; 16:25, cited in YT p. 186. 82 Joh. 3:5, cited in YT p. 186. 83 Cf. SN 106, 20 (=Jerome, Epistola (ad Heliodorum) 14, 9, PL 22, 353). 84 Cf. SN 138 and 47. 85 Cf. Augustine, Speculum de Sacra Scriptura, De Libro Ezechielis, 3 and 33, PL 34, 942, 945.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n 86 Augustine, De correptione et gratia X, 27–28, PL 44, 932–933, cited in SN 46, 21–24. 87 Cf. Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum XIV, 26, PL 44, 979–980 and De correptione et gratia, VI, 9–10 and VII, 14 and 16, PL 44, 920–921, 924 and 925, cited in SN 138, 70, 71–73, 74. 88 Cf. TSch III, 27–56; SN 32, 35, 36; SPA 149–150; ed. Buzzetti, p.  92; YT pp. 265–268. 89 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 24, 5–7; ed. Luscombe, pp. 38–40; TSch III, 52, ll. 710–722; Comm. Rom. II (V, 19), ll. 622–630. 90 Rom. 2:2. 91 Prov. 17:3; 1 Thess. 2:4. 92 Cf. SN 32. 93 Sap. 12:18: Subest enim tibi, cum volueris, posse, cited in Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus, VII, PL 34, 231, and in Abelard, SN 35, 1 and TSch II, 38 but from the Vita S. Hieronymi (by ps. Sebastianus Casinensis), PL 22, 208. 94 Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus LXXXVIII, 50, CCSL 44A, p.  77; PL 40, 31–32, cited in SN, versio prima 35d and TSch III, 31; also SPA 148; ed. Buzzetti, pp. 91–92; YT p. 267, ll. 3–6. Cf. Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Romig, 306; Comm. Rom. I (I, 20), ll. 772–776. 95 Plato, Timaeus 29E, ed. J. H. Waszink, Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, London, The Warburg Institute, 1962, (Plato Latinus, 4), p. 22, cited in Abelard, SN, versio prima 35c, and TSch. Ill, 30; also in SPA 148; ed. Buzzetti, p. 92. Cf. Abelard, Collationes, ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, II, 219, p. 216. 96 Cf. SN 107; SP p. 37. 97 Cf. SN 148, 7 (=Paul the Deacon, Homiliae I, 192, PL 95, 1447D). 98 Cf. SPA 284; ed. Buzzetti, pp. 159–160. 99 Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam X, 88, CCSL 14, 371; PL 15, 1825B. Cited in Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 67, 3; ed. Luscombe, p. 100; SN 151, 8 (and cf. 151, 7) and in SPA 283; ed. Buzzetti, p. 159 (where the passage is attributed to Leo). Cf. Maximus of Turin, Homilia 76, CCSL 23, 2, p. 318; Homilia 53, PL 57, 351, cited in SN 151,7 and YT p. 212. 100 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, ,67, 6; ed. Luscombe, p. 102; SPA 283; ed. Buzzetti, p. 159; YT pp. 212–213. 101 Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 60, 1–5; ed. Luscombe, p. 90. 102 Cf. Gregory the Great, Homiliae XL in Evangelia, II, XXXIV, 15, CCSL 141, pp. 314–315; PL 76, 1256: ‘Paenitentiam quippe agere est et perpetrata mala plangere, et plangenda non perpetrare’. Cf. Ethica, ed. Ilgner, I, 60, 2; ed. Luscombe, p. 90. 103 Sap. 4, 11. 104 Cf. SP pp. 13–14. 105 Not Ambrose but Aristotle, Categoriae, de qualitate, trans. Boethius, In Categorias Aristotelis, III, PL 64, 240D. Cited in Ethica, ed. Ilgner, II, 3–4; ed. Luscombe, p. 128. Also in SPA, 253; ed. Buzzetti, p. 144; SP p. 51 and YT p. 74. 106 Philip. 1:23. 107 Not found. 108 Cf. SPA 184: ‘quod Hilarius dicit eum non aliter sensisse clavos pedibus et manibus infixos quam si cere infigerentur, errasse arguitur’; ed. Buzzetti, p. 111. Cf. also John 20:25: nisi videro in manibus eius fixuram clavorum. 109 Cf. Job 10:8; Ps. 118:73; Eccli. 33:14; Isa. 66:2. Also, for manus domini, cf. 1 Reg. 12: 15; Ezech. 1:3; Acts 11:21, etc. 110 Cf. Abelard, Dialectica, I, ii, De relativis, ed. de Rijk, p. 90, ll. 13–14: ‘. . . utrum

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a n e w s t u d e n t f o r p e t e r a b e la r d relationes ad se per sumpta tantum nomina referantur, sive etiam per substantiva’. 111 Not found. 112 Joh. 8:6, cited by Jerome, Dialogus adversus Pelagianos, II, 17, CCSL 80, p. 76, l. 20. 113 Not found but cf. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, LXXXVIII, 1, 22, CCSL 39, p. 1231, ll. 3–5: ‘caro in utero virginis assumta est, secundum quod ab illo qui in forma Dei aequalis est Patri, forma servi suscepta est’; Contra Adimantum, c. XIII, 2, PL 42, 147: ‘Ecce dixi, descendit: quod verbum si discutere coepero, proprie me dixisse non video; non enim potest descendere, nisi quod etiam de loco in locum moveri potest. Nam qui descendit, locum deserere, et inferiorem petere videtur’; Sermo 143, 3, PL 38, 786. 114 SPA 140; ed. Buzzetti, p. 87, ll. 73–75. 115 Ps. 8:6. 116 Cf. TSch III, 71; SP p. 15, ll. 4–12. 117 Not found but cf. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, liber IV, Quaestiones Numerorum, 29, CCSL 33, p. 252, ll. 656–660. Also SP p. 16, ll. 10–11. 118 On hell not being a place cf. Collationes, ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, II, 162–167, 184, 197; SN 84; SPA 198; ed. Buzzetti, p. 119; YT pp. 234–235. 119 Cf. TSch III, 90: ‘libertas a­ rbitrii . . . ­voluntatis facultate’.

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14 BERENGAR, DEFENDER OF PETER ABELARD

Among the disciples of Peter Abelard there were three who suffered misfortune as a direct result of their association with him.1 One of these, a canon of the Lateran named Adam, encountered Gerhoh of Reichersberg in Rome in the late 1120s and subsequently apostatized and withdrew to Apulia.2 The other two, Arnold of Brescia and Berengar, were among Abelard’s supporters at the time of the council of Sens in 1140. Arnold, like Abelard – ‘perversi dogmatis fabricatores’ – was sentenced by Pope Innocent II to confinement in a religious place and this sentence was no doubt prompted by what Bernard of Clairvaux had told the Pope concerning Arnold’s support for Abelard.3 Berengar, Abelard’s bizarre apologist, was later provoked into complaining to the bishop of Mende about the ill treatment he was receiving from the supporters of Bernard of Clairvaux.4 We know from Bernard5 and from John of Salisbury6 that Hyacinth (the future Pope Celestine III) also provoked opposition to the abbot of Clairvaux in the year 1140, but Hyacinth’s opposition did not vent itself in any writing that has chanced to survive. The Apologeticus7 of Berengar of Poitiers8 is the only surviving work of protest against Abelard’s condemnation to have been written on Abelard’s behalf by one of his supporters between the council of Sens and the violent outburst of Robert of Melun in his Sentences which appeared in the 1150s.9 Berengar’s Apologeticus has been chiefly remembered on account of its fantastic and fanciful reconstruction of Abelard’s trial at Sens. In Berengar’s account the judges are said to be drunk, the proceedings an orgy and Bernard of Clairvaux a heretic himself and author of impudent verses. This tract has not been the subject of much modem discussion; Berengar later recanted it and historians have usually dismissed it as worthless diatribe.10 Yet however insulting Berengar was, he merits a patient historical consideration for he incorporates into his polemic something of the immediate popular reaction to Abelard’s prosecution and condemnation.11 He had been young at the time of the trial12 and he is, as Professor Klibansky observed,13 a representative of the younger generation which had been so captivated by Abelard. His intention had been to justify Abelard’s condemned teachings in a second part of his Apologeticus, but no such continuation ever appeared, because, as he 207

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n later claimed, he had ‘grown wiser’.14 His attachment to Abelard – praeceptor meus15 – had earned him the disfavour of those who respected the abbot of Clairvaux to whom, as to a chief prosecutor, Berengar had directly addressed his Apologeticus. From the heat of his resentment, it would appear that Berengar had written this work not long after the papal condemnation of July 1140.16 The Apologeticus opens with a rude and mocking tribute to Bernard’s fame and sanctity and to his skill in composing farcical songs and polished verses.17 But Bernard has also used Berengar’s master as a target for his arrow.18 He has declared him a heretic before an assembly of bishops and has plucked him from the womb of Mother Church.19 In Berengar’s account the council of Sens is made to seem even more farcical than the synod of Soissons had appeared in Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum. At an after-­dinner gathering of prelates one of the company is depicted as loudly declaiming passages from a book by Peter (liber Petri) while the others engaged in a drinking bout.20 The bishops gnashed their teeth against Peter on hearing a theological point of unusual subtlety and wagging their heads like the Jews they said: ‘Look at him who destroys the temple of God’.21 Then they became drowsy and the reading ceased.22 The lector put the question to the deaf ears of the bishops: ‘Damnatis?’ The priests of Bacchus could scarcely respond ‘namus’ – ‘we swim’.23 Thus the trial of Master Peter was to be as unjust as that of Our Lord and Berengar accordingly relates it in the terms used by St John the Evangelist in his account of the passion of Christ:24 ‘The chief priests and the pharisees gathered a council and said: What do we, for this man doth many miracles? If we let him alone so, all will believe in him. But one of them, named Bernard the abbot, being the high priest of that council, prophesied, saying: It is expedient for us that one man should be exterminated by the people and that the whole nation perish not. From that day therefore they devised to have him condemned’. Meanwhile Peter prayed: ‘O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and a deceitful tongue’.25 On the next day the council met, like the council of vanity of Psalm 25:4 and after one bishop of famous memory26 had spoken stupidly, Abelard appealed to Rome. To Berengar this appeal to Rome appears as a justifiable attempt to seek asylum,27 but unlike St Paul, who had been allowed to appeal to Rome by the governor Festus, Abelard’s right to do the same was, according to Berengar, flatly denied by Bernard.28 So the mouth of reason, the trumpet of faith, the abode of the Trinity was condemned straightway by the Roman see, in his absence and with his case unheard.29 Berengar’s satire is built upon a basis of truth and strong feeling. He had probably been one of Abelard’s ‘fautores’30 who had attended the trial at Sens and he was surely accurate in distinguishing two meetings at the first of which the bishops determined their attitude towards Abelard.31 He attributes the mental fuzziness of Abelard’s judges to the effects of strong drink, but he perhaps also reflects a feeling shared by some of Abelard’s supporters that the judges were incompetent.32 Berengar presents Bernard as the 208

b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d persecutor-­in-­chief and Abelard as a Christlike victim and he accuses Bernard throughout of manoeuvring unfairly to prevent Abelard from gaining a fair hearing. It appears in fact to be true that the papal condemnation was merely an acceptance of the report of the judges at Sens33 and that it was issued before Abelard had made any representations in Rome. Moreover, the impression which Berengar attempts to convey of the unfairness of the trial was shared by others. When in his Historia pontificalis John of Salisbury came to describe the trial in 1148 of Gilbert of Poitiers, he mentioned a meeting preceding Gilbert’s trial at which Bernard of Clairvaux produced capitula answering the teachings of Gilbert and submitted them for the approval of leading churchmen who were present. John tells us that those cardinals who were at Rheims were angry on hearing of this meeting ‘saying that the abbot had attacked master Peter in exactly the same way, but he (Peter) had not had access to the apostolic see, which was accustomed to confound schemes of this kind and snatch the weak from the clutches of the strong’.34 John does nothing himself to deny the cardinals’ explanation but, as John’s editor, Mrs M. Chibnall, has observed,35 he does explicitly consider other more exaggerated suspicions of Bernard’s methods to be false. Both Berengar and the cardinals at Rheims in 1148 seem therefore to have felt strongly that at the council of Sens Abelard had been deprived of the opportunity to defend himself by virtue of the unfair manoeuvrings of the abbot of Clairvaux. Berengar now abandons the Bacchanalian scene and pauses in his satire. He becomes more serious and attempts to assess the justice of the condemnation. The points that he makes are less telling. He asks why both sides had not been equally able to present their case.36 The whole trial, he claims, had been rigged by Bernard and even later in his letter to the bishop of Mende, where he withdraws his criticisms of Bernard, he still implies that the refusal to hear Abelard was unfair.37 We seem to hear an echo of lively debates between the two parties when Berengar states that Bernard’s supporters justified the prosecution on the ground that the abbot of Clairvaux had sincerely wished to lead Abelard to correct his errors.38 But Berengar reproaches Bernard for having acted against Abelard out of vengeance, tyrannically and with rancour, rather than out of a desire to correct him.39 That is Berengar’s case, but it is flatly opposed by the reference of the bishops gathered at Sens to earlier private meetings between Bernard and Abelard at which the abbot ‘had in friendliness and familiarity admonished him to correct his books’40 and also by their clear and emphatic statement that at the council session Abelard had been given a chance to speak in his own defence, but that he refused this chance, appealed to the pope and together with his entourage left the meeting. The bishops’ view of the proceedings was that Abelard had stopped his own trial and although they perhaps should have proceeded to a condemnation there and then, they decided to follow him in referring the case to Rome.41 Berengar makes no reference to Abelard’s refusal to speak in his own defence; in his view, the assembly was packed with stupid judges and Abelard rightly 209

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n sought refuge at Rome. Abelard, says Berengar, had a right to find refuge at St Peter’s chair because he professed the faith of St Peter. Berengar produces an otherwise inextant letter from Abelard to Heloise in which Abelard confessed the correctness of his faith: the use of logic has been the cause of the opposition to his teaching, for Abelard’s enemies have asserted that his dialectical subtlety has taken precedence over his faith. In a celebrated phrase, Abelard affirmed that he had no wish to be a philosopher in order to repudiate Paul nor to be an Aristotle at the price of being separated from Christ.42 This letter is proof for Berengar that Abelard was not impugning the faith of St Peter and it is a complete reply to the argument that Bernard used in his letter to Pope Innocent that Abelard, having impugned the faith of Peter, should not find refuge at Peter’s chair.43 But, unless our text of Bernard’s letter has undergone an alteration of which we have no knowledge, this was not quite what Bernard wrote; Bernard in fact asked the pope to judge whether one who impugns the faith of Peter should find refuge in Rome.44 Bernard meanwhile bombarded members of the Curia with his own appeals;45 Abelard, so far as we know, did not attempt to rival Bernard’s campaign to influence the Curia and after starting out for Rome, turned aside to enter Cluny. Thus, when the pope acted, or so Berengar claims, he had been completely hoodwinked by Bernard’s rhetoric.46 Berengar tells us that Bernard produced at Sens a short list of errors which he has seen but which does not represent Abelard’s teachings at all; it contains only the headings of an execrable fabrication.47 But, after quoting in a rough manner five of the propositions,48 he heavily qualifies this judgement in asserting that Abelard did teach some of the extracted opinions, but always in a Catholic spirit.49 The weakness of Berengar’s position with respect to the condemned errors is even more apparent later in his letter to the bishop of Mende. Here he says that, having grown wiser, he is now in agreement with the abbot of Clairvaux: he had no wish to defend statements which give a bad impression but of which the meaning is sound.50 The ebullience which sustained the attack on Bernard’s behaviour throughout the first part of the Apologeticus vanishes at the point where Berengar is faced with the real issue at stake, for in the matter of the errors Berengar could do no better than sit on a fence. Berengar admits that Abelard has occasionally erred, but in order still to maintain that the condemnation of these errors was unjust, Berengar has to resume his biting criticism of the impudence and imprudence of Bernard’s actions. Now, however, as Berengar embarks on the third and last phase of his polemic, his satire comprises less comic fancy. What follows is the satire of exposure, the returning of the charges made by an opponent with the retort that he is no better than his victim. Berengar’s purpose is now to urge that Bernard himself is not free from error: ‘Peter had erred: so be it. You, though, how have you erred? You have erred, whether knowingly or not. If you erred knowingly, you are a proven enemy of the Church; if you erred 210

b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d unknowingly, how are you, who know not how to discern error, a defender of the Church?’51 Berengar alleges that Bernard has taught that souls have their origin in heaven, and that he is ignorant of the canons of good taste in literature. With these two errors, Berengar’s charge sheet does not seem very full and to boost his accusations he is not opposed to making more fun at Bernard’s expense. He caricatures Bernard as a naive monk who is constantly stating the obvious. Berengar quotes some of Bernard’s sayings: ‘I am my mother’s son’, ‘my head is bigger than my fist’, ‘midday occurs in daytime’ and so on.52 Berengar is right in thinking that there is a streak of simplicity and obviousness in Bernard’s writings, but the greater naivety of isolating statements outside their contexts can scarcely provoke a cheap laugh. However, Berengar also pokes fun at Bernard’s contemplative writing: to one thick camel, with an inflated Roman neck, who had enquired of Bernard what is to be loved, the abbot answered ‘God’. ‘Our philosopher’, wrote Berengar, enjoined that neither virtue nor pleasure but God should be the object of our love; this is an answer worthy of a learned man but known also to any mean woman and extreme idiot. It is thus that little old ladies philosophize at their weaving. But our archimandrite, having given a rustic reply, which no one would dispute, to a Roman who as a member of the Curia had learned to love gold and not God, rises suddenly to a higher level and exclaims that the measure (modus) of loving God is to love Him without measure (sine modo) – an unintelligible impossibility. Christ never hid his meanings in unclear speech, but Bernard’s writings are full of these ludicrous sayings. Bernard, who should be turning swords into ploughshares, is turning ploughshares into swords when he picks out faults in Abelard’s teaching.53 In all this Berengar is lampooning Bernard’s De diligendo deo,54 written at the request of Cardinal Haimeric, Chancellor of the Roman Church, a work of which Mabillon, sensitive to Berengar’s diatribe, wrote: ‘nullum tamen fere aut Bernardo dignius, aut religioni utilius ab eo scriptum existimo’.55 Berengar was partly mimicking Bernard’s own assaults upon Abelard’s writings and teachings: the ironic references to ‘philosophus noster’ return Bernard’s ironic appellation of Abelard as ‘theologus noster’56 and both protagonists find naiveties in the works of their victims. When Berengar attributes to Bernard the sentence ‘Quaeris quid sit diligendum. Cui breviter respondeo: Deus’, either he is fabricating or he possessed a text of the De diligendo deo which we do not know;57 and if he is fabricating, then Berengar, to his discredit, is acting against Bernard in the manner which, Abelard complained, had been employed by Bernard.58 Berengar’s ranting only demonstrates the width of the gulf separating him from Bernard. To Berengar, filled with enthusiasm for Abelardian dialectic, the statement ‘modus est sine modo diligere’59 meant nothing at all. To return to Bernard’s ‘errors’, however, Berengar accuses Bernard of writing at length, for nearly two whole quires, on the subject of the death of his brother in the course of his commentary on the Song of Songs, that is, in a context which required the commentator to treat of nuptial joy, not 211

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n of sadness, and not to turn canticles into an elegy and songs into lamentations.60 Berengar arraigns Bernard for violating the dictates of Horace’s Ars poetica.61 Berengar was neither the first nor the last to uphold canons of classical taste, whereas Bernard’s sermons on the Canticle, which embraced subjects scarcely suggested by the words of the Canticle itself, were inspired by a genuine spontaneity.62 However, this charge was not Berengar’s only grief against St Bernard’s teaching and it perhaps was not even his real complaint. He implies later in his letter to the bishop of Mende that parts of the Apologeticus may have to be read with a sense of humour.63 His intent was satirical and his main object here was surely to return some of Bernard’s criticisms of Abelard. Berengar argues that Bernard had no right to level his charges against Abelard because he himself was capable of departing from the traditions of his fathers and of desiring to be novel. By commenting on the Song of Songs at all, Bernard was displaying presumption. Since Origen, Ambrose, Reticius64 and Bede have already fully expounded it, Berengar can only assume that Bernard’s motive had been a desire for novelty. But even in this desire Bernard has failed for Berengar finds, as he handles Bernard’s exposition, nothing that had not been said before.65 He quotes two passages which he says he finds (unless he is mistaken – ‘ni fallor’) in Bernard’s work but which Berengar claims are both lifted from a work which Ambrose composed on the death of his brother, Satyr. However, neither of Berengar’s quotations can be found in Bernard’s Sermons as we know them and only one of the two has been found in the work by Ambrose.66 That Bernard, lamenting the death of his brother, Gerard, should have turned to Ambrose’s expression of a similar grief will not seem to others as reprehensible as it did to Berengar. But Berengar is irrepressible: having suggested that Bernard’s illicit desire for novelty resulted in no novelty whatsoever, but in a slavish repetition of patristic achievements, Berengar now insists that in his lament Bernard did pass beyond the limits set by the Fathers: ‘Tu vero terminos transgrediens, quos posuerunt patres tui, Cantica in elegos, carmina in threnos sorte miserabili convertisti’.67 Clearly this is a tu quoque: Berengar is flinging back to Bernard the very words he used about Abelard in epistle 193: ‘Transgreditur terminos quos posuerunt patres nostri: de fide, de sacramentis, de sancta Trinitate disputans’.68 Berengar thus ‘finds in Bernard’s own writings parallels to the contempts and insults which Abelard was accused of offering to the Fathers’69 as well as a readiness to show himself independent of the early doctors of the church.70 Bernard’s second ‘error’ consists in a heretical misinterpretation, made in the course of the same commentary, of St Paul’s statement that our true home is in heaven (‘Nostra autem conversatio in caelis est’, Philipp. 3:20); according to Berengar, Bernard explains this as meaning that our souls originate in heaven. In his commentary Bernard does indeed compare the ‘heavenly origin’ of the soul of the Spouse with the earthly origin of the body. Her soul displays the marks of coming from heaven in its love for angelic and not for 212

b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d earthly pleasures. Here, in this region of dissimilitude, the soul keeps its original resemblance with heaven by leading an angelic life in a beast’s body: this marvel, says Bernard, proves the ‘heavenly origin’ of the soul. In an imitative sense, a holy soul is heaven; the sun, moon and stars of heaven correspond to intellect, faith and virtues in the soul.71 Bernard’s contrast between the earth, the land of exile, the terrestrial condition, and heaven, man’s true homeland, the spiritual condition, the angelic life, amounts to an affirmation that in this world the soul is a stranger, but in heaven, where it bears resemblances with the world of spirits, it is indigenous and in its own country.72 Berengar interprets these references to the heavenly origin of the soul in a literal sense. He believes that Bernard has here adopted the error of Plato, of Pythagoras and of Origen’s Peri archon as well as of the philosophers who followed ­them – ­an error which had been opposed by the Fathers. Bernard, in preferring an error of the philosophers, thus flies in the face of patristic teaching.73 In one sense Berengar was right: Bernard was a Platonizer and he was in some respects a follower of the philosophers; his world was strongly tinged with platonism and he naturally used platonic language and platonic expressions.74 But the text which Berengar interprets so literally does not amount to a denial by Bernard of the doctrine that souls are created by God. Berengar’s argument is undeniably interesting and it is not ludicrous, but we should not take it too seriously. Berengar is principally intent upon returning Bernard’s accusation that Abelard had preferred the teachings of the philosophers to those of the Fathers.75 He delights to quote the Fathers against Bernard.76 If Bernard had alighted upon this silliness in Abelard’s writings, Berengar triumphantly exclaims, he would undoubtedly have placed it on his monstrous list of capitula.77 Thus Berengar, having maintained that Bernard has misinterpreted Abelard, replies to Bernard by revealing his own errors, or at least by making misinterpretations in mock imitation of Bernard’s own alleged misinterpretations. Both Bernard and Abelard have made mistakes, Abelard in his teachings and Bernard in his own teachings as well as in his misunderstanding of Abelard’s teachings. So Berengar pleads the fallibility of all men and argues from this to the unwisdom of condemning Abelard. St Jerome and St Hilary themselves made mistakes but they were not assigned into the fellowship of heretics. Claudian of Lyons tells us that Hilary taught that Christ did not feel suffering during his passion and that no incorporeal thing is created, but Claudian maintained that Hilary had not thereby lost his merit as a confessor. The church pardoned Hilary, whereas, says Berengar, if Peter had said these things, Bernard’s severity would have sanctioned stoning him to death.78 Similarly if Peter had inveighed against marriage as cruelly as did St Jerome in his De nuptiis, where commenting on I Cor. 7:1 (‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman’) Jerome says that it is consequently bad to touch a woman, for nothing except evil is the contradiction of good, Bernard would immediately have armed cohorts of married people to effect his destruction. As 213

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Berengar rightly says, Jerome’s severities caused great upset in his day.79 St James reminds us that ‘all of us often go wrong; the man who never says a wrong thing is a perfect character’ (Jac. 3:2). So, when Peter erred, Bernard should have displayed mercy rather than anger.80 Berengar, therefore, places on a similar level the errors of Abelard, Jerome and Hilary and wonders why of these Abelard alone should have incurred such misfortune. For Berengar the errors of Abelard are purely mistakes made by a fallible human being. But he passes in silence over the failure of earlier peaceful efforts to persuade Abelard to correct his errors.81 Moreover, since Abelard did change his ways after Rome had spoken, it could be argued that Berengar had underestimated the need for stern medicine. At no point in his Apologeticus does Berengar impress us that he would, had he ever written his promised continuation, have been able to expound and defend Abelard’s theological ideas with skill. His involvement in this crisis was too personal and too temperamental and too contrived. He saw the controversy between Bernard and Abelard as similar to the great patristic controversies of Augustine and Jerome and Origen, but he himself, as Mabillon observed, ‘flocci fuit ac nullius auctoritatis’.82 He did not acquit his master of the charges laid against him, and he went too far in his denunciation of Bernard of Clairvaux: ‘putida mendacia evomuit, tamque indigna calumniarum monstra’.83 The concentration of all his antipathy upon the abbot of Clairvaux reveals Berengar’s limitations as the defender of Abelard, for Bernard’s engagement in this strife came as the culmination of a whole movement of agitation against Abelard which had been fostered by Hugh of St Victor, the author of the Summa Sententiarum, Walter of Mortagne and William of St Thierry. No doubt at the very end of the 1130s, Bernard by entering into the fight had come to seem responsible for the train of events which led to Abelard’s condemnation, but he had his reasons and there was a background to those reasons which Berengar does not discuss. Berengar views the whole crisis as the result of the hostility which Bernard felt towards Abelard. What provoked Berengar more than anything else was Bernard’s attack upon Abelard his hero, and his denigration of the latter’s character and achievement. Although Berengar certainly allowed his passions to outrun his judgement, he was right to criticize some of the manoeuvres of Bernard. But his invective was circumscribed by his inability to question the validity, as opposed to the fairness, of the ecclesiastical sentence of excommunication. Neither the pope nor the Church become targets for Berengar.84 Berengar’s weakness as a defender of Abelard’s cause is also seen clearly in the manner in which he employs his own not inconsiderable learning. The use which Berengar makes of pagan classical literature testifies to a grounding in the arts of the trivium. He flings the doctrines of Horace’s Ars poetica against Bernard’s own compositions. As a satirist he peppers his tract with lines from Lucilius, Persius and Martial and he embroiders the drinking scene with snatches of Gallus and of the Odes of Horace. Equally appositely Berengar 214

b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d introduces phrases from the Old Testament and he skilfully likens his subjects and their situations to comparable ones found in the New Testament. Berengar’s pen is sharp and practised, yet his employment of non-­Scriptural Christian writings is unscrupulous and uneven. He knows the Confession of Faith which Abelard wrote for Heloise and he knows the accusations brought against Abelard, but he gives no indication that he is acquainted with other writings by Abelard. The most recent letters and sermons of Bernard were available to Berengar, but he misquotes the De diligendo deo and makes the apparently false claim that Bernard had plagiarized the De excessu Satyri of Ambrose and had composed worldly songs. Berengar seems to use, but without acknowledging his indebtedness, a letter by St Jerome in which the origin of souls is discussed. He knows and cites from the De nuptiis of Jerome, the Retractationes of Augustine and the De statu animae of Claudian, but he perverts the sense of the last of these. Berengar also knows of commentaries on the Canticle by Origen, Ambrose, Bede and Reticius, but he can cite from the last of these alone. Berengar’s erudition is quite ample, but on the whole he is more concerned to apply it satirically and unfairly rather than seriously. Berengar’s Apologeticus has perhaps only an incidental value for historians who are concerned with the trial at Sens and with the feelings and issues aroused by the debates of that time. But it does deserve to be treated as a historical document and not to be brushed aside as simply the invective of a passionate follower of Abelard. Berengar provides a valuable additional testimony concerning the sequence of events at Abelard’s trial; he illuminates one state of mind that existed among Abelard’s fautores and in addition he preserves for us Abelard’s moving confession of faith made to ­Heloise – ­perhaps Abelard’s last communication to Heloise. An unreliable witness can also be a useful one and Berengar is both. Invective and parody of Berengar’s kind was common enough in the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries, and crude and coarse as much of it seems to us,85 the Apologeticus is also in parts a disputatio and a satire from which ingenuity and sense are not wholly absent. Rudeness, violence, dishonesty and sheer wrongness mar the Apologeticus but are not its only attributes, for the Apologeticus is above all ‘an expression of the pain felt by the disciples of Abelard at the persecution directed against a master whom they dearly loved’.86 Berengar, though always ready for a fight with anyone, was obviously tormented by the spectacle of his hero being overthrown with great force and nothing in the Apologeticus can make us think that this anguish was insincere. The Apologeticus is Berengar’s attempt to come to terms with this anguish. Writing before 1150 to William III, bishop of Mende (1109–1150), Berengar claimed that the first and only completed part of his Apologeticus had spread far and wide throughout Italy and France and could not now be withdrawn from circulation, although he would withdraw it if he could.87 Berengar invokes the protection of the bishop of Mende against the enmity of those who have resented his attack upon Bernard.88 He argues, as in the 215

p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n Apologeticus, that Bernard is not infallible89 and he defends the right of philosophers of unequal distinction to dispute with one another.90 If he has treated Bernard unfairly he is willing to be corrected,91 but his criticisms of Bernard were not meant to be read seriously.92 Berengar, however, descends to the lowest depth of absurdity when he pleads for pardon although innocent, but adds that if he is required to confess that he is guilty, he will do so.93 In the last resort, Berengar would only equivocate in Abelard’s defence; in his self-­ appointed role as Abelard’s apologist he was a failure. Time itself was a better defender of Abelard; Berengar’s failure did not prove the bankruptcy of Abelard’s thought. But his uniqueness as an outspoken defender of Abelard at this time, if it is not a mere example of the fortuitousness of historical survivals, may well be significant of the completeness of Abelard’s defeat in 1141. It would seem most improbable that Berengar’s tract could be read as a convincing demonstration of the ignorance of Abelard’s accusers, yet in the mid fourteenth century it was so read by the Parisian Thomist master, Jean de Hesdin, who found in Berengar evidence that Abelard had been a teacher of ‘doctrina sana’ and was much to be admired in the anti-­intellectualist atmosphere of the post-­Ockham period.94 In the twelfth century, however, when memories of the council of Sens would have been more vivid, one may well doubt whether Berengar would ever have gained such credence.

Notes  1 One should perhaps say four and add the name of Heloise, perhaps Abelard’s greatest and most hapless disciple. – I would like to express here my gratitude to the Rev. Professor D. Knowles and to Professor R. W. Southern for reading and commenting on this study.  2 Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Epist. 21 (PL 193, 575–585). Gerhoh was writing in the winter of 1163–1164 (cf. P. Classen, Gerhoch von Reichersberg, Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1960, pp. 392–393), but seems to be referring to a visit made by himself to Rome between 1126 and 1130. M. Chossat, La Somme des Sentences, Louvain, E. Champion, 1932, (Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 5), pp. 67–68 was probably wrong to place Gerhoh’s meeting with Adam c. 1133.  3 Innocent II, Epist. 448 (PL 179, 517BC). Cf. Bernard, Epist. 189 (PL 182, 355BC). The other principal sources relating to Arnold’s association with Abelard are John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, ed. M. Chibnall, Edinburgh, T. Nelson, 1956, c. 31, pp. 63–64, and Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, rec. G. Waitz, 3rd ed. by B. von Simson, Hannover and Leipzig, Hahn, 1912 (Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, 46),II, 28, p. 133.  4 Epistola ad episcopum Mimatensem (PL 178, 1871AB).  5 Epist. 189 and 338 (PL 182, 356D–357A, 543D).  6 Historia pontificalis, c. 31, ed. Chibnall, p. 63.  7 First ed. by A. Duchesne, Petri Abaelardi . . . Opera, Paris, N. Buon, 1616, pp.  302–320 and thence reprinted in PL 178, 1854–1870, and in V. Cousin, ed., Opera P. Abaelardi, II, Paris, A. Durand, 1859, pp. 771–786. The title of Berengar’s tract, Apologeticus, is known from a reference in the letter which Berengar wrote later to the bishop of Mende (PL 178, 1872B); in MSS. of the work, however, it is called Apologia. Five MS copies are known, but have not, as far as I know,

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b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d been listed together before. Of these the earliest was not copied until after the mid thirteenth century, viz. cod. Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2923, ff. 43–45; see Catalogue général des manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque nationale, III, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1952, pp. 282–284; Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, pp. 18–19. The MS. was later (after c. 1337) in Petrarch’s collection; see P. de Nolhac, Pétrarque et I’humanisme, Paris, H. Champion, 1907, II, p.  219 and J. Leclercq, ‘L’amitié dans les lettres au moyen âge. Autour d’un manuscrit de la bibliothèque de Pétrarque’, Revue du moyen âge latin 1 (1945), pp. 391–410: 391. The MS. was also known to V. Cousin, Opera Petri Abaelardi, II, p. 771, but much of the text of the Apologeticus is missing from it (cols. 1862–1870 of the Migne impression). There are three fourteenth-­century copies: cod. Bruges, Bibl. municipale 398, ff. I7r–20v, which contains only extracts from the work (see. A. De Poorter, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque publique de la Ville de Bruges, Gembloux, Duculot, 1934, n. 398); cod. Oxford, Bodleian, Add. C. 271, ff. 76r–81v (see F. Madan, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, V, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1905, n. 29565 and J. Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, pp. 23–25); cod. Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 1896, ff. 185v–189v (see P. Lauer, Bibliothèque nationale: catalogue général des manuscrits latins, II, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1940, pp.  228–229). Cod. Orléans, Bibl. municipale 78, f. 63 et seq. is of the fifteenth century (see C. Cuissard, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques de France, Départements, XII, Orléans, Paris, Plon, 1889, p. 39). The Oxford and the two Parisian MSS contain, besides the Apologeticus, Berengar’s letters to the bishop of Mende and to the Carthusians, whereas the Orleans MS has only the letter to the bishop of Mende and the Bruges MS presents only extracts from this letter. The letter to the Carthusians is also found in another Oxford MS, Bodleian, Add. A. 44, f. 53 (see F. Madan, Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, V, n. 30151 and R. Klibansky, ‘L’Epître de Bérenger de Poitiers contre les Chartreux’, Revue du moyen âge latin, 2 (1946), pp. 314–316. A. Duchesne used for his edition of Berengar’s writings one MS found ‘in the library of the most Christian King’ (Petri Abaelardi . . . Opera, p. 302) and cod. Paris 1896 had entered the royal collection by the mid seventeenth century at the very latest. A note printed by Duchesne on Berengar’s letter to the bishop of Mende (see PL 178, 1873, n. 9) is in fact taken from cod. Paris 1896 in margine, but there are variants between the texts of Duchesne (= Migne) and of this MS. The reading undertaken in the preparation of this article was based only upon the printed version of Berengar’s writings.*  8 The evidence for associating Berengar with Poitiers is the rubric title of his Apologeticus in cod. Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2923, f. 43 (late thirteenth century or fourteenth century: Apologia Berengarii Pictavensis pro magistro Petro Abaelardo) and in cod. Bruges 398, f. 17v (fourteenth century: In apologia berengarii pictauensis quam fecit pro defensione magistri petri abaelardi). There is no evidence for assuming, with Duchesne, Petri Abaelardi . . . Opera, p. 302, that Berengar was a ‘scholasticus’ nor for thinking with J. G. Sikes, Peter Abailard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1932, pp. 233, 239, that Berengar was a monk. On the contrary, a phrase in his letter to the bishop of Mende suggests that he was not ‘quid ergo peccavi s­ i . . . ­saecularis religiosum redargui?’ (PL 178, 1872B).  9 See R. M. Martin, ‘Pro Petro Abaelardo: un plaidoyer de Robert de Melun contre S.  Bernard’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 12 (1923) pp. 308–333. Also, Robert of Melun, Sententiae, I, 3, 17–26, ed. R. M. Martin, Oeuvres de Robert de Melun, III, 2, Louvain, 1952 (Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 25), pp. 65–86. 10 E. Vacandard, in ‘Bérenger de Poitiers’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, II (1905), cols. 720–722, and in his Vie de S. Bernard, II, Paris, V. Lecoffre, 18972,

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n pp. 170–174, is impatient with Berengar. The late Dom O. Lotttin, ‘Pierre Bérenger’, Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, 8 (1935), cols. 379–380: 379, wrote that the historian has nothing to learn from the fantastic description of the meeting ‘inter pocula’, but G. W. Greenaway, Arnold of Brescia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1931, pp. 73–75, admits the truth of Berengar’s claim that the verdict against Abelard was determined before the council meeting, and Sikes, Peter Abailard, pp. 233, 238–239: 233, also accepts that a preliminary meeting occurred even though the details of Berengar’s account are libellous. For other considerations of Berengar see Histoire littéraire de la France, XII, pp.  254–260 (reproduced in PL 178, 1854–1856); E. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, transl. A. H. C. Downes, London, Sheed and Ward, 1940), Appendix III, pp. 167–169 and Klibansky, ‘L’Épître de Bérenger’. 11 Cf. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, trans. Downes, p.  167: ‘Berengar’s ­pamphlet . . . ­is rich in historical sidelights on the state of mind that prevailed in Abelard’s entourage’. It is now nearly twenty years since Klibansky, ‘L’Épître de Bérenger’, p. 314, called for a deeper study of the human and literary aspects of Berengar’s writings. 12 ‘Eram ea tempestate adolescens, nondumque impuberes malas nubes lanuginis adumbrabat’, Epist. ad episcopum Mimatensem (1872A). 13 ‘L’Épitre de Bérenger’, p. 314. 14 ‘Quae autem dixerit, et quae non dixerit, et quam Catholica mente ea quae dixerit senserit, secundus arrepti operis tractatus Christiana disputatione ardenter et impigre declarabit’, Apolog. (1862D); also, Apolog. (1870D) and in the letter to the bishop of Mende: ‘“Sed cur, inquiunt, expleto primo volumine, secundum, ut spoponderas, non texis?” Quia processu temporis meum sapere crevit’ (1873A). 15 Epist. ad episc. Mimatensem (1872A). 16 Berengar does not refer to Abelard’s death in 1142 and could well have written before then.* 17 Apolog. (1857A). E. Vacandard argued that, at least as a monk, Bernard never composed licentious poems, ‘Les poèmes latins attribués à S. Bernard’, Revue des Questions historiques, 49 (1891), pp. 218–231: 223–224. 18 Apolog. (1858A). 19 Ibidem (1858B). 20 Ibidem (1858C–1859A). 21 Ibidem (1859B). Cf. Matt. 27, 40. 22 Ibidem (1859C). 23 Ibidem (1859D). 24 Ibidem (1860AB). Cf. Joh.11, 47–53. 25 Ibidem (1860C). Cf. Ps. 119, 2. 26 The identification of the bishop referred to by Berengar is not a matter of importance, and if the words ‘quidam memoriae celebris episcopus’ be taken to mean a bishop who died before the writing of the Apologeticus, there is no obvious candidate from among those prelates known to have been present at Abelard’s trial. Henry of Sens, who died 10.1.1142, was an archbishop and Geoffrey of Châlons-­ sur-­Marne died on 27 or 28.5.1142 which was a month after Abelard’s own death (21.4.1142) which we might expect Berengar to have mentioned it if he had known of it. 27 Apolog. (1861A). 28 Ibidem. (1861AB). 29 ‘Damnatur, proh dolor! absens, inauditus et inconvictus’, ibidem (1861B). 30 This is the expression used by the bishops in Epist. 337 (PL 182, 542A) and we know from both them and Abelard that Abelard had collected his supporters

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b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d together for the meeting at Sens. Cf. ibidem (541C) and Abelard’s letter to his socii, ed. J. Leclercq, Études sur S. Bernard, Appendice V, (Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, 9 (1953)), pp.  104–105, and R. Klibansky, ‘Peter Abailard and Bernard of Clairvaux’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 5 (1961), pp. 1–27: 6–7. 31 The bishops in their letter to Pope Innocent II admit this: ‘pridie ante factam ad vos appellationem damnavimus’, Epist. 337 (PL 182, 542C). 32 Abelard throughout thought unfavourably of his accusers and of their accusations; see his Confessio fidei ad Heloisam (‘opinione potius traducuntur ad judicium quam experientiae magistratu’ (PL 178, 375C), his Confessio fidei ‘universis’ (PL 178, 105–108) and his Apologia: ‘ex tuis potius figmentis quam ex dictis meis arguere laboras’ (ed. P. Ruf and M. Grabmann, ‘Ein neuaufgefundenes Bruchstück der Apologia Abaelards’, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos. hist. Abteilung (1930), Heft 5, p. 12. 33 Cf. Innocent II, Epist. 447: Dolemus autem quoniam, sicut litterarum vestrarum inspectione et missis a fraternitate vestra nobis errorum capitulis c­ ognovimus . . . ­Nos ­itaque . . . ­communicato fratrum nostrorum episcoporum cardinalium consilio, destinata nobis a vestra discretione capitula, et universa ipsius Petri d ­ ogmata . . . ­damnavimus’, (PL 179, 515C–517B: 516C–517A). 34 Hist. pontificalis, c. 8, ed. M. Chibnall, pp. 19–20. 35 Ibidem, p. 20, n. 1. 36 ‘Cujus unquam, Jesu bone, culpa tam caecos habuit judices, ut non utrinque causae latera ventilarent, ut non in quam potissimum partem jus vergeret elimarent’, Apolog. (1861BC). 37 ‘Damnaverat, inquam, Abaelardum, et vocem ejus sine audientia strangulaverat’, Epist. ad episc. Mimatensem (1872A). 38 ‘Sed corrigere, inquiunt fautores abbatis, Petrum volebat. Si Petrum, bone vir, ad integrum fidei statum disponebas revocare, cur ei coram populo aeternae blasphemiae characterem impingebas? Rursusque, si Petro amorem populi tollebas, quomodo corrigere disponebas?’» Apolog. (1861C). 39 Ibidem (1861D). 40 Epist. 337 (in persona Franciae episcoporum, PL 182, 541AB). Cf. Geoffrey of Auxerre, S. Bernardi Vita prima, lib. III, c. 5 (PL 185, 311A). 41 ‘Dominus abbas cum librum Theologiae magistri Petri proferret in medium, et quae adnotaverat absurda, imo haeretica plane capitula de libro eodem proponeret, ut ea magister Petrus vel a se scripta negaret; vel, si sua fateretur, ant probaret, aut corrigeret; visus diffidere magister Petrus Abaelardus et subterfugere, respondere noluit: sed quamvis libera sibi daretur audientia, tutumque locum et aequos haberet judices, ad vestram tamen, sanctissime Pater, appellans praesentiam, cum suis a conventu discessit. Nos autem, licet appellatio ista minus canonica videretur, Sedi tamen apostolicae deferentes, in personam hominis nullam voluimus proferre sententiam’, Epist. 337 (PL 182, 542AB). Cf. Geoffrey of Auxerre, Vita prima, III, 5 (PL 185, 311C). Why Abelard appealed over the heads of his judges has never been quite clear. Berengar implies that his motive was to seek refuge from biased judges. Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, I, 48, states that Abelard was afraid that the excited populace would rise against him. ‘De iusticia veritus’ say Sigeberti Continuatio Praemonstratensis (MGH, Script., 6, p. 452) and Robert of Auxerre, Chronicon (ibidem, 26, p.  235). Geoffrey of Auxerre writes: ‘nec volens resipiscere, nec valens resistere sapientiae et spiritui qui loquebatnr, ut tempus redimeret, Sedem apostolicam appellavit’, and he repeats a story that Abelard lost his head, Vita prima, III, 5 (PL 185, 311C). 42 Confessio fidei ad Heloisam (PL 178, 375C). D. Van den Eynde, ‘Chronologie des

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n écrits d‘Abélard à Héloïse’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp. 337–349: 344–347, demonstrates that this Confessio was written in 1139 before Abelard’s trial. 43 ‘Testatur etiam rancorem animi ejus epistola ad Innocentium papam directa, in qua sic stomachatur: “Non debet, inquit, refugium invenire apud sedem Petri, qui fidem impugnat Petri”’, Apolog. (1861D). 44 ‘Verum tu, o successor Petri, judicabis, an debeat habere refugium sedem Petri, qui Petri fidem impugnat’, Epist. 189 (PL 182, 356B). The bishops too told Pope Innocent that further action would be his responsibility, since they had proceeded as far as they could. They had no doubt but that the pope should act against Abelard but they acquiesced in Abelard’s appeal: ‘Processimus in hoc negotio quousque ausi sumus: tuum est de caetero, beatissime Pater, providere ne in diebus tuis aliqua haereticae pravitatis macula decor Ecclesiae maculetur’, Epist. 191 (ex persona domini archiepiscopi Remensis, PL 182, 358AB). Geoffrey of Auxerre was cynical about Abelard’s appeal, but does not deny Abelard’s right to seek refuge in Rome: ‘Quando vero Petrus ille refugium inveniret in Sede Petri, tam longe dissidens a fide Petri?’ S. Bernardi Vita Prima, lib. Ill, c. 5 (PL 185, 311D). 45 Epist. 192, 193, 331–336, 338 (PL 182, 358–359, 536–540, 542–544). 46 ‘Deberet ergo refugium apud sedem Petri invenire, si non illecebrae tui eloquii clausissent viscera misericordiae Romanae Ecclesiae’, Apolog. (1862B). 47 Ibidem (1862C). Putting words into Bernard’s mouth Berengar wrote: ‘“foedum illud sacrilegumque dogma manuali quodam indiculo complosi, ne scilicet breviter volentibus attingere summam rei, onerosum esset ire per spatiosos saltus voluminum Abaelardi”’, ibidem. That the official list of errors sent from Sens to Rome survives has been demonstrated by Leclercq, Études sur S. Bernard, pp. 101–103. See also L. Grill, ‘Die neunzehn “Capitula” Bernhards von Clairvaux gegen Abälard’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 80 (1961), pp. 230–239. 48 ‘Quod scilicet Pater sit omnipotentia, Filius quaedam potentia, Spiritus sanctus nulla potentia; quod Spiritus sanctus, licet sit ejusdem substantiae cum Filio, non tamen est de eadem substantia; quod homo sine nova gratia possit operari; quod Deus non possit plus facere quam facit, nec melius facere quam facit, nec aliter facere quam facit; quod anima Christi non descendit ad inferos’, Apolog. (1862CD). These propositions correspond to cap. 1, 2, 5, 6, 18 in the numbered list of J. Rivière, ‘Les “capitula” d’Abélard condamnés au concile de Sens’, RTAM, 5 (1933) pp. 5–22:16–17. But Leclercq, Études sur S. Bernard, p. 102, has shown that only some of the capitula were condemned by the bishops at Sens. These were marked with an asterisk in the MSS and Leclercq finds that they were nos. 1, 2, 4 and 13 of Rivière’s list. Thus Berengar’s selection does not seem to correspond to the selection made by the bishops from the list put before them. 49 Apolog. (1862D). Berengar here also promises to reveal in a continuation of the Apolog. which Abelard had said and which he had not said, and with what a Catholic mind he felt what he had said. 50 Epist. ad episcopum Mimatensem (1873AB). 51 Apolog. (1863A). 52 Ibidem (1867C). 53 Ibidem (1867B–1868D). 54 S. Bernardi Opera, III: Tractatus et Opuscula, ed. J. Leclercq and H.-M. Rochais, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1963, pp. 119–154, especially here Prologus and c. 1, pp. 119–120 (or in PL 182, 973–974). According to Leclercq and Rochais, pp. 111–112, the De diligendo Deo was composed c. 1126–1141 and perhaps after 1136. 55 Admonitio (PL 182, 971–972). For a modern appreciation of the content of the De diligendo Deo, see Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, trans. Downes, passim (on Berengar see p. 169).

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b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d 56 Cf. Bernard, Epist. 190 (PL 182, 1055C, 1059C), 332 (538A), 338 (543A). W. W. Williams in Select Treatises of S. Bernard of Clairvaux, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1926, p. 5 ­suggested – ­unconvincingly, I ­think – ­that two allusions in the De diligendo Deo were directed against ideas of Abelard. 57 Apolog. (1867B). According to Bernard, Haimeric asked ‘quare et quo modo diligendus sit Deus’ (and not ‘quid sit diligendum’), De diligendo Deo, c. 1 (ed. Leclercq and Rochais, p. 119; PL 182, 974A). 58 Cf. Confessio fidei “universis”: ‘Quod autem capitula contra me scripta tali fine amicus noster concluserit, ut diceret: “Haec autem capitula partim in libro Theologiae magistri Petri, partim in libro Sententiarum eiusdem, partim in libro cujus titulus est: Scito te ipsum, reperta sunt” non sine admiratione maxima suscepi, cum nunquam liber aliquis qui Sententiarum dicatur, a me scriptus reperiatur. Sed sicut caetera contra me capitula, ita et hoc quoque per malitiam vel ignorantiam prolatum est’ (PL 178, 107). Cf. supra, n. 32. On this Liber Sententiarum, now lost, which was not written by Abelard but by one of his disciples, see H. Ostlender, ‘Die Sentenzenbücher der Schule Abaelards’, Theologische Quartalschrift, 117 (1936), pp. 208–252.* 59 Mabillon observed (PL 182, 973, in nota) that this ‘dictum aureum’ came from Severus Milevitanus, correspondent of St Augustine, Epist. 109 (PL 33, 418–419, here 419). 60 Apolog. (1863D–1866B). Cf. Bernard, Super Cantica Sermo 26, Sancti Bernardi Opera, I, ed. J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot and H. M. Rochais, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1957, pp. 171–181 (or PL 183, 904D–912). 61 Apolog. (1864C–1865A). Cf. Horace, De arte poetica, ll. 1–5, 9–13, 8–9, 15–16, 273–274 (Q. Horatii Flacci Carmina, rec. F. Vollmer, Leipzig, Teubner, 1907). 62 Cf. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, trans. Downes, pp. 168–169. Also Leclercq, Etudes sur S. Bernard, p. 122: ‘Saint Bernard n’est pas guidé par les lois de la composition scolaire; c’est un génie, c’est un poète, c’est un prophète: il ne se soumet qu’à son inspiration, et il fait un chef d’oeuvre’. For some contemporary tributes to Bernard’s commentary, cf. ibidem, p. 123. Another disciple of Abelard, who in his way admired Abelard as much as did Berengar, could appreciate the subtlety and value of Bernard’s exposition ‘quam procul dubio per os eius dictavit Spiritus sanctus’, John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, c. 11 (ed. Chibnall, p. 25). 63 ‘. . . si quid in personam hominis Dei (sc. Bernardi) dixi, joco legatur, non serio’, Epist. ad episcopum Mimatensem (1873B). 64 Berengar’s information concerning the little known Retius (or Reticius) of Autun (Apolog., 1863CD, 184B) is valuable; cf. G. Morin, in Revue bénédictine 13, (1896) p. 340 et seq. 65 Apolog. (1863B–D). 66 Cf. Mabillon’s note on Bernard, In Cantica Sermo XXVI (PL 183, 903D) and Ambrose, De excessu fratris sui Satyri, lib. I (PL 16, 1293A). 67 Apolog. (1864C). 68 Epist. 193 (PL 182, 359) 69 Bernard, Epist. 188: ‘patrum probra atque contemptus’, ‘insultatur patribus’ (PL 182, 353). 70 Apolog. (1864C). Cf. Bernard, Tractatus de erroribus Abaelardi, c. 5: ‘Sed qui venerunt post apostolos, doctores non recipis, homo qui super omnes docentes te intellexisti’ (PL 182, 1063D). 71 Bernard, Super Cantica Sermo XXXVII, 6–8 (ed. J. Leclercq, S. Bernardi Opera, vol. 1, pp.  185–188 (or PL 183, 915C–918B and Mabillon’s note infra 915C). Sermons 26 and 27 were not written before the summer of 1138 (cf. S. Bernardi Opera, I, pp. xv–xvi); Berengar’s Apolog. constitutes a terminus ante quem.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : t h e o l o g i a n 72 Cf. J.-M. Déchanet, ‘Aux sources de la pensée philosophique de S. Bernard’, in S. Bernard Théologien, Actes du Congrès de Dijon, 15–19 septembre 1953 (Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis», 9 (1953), fasc. 3–4), pp. 56–77: 70. 73 Apolog. (1866C–1867B). 74 Cf. Déchanet, ‘Aux sources de la pensée philosophique de S. Bernard’, p. 73 75 ‘Tu itaque a doctrinae salutaris tramite devius, in philosophorum scopulos ruis’, Apolog. (1867A). Cf. Bernard, Epist. 189: ‘In sugillationem doctorum Ecclesiae, magnis effert laudibus philosophos; adinventiones illorum et suas novitates catholicorum Patrum doctrinae et fidei praefert’ (PL 182, 355C). 76 Berengar’s source on the previous history of Bernard’s error may have been St. Jerome, Epist. 126 ad Marcellinum et Anapsychiam (PL 22, 1085–1087:1085). His quotation from Augustine (Apolog., 1867A) cannot be found in the De genesi contra Manichaeos, lib. II, c. 8 (PL 34, 201–202) nor in the De genesi ad litteram, lib. VII, ed. I. Zycha, (CSEL, 28, Sectio III, Pars 2, 1894), p. 200 et seq., but the content is not dissimilar. 77 Apolog. (1867B). 78 Apolog. (1869AB). Cf. De statu animae, II, 9 in Claudiani Mamerti Opera, rec. A. Engelbrecht (CSEL, 11, 1885), pp.  134–135. Claudian says Hilary redeemed his fault by virtue of confession (‘Hilarius opinionis huiusce vitium virtute confessionis abolevit’). Berengar makes Claudian s­ay – o ­ r else found him saying v that Hilary erred without losing his merit as a c­ onfessor – w ­ hich, of course, suits Berengar’s argument better. 79 Apolog. (1869B–1870A). Cf. Adversus Jovinianum, lib. I, 7 (PL 23, 218 et seq.). 80 Apolog. (1870B). 81 Cf. supra, n. 40. 82 Opera S. Bernardi Opera, I, Praefatio generalis, lvii (PL 182, 43). Cf. the verdict of Petrarch on the Apologeticus: ‘non magni quidem corporis, sed ingentis acrimoniae’, Invectiva contra Gallum, in Librorum F. Petrarche impressorum annotatio (Venetiis, 1501, unpaginated). 83 Opera S. Bernardi, I, Praefatio generalis, lvii (PL 182, 43). 84 Cf. J. de Ghellinck, L’essor de la littérature latine au XIIe siècle, Brussels-­Bruges-­ Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 19552, p. 448: ‘Le XIIe siècle pouvait se permettre des libertés de langage, qui attaquaient vivement les personnes, sans ébranler les institutions, qu’on respectait’. 85 One might compare with Berengar’s work the Invectio in Gillebertum abbatem Cadomi by Serlo of Bayeux, ed. T. Wright, The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century, vol. 2, London, Public Record Office, 1872 (Rolls Series, 59), pp. 251–254. Other examples are discussed by P. Lehmann, Die Parodie im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 19632, p. 25 et seq. 86 Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, trans. Downes, p. 167. 87 ‘. . . viva exemplaria, quae jam per totam Franciam et Italiam concurrerunt’ (PL 178, 1873B). No twelfth-­century copy of the Apolog. survives, but if the provenances of the surviving MSS. are at all reflective of the location of their earlier exemplars, they seem to support Berengar’s claim. Cod. Paris, Bibl, nat. lat. 2923 was perhaps produced in south France after the mid thirteenth century and passed into Petrarch’s hands after c. 1337. Cod. Bruges, Bibl. municipale 398, a volume containing much Parisian material, perhaps originated in Paris in the fourteenth century. Cod. Oxford, Bodleian, Add. C. 271 is perhaps of Italian (fourteenth-­ century) origin, but was in Cambrai in 1471.* The fifteenth century cod. Orléans, Bibl. municipale 78 comes from Fleury on the Loire. The origin of the fourteenth-­ century cod. Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 1896, which was in the royal collection at least by the seventeenth century, is unknown.

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b e r e n ga r , d e f e n d e r o f p e t e r a b e la r d 88 ‘Sis igitur Ulysses meae causae, ut Circe, quamvis filia Solis, jus meum magico murmure non audeat immutare, ut sidus meae conscientiae non possit invidia denigrare. Minus certe dolerem si fauces lupi biberent meum sanguinem, quam si ovium dentibus in frusta minuerer. Corrige igitur, pastor bone, tuas oves, ne contra me balent, quia non sum lupus insidians, sed canis protegens ovem. Fretus tandem vestro favore sermoni vela levabo, et inter oblatrantium linguarum Scyllas firmae rationis remigio navigabo. Imponit plurima dira meae personae religiosa manus, et sacro criminum diademate caput innocentis honorat’ (1871AB). There is no evidence to suggest that Berengar fled or withdrew to the Cévennes or that he was wandering there or to say that the Apologeticus itself had not been written there, although many historians have made all these assumptions, e.g. Lottin, ‘Pierre Bérenger’, col. 379 who says that Berengar was forced to expatriate himself, and Sikes, Peter Abailard, p. 239, who says that Berengar was ‘forced to leave his native Poitiers for the district of the Cévennes’. 89 ‘Nondum sol est, nondum fixus est in firmamento; satis est, si luna est. Ego ita sentio de abbate quod sit lucema ardens et lucens; sed tamen in testa est’ (1871D–1872A). Berengar pronounced a similarly solemn judgement upon the Carthusians: ‘Non est Carthusia coelum, non est Carthusia paradisus. Adhuc est Carthusia inter flumina Babylonis’, Epist. contra Carthusienses (PL 178, 1876BC). 90 Epist. ad episc. Mimatensem (1872C–1873A). 91 Ibidem (1872B). 92 ‘Damnabo, inquam, tali conditione, ut, si quid in personam hominis Dei dixi, joco legatur, non serio’, ibidem (1873B). But cf. also: ‘legant eruditi viri Apologeticum quem edidi, et si dominum abbatem juste non argui, licenter me redarguant’, ibidem (1872B). 93 ‘Veniam rogo innocens; et si magis placet, veniam postulo reus’, ibidem (1874D). 94 See B. Smalley, ‘Jean de Hesdin O. Hosp. S. Ioh.’, RTAM, 28 (1961), pp. 283–330: 292–294. Jean de Hesdin asserts that ‘Berengarius in apologia pro eodem magistro Petro’ states that Abelard denied ‘gratia cooperans’; but this is not found in the printed Apologeticus. It was in the fourteenth century that three out of the five surviving exemplars of the Apologeticus were copied and then too that Petrarch became interested in Berengar (supra, n. 7). Jean Gerson, confusing Berengar of Poitiers with Berengar of Tours, told of how Berengar of Poitiers confessed on his death bed to having espoused errors on the doctrine of the eucharist, Tractatus contra Romantium de Rosa, in Joannis Gersonii . . . Opera omnia . . . opera & studio L. Ellies du Pin, t. Ill (Antwerpiae, sumptibus Societatis, 1706), cols. 297–308: 301.

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Peter Abelard and Heloise

15 THE LETTERS OF HELOISE AND ABELARD SINCE ‘CLUNY, 1972’

At Cluny in 1972 M. Monfrin noted that since the third edition of E. Gilson’s Heloise et Abelard, which was published in 1964, there had been only intermittent references to the question of the authenticity of the correspondence between Abelard and Heloise and these had not shown much divergence from the views of Gilson.1 Since 1972 the appearance of unanimity has evaporated. The pluralistic society has invaded medieval scholarship; California came to Cluny. In place of what Peter von Moos has called the Schmeidler-­Gilson ‘complex’2 – which means you either believe in the genuineness of the Letters or you do ­not – ­there is now a wide range of positions to compare. Not only can one vote for Abelard or Heloise or for Abelard and Heloise or for a third party as author of the Letters; one can also vote for a ­century – ­twelfth or thirteenth or a little bit of both. The notion of what is a genuine or authentic medieval letter has become less ­rigid – ­and more battered. As for the meaning of these Letters, again one is presented with a wider choice. They are a record of the conversion first of Abelard, then of Heloise. Or they are a history of the foundation of the Paraclete. Or they are a romantic love story in which Heloise hopelessly failed to reawaken Abelard’s passion for her. Or they were forged to settle a monastic election dispute. ‘Cum in tanta verborum multitudine nonnulla etiam sanctorum dicta non solum ab invicem diversa verum etiam invicem adversa videantur, non est temere de eis iudicandum . . . Nec tanquam mendaces eos arguere aut tanquam erroneos contemnere praesumamus’.3 Historians say that the Prologue to the Sic et Non is bold but was it more outreaching than those who have recently identified the amicus to whom the Historia Calamitatum was addressed as the nuns of the Paraclete4 or who say that Fulbert was Heloise’s father5 or who redate the Roman de la Rose6 or who question whether we have a copy of Jean de Meun’s translation of Abelard’s Letters?7 There has been more discussed since ­1972 – i­ n the ‘Benton period’ – than the question of authenticity. * The unique and the exceptional features of the Letters have often been highlighted. Less generally appreciated perhaps are the ways in which the Letters 227

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e seem increasingly to accord with our current knowledge of the situation of women, especially religious women, in the twelfth century. This is so in three particular respects. First, Abelard himself knew about other convents of nuns besides the Paraclete. Secondly, his lifetime coincided with a period in which exchanges of love-­letters between women in convents and men outside were highly fashionable. Thirdly, feminine patrons were particularly influential and conspicuous in Abelard’s world and Heloise should be seen as a highly skilful representative of the women patrons of the time. There are two clear indications, besides Abelard’s writings for Heloise and the Paraclete, of Abelard’s contacts with other groups of religious women. The first is his admiration for Robert of Arbrissel, the founder of Fontevraud. This he expresses in a letter which he wrote to bishop Girbert of Paris sometime after 1116 while he was still a clerk of the church of Paris; he complains that Roscelin has written a libellous letter against this excellent herald of Christ.8 To judge from Roscelin’s own letter to Abelard, Roscelin had some harsh things to say of Robert’s willingness to accept married women into Fontevraud against the wishes of their husbands and of the bishop of Angers.9 The other indication concerns the convent of Le Ronceray just outside the city of Angers. Abelard witnessed as abbot of St Gildas a charter returning a chapel to the convent on March 15, 1128.10 One of the canons at Le Ronceray was Master Hilary, the poet and dramatist who was well known to Abelard since he had written an elegy describing and lamenting the disintegration of Abelard’s school at Quincey in about 1125. Hilary gives every indication in his poem of having been a member of that short-­lived foundation.11 Like Fontevraud, Le Ronceray had its share of wives separated from their husbands as well as of unmarried women and of widows. The charters of Le Ronceray for the years between 1028 and 1184 show that over 10 per cent of the professions were made by married women in the lifetime of their husbands. Together with widows, moreover, married women constitute some 30 per cent of the total of nuns at Le Ronceray.12 Seen in this light, the situation of Heloise at the Paraclete does not appear wholly uncommon nor is Abelard’s concern for the Paraclete to be considered in isolation from his knowledge of other religious communities for women. However unsatisfactory Heloise found Abelard’s personal support of her to be, Abelard devoted considerable attention to the policy needs of the Paraclete. He did not remain secluded in Brittany throughout his time as abbot of St Gildas. He enjoyed at least reasonable mobility, such as one might expect from an abbot. He was, as has just been seen, in the company of other prelates in 1128 when he witnessed the charter of the legate Cono for Le Ronceray. He came to or near the Paraclete in or after 1129/30 to preach the Sermon (30) ‘Pro sanctimonialibus de Paraclito’.13 He was at the abbey of Morigny in 113114 and one Pentecost (‘in die Pentecostes’), either at the Paraclete or elsewhere, he addressed a Sermon (18) to the ‘sorores et virgines Paracletenses’.15 He also visited, while abbot of St Gildas but at an unknown date, an unidentified 228

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ monastery to preach Sermon 27.16 The mentions made by John of Salisbury of Abelard’s appearance in Paris or on the Mont Ste Geneviève in 113617 and around 114018 should not mislead anyone into thinking that the author of the Historia calamitatum returned to France from Brittany for the first time in the mid 1130s nor indeed that Abelard in the later 1130s was exclusively active in the schools. Abelard says in the Historia calamitatum that he made visits to the Paraclete19 and since Heloise’s complaint in Letter 2 is that Abelard offered her no word of consolation when he was in her presence20 it is reasonable to accept this testimony as confirmation of what can be read in the Historia calamitatum. Moreover, Abelard prepared a great quantity of written material for the nuns and for ­Heloise – h ­ ymns, answers to Problemata, letters on study and the religious life, a Commentary on the Hexaemeron, sermons and so forth. All this must have been prepared after 1129 when Heloise left Argenteuil and came to the site of the oratory of the Trinity that Abelard gave her near Quincey.21 In the 1130s, therefore, Abelard both renewed his contacts with the schools and developed substantial contacts with the Paraclete. The correspondence should be read with an awareness of Abelard’s wider activities on behalf of his new foundation. A second way in which the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise reflects its own time is the fact that in the twelfth century there was a fashion for the writing of personal correspondence between women living in convents and their male admirers or teachers. The cult of poetic love-­letters in northern France did not only infect lay courtiers nor is it merely to be equated with ‘courtly love’. Clerics and religious women also wrote about their emotions towards each other in both spiritual and secular ways.22 Marbod of Rennes (c.1035–1123) wrote erotic poetry in his youth and addressed spiritual advice to nuns. Baudri of Bourgeuil (d. 1130) wrote quite frankly about the beauty of the abbess of La Trinité at Caen; he also declared his love for the nun Constance in secular terms. The Regensburg collection (Clm. 17,142) includes fragments of some fifty poetic love-­letters between diverse correspondents including young women living in convents and their tutors; it shows that the ‘Loire poets’ were not an isolated or a unique phenomenon. Abelard was himself brought up in the lands bordering the Loire. Le Pallet, his birthplace in 1079, is in the Nantais. His first schools included Loches or Tours.23 He mentions a master in Anjou in his Theology.24 He may well have visited Angers, perhaps in his first wanderings towards Paris. Before becoming bishop of Rennes in Brittany in 1096, Marbod had had a long career at the cathedral school of Angers.25 Baudri, like Abelard, consciously imitated Jerome’s correspondence with nuns. Living at Le Ronceray, Hilary too wrote letters expressing spiritual love to nuns. Whether such letters were merely fictive and to what extent they may attest genuine feelings and actual liaisons is a difficult question since all ‘real’ twelfth-­century letters are stylized. W. Bulst maintained that such poetic correspondence was actually exchanged.26 Similar questions have been raised concerning the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise, but 229

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e what is important here is that, although this is a prose correspondence and although it is unique in its extensiveness and arrangement, Letters 2–5 and the beginning of Letter ­6 – ­the so-­called love-­letters – ­are another instance of the readiness of writers in Abelard’s lifetime to discuss love through the walls of the cloister. The background to this is the remarkable change that historians of medieval literature discern in the early twelfth century in attitudes to the expression of relationships between men and women. The chansons de geste, we are told, had scarcely bothered about women, and women are virtually absent from the Bayeux tapestry. But Tristan and Iseut, after 1150, vaunt physical love and adultery. Already the occitan lyric had turned woman into an idol and a sex symbol. Many aspects of fin’amor were discussed, so to say, in occitan poetry. When William IX wrote ‘Ma dame me tente et m’épreuve, pour savoir de quelle façon je l’aime’27 he shared some common ground with the recipient of Letters 2 and 4 from Heloise. Of all this the Epistolae Duorum Amantium, which have recently been edited by Ewald Könsgen,28 appear to provide a striking illustration. Here are 113 letters, excerpts and formulas from a collection of Latin love-­letters written partly in prose and partly in verse. The correspondents are a magister who is unnamed but iuvenis, who lives in France though he was not born there, and a girl who is also unnamed but who was his pupil. The magister reveals his love for the girl and praises her as the only disciple of philosophy among the girls of their time. The suggestion of a resemblance to the experiences of Heloise and Abelard is strengthened by the girl’s description of her tutor as a famous ­master – ­the gemma tocius Gallie – who suffers from the invidia of his rivals. Furthermore, the manuscript which conserves these fragments appears to have originated near Troyes in Champagne. It is true that this manuscript is late, being copied in the fifteenth century, and so the collection could have been arranged in any century up to the fifteenth,29 but its editor has made a good case for seeing it as contemporary with the lifetime of Abelard and Heloise. These letters certainly provide a vivid confirmation of the way in which a scholastic love affair could be enshrined in Latin epistles.30 A third dimension in which the Letters of Heloise and Abelard express important features of twelfth-­ century civilization is their indication of Heloise’s activity as a patroness. Hers was a century in which several women were quite remarkably influential: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Adela of Blois, Aélis of Louvain, Marie de ­Champagne – ­these are names that remind us that women in the twelfth century could be not only great patronesses for whom fine things were written and done, but writers themselves and persons who influenced the roles that women should play in life. Heloise should be numbered among them. Her letters begin with requests to Abelard to write to her and they end with ever more substantial requests to him to compose for her a treatise on the order of nuns and a Rule for the Paraclete. Each request was acceded to. In the Problemata Heloissae likewise Heloise secured from Abelard answers to forty-­two learned queries. In addition, Heloise also 230

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ successfully approached Abelard for new hymns for the office at the Paraclete. She was the object of several dedications by Abelard who addressed to her his Commentary on the Hexaemeron and his collection of Sermons as well as a Confession of Faith. Heloise, moreover, made requests to Peter the Venerable who met them favourably and in so doing expressed his profound admiration of her.31 If by misfortune we today were to be in the position of knowing Abelard’s substantial corpus of lengthy writings for the Paraclete but not his Letters to and from Heloise, we would surely suppose that there must have been both personal letters to Heloise and other written guidance for the nuns. Seen in these ways the correspondence, exceptional as it is, fits more easily into the normally presumed time of its composition in the 1130s. Since 1972 this date of composition has, of course, been freshly questioned. Although the anachronisms and the inconsistencies that have been alleged to exist within the Letters are, in my view, small in comparison with the underlying harmony between the Letters and other manifestations of literary and social outlooks in the first half of the twelfth century, this in no way removes the possibility, which B. Schmeidler suggested,32 that the Letters were fabricated by Abelard or even the newer possibility, advanced by J. F. Benton, that they received their final shaping at the Paraclete in the 1280s. But whether the Letters describe fictional or actual events and emotions, those happenings and experiences seem to me to be part and parcel of the problems of Abelard’s own generation. Are the Letters literary texts or historical documents? Since 1972 division of opinion over this ­question – i­t is a wider question than whether the correspondence is fictional or authentic, forged or ­true – ­has proved fertile and stimulating.33 At Cluny in 1972 Peter von Moos appealed for the correspondence to be treated as a literary fact rather than a historical or biographical document, to be criticized and assessed as a text just as we would evaluate the Odyssey or Shakespeare’s plays.34 For him the Letters are a literary construction in epistolary form, and the overriding purpose of the composer or composers was a monastic one, namely to present the origins of the Paraclete.35 In some respects literary analysis of the text has advanced since 1972. At Cluny Miss McLaughlin revealed many thematic and verbal links between the Letters and Abelard’s other writings36 and Professor von Moos through his study of quotations from Lucan has added to this understanding by articles on Cornelia and Heloise37 and on Lucan and Abelard.38 He has shown, for example, that in the Historia calamitatum and in the correspondence with Heloise as well as in the other theological works attributed to Abelard, the text itself of Lucan’s Pharsalia is always used. The author did not rely on stock quotations of Lucan culled from intermediate sources, but made precise and detailed references to passages in their original context.39 Professor Monfrin indicated at Cluny that a computer-­assisted statistical analysis of the linguistic aspects of the correspondence was under way and with the objective of 231

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e shedding light on the authorship of its different parts.40 Meanwhile Professor Benton and Dr. F. E. Prosperetti have published in Viator the results of some sample word counts they have made in the Historia calamitatum.41 Their interim ­conclusion – ­that a limited hand count of a few words shows that Bernard of Clairvaux was a more likely author of Abelard’s writings than Abelard was of the Historia calamitatum – suggests the need for better indexes and for computer-­assisted studies. Psychological analysis of the personalities projected in the correspondence appears to have been abandoned. It was traditionally concerned with the question whether the passionate and sensual Heloise of the Letters is consistent with the pious and irreproachable abbess found in other documents. M. Jolivet has recently warned that impressions of psychological plausibility or assessments whether this Abelard or this Heloise is the historically real Abelard or real Heloise are incurably subjective.42 Professor von Moos in his paper at Cluny also reacted against a psychological evaluation of the correspondence.43 Dom Jean Leclercq on the other hand has made a strong plea in favour of studying the experiences of Abelard and Heloise as two totally different psychological sublimations.44 The Letters show Heloise retaining her purity and sanity by offering her religious life not to God but to Abelard; hence she can enjoy the memory of her delights. She does not hide the truth, although she hopes that her humiliation will draw God’s mercy down upon her. Abelard, on the other hand, suffers from grudges, from a deep-­rooted aggressiveness and self-­centredness which is fully indulged in Letter 3 as much as in the Historia calamitatum. Whereas Heloise’s vocabulary reveals her desires, delights and sensuous pleasure, Abelard after his castration remembers turpitude, impurity, fornication, abominations. As Dom Leclercq suggested, we need more study of Abelard’s vocabulary both in the correspondence and in his other writings; meanwhile, he has created a case for saying that the different psychological experiences described in the correspondence are described in very different psychological languages. Probably the greatest service recently received from the students of the Letters as literature concerns the ways in which the Letters were read and by whom. Again, it was Peter von Moos at Cluny who appealed for more attention to be paid to the readership gained by the text.45 For too long, he said, the study of the Letters has been more concerned with Entstehungsgeschichte than with Wirkungsgeschichte, with Produktionsästhetik than with Rezeptionsästhetik. D. W. Robertson’s stimulating book on Abelard and Heloise shares the same concern.46 Professor Robertson describes some of the ‘high points’ of the history of the legend of Heloise. By this he means in particular the interest that arose in the seventeenth century in the amorous passion and in the emotional experience of Heloise. Professor Robertson does not believe that a romantic interest in Abelard and Heloise as lovers existed in the Middle Ages; he thinks that for the medieval reader Abelard’s Historia calamitatum was a humorous and ironical document rather than a sentimental or psychological 232

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ one. It consists of an account of Abelard’s lapse into unmanly lechery, which in the Middle Ages meant a lapse into the ridiculous arising from vanity and hypocrisy. Erec similarly lost his manly reputation through falling into love too deeply. Any medieval reader would have seen in the Letters the story of Abelard chastened by his misfortunes into becoming a diligent monk and counsellor and also the story of how Heloise overcame a ridiculous and unreasonable passion and eventually grew into a mature and respected abbess. The Letters, therefore, are an account of the conversion of Heloise under Abelard’s direction. And they are not so much a personal record as ‘a record of conversion in the Augustinian manner reinforced by Boethian themes’.47 It is salutary to be shown the ‘funny side’ of the Historia calamitatum but humour was not the author’s intention. Professor Robertson describes the military imagery that is employed in the Historia calamitatum – Abelard’s abandonment of Mars for Mercury and war for disputation, his attacks on the citadels of the ­schools – a­ s laughable.48 But Professor Duby’s essay on ‘la jeunesse chevaleresque’ shows how pervasive was the ethos of warfare and how difficult young members of military families such as Abelard found it to fulfil themselves except through errantry and conquest and the acquisition of booty.49 That Abelard describes his intellectual adventures and his journeys in these terms is entirely understandable. The clerici vagantes were the counterpart of the wandering soldier. Hence when Abelard portrays his contest with William of Champeaux and applies to himself the boast of Ajax in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book XIII, lines 89–90 – ‘If you ask the Fortune of this strife, I was not conquered by him’ – he is not provoking laughter50 but reflecting ironically on the contrast between his own claims to success in battles in the schools and the actual rewards unjustifiably granted to William.51 But it is Peter Dronke who has provided the best discussion of Robertson’s views in his W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture entitled Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies. As is well known from his other admirable work on medieval Latin poetry, Dr. Dronke has shown that ­love – ­erotic, romantic and ­passionate – w ­ as fully explored by imaginative writers and lyricists in the Middle Ages. Here in his lecture Dr Dronke shows beyond any shadow of doubt that the so-­called ‘legend’ of Heloise as a romantic heroine already existed from her lifetime.52 It did not, pace Robertson,53 have to wait until Bussy-­Rabutin in 1687 sent his letter about Abelard and Heloise to Mme de Sévigné. Whether or not copies of the Letters of Abelard and Heloise were available outside the Paraclete before the mid-­thirteenth century, it was well known that Abelard and Heloise were lovers, and interest in their careers included sympathy for their sensuality and amorous relation as well as respect for Heloise’s piety. Heloise had her admirers as a practical and respected abbess but her early illicit love was also well known. Fulk of Deuil and Roscelin commented scurrilously and harshly on their affair but they can hardly be called irreproachable moralists and the affair did not generally provoke such censure or satire. 233

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e To say that Abelard and Heloise as lovers attracted sympathy in the Middle Ages is one thing, but to deny that their Letters record their conversion is another. Dr Dronke argues that this letter-­collection, which contains so much scandalous matter, offers no proof of a conversion by Heloise and cannot be accepted into the genre of medieval conversion literature or be read as a form of hagiography. When Heloise after opening Letter 6 ceases her emotional outpourings and begins to consider her needs as a nun, this is not a sign that she has overcome her sensuality or repented of her unwillingness to be a nun and an abbess. She has simply changed the subject. Dr Dronke also finds that contemporary witnesses do not seem to believe in Heloise’s conversion. The Orleans poem which begins with the line ‘Parisius Petrus est velata matre profectus’ shows that the way in which Abelard forced Heloise into a convent was widely talked about and that the gist of her bitter complaints about Abelard’s treatment of her in Letters 2 and 4 were apparently substantiated by contemporary and later evidence.54 Dr Dronke argues, too, that stanza 54 of the Metamorphosis Goliae episcopi – which begins with the line ‘Nupta querit ubi sit suus Palatinus’ and which was written around 1142–­1143 – ­may well refer to Heloise.55 ‘Nupta’ complains that her ‘Palatinus’ has deserted her; he has been persecuted by the cowled monks. The association of these lines with Abelard and Heloise has been disputed on the ground that Nupta is Philologia which is the subject of this dream poem. Palatinus could also be spelt, so to say, with a small ‘p’; the word simply means courtier and its association sometimes with ­Abelard – ­the peripateticus palatinus – does not eliminate this basic meaning. Even so, in a context in which philology’s claims are discussed, and sages both ancient and modem are presented and surveyed, and from whose company one great man – Palatinus – is said to be missing, there clearly may have been intended a secondary meaning which consists of a contemporary and highly topical allusion. The scandal of Abelard being silenced by ‘the cowled chief of the cowled populace’ would certainly have been read into lines such as these and the poet’s sympathy for Abelard and Heloise would have been assumed. So Dr Dronke maintains that the Letters do not indicate Heloise’s conversion and that other medieval writers are silent on this possibility also. ‘Conversion’ in a religious and moral sense is an equivocal word which signifies more to some people than to others. When M. Monfrin described the Letters as an account of the early history of the Paraclete and ‘un traité de la conversion’ he was careful to note that Heloise’s c­ onversion – i­n comparison with Abelard’s ‘moins ambitieuse, plus intérieure’ – ‘a mieux résisté aux faits; conversion ­difficile . . . ­incomplète peut-­être’, but her Letter 6 ended submissively: ‘Loquere tu nobis et audiemus. Vale’.56 Other medieval testimonies do not always categorically prove an unchanging Heloise. This may be illustrated by reference to Jean de Meun and to Abelard’s Carmen ad Astralabium. In his continuation of the Roman de la Rose as well as in the insertions made into the French translation of the Letters of Heloise, Jean clearly shows 234

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ admiration for Heloise and for her arguments against marriage.57 His ‘Jealous Husband’ tells us that many consider Heloise to be demented for writing that she would rather be Abelard’s whore than the wife of the emperor of Rome. But he adds tellingly: ‘I think that her learning put her in such a position that she knew better how to overcome and subdue her nature, with its feminine ways. If Pierre had believed her, he would never have married her’.58 Jean is referring here to Heloise’s acceptance of marriage which he believes was a genuine acceptance in spite of her argument against the wisdom of marriage. Do not the shrewd glosses that Dr Dronke has found amid the translation of her Letters attributed to Jean also suggest that Jean realized that Heloise went too far in some of her protestations and became uncharacteristic of her true or better self.59 Now of course we do not know what Heloise thought and felt about herself after Letter 6 when she ceased complaining of being an unwilling abbess as well as being a neglected wife. Even if we agree with Dr Dronke that the Letters are not a history of Heloise’s conversion to the religious life under Abelard’s direction, it remains possible that in real life Heloise genuinely came to earn the praises she received as an exemplary abbess. Dr Dronke quite rightly quotes60 the Carmen ad Astralabium in which Abelard openly declares that Heloise has not repented of what she used to commit and of which the joys are still so sweet in her memory:    Est nostre super hoc Heloyse crebra querela Qua mihi que secum dicere sepe solet:    “Si, nisi peniteat me commisisse priora, Salvari nequeam, spes mihi nulla manet.    Dulcia sunt adeo commissi gaudia nostri Ut memorata iuvent que placuere nimis”.    This is the burden of complaint of our Heloise, whereby she often says to me, as to herself,    ‘If I cannot be saved without repenting of what I used to commit, there is no hope for me.    The joys of what we did are still so sweet that, after delight beyond measure, even remembering brings relief’. But when did Abelard write his Carmen? Can one show that Abelard wrote these lines after Heloise wrote Letter 6 in which she ceased to complain? In short, although Dr Dronke is right to say that the Letters express thoughts and emotions that are compatible with what we know of the twelfth century, and is right to question whether the Letters demonstrably show Heloise’s conversion, nonetheless, we have no reliable historical indication that after Letter 6 she remained unrepentant. Moreover, as Peter von Moos has insisted, Abelard tried to convert Heloise.61 He impressed on her the power of prayer in Letter 3: ‘Attende itaque quanta 235

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e sit orationis virtus’. His letters to her portray a hoped-­for conversion. There is much to be said for the view that the correspondence exhibits at least a growth of Abelard and Heloise in love and towards a mature view of the religious life centred on the Paraclete.62 Even in the Historia calamitatum where Abelard displays his jealousies and his self-­esteem, he is self-­critical; he condemns his ‘praesumptio’ and his own lapse into ‘luxuria’ and into ‘superbia’ and he presents his castration and the condemnation of his book at Soissons as the cure for both weaknesses. Although in the last pages of the Historia he reveals his despair, he also hopes for consolation from the Paraclete.63 The letter-­collection, in the arrangement in which we find it now, moves on from discussion of Abelard’s misfortunes and of Heloise’s personal complaints to a presentation of Abelard’s call to prayer and of his programme for the convent of the Paraclete. Heloise in Letter 6 accepts Abelard as the ‘fundator’, ‘plantator’ and ‘institutor’ of her congregation and asks for his guidance. Even though the Rule is not part of Letter 8, without the Rule the letter-­collection would lose its full significance. When in 1974 Professor von Moos published his perceptive survey of the two-­hundred-­year-­old history of interpretations of Heloise, he attempted to draw some results from his review. He saw that the crux of the question of authorship was the hypothesis that a ‘third party’ had arranged the collection but he suggested that there were two principal conclusions that could be firmly stated. One of these is that the Letters have been arranged as if into a book; they were not actually sent as written. The second is that the collection comes from the Paraclete.64 M. Monfrin had earlier shown that the letter-­collection is always found as a unity with substantially the same arrangement in all the manuscripts, with the same beginning, the same order and the same ending. Some collections contain fewer letters than others, but the character of the collection and of the manuscript tradition was firmly established beyond alteration by the later thirteenth century; there are few signs of reworking by the scribes or their patrons. The presence in various manuscripts of additional Abelardiana – such as epitaphs or writings by Berengar or by Fulk of Deuil or by Peter the ­Venerable – ­in no way changes our knowledge that some of the letters between Abelard and Heloise were arranged into a collection.65 It is generally accepted today that medieval letters as found in letter-­ collections were not always ‘real’ letters. The letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, Dom Jean Leclercq tells us, whether or not they were sent, were selected, then arranged and revised before publication with a view to producing a collection of authoritative essays on the church, its doctrines and its reform.66 Petrarch’s letters were also much revised, even long after they were received by their addressee.67 Letters were also often revised or written by a secretary or professional letter writer in the name of someone else. Such letters, whether written by a proxy or revised, were certainly authentic by contemporary standards. Professor Constable has warned us too that secretaries 236

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ could sometimes become uncommonly proficient at imitating and mimicking the epistolary style of their employers, and he gives as examples the letters of Nicholas of Montiéramey, one of the secretaries of St Bernard, and the letters of St Catherine of Siena who dictated to a variety of scribes.68 Our conceptions and terminology regarding authenticity and forgery have to become very supple when we discuss medieval letters, since each letter-­collection is a law to itself and must be ‘assessed individually in order to establish by whom, when and how it was put together’.69 In the case of the Abelard–Heloise collection signs of revision have been alleged. In Letter 3 Abelard tells Heloise that he has decided to send her the ‘psalterium’ she has requested – ‘psalterium quod a me sollicite requisisti . . . mittere maturavi’.70 We have no mention in Letter 2 of any such request by Heloise, but Abelard in Letter 3 does not in fact say that Heloise requested the ‘psalterium’ in Letter 2. How do we know that she may not have made the request in another way at another time? In Letter 5 Abelard introduces a reference to a passage in St Luke’s Gospel, 23:27 with the words ‘ut jam supra memini’ – ‘supra’, above, not ‘antea’, earlier.71 The same quotation is found earlier in Letter 372 and Professor von Moos once used this cross-­reference from one letter to ­another – h ­ e called it a ‘détail assez amusant’ – to argue that the letter-­collection was pulled together by someone to enable it to be read like a book or a single treatise.73 But the passage from St Luke which appears at the end of Letter 5 had appeared ‘supra’ in Letter 5 itself.74 The cross-­ reference occurs in the same letter, not from one letter to another. When in Letter 7 Abelard suddenly exclaims ‘O commonachi et fratres . . .’ there is no need to suppose an interpolation into the text.75 Abelard has simply extended his theme in order to include a rhetorical denunciation of his contemporary fellow-­monks. He quickly returns to the feminine sex which is ‘Deo acceptabilior et honore dignior’.76 There is no sign here of a reviser or arranger who is less than perfectly familiar with his materials. Professor von Moos and others have justly emphasized the fundamental importance of M. Monfrin’s study of the manuscripts of the letter-­collection and of his suggestion that the collection was kept in the houses of the order of the Paraclete as a historical and canonical document regarding the order’s foundation and its observances.77 The late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-­ century manuscript Troyes 802 contains a careful copy of the correspondence as it was known in the Paraclete and it includes other texts concerning the religious life of women.78 It was probably one of a series of identical volumes placed in the various houses of the order. So it is in the Paraclete, we are asked to believe, that the correspondence clearly first appears to have been put to use and to have found readers. The earliest manuscripts of the collection, as is well known, are relatively late, being of the mid-­thirteenth century or later, which is well over a century after the normally presumed time of composition. No sure quotations from or use of the collection have been convincingly found until Jean de Meun introduced Heloise into the Roman de la 237

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Rose. No references are given by Heloise or Abelard in their other writings to this correspondence. So the history, or if you like the prehistory, of the collection between the 1130s and the 1270s tempts speculators to offer hostages to fortune. But it should never be forgotten that the survival today of manuscripts from the Middle Ages is 90 per cent a matter of chance. There are other works which Abelard probably wrote which do not survive at all.79 We seem to lack his glosses on the De syllogismis categoricis and De syllogismis hypotheticis, his Rhetorica, his Grammatica, his Anthropologia, his Commentary on the Prophet Ezekiel, a letter to Roscelin, an Exhortatio to the monks of St Denis, and a Psalterium. We have no autograph manuscripts by Abelard and no manuscripts that were obviously issued with his known approval or corrections. On the other hand, it is probably true to say that the earliest manuscripts of the Letters are quite a bit later than the earliest copy of any other known work by Abelard except the Problemata Heloissae and the Sermo or Epistola ad virgines Paraclitenses de studio litterarum.80 The editor of Abelard’s hymns, Father Szövérffy, has written that their earliest manuscript (Brussels 10147–10158) was written in the last third of the thirteenth century.81 But Professor Silvestre writing in Scriptorium has corrected this mistake.82 The Brussels manuscript was written c.1200, either in the late twelfth or in the early thirteenth century. So the manuscripts of the Letters are quite late, but what does this prove? Something always has to come last, and it is worth remembering here that Berengar’s Apologia for Abelard, which is full of error and fantasy, is itself first found in a manuscript of the mid or late thirteenth century, the ‘Petrarch manuscript’ (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2923).83 Although the Troyes manuscript which contains Abelard’s Regula for the nuns of the Paraclete as well as their later Institutiones seems to represent the arrangement in which the letter-­collection was available in houses of the order of the Paraclete in the thirteenth century, not all the manuscripts of the letter-­collection lead us back there at that time. There is as yet no clear certainty that the Troyes manuscript is the earliest surviving manuscript. Although M. Monfrin has shown that the texts contained in the Troyes manuscript are extremely close to those in the manuscript found at the Paraclete and used by François d’Amboise for his edition published in 1616, the Troyes manuscript itself first comes to light in Paris in the fourteenth century. That a collection was kept at the Paraclete is plausible, as is the hypothesis that it was arranged and presented to show the legislative history of the order, but this is a hypothesis that does little or nothing to shed light on the appearance in the mid or later thirteenth century of other types of collection such as that associated with Jean de Meun or that of Petrarch which is also called Berengarian (from the fact that it contains in addition writings by Abelard’s disciple of that name).84 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2923, Petrarch’s manuscript, is probably as old as any manuscript we have, being perhaps from the mid or late thirteenth century. Most of the earliest manuscripts presented 238

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ the collection as a collection of eight letters but without the Rule: such are Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2544 and Reims 872 (both of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century) and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelle acquisition française 20,001 (copied in 1361).85 The Parisian manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 920, contains a French translation of the Letters copied (it is now thought) at the very end of the fourteenth century.86 We cannot be completely sure that the translation it contains is actually that of Jean de Meun. But whether it is or is not, and whether the translation was made in or later than the thirteenth century, the copyist or translator regarded the collection as complete at the end of Letter 7: ‘Ci fenist le livre de maistre Pierre abaielart et de ses espitres Et les epistres que heloys lui renvouit et la response que maistre pierre lui faisoit encontre’.87 This ‘livre de maistre Pierre abaielart’ contains neither the Rule nor even the letter-­preface to it. So even if the original collection was arranged or copied or conserved in order to provide the foundation documents of the Paraclete, to be its historia fundationis, the supposed associations of the letter-­collection with the ‘monastic’ copying tradition of the Paraclete should not be over-­ stressed. If we are to go by provenance, Paris where the Troyes manuscript was in the mid fourteenth century when Roberto de Bardi bought it from the chapter of Notre Dame of Paris88 – Roberto, the friend of Petrarch, who promoted Petrarch’s claims to be crowned by Paris u ­ niversity – P ­ aris, too, where Jean de Meun had written in the thirteenth century, may have proved a more fruitful centre for the keeping and the diffusion of copies of the Letters in the thirteenth century. Moreover, there is a good number of now lost manuscripts of the Letters of Abelard owned or read once by such men as Jean de Hesdin,89 Jean de Montreuil,90 Nicolas de Baye,91 Humphrey Duke of Gloucester,92 Roger Benoiton93 and Johannes Andree de Nissa.94 How are we to know that the collection as they knew it derived from documents that owed their survival to the nuns of the Paraclete who wanted to keep a history of the foundation? We should allow for the possibility that the Paraclete type of collection is a retention for the use of the Paraclete of a letter-­collection which had also been deposited elsewhere, perhaps in Paris, in a less monastic format. The Troyes manuscript, after presenting the letter-­collection of Heloise and Abelard, including Abelard’s Rule, offers a collection of various pieces of legislation for religious houses of women, the most important of these for our purposes being the first, the Institutiones nostre, which seem to relate to the order of the Paraclete in Heloise’s lifetime. However, Professor Benton recognized later in the manuscript some adaptations of canons of the council of Rouen of 1231.95 So Heloise could not have been responsible for collecting all the legislative material that follows the letter-­collection in the Troyes manuscript. We are faced in any case with an unsystematic anthology: the Institutiones are themselves followed by excerpts from Ivo, the canons of 1231, statutes of the Praemonstratensian order, excerpts from the nuns’ rule of Aix issued in 816.96 This is clearly a miscellany; it cannot be used throughout as 239

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e a guide to customs officially established at the Paraclete in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But the Institutiones are probably genuine regulations of the Paraclete and the main problem they raise is that of their relationship with Letters 6–8 of the correspondence and with the Rule of Abelard. For example, as Professor Benton pointed out, the eating of meat was allowed by Abelard but disallowed by the Institutiones; so it appears that Abelard’s Rule was not exactly followed at the Paraclete.97 On this three observations may be made. First, the Institutiones are very s­ hort – j­ ust over three columns in ­Migne – ­and are very brief on the matters which are considered such as clothing, beds and food. They are additions and amendments to existing regulations and they arise from the growth of the Order: ‘annotamus autem boni propositi nostri consuetudines, ut quod tenuit mater incommutabiliter, teneant et filiae uniformiter’.98 ‘Annotamus’: this carries with it the suggestion that customs are being commented upon, or just noted down. The Institutiones certainly presuppose an earlier body of usages. Secondly, some years ago Mme Rambaud-­ Buhot characterized the different types of texts containing rules for religious women down to the twelfth century.99 Some texts were Patristic in inspiration; these were moralizing and exhortatory in character and they especially urged virgins and widows to consecrate themselves to God and to abstain from wine and meat. Abelard’s Rule is clearly a text of this type. It quotes Scripture and St Jerome; it is largely concerned, although in a new way, with the old themes of virginity and continence, wine and meat, and study. On the other hand, the canonists offered more practical material relating to the particular consequences of the moral teachings of the Fathers. Canonical collections, such as those of Ivo of Chartres, dealt with specific points such as the age of profession, the nature of the vow, the powers of bishops over the nuns. Whereas Abelard’s Rule is more like a moralizing treatise of the former type, the Institutiones and the miscellany of texts which follow it in the Troyes manuscript are more concerned with concrete, practical matters which Abelard either had omitted or had dealt with inadequately, such as the admission of guests and children, the limitation of numbers, the keeping of accounts and the daily Office. The Institutiones also cater for an Order of six houses, not for a single convent. Hence, perhaps, the adjustment in the Institutiones of Abelard’s Rule, that the sisters should never go out of the Paraclete, in favour of letting moniales or lay-­sisters, but not those who have taken the veil, that is, the choir nuns, be sent in domos nostras, from one house to another within the Order, when the work of the Order made this necessary. Thirdly, and perhaps most obviously, we should remember that religious institutions develop and change. Abelard’s Rule sets up an abbot who is superior to the deaconess. The Institutiones are silent on the abbot. Why? It is impossible to say. The Institutiones are not comprehensive and we must not ‘force’ the texts. But we should be prepared to find change in the ways in which this and other convents accepted male protection in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Masculine protection was a difficult problem for many convents in this period. We do not 240

t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ know if it was possible at the Paraclete to find an abbot at all after Abelard’s death. So if the Institutiones and the other appended materials in some way qualify, supplement, perhaps contradict, what is found in Abelard’s Rule, this is understandable. After all, the Hymns which Abelard wrote for the Paraclete and which he so carefully arranged to fit all the days, nights and feasts of the year, were not sung in the way he intended. That, at least, is an impression that has emerged from the Chaumont manuscript version of the liturgy of the Paraclete.100 In short, the Paraclete evolved; nothing could be more expected. It will have become clear by now how far it has been beyond my capability to offer here a précis or a comment on all that has been contributed or refuted on the subject of the Letters since 1972.101 That the last few years have been fertile in argument needs no further underlining. Three suggestions may, however, be briefly made by way of conclusion. First, the editions we possess of the works of Abelard are far from perfect. The death of Father Buytaert was a great loss. But I am confident that what one scholar seems to have initiated will be completed soon by several. We need, too, a concordance to the works of Abelard in order to be able to study more closely the language and the vocabulary of this master of the arts of language. This, too, I hope to see done soon. Secondly, it is up to the historians now to regain some of the ground they have recently lost to the students of literature. The Letters are literature but they are also history. M. Jolivet expressed himself wisely on this point: ‘L’Abélard et l’Héloïse de la correspondence, fussent-­ils de pures fictions littéraires, auraient le même droit que Julie et Saint-­Preux à être appelés de leurs noms; mais ces noms sont aussi ceux de personnages r­ éels . . . ­Les linguistes tentent d’y échapper en s’en tenant, par méthode, au texte: mais cela n’abolit pas la dimension historique et le problème qui s’y pose’.102 Jürgen Miethke’s study in Francia of Abelard’s contribution to church reform is a good example of how the Historia calamitatum, in spite of its exaggerations, can be treated as a valuable historical source containing much precise information.103 The Historia calamitatum fits together very well with other diplomatic and narrative sources. Much of the most interesting work done by Professor Benton, too, relates to the sources for the early history of the Paraclete, its cartulary, its ‘necrology’ and so on. But, as M. Verdon has recently remarked,104 we know so much less about the history of nuns than of the history of monks. In the last few years the poverty of our knowledge of the institution of the Paraclete has become clearer. If Professor Benton would re-­edit the cartulary, if someone would analyse the ‘necrology’, then, along with Father Waddell’s edition of the Ordinal and his study of the liturgy of the Paraclete, great progress would be made towards a clearer appreciation of the life of the nuns with whom both Abelard and Heloise became concerned in their letters. I say ‘became’ concerned because a conversion of some sort did occur.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Notes 1 J. Monfrin, ‘Le problème de 1’authenticité de la correspondance d’Abélard et d’Héloïse’ in Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 409–424 at p. 413. 2 P. von Moos, Mittelalterforschung und Ideologiekritik. Der Gelehrtenstreit um Héloise, Munich, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1974 (Kritische Information, 15), p. 102. 3 SN, Prologue, p. 89. 4 D.W. Robertson, Jr., Abelard and Heloise, New York, Dial Press, 1972; London, Millington, 1974, p. 104. 5 J. Leclercq, ‘Modem Psychology and the Interpretation of Medieval Texts’, Speculum, 48 (1973), pp. 476–490 at pp. 482–483. 6 J. F. Benton in an unpublished paper on ‘The Date of the Roman de la Rose’ delivered at the 88th Annual Meeting of the Modem Language Association of America at Chicago, December 28, 1973, argued that Jean de Meun wrote his continuation of the Roman de la Rose during the reign of Philip the Fair and perhaps as late as 1302. This would make possible a fraudulent composition of the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise around 1288. Cf. the earlier remarks by J. F. Benton in the reported discussion of his paper ‘Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing in the Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 469–511 at p. 510. 7 C. Bozzola, ‘L’humaniste Gontier Col et la traduction française des Lettres d’Abélard et Héloïse’, Romania, 95 (1974), pp. 199–215, especially pp. 199 and 208. On Gontier Col, his fascination with ancient and modern texts, and his friendship with Coluccio Salutati, who was also intrigued by the correspondence of Heloise and. Abelard, see further C. Bozzola, ‘L’humaniste Gontier Col et Bocace’, in Boccaccio in Europe. Proceedings of the Boccaccio Conference. Louvain, December 1973, ed. G. Tournoy, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1977 (Symbolae Facultatis Litterarum et Philosophiae Lovaniensis. Series A/Vol. 4), pp. 15–22. 8 Abelard, Letter 14 (PL 178, 355–358 at 357B). 9 Roscelin, Letter 15 (PL 178, 357–372 at 361G–362A). For a better edition of this letter see J. Reiners, Der Nominalismus in der Frühscholastik. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Universalienfrage im Mittelalter. Nebst einer neuen Textausgabe des Briefes Roscelins an Abelard, Münster i. W., Aschendorf, 1910 (BGPTMA, VIII, 5) ), pp. 63–80: 66–67. 10 Ed. P. Marchegay in an appendix which appeared about 1880 to his Archives d’Anjou, III, Angers, C. Labussiere, 1854, p. 288, no. 453. 11 Elegia qua Hilarius, Petri Abaelardi discipulus, plangit recessum praeceptoris sui ex Paracleto, PL 178, 1855–1856. For discussion of this and for other editions see D. E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969, pp. 52–55. 12 Cf. J. Verdon, ‘Les moniales dans la France de l’Ouest aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Etude d’histoire sociale’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 19 (1976), pp. 247–264 at pp. 248 and 251; Verdon, ‘Les sources de l’histoire de la femme en Occident aux Xe-­XIIe siècles’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 20 (1977), pp. 219–251 at p. 247. 13 D. Van den Eynde, ‘Le Recueil des Sermons de Pierre Abélard’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp.  17–54 at p.  45, states that this Sermon was addressed to the public (‘fratres’) assembled in the church of the Paraclete. But the text can be read differently as a Sermon preached to ‘fratres’ in an unknown place, not itself the Paraclete, in order to solicit alms for the new monastery. Since in the Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 101, ll. 1342–1345, Abelard reports that neighbours

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t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ of the Paraclete complained of his failure even to preach on behalf of the nuns, Sermon 30 may have been addressed to them. 14 Chronicon Mauriniacense, ed. L. Mirot, La Chronique de Morigny, 1095–1152, Paris, A. Picard, 1909, (Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, 41), p. 54. 15 ‘In hujus quidem coenaculi typo, charissimae sorores et virgines Paracletenses, vestrum oratorium constructum et ipsius summi Paracleti nomine glorioso insignitum’, Sermon 18 (PL 178, 507B). D. Van den Eynde, ‘Le Recueil des Sermons’, here pp. 34–35, noticed in Sermon 19 (PL 178, 512B–516B) that Abelard states that he has composed eight sermons for the octave of Pentecost. Sermon 19, one of the five to survive today, was addressed to the nuns of the Paraclete as is clear from a reference in it (513D) to Sermon 18 (509D). Sermon 1 (‘De annuntiatione B. V. Mariae’) was also addressed to nuns (383A, 383D). Likewise Sermon 13 (‘In Paschate’); see 489A. Sermon 25 (‘De sancto Joanne Evangelista’) was addressed to ‘vos, dilectae virgines’ (539A). Sermon 26 (‘In Assumptione beatae Mariae’) was addressed to ‘vos, ergo, virgines, vel quaecumque feminae Christo devotae’ (544A). But Sermon 29 (‘De sancta Susanna’) is addressed both to ‘sponsae Christi’ (558B) and ‘virgines’ (557C, 559A and D, etc.), and to ‘presbyteri’ and ‘clerici’ (563C). Sermon 32 (‘De laude S. Stephani’, 573C–582A) is addressed to ‘sorores’. 16 Van den Eynde, ‘Le Recueil des Sermons’, pp.  41–42 gives reasons for doubting that Sermon 27 was delivered, as its title states, to the monks of Rouen. It is addressed to ‘fratres in a place which was under the patronage of St Marcellinus (PL 178, 547D, 550D) and of the Saviour (550C). 17 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, II, 10, translated by D. D. McGarry, The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1955), p. 95.* 18 John of Salisbury, Historia Pontificalis, XXXI, trans. M. Chibnall, John of Salisbury’s Memoirs of the Papal Court. London, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1956, p. 63. 19 ‘Illuc itaque reversus . . .’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  100, l. 1313. ‘Cum autem omnes earum vicini vehementer me culparent quod earum inopie minus quam possem et deberem consulerem, et facile id nostra saltem predicatione valerem, cepi sepius ad eas reverti, ut eis quoquomodo subvenirem’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  101, ll. 1341–1345. ‘Hoc ego sepe apud me pertractando, quantum mihi liceret sororibus illis providere et earum curam agere disposueram, et quo me amplius revererentur, corporali quoque presentia eis invigilare et sic etiam earum magis necessitudinibus subvenire. Et cum me nunc frequentior ac major persecutio filiorum quam olim fratrum affligeret, ad eas de estu hujus tempestatis quasi ad quendam tranquillitatis portum recurrerem atque ibi aliquantulum respirarem’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  105, ll. 1477–1485. 20 ‘Unde non mediocri admiratione nostrae tenera conversionis (or conversationis) initia tua jamdudum oblivio movit, quod nec reverentia Dei nec amore n ­ ostri . . . ­vel sermone praesentem, vel epistola absentem consolari tentaveris’, Letter 2, ed. Muckle, p. 70. 21 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p.  100, ll. 1304–1320. See further Suger of St Denis, Liber de rebus, c. 3 (PL 186, 1215); Suger, Vita Ludovici VI, c. 21 (PL 186, 1317); Gallia Christiana, VII, Paris, 1744, col. 508; Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, XV, Paris, Victor Palmé, 1878, pp. 268–269. 22 On this see the recent short discussion by E. Ruhe, ‘De Amasio ad Amasiam.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Zur Gattungsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Liebesbriefe’, Munich, Fink, 1975 (Beiträge zur Romanischen Philologie des Mittelalters 10 ), p.  22 et seq. Also J. Verdon, ‘Les sources de I’histoire de la femme en Occident aux Xe-­XIIIe siècles’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 20 (1977), pp. 219–251, at pp. 233–240 (‘les sources littéraires’). 23 Cf. Roscelin, Letter 15 (PL 178, 360C); also ed. J. Reiners, Der Nominalismus in der Frühscholastik, p. 65. 24 Tchr, IV, 77, p.  301, l. 1109; also p.  49; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, II, v (PL 178, 1056B). This is probably Ulger. See further Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, pp. XX–XXI. 25 Marbod’s erotic juvenilia were rediscovered by W. Bulst, ‘Liebesbriefgedichte Marbods’, in Liber Floridus. Mittellateinische Studien Paul Lehmann . . . gewidmet, ed. B. Bischoff and S. Brechter, St Ottilien, Eos, 1950, pp. 287–301. 26 W. Bulst, ibidem. 27 Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, duc d’Aquitaine (1071–1127), ed. A. Jeanroy, 2nd. ed., Paris, E. Champion, 1927 (Classiques français du moyen âge 9), no. VIII, v. 3–4. 28 E. Könsgen, Epistolae duorum amantium: Briefe Abaelards und Heloises?, Leiden, Brill, 1974 (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 8).* 29 Cf. U. Kindermann, ‘Abaelards Liebesbriefe’, Eupborion, 70:3 (1976), pp. 287–295 at 292. 30 Cf. P. Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies, Glasgow, University of Glasgow Press, 1976 (W. P. Ker Lecture, 26), p. 26: ‘What Könsgen’s discovery and fine edition have shown is at least this: that it was possible, in the early twelfth century, for a situation of two lovers not unlike Abelard and Heloise as they must have been, before the tragedy, to be given an expression that is both literary and authentic’. Dr Dronke accepts that these letters are genuine, not model, letters of the early twelfth century.* 31 Peter the Venerable, Letters 115, 167, 168, ed. G. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967 (Harvard Historical Series 78). 32 B. Schmeidler, ‘Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abaelard und Heloise eine Fälschung?’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 11 (1914), pp.  1–30; ‘Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abaelard und Heloise als eine literarische Fiktion Abaelards’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 54 (1935), pp. 323–338; ‘Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abaelard und Heloise dennoch eine literarische Fiktion Abaelards’, Revue Bénédictine, 52 (1940), pp.  85–95; ‘Abaelard und Heloise, Eine geschichtlich-­psychologische Studie’, Die Welt als Geschichte, 6 (1940), pp. 93–123. 33 In saying this I have no wish to diminish the fruitful role played by Professor Benton’s arguments about the composition of the letter-­collection in numerous discussions since 1972. His arguments concerning fraud, fiction and borrowing in the correspondence have coloured and enhanced almost every contribution that has been made, besides being the centrepiece of countless, eager conversations in different countries. The Catholic University of the Sacro Cuore at Milan organized a round table on the question in 1976; see the résumé by S. Vanni Rovighi, ‘Un dibattito sull’autenticità dell’epistolario di Abelardo ed Eloisa’, Aevum, 50 (1976), pp. 357–359. The American Historical Association in 1974 also devoted a section of its Annual Meeting to discussion of the same question, although the papers presented were not published. Overtly concerned with the question of authenticity is P. Zerbi, ‘Un recente dibattito sull’autenticità della Historia Calamitatum e della corrispondenza fra Abelardo ed Eloisa’, in Studi di letteratura e di storia in memoria di Antonio Di Pietro, Milan, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1977 (Pubblicazione della Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,

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t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ Scienze filologiche e letteratura), pp.  3–43. A contrasting view which is more Bentonian than Benton himself is H. Silvestre, ‘Réflexions sur la thèse de J. F. Benton, relative au dossier Abélard-­Héloïse’, RTAM, 44 (1977), pp.  211–216. Some reflections may be found within my own recent pamphlet, Peter Abelard, London, Historical Association, 1979 (Historical Association, General Series G. 95). 34 Peter von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse et les idéologies modernes’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 425–468, e.g. pp. 433–435. 35 P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, pp. 437–439; von Moos, Lucan und Abaelard, in Hommages à André Boutemy, ed. G. Cambier, Brussels, Revue d’Etudes latines, 1976 (Collection Latomus 145), pp. 413–443 at p. 415, n. 5. 36 M. M. McLaughlin, ‘Peter Abelard and the dignity of women: twelfth century “feminism” in theory and practice’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 287–334. 37 P. von Moos, ‘Cornelia und Heloise’, Latomus 34 (1975), pp. 1024–1059. 38 P. von Moos, ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, pp. 413–443. 39 A similar conclusion regarding the use of original texts of Cicero was reached earlier by G. D’Anna, ‘Abelardo e Cicerone’, Studi medievali, 10 (1969), pp.  333–419. An interesting study by C. S. Jaeger (to be published soon in Euphorion) of ‘The Prologue to the Historia calamitatum and the “Authenticity Question”’ examines Abelard’s use of some phrases from the writings of Gregory the Great and suggests that the prologue to the Historia calamitatum is closely tied to Abelard’s thought.* 40 J. Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité de la correspondance d’Abélard et d’Héloïse’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 409–424 at pp. 423–424. 41 J. F. Benton and F. Ercoli Prosperetti, ‘The style of the Historia calamitatum. A preliminary test of the authenticity of the correspondence attributed to Abelard and Heloise’, Viator 6 (1975), pp. 59–86. 42 J. Jolivet, ‘Abélard entre chien et loup’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 20 (1977), pp. 307–322 at p. 311. 43 P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, p. 431, n. 12. 44 J. Leclercq, ‘Modern Psychology and the Interpretation of Medieval Texts’, Speculum, 48 (1973), pp. 476–490 at pp. 481–485. Dom Leclercq has applied psychological principles in his recent study of St Bernard, Nouveau visage de Bernard de Clairvaux: approches psycho-historiques. Essais, Paris, Cerf, 1976). See now also Dom Leclercq’s latest book, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France. Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 119–121 (‘Héloïse and the Paraclete’). 45 P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, p. 435 and n. 17. 46 D. W. Robertson, Jr., Abelard and Heloise, especially p. 110. 47 Abelard and Heloise, p. 110. 48 Abelard and Heloise, p. 112. 49 G. Duby, Hommes et structures du moyen âge. Recueil d’articles, Paris, Mouton, 1973, chap. XI, pp. 213–225: ‘Les “jeunes” dans la société aristocratique dans la France du Nord-­Ouest au XIIe siècle’. 50 Robertson suggests this in Abelard and Heloise, pp. 112–113. 51 P. von Moos in ‘Lucan und Abaelard’, p.  425, n. 22 observes justly that the Historia calamitatum, up to the seduction of Heloise, is not just the tale of a miles gloriosus. See also P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, p. 451, n. 66. 52 Peter Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies. More recently F. Bruni has also underlined the attraction felt by François Villon and Jean de Meun towards the amorous elements of the correspondence in an interesting study,

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e ‘“Historia Calamitatum, Secretum, Corbaccio”: tre posizioni su luxuria (-amor) e superbia (-gloria)’, in Boccaccio in Europe – Proceedings of the Boccaccio Conference, Louvain, December 1975, ed. G. Tournoy, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1977 (Symbolae Facultatis Litterarum et Philosophiae Lovaniensis, Series A/Vol. 4), pp. 23–52 at pp. 29–30. 53 D. W. Robertson, Abelard and Heloise, pp. 156–164. 54 Dronke, Abelard and Heloise, pp. 19–20 and 45–48. 55 Dronke, Abelard and Heloise, pp.  16–18. J. F. Benton ‘Philology’s Search for Abelard in the Metamorphosis Goliae’, Speculum, 50 (1975), pp.  199–217, had attempted to deny the allusion to Heloise. 56 J. Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, pp. 419–421. 57 Roman de la Rose, ed. F. Lecoy, 3 vols, Paris, Champion, 1965–1970, vv. 8729–8802 (= vv. 8759–8832 in the edition of E. Langlois, 5 vols, Paris, Firmin-­ Didot, 1914–1924). 58 Cit. Robertson, Abelard and Heloise, p. 152. 59 E.g. ‘Or argue Heloys contre li mesmes’ (‘Now Heloise is arguing against herself’) and ‘Encore 1’amoit elle comme forsenee’ (‘Still she loved Abelard like one beside herself’) with reference to Letter 2. See Dronke, Abelard and Heloise, pp. 28–29. 60 Dronke, Abelard and Heloise, pp. 14–16 at p. 43. I quote Dr Dronke’s Latin text and English translation. 61 P. von Moos, ‘Palatini quaestio quasi peregrini. Ein gestriger Streitpunkt aus der Abaelard-­Heloise-­Kontroverse nochmals überprüft’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 9 (1974), pp. 124–158 at p. 129. 62 See on this P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, especially pp. 440–442 and the authors cited in n. 32. Cf. too J. Jolivet, ‘Abélard entre chien et loup’, pp. 361–362 (review of Dr Dronke’s Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies). 63 Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 64, l. 46; pp. 70–71, ll. 252–269. On this see the just remarks of F. Bruni on the vocabulary of the Historia calamitatum, in ‘“Historia Calamitatum, Secretum, Corbaccio”: tre posizioni su luxuria (-amor) e superbia (-gloria)’, pp. 27–28. 64 P. von Moos, Mittelalterforschung und Ideologiekritik. Der Gelehrtenstreit um Heloise, pp. 121–128. 65 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, especially. p. 60. Also Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, especially pp. 416–421. 66 J. Leclercq, ‘Lettres de S. Bernard: Histoire ou littérature?’, Studi medievali, 12 (1971), pp. 1–74; Leclercq, ‘Recherches sur la collection des lettres de S. Bernard’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 14 (1971), pp. 205–219. 67 G. Constable, Letters and Letter-Collection (Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, ed. L. Génicot, fasc. 17),Turnhout, Brepols, 1976, p. 52 (referring to G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo. 2nd ed., Florence, 1952, pp. 449–457 and other studies). 68 Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, p. 50 (with references). 69 Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, p. 60.* 70 PL 178, 187D; ed. Muckle, p. 73. 71 PL 178, 209B; ed. Muckle, p. 91. 72 PL 178, 192BC; ed. Muckle, p. 77. 73 P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, pp. 436–437 and n. 21. 74 PL 178, 200C; ed. Muckle, p.  84. This was recognized by P. von Moos in a German version of ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’ which appeared under the title ‘Die Bekehrung Heloises’ in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 11 (1976), pp.  95–125 at p. 101, n. 9. P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, p. 437, n. 21 also noted that in Letter 8 (PL 178, 274D; ed. McLaughlin, p. 258) Abelard says he has recalled

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t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ elsewhere the cura shown by the Apostles for women – ‘ut jam satis alibi meminimus’. Von Moos refers to Letter 7 (PL 178, 253 CD; ed. Muckle, p.  278 et seq.). The passage Abelard had in mind is surely in Letter 7 but at PL 178, 232D–233A; ed. Muckle, pp. 258–259. In any case, this is a straightforward reference from one letter to a previous one; it does not suggest the work of a reviser nor does it suggest that Abelard wrote ‘comme s’il s’agissait d’un seul traité à lire à la suite’. 75 ‘O fratres et commonachi, qui tam impudenter quotidie contra Regulae institutionem ac nostram professionem ad carnes inhiatis, quid ad hujus mulieris constantiam dicturi estis?’ (PL 178, 244 CD; ed. Muckle, p. 269). The reference is to the mother who died with her seven sons at the hand of King Antiochus rather than eat pork (2 Maccabees, 7). The appeal to ‘fratres’ is understandable in this context. 76 PL 178, 245A; ed. Muckle, p. 270. In Sermon 29 on St Susanna Abelard addresses the virgin sisters of the Paraclete but also in the space of a few lines makes a direct appeal to priests and clerics: ‘Audistis, virgines et sponsae Christi . . .’ (PL 178, 563BC); ‘sorores charissimae’ (563D). ‘Audistis, et vos, tam presbyteri quam clerici, judicium vestrum, qui circa sponsas Dei aliqua de causa conversantes, vel eis familiaritate qualibet adhaerentes, tanto a Deo longius receditis, quanto eis turpiter amplius propinquatis’ (563C). Sermon 31 (‘In natali S. Stephani’) is addressed both to ‘fratres’ (PL 178, 569C) and to ‘dilectissimae sorores’ (572A); ‘Vos tandem alloquor virgines’ (573A). Cf. Tchr II, 46: ‘Numquid hoc, fratres . . .’ and III, 132: ‘Attendite, fratres et uerbosi amici . . .’, pp. 150, 244. 77 P. von Moos, ‘Le silence d’Héloïse’, p. 436. Also von Moos, Mittelalterforschung und Ideologiekritik, 37.1–2, 59.1. 78 The Troyes MS and its history are fully described by M. Monfrin in his edition of the Historia calamitatum, pp. 9–18. See further pp. 60–61 for a careful statement regarding the origins and early history of the letter-­collection.* 79 Cf. D. Van den Eynde, ‘Les écrits perdus d’Abélard’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp. 467–480. 80 The Problemata Heloissae and the Sermo ad virgines Paraclitenses survive in cod. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 14511, which was copied around 1400 according to P. Dronke in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, p. 53 and n. 2.* 81 Hymns, ed. Szövérffy, I, p. 20. 82 H. Silvestre, ‘A propos d’une édition récente de l’Hymnarius Paraclitensis d’Abélard’, Scriptorium, 32 (1978), pp. 91–100. For other extensive criticisms of Szövérffy’s edition see the review by P. Dronke in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 13. Jahrgang (1978), pp. 307–311. 83 PL 178, 1857–1870. On Berengar see chapter 14 below. Paris, Bibl. nat. de France, lat. 2923 is described by Monfrin in his edition of the Historia calamitatum, pp. 18–19.* For a few further considerations regarding the MS tradition of the Letters of Heloise and Abelard see S. Vanni Rovighi, ‘Un dibattito sull’autenticità dell’epistolario di Abelardo ed Eloisa’, Aevum, 50 (1976), pp. 357–359 at p. 358. 84 These differing types of collection are classified by M. Monfrin in ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, pp. 416–421. In his edition of the Historia calamitatum, pp. 58–59, M. Monfrin showed that the text of the Historia calamitatum was little altered in the course of copying and therefore it was not widely circulated.* 85 Descriptions of these MSS are given by M Monfrin in the introduction to his edition of the Historia calamitatum, pp. 20–22, 50. 86 C. Bozzola, ‘L’humaniste Gontier Col et la traduction française des Lettres d’Abélard et Héloïse’, Romania, 95 (1974), pp. 199–215 at p. 200. 87 MS. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 920, p. 214.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 88 Cf. Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, pp. 13–14. On Roberto de’Bardi see also F. Bruni, ‘“Historia Calamitatum, Secretum, Corbaccio”’, p. 32. 89 See B. Smalley, ‘Jean de Hesdin O. Hosp. S. Ioh.’, RTAM, 28 (1961), pp. 283–330, here p.  293. Jean de Hesdin cites ‘Berengarius in apologia pro Petro Abelardi (sic)’ and Abelard ‘in principio epistolarum suarum’ (i.e.the Historia calamitatum). The reference to Berengar suggests that he obtained a MS like that of Petrarch who was his contemporary. 90 For Jean de Montreuil see Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, p. 50 (with further references). 91 For Nicolas de Baye see Monfrin, ‘Le problème de I’authenticité’, pp. 417–418, n. 31. 92 Cf. Epistolae Academicae Oxonienses, ed. H. Anstey, 2 vols, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1898 (Oxford Historical Society, 35–36), I, p.  235. This lost MS (‘Item, “Epistolas” Petri Abaralardi secundo folio dicens’) was among the books given by Duke Humphrey to Oxford University in 1443. It may be added to the list of four lost MSS of the Letters made by M. Monfrin in his edition of the Historia calamitatum, pp. 50–51.* 93 For Roger Benoiton see Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, pp. 417–418, n. 31. 94 I hope shortly to discuss Johannes’ manuscript. It contains excerpts from the letter-­collection copied in the second half of the fifteenth century. See J. A. Corbett, Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1978, pp. 137–157 (Notre Dame MS. 30).* 95 J. F. Benton, ‘The Paraclete and the Council of Rouen of 1231’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, New Series, 4 (1974), pp.  33–38. The texts discussed by Professor Benton (the Institutiones and the following pieces) are printed in PL 178, 313–326. The Institutiones occupy only columns 313–317. For an earlier description of ff. 89a et seq. (the folios following the letter-­collection) see Monfrin, ed., Historia calamitatum, pp. 11–13.* 96 D. Van den Eynde, ‘En marge des écrits d’Abélard. Les “Excerpta ex regulis Paracletensis monasterii”’, Analecta Praemonstratensia, 38(1962), pp. 70–84. 97 Cf. J. F. Benton, ‘Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 474–478. In an appendix (pp. 503–506) Benton prints several passages from these texts that appear to give conflicting information regarding the organization of the Paraclete. 98 PL 178, 313D. 99 J. Rambaud-­Buhot, ‘Le Statut des Moniales chez les Pères de l’Eglise, dans les Règles monastiques et les Collections canoniques jusqu’au XIIe siècle’, in Sainte Fare et Faremoutiers. Treize siècles de vie monastique, Abbaye de Faremoutiers (S.- et M.), 1956, pp. 149–174. 100 On the Chaumont m ­ anuscript – ­the ‘liturgical version’ of the hymns of the ­Paraclete – ­see Hymnarius, ed. Szövérffy, I, pp. 21–22. 101 I have, however, profited greatly from reading other discussions such as those listed here which are all relevant to the study of the Letters and which have appeared since 1972: M.-T. d’Alverny, ‘Comment les théologiens et les philosophes voient la femme’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 20 (1977), pp. 105–129. E. Baumgartner, ‘De Lucrèce à Héloïse’, Romania, 95 (1974), pp. 433–442. F. Beggiato, ‘La prima lettera d’Eloisa ad Abelardo nella traduzione di Jean de Meun’, Cultura neolatina, 32 (1972), pp. 211–229. F. Chatillon, ‘Notes abélardiennes (suite). V: Héloïse, la “mieux aimée”. VI: Sur une interprétation fantaisiste du nom de “Paraclet”’, Revue du moyen âge latin, 23 for 1967 (1976), pp. 113–117. F. Chatillon, Notes

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t h e l e t t e r s s i n c e ‘ c lu n y, 1 9 7 2 ’ abélardiennes (suite). VIII. – ‘Sur l’appellation d’Historia calamitatum’, Revue du moyen âge latin, 24 for 1968 (1977), pp. 64–66. P. Dronke, ‘Francesca and Héloïse’, Comparative Literature, 26, no. 2 (1975), pp. 113–135. H. Fromm, ‘Gottfried von Strassburg und Abaelard’, in Festschrift für Ingeborg Schröbler, ed. D. Schmidtke and H. Schüppert, Tübingen, Max Niemayer, 1973, pp. 196–216. H. Kolb, ‘Peter von Moos: Mittelalterforschung und Ideologiekritik. Der Gelehrtenstreit um Heloise’, Euphorion, 68 (1974), pp. 286–295. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, translated with an introduction by B. Radice, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1974 (Penguin Classics). (It is a pleasure to mention that Mrs Radice is contributing the English translation of the Latin text of the Letters which it has fallen to me to provide in the forthcoming Oxford Medieval Texts edition of this work). D. de Robertis, Carte d’identità. La Cultura. Saggi di arte e di letteratura 29, Milan, il Saggiatore, 1974, pp. 11–67 and 391 (‘Abelardo o il senso della propria storia ritrovato attraverso i classici’ – an essay which first appeared in fasc. I of Maia for 1964: Studi in onore di Gennaro Perotta, Bologna, Cappelli, pp. 524–572). F. J. Worstbrock, ‘Ein Lucanzitat bei Abaelard und Gotfrid’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Tubingen) 98:3 (1976), pp. 351–356. 102 ‘Abélard entre chien et loup’, p. 310.* 103 J. Miethke, ‘Abaelards Stellung zur Kirchenreform. Eine Biographische Studie’, Francia, 1 (1972), pp. 158–192. 104 J. Verdon, ‘Les moniales dans la France de l’Ouest aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, p. 247.

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16 PETER ABELARD AND THE ABBEY OF THE PARACLETE

I have a double purpose in writing this communication. I wish first to support the conclusions of Father Chrysogonus Waddell concerning the Rule which was observed in the abbey of the Paraclete when Heloise was the abbess:1 the Rule was the Rule of St Benedict and the document which presents the Institutions (also known from the opening words as Institutiones nostrae) – these were prepared ‘almost certainly’2 while Heloise was ­abbess – ­appears to present official adaptations and a supplement to the Rule of the Paraclete. These Institutions were probably prepared by Heloise, although they are not mentioned in documents concerning the Paraclete and there is no evidence of their being presented for approval by higher ecclesiastical authority.3 Secondly, I also wish to support the conclusions of Father Waddell concerning the monastic office which was developed at the Paraclete. The surviving Paraclete Ordinary, written in French at the end of the thirteenth century, presents an accumulation of various practices and customs such as one might find in a religious house which had the freedom to adapt its practices in the light of local circumstances, of the priorities and desires of the community and of its friends and benefactors, while remaining faithful to the general structure of the church’s calendar and of the Rule of St Benedict. Firstly, then, the Institutions. But before looking at these we need to have in mind the outlines of the dossier contained in the manuscript Troyes 802. Here we have the principal texts which show the foundation of the convent of the Paraclete: the letters written by its founder and its first abbess, and the Rule provided by the founder which is followed in the manuscript by the Institutions.4 The Institutions, as is well known, are found only in this manuscript Troyes 802, where they are the first of five texts which present rules for nuns.5 The second of these five documents consists of canons 187–215 of Book 3 of the Panormia attributed to Ivo of Chartres; these canons concern virgins, widows and abbesses and they were established during the 1090s. The third document contains two statutes promulgated by the council of Rouen in 1231 and concerning Benedictine nuns.6 The fourth contains a series of disciplinary measures established between 1174 and 1236/8 by various general chapters of the Order of Prémontré. The fifth consists of the statutes decreed 251

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e in 816 at Aix-­la-­Chapelle for the monastic life. The terminus ante quem for the collection of these five pieces is, at the latest, the first half of the thirteenth century. Why these texts were gathered together and copied we do not know with certainty, but they are all connected by a common theme: the organization of women living a religious life. One can therefore suppose that the collection was made for the use of religious women. The first item, it may be noted, was written by a hand which is different from the hand which wrote the others.7 The text of the Institutions affirms that customs were established ‘so that what the mother upholds immutably, her daughters should also observe uniformly’.8 The contents of the codex encourage an assumption that this mother house is the abbey of the Paraclete. All the five priories of the Paraclete were founded before 1157. The late Father D. Van den Eynde was not sure whether the Institutions were written during Heloise’s lifetime for he thought that they were at variance from some of the prescriptions found in the Rule which Heloise requested from Abelard. For example, Heloise suggested to Abelard that, since regular canons eat meat, nuns could do so too.9 Remarkably, Abelard allowed the nuns to eat meat three times a week.10 For him eating meat was not wrong; more important was the duty to eat with moderation. That the question was important to him may be seen in the hymn ‘Deus qui corpora’ that he wrote to be sung at ­meals – ­a hymn that Father Waddell judged to be ‘­probably . . . ­the longest poetic discourse of the dangers of gluttony in all medieval literature’.11 It was, writes Father Waddell, so ‘bizarre’, and ‘too much for every day, perhaps even for every week’, that it rarely appears in the Ordinary.12 Father Van den Eynde found it hard to believe that Heloise would have authorized a ban on meat since earlier in Letter 6 she had asked Abelard to show moderation for the sisters over abstinence and fasts. It is possible that Heloise changed her mind on this question, possible too that she later decided to follow the Benedictine norm faithfully. In her Problemata – the Problemata Heloissae being a collection of 42 brief questions which arose from the nuns’ studies of the Bible and which she sent to Abelard together with a ­letter – ­abstinence appears as one of the problems. In Problema 24 the question is put: is it a sin to eat what one b ­ elieves – ­even ­erroneously – ­is wrong.13 The Institutions regulate food and drink and they do not unambiguously prohibit meat. The relevant passage is this: ‘In refectorio nostro cibi sine carnibus sunt legumina et ea quae nutrit [h]ortus. Lac, ova et caseus rarius apponuntur, et pisces si dati fuerint; vinum mixtum sit aqua . . .’.14 The beginning of this passage may be translated: ‘In our refectory the meals are vegetables and garden produce without meat . . .’. But an alternative translation is this: ‘In our refectory meals without meat are vegetables and garden produce. Milk, eggs and cheese are more rarely served, and fish if available; wine should be mixed with water . . .’. And according to Enid McLeod in her book on Heloise this is the sense of the reference to meat and it is not a prohibition: ‘In our refectory the meatless meals are composed of 252

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e legumes . . .’.15 This would appear to be confirmation of Abelard’s own view, not only about wine – ‘they should dilute (wine) with water’ – but also about food on meatless days: ‘Whenever meat is unavailable, two servings of any kind of dish are allowed, and we do not prohibit fishes being added’.16 Institutions of the Paraclete type, as Father Waddell tells us, are also found at Cluny and at Citeaux. They provide a supplement to the Rule of St Benedict and define what is distinctive in these houses or in their particular Order. Such Institutes also sketch the daily timetable as in a monastic customary. Abelard never (at least in his writings) considered the possibility that the priories that depended on the Paraclete would need a definition of their constitutional relationships. Father Waddell has suggested that the Paraclete Institutes appeared at a time when dependent foundations were organized, probably before 1147 when Hugh, archbishop of Sens, required the priory of La Pomeraye to conform to the ordo Paraclitensis.17 Fr Waddell also noted that paragraphs 1–10 of the Paraclete Institutes follow the same plan as the Cistercian Institutes and reproduce these Institutes while also freely adapting or rejecting them: ‘there is no d ­ oubt . . . ­that the Paraclete reproduced a collection of Cistercian practices just as they were’.18 And he showed that the Institutes also incorpated elements of the Rule offered by Abelard at the request of Heloise,19 although ‘there is no proof that (Abelard’s) Rule was followed as such’.20 If one follows the detailed commentary made by Fr Waddell and which accompanies his transcription of the manuscript text of the Institutes, one sees that neither the Rule of Abelard nor the Cistercian institutions are completely assimilated into the Paraclete Institutes, but rather show a point of contact here, a verbal parallel there, and points of difference or of agreement discernable within allusions to or recollections of earlier texts. The second paragraph shows Cistercian influence on the need for a uniform interpretation of the Rule of St Benedict as does the third paragraph on the religious habit and perhaps the fifth paragraph on meat. But paragraphs 7 and 9 depart from Cistercian statutes on essential provisions, revenues and work, and also on the reception of religious women already professed elsewhere. On the other hand, the first paragraph shows Abelard’s influence over general norms as does the third on clothes, the fourth on bedding, and the ninth on admissions to the community.21 The author’s independence does not imply a lack of esteem for Abelard nor a systematic rejection of his Rule. Nor does it imply a systematic ‘Cistercianization’ of the administration of the Paraclete.22 Proof that the Paraclete had great respect for Abelard is very clear. The reception of Abelard’s body and its interment in the chapel of the Petit Moustier in the lifetime of Heloise, the writing of an epitaph which was placed above his tomb, and the exposition of the letter of Peter the Venerable granting absolution to Abelard, form part of this proof.23 A further proof is the annual Procession of the nuns on the first Sunday after Easter (Quasimodo Sunday) – this is indicated in 253

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e the late-­thirteenth-­century ­Ordinary – ­to the Petit Moustier where Abelard and Heloise and other members of the original community were buried. Fr Waddell associates the day chosen for this Procession with the anniversary of Abelard’s death on April 21; if Abelard died in 1142, this day was the Tuesday after Easter. Processions took place on Sundays and the Sunday following Easter Tuesday was the suitable time.24 The dedication of the abbey to the Paraclete, Abelard’s final choice in preference to the original dedication to the Holy Trinity, shows a fidelity to the founder’s wishes,25 and the dedications of the three altars in the chapel to the Holy Spirit, to St Mary the Virgin and to St John the Baptist perhaps reflect Abelard’s thought about consolation, feminine dignity and eremiticism.26 The fact that the new chapel, built in the Cistercian style towards the end of the twelfth century under abbess Mélisende (1172–1202/3),27 was consecrated on the feastday of St Denis the martyr and his companions (October 9), and the fact too that this feast, transferred to October 10, was celebrated, even at the end of the thirteenth century, in the old chapel, the Petit Moustier,28 indicates further the faithfulness to the memory that the abbey was founded in a property which belonged to the abbey of Saint-­Denis and after Abelard had been released from his obligation to reside there. Furthermore, the name of the cross found on the land of the abbey of the Paraclete, the ‘croix au mestre’ before which the sisters processsed for 800 metres each Wednesday on Rogation Days after Easter, and of which a drawing survives dated 1548, shows perhaps that Abelard was remembered as the master of this place.29 If we carry on looking, we find other indications of respect for the founder and of interest in his life and his enthusiasms. The abbey commemorated Abelard’s connection with the abbey of Saint-­Gildas-­de-­Rhuys by celebrating the feast of St Gildas as a feast with twelve lessons.30 It developed a unique Office for the feast of St Philip the Deacon31 and also for St Lawrence,32 thereby reflecting Abelard’s enthusiasm for deacons. The sisters celebrated the feast of St Thibaut or Thierry with twelve lessons: St Thibaut, who died in 633, had tried to put his wife in a convent and later, in association with an abbess, Suzanne, founded the abbey of Saint-­Thierry.33 St Brice, with whose life Abelard’s own also has some resonances, was likewise honoured with a feast with twelve lessons: St Brice was a monk who created difficulties at Saint-­ Martin of Tours which resulted in his expulsion to the abbey of Marmoutier and also in several condemnations. He travelled to Rome to protest his innocence and returned to become a much respected bishop.34 Moreover, in summer when the readings before Compline were normally taken from the Lives of the Fathers, readings taken from the Lives of Saints Alexis, Adrian and Eustace were inserted, these saints having all become separated from their wives in dramatic circumstances.35 In 1979 I remarked that the Institutes, although very brief, contain details of usages not found or not adequately presented in Abelard’s Rule. Among other matters these usages concern the admission of guests and of children (‘schola 254

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e et junioribus’). There are references also to young girls, spinsters and pensioners,36 to the limit put upon their numbers, and to the need to keep accounts. I maintained that the Institutes presuppose Abelard’s Rule but that this Rule, I thought, was a rather general work, one which combined practical points with religious exhortation that was supported by quotations and examples taken from Scripture and from patristic and monastic sources.37 The Intsitutes, on the other hand, were concerned with practical matters arising from the development of the convent over the years. I supposed that, if Heloise had asked Abelard to write a Rule for the Paraclete, the Rule he provided would become the official Rule. Fr Waddell rejected this assumption on the ground that, in his view, the abbey and its priories followed the Rule of St Benedict, although this was modified in the light of particular customs, including customs introduced by Abelard. Fr Waddell noted that Abelard’s Rule had been designed to replace the Rule of St Benedict, not to modify it or to interpret it. But Abelard’s Rule could not be adopted in toto, especially in a convent which had already followed the Rule of St Benedict when at Argenteuil and at the time of coming to the Paraclete. On the other hand, Abelard’s Rule could help the sisters to interpret the Rule of St Benedict.38 A key question in Abelard’s Rule is that of the position that Abelard had and wanted to have in the government of the Paraclete. His view of the relations between monks and nuns developed and changed between writing the Historia calamitatum and writing the Rule.39 In the Historia calamitatum Abelard states his decision to ‘care for (the sisters) and by his presence among them to give more support to meet their needs’.40 Contemporary abbots such as Peter the Venerable, Robert of Arbrissel and Norbert of Prémontré had women under their jurisdiction: it was not unusual for nuns to be in the guardianship of an abbot. Abelard objected that abbesses should not have authority over nuns of the kind that abbots had over monks, and that abbesses and nuns should certainly not have authority over clergy and laity for this would be contrary to the ‘natural order’.41 In his Rule he compares a convent to an army: the superior or the deaconess is like an emperor who must be obeyed in everything; office-­holders are like dukes and counts, the nuns are like milites or knights, and the conversi like soldiers.42 Abelard sketches the plan of a double monastery of men and women, one monastery beside the other. His plan took root in his mind through the example of the companionship of both men and women that is frequently found in the Old and the New Testament43 and which had its analogues in the twelfth century at Fontevraud, Prémontré and Sempringham. Monks and lay brothers would be responsible for all physical work and for external affairs; the abbess would have responsibility for the spiritual needs of the nuns. Abelard expected that the superior ‘who is currently called an abbess’44 would be called a ‘deaconess’, that the male superior would be called a provost (praepositus) and that he would preside over both the nuns and the monks. But the role of the provost in relation to the deaconess would be to serve her and support her.45 ‘We order the monks to do nothing counter 255

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e to the will of the deaconess. They must follow her instructions. All, the men as well as the women, would make their profession to her and promise her their obedience’.46 There is a change, at least of emphasis, in Abelard’s final presentation of the manner in which he wished to exercise his authority as abbot. This change was supported by a turn away from the misogynist tone of the Historia calamitatum – which was written for a friend and which cited one of Juvenal’s mysoginist ­satires – ­and by his detailed study in Letter ­7 – ­which was written for H ­ eloise – o ­ f examples of the dignity of women found in the Old and the New Testament.47 But we should not exaggerate the anti-­ feminism of the Historia, which also presents Biblical examples of women and of men living in community.48 Of the final decision taken at the abbey of the Paraclete over Abelard’s proposals we know very little. We do not know the length of Abelard’s visits to the abbey. The charters and the Institutes do not mention a provost or a deaconess nor do they mention monks or an abbot but only clerics living nearby and serving the convent under the direction of a master (magister).49 Perhaps ­circumstances – ­poor health, the struggle to avoid condemnation for heresy, being away in Cluny, a shortage of monks, and finally d ­ eath – p ­ revented Abelard from achieving his aim to establish a double monastery for women and men. The abbey of the Paraclete observed the Rule of St Benedict, but like many other religious houses it turned to Cîteaux for many observances which were Cistercian. Possibly efforts were made to install Abelard’s prescriptions but without success. There is no evidence that the abbey rejected them expressly. Secondly, the monastic office. Fr Waddell has shown that the Paraclete owed much to the Cistercian Office. – and much more than the Institutes owed to Cistercian Institutes.50 The Paraclete Calendar depends directly on the calendar adoted by Cisterican houses ‘well before 1175’.51 Cistercian influence did not monopolize the Office at the Paraclete. There were other sources and even at the end of the thirteenth century one finds many of Abelard’s ­contributions – ­contributions which were unrecognized until Fr Waddell brought his powerful competence as a historian of liturgy to the study of the Ordinary, the Breviary and the Calendar of the Paraclete, and as well published these texts for the first time.52 Fr Waddell found that the Paraclete adopted the first recension of the Cistercian Hymnal and its collection of prayers for the Office and for Mass.53 The antiphons, responses, verses, short lessons and collects are mainly Cisterican.54 Often the hymns were hymns composed by Abelard for the convent or they were hymns that belonged to Gallican tradition. But more often they were taken from the primitive Cistcerian h ­ ymnal – ­the hymnal that was heavily criticized by Abelard in his Letter 10 on the ground that this hymnal contained unheard-­of texts incapable of meeting the needs of the Office and the Calendar.55 Nonetheless, and notwithstanding Abelard’s opinion, the Paraclete at the end of the thirteenth century still retained the first recension of this hymnal together with its melodies,56 long after its revison by the Cistercians in 256

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e the 1140s. One reason for Abelard’s composition of his Hymnarius was possibly the fact that the sisters of the Paraclete were singing hymns found in the first Cistercian collection, which he despised and which he sought to improve: the crticisms he made in the first book of his Hymnarius of hymns in current use resemble those he made of Cistercian hymns in Letter 10.57 In other ways, however, as Fr Waddell has shown, the nuns departed from Cistercian practices. Unlike the Cistercians they chanted numerous sequences. They used suffrages of the saints unlike the Cistercians whom Abelard criticized on this account.58 Ever since the editio princeps of Abelard’s works appeared in 1616 it has been known that Abelard wrote for the Paraclete books of hymns, a commentary on the Book of Genesis, the Problemata Heloissae, Sermons,59 a letter or treatise about nuns, a Rule,60 and a letter or treatise on the study of Scripture and of the three Biblical languages.61 Although in Letter 10 Abelard complained to Bernard of Clairvaux about his interference in the Paraclete ­liturgy – ­the liturgy that he himself helped to ­establish – ­the reception of Abelard’s writings at the Paraclete was almost completely unknown before the enquiries made by Fr Waddell. With his careful and erudite studies of the Paraclete Ordinary and Breviary Fr Waddell has enriched our knowledge of the contributions which Abelard made through his personal compositions and his selection of materials from other sources, and has demonstrated their reception in the abbey and their conservation towards the end of the thirteenth century. Most remarkably Fr Waddell has shown how Abelard planned the Holy Week Office at the Paraclete. The antiphons and responses, taken directly from the Bible, for Palm Sunday and the following days up to Holy Saturday, and also the hymns for the Triduum are unique to the Paraclete.62 Abelard compiled a lectionary with Biblical readings and pericopes chosen by himself.63 He provided the antiphons which are frequently found in the Ordinary. Fr Waddell clearly showed that, among the 31 invitatory antiphons in the Ordinary, more than a third cannot be identified elsewhere. Most of them have a common rhythmic structure and generally belong to the special feasts for which Abelard wrote sermons. So there was a distinct repertory of invitatory antiphons. A small number of the antiphons which cannot be identified in other sources, both Cistercian and non-­Cistercian, cluster round Holy Week, the feast of the Transfiguration and some other solemnities; these are perhaps Abelad’s own selection.64 Probably, according to Fr Waddell, Abelard also provided four series of canticles which were added to Cistercian canticles for the feasts of Easter, Pentecost, the Ascension, and for the Dedication of a church.65 He extracted texts from the Bible for responses which he edited lightly and set to music.66 One of these is explicitly attributed to the Maistre.67 Fr Waddell wonderfully identified the collects which he wrote from the unusual phrasing which he used and which is also found in his first Letter to Heloise: ‘Deus ­qui . . . t­ e quaesumus ut’. Traditional collects normally began with the words ‘Concede, quaesumus’ or ‘Da, quaesumus’.68 257

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Among the commentaries on Scripture which were read in the refectory were ‘expositions’ of Isaiah during Advent, of Ezekiel during November, and perhaps of the beginning of Genesis during Septuagesima. Fr Waddell suggested that the last of these may have been the commentary Abelard sent to the Paraclete and that the commentary on Ezekiel may have been the lost commentary which Abelard began at Laon and completed in Paris.These suggestions cannot be proved but they are not far-­fetched. Fr Waddell calculated that the number of days and the amount of time needed for these readings would be consistent with the length of these works. Moreover, a commentary on Ezekiel was found at the Paraclete in a small bound book (un liure uelu petit). Mention of a liure uelu is also made with reference to Abelard’s Sermons on the Assumption.69 With these discoveries Fr Waddell established a correlation between Abelard’s Rule and the contents of the Ordinary. In his Rule Abelard wrote that what is sung or read in church should be taken from an ‘authentic w ­ ork . . . ­especially from the Old and the New Testament’, and what is read aloud at the refectory table or in the chapter should be taken from expositions of this or of other edifying sources, including the works of the Doctors of the Church.70 And in fact in the Ordinary, the Office with items provided by ­Abelard – ­his antiphons, responses and c­ ollects – i­s mainly Biblical, while in the refectory commentaries and sermons were used.71 There was one exception: from the second Sunday after Pentecost to the first week of August, the Biblical books of Samuel and the Kings were replaced by the Liber pastoralis of Gregory the Great.72 Proof that many of the hymns sent by Abelard to the Paraclete were sung in the abbey, at least towards the end of the thirteenth century, is found in the Ordinary written in French, where there are also other hymns, both Cistercian and non-­Cistercian.73 Few of the hymns in book 3 of Abelard’s Hymnarius are not found in the Ordinary, and only his hymns for the feasts of Holy Cross and for the Dedication of a church are missing from book 2. But Abelard’s hymns were not sung very often. For example, on Epiphany, the Ascension and Pentecost his hymns were sung on the day of the solemnity but not during the Octave. Book 1 of the Hymnarius appears less often: apart from a hymn for mealtimes, the only ones found in the Ordinary are four Sunday hymns (Vespers I and II, Vigils and Lauds). During the week the sisters used Cistercian hymns. There is only one melody attaching to Abelard’s hymns.74 However, the hymns which he composed for the Triduum are found in the Ordinary along with some hymns for saints who had a special connection with Abelard and the Paraclete, incluing Saints Gildas, Benedict, Eustace, Ayoul and Denis. Abelard wrote sequences and tells us this in the letter he wrote to Heloise to introduce his Sermons.75 Incipits of ten or eleven sequences, otherwise unknown, are found in the ­Ordinary – ­about a fifth or a quarter of the total.76 Fr Waddell suggested that the Easter sequence, of which only the 258

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e incipit ‘Epithalamica’ is in the Ordinary, is perhaps the poem ‘Epithalamica dic sponsa’ which is found, with a melody, in a collection at Nevers where it follows a copy of Abelard’s Planctus ‘Dolorum solatium’.77 Fr Waddell attributes the poem to Abelard on account of the parallels it offers with other compositions of Abelard for Holy Week and Easter. Fr Waddell also suggested that Abelard wrote the verses which, with their melody, precede in the same Nevers manuscript the copy of the Planctus ‘Dolorum solatium’ and which begin ‘De profundis ad te clamantium’. This poem possibly corresponds to the sequence for the feast of the Dead of which the incipit given in the Ordinary is ‘De profundis’.78 Another sequence for the feast of St John may also be by Abelard.79 Fr Waddell was uncertain about the authorship of a sequence which begins ‘Quis dimisit’,80 but he suggested that, if three sequences in the Ordinary are by Abelard, it is possible that the ­remainder – ­seven or ­eight – ­otherwise unidentified could also be by Abelard. Remarkably, for the three sequences identified as Abelard’s work the melodies are also given,81 and possibly Abelard provided some chants for processions and for the liturgy.82 We know that Abelard wrote and sent a collection of Sermons to the Paraclete.83 The abbey had more than one homiliary (omelier) and it also possessed what the Ordinary called the sermonnaire or the sermonnaire du mestiers (the book of the Master’s Sermons) or the sermons maistre pierre (Master Peter’s Sermons) or sermons au mestre or sermons . . . mestiers.84 Such references appear at the feast of the Annunciation, on Palm Sunday, Pentecost and the Assumption, and sermons for these feasts were printed in the collection published by Duchesne and d’Amboise.85 This printed collection also includes eleven sermons addressed to the sisters (sorores) of the Paraclete and these, Fr Waddell sugggests, belonged in the sermonnaire. If so, Fr Waddell concludes, Abelard provided the Paraclete with a systematic series of sermons covering the period from Christmas to Pentecost. Fr Waddell’s findings rest on brilliant investigations into liturgy, architecture, music, poetry, hagiography and a necrology. Their prolixity and diffuseness justify, I suggest, the distillation and the brief evaluation which I have offered. They rule out the possibility of there having been a contradiction or disagreement between Abelard’s anti-­Cistercian prejudices and the Cistercian practices of the Paraclete sisters. The sisters’ debt to the Cisterican Office was ‘a heavier debt by far’86 but the one they owed to Abelard was also considerable because it comprised his hymns and possibly sequences, an Office for Holy Week, collects, antiphons, responses, canticles, sermons and a lectionary for the night Office. The absorption of Abelard’s contribution was considerable; the evidence of devotion at the Paraclete to the memory of both Abelard and Heloise is persuasive. We should recognize the debt of the Paraclete sisters to their founder, both the reception, acceptance and maintenance over a long term of interesting parts of Abelard’s offerings, and the choices they made, their eclecticism, their substitutions and their exclusions.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Notes   1 See the volumes published by Waddell (Chrysogonus), OCSO, in Cistercian Liturgy Series (CLS), Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky, 40051: The Old French Paraclete Ordinary and the Paraclete Breviary, I. Introduction and Commentary, 1985 (CLS 3); The Old French Paraclete Ordinary, II. Edition, 1983 (CLS 4); The Paraclete Breviary, IIIA. Edition. Kalendar and Temporal Cycle, 1983 (CLS 5); The Paraclete Breviary, IIIB. Edition. The Sanctoral Cycle, 1983 (CLS 6); The Paraclete Breviary, IIIC. Edition. Common of Saints, Varia, Indices, 1989 (CLS 7); Hymn Collections from the Paraclete, I. Introduction and Commentary, 1989 (CLS 8); Hymn Collections from the Paraclete, II. Edition, 1987 (CLS 9); The Paraclete Statutes. Institutiones Nostrae. Introduction, Edition, Commentary, 1987 (CLS 20).   2 CLS, 3, p. 5; CLS 20, p. 200.   3 CLS 20, pp. 38–40, 201–202.  4 The Institutes are transcribed in CLS 20, pp. 9–15. References made in the present communication to letters of Abelard and Heloise are based on the following editions: Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin; Letters 2–5, ed. Muckle; Letters 6–7, ed. Muckle; Letter 8 and the Rule ed. McLaughlin.  5 D. Van den Eynde, ‘En marge des écrits d’Abélard. Les “Excerpta ex regulis Paracletensis monasterii”’, Analecta Praemonstratensia, 38 (1962), pp. 70–84; CLS 20, pp. 19–21.   6 These statutes were identified by J.F. Benton, ‘The Paraclete and the Council of Rouen of 1231’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, n.s. 4 (1974), pp. 33–38.   7 CLS 20, p. 27.   8 CLS 20, p. 37.  9 Letter 6, p. 245. 10 Rule, p. 279. 11 CLS 3, pp. 32–33; Hymn 14, CLS 9, pp. 25–27. 12 PL 178, 709D–710A. 13 CLS 20, p. 10. 14 Rule, p. 277. 15 Rule, p.  280. ‘Pulmenta’ in this context signifies a selection of foods other than meat and fish. 16 2nd edition, London, Chatto & Windus, 1971, p. 171. 17 CLS 20, pp. 36–37. 18 CLS 20, pp. 78–80. 19 CLS 20, p. 131. 20 CLS 20, pp. 40, 199. 21 CLS 8, p. 94. 22 See Waddell’s commentary in CLS 20 (the numbers in brackets are those of paragraphs of the Institutes as numbered and edited by Waddell) in CLS 20: pp. 68–69 (I), pp.  82–85 (II), pp.  86–87 (III), pp.  88–89 and 92–93 (IV), pp.  95–97 (V), pp. 104–109 (VII) and pp. 118, 123 (IX). 23 C. H. Berman in The Cistercian Evolution. The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000, argues that the adoption by many religious houses of Cistercian practices by about the middle of the twelfth century happened before the constitution of a Cistercian Order and the issue of Cistercian Institutes in c.1165. Fr Waddell dates these to 1136/1146. 24 CLS 7, p. 439; C. J. Mews and C. S. F. Burnett, ‘La bibliothèque du Paraclet du XIIIe siècle à la Révolution’, Studia monastica, 27 (1985), pp. 31–67, here pp. 61v63. The letters exchanged by Heloise and abbot Peter about the absolution are edited

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e by G. Constable in The Letters of Peter the Venerable, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967 (Harvard Historical Studies, 78), vol. 1, nos. 167–168, pp. 400–402, with notes in vol. 2, pp. 209–210. 25 CLS 3, pp. 134–137, 338; all the burial places in the abbey were visited on All Souls’ Day; CLS 3, pp. 295–296, 339. 26 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1120–1195. In the charters and other formal documents dating from the period when Heloise was prioress or abbess, the dedication of the convent is stated on three occasions to be to the Holy Trinity, on four to the Holy Spirit and on seventeen to the Paraclete; see J. Barrow, C. Burnett and D. Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise and Other Works closely associated with Abelard and his School’, Revue d’histoire des textes, 14–15 (1984–1985), pp. 183–302, here pp, 287–292. 27 CLS, 3, pp. 101–102. On the development during the twelfth century of interest in the Holy Trinity and especially in the Holy Spirit see G. Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 40. 28 CLS 3, pp. 313–318, with information found in the Book of Burials (on which see CLS 3, p. xiv). 29 CLS 3, pp. 278, 283. 30 I write ‘perhaps’ because it is known that the nuns were served by clerics led by a master but mention of a master is not necessarily a mention of master Peter Abelard. See CLS 20, pp. 100–101. In the Obituary of the Paraclete on December 25 the name of Peter the Venerable appears with a mention of his transfer to the Paraclete of the body of ‘our master Peter’ (‘corpus magistri nostri Petri’); see G. Constable, Letters of Peter the Venerable, vol. 2, p. 210. On the Cross see CLS 3, pp. 143, 338; also J. F. Benton, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing in the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 469–511, here p. 481. 31 CLS 3, pp. 194–195. 32 CLS 3, pp. 209–210. 33 CLS 3, p. 235. 34 CLS 3, p. 217. 35 CLS 3, pp. 304–305 36 CLS 3, pp. 170–171 37 CLS 3, pp. 77, 92, 175; CLS 20, p. 12, l. 26, pp. 148–150. 38 Likewise M. M. McLaughlin, ‘Peter Abelard and the dignity of women: Twelfth century “feminism” in theory and practice’, in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 287–334, who puts the Rule within quotation marks (‘Rule’), writes that ‘it was meant from the first as more than a “kind of institute or rule” . . . What he proposed was something much closer to a “mirror” of monastic perfection, a “treatise of instruction” and exhortation aimed, if we may judge by its content, at translating into reality a highly personal vision of the monastic ideal’ (p. 318). McLaughlin writes too that Abelard’s purpose was didactic and exhortatory rather than purely normative (p. 319). 39 CLS 20, pp. 31–37, 43. 40 On the theme of feminine dignity in the writings of Abelard and Heloise see above all McLaughlin, ‘Peter Abelard and the Dignity of Women’. 41 ‘. . . corporali quoque presentia eis invigilare et sic etiam earum necessitudinibus subvenire’, Historia calamitatum ed. Monfrin, ll. 1479–1481. 42 ‘ordine perturbato naturali, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, l. 1470. 43 p. 252. 44 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1400–1444; Letter 7, pp. 254–255.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 45 ‘diaconissam, quam nunc abbatissam nominant’, Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 252. 46 On deaconesses see Letter 7, ed. Muckle, pp.  264–265; Rule, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 252–260. 47 ‘Ne tamen viri fortiores feminis in aliquo eas gravare praesumant, statuimus eos quoque nihil praesumere contra voluntatem diaconissae, sed omnia ipsos etiam ad nutum eius peragere, et omnes pariter tam viros quam feminas ei professionem facere, et obedientiam promittere ut tanto pax firmior habeatur et melius servetur concordia quanto fortioribus minus licebit, et tanto minus fortes debilibus obedire graventur, quanto earum violentiam minus vereantur’, Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 260. 48 In Letter 7, ed. Muckle, p. 268, Abelard cites Ambrose, De paradiso 4, 24 on the creation of woman and her seduction in Paradise. In Sermon 26 on the Assumption Abelard calls Paradise woman’s natural home (PL 178, 542). See M. Clanchy, Abelard. A Medieval Life, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, pp. 252–257. 49 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1399–1444. At ll. 1424–1435 Abelard cites ‘Humbert’ (= Leo IX) who prohibited desertion of a wife for the sake of entering religion. Chapter 103 of the Sic et Non concerns the Apostles and their wives: ‘That all the Apostles except John had wives and contra’, SN, pp. 336–337. 50 CLS 20, pp. 100–101. 51 CLS 3, p. v. 52 CLS 3, pp. 319–336; ed. CLS 5, pp. 3–14. 53 On the manuscripts that belonged to the Paraclete see Mews, ‘La bibliothèque du Paraclet’. 54 CLS 3, pp. 66–67. 55 CLS 3, p. 363, 367, 368, 369–370. 56 CLS 8, pp. III, 4–6, 86–114, 140–144; see Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247, and for other criticisms of the Cistercians made by Abelard see L. J. Engels, ‘Adtendite a falsis prophetis (Ms Colmar, 128, f. 152v/153v). Un texte de Pierre Abélard contre les cisterciens retrouvé?’ in Corona gratiarum. Miscellanea patristica, historica et liturgica Eligio Dekkers O.S.B. XII lustra complenti oblata, Bruges, F. T. De Vries, 1975 (Instrumenta patristica, 11), vol. 2, pp. 195–228. The first Cistercian hymnal contained only 34 hymns and 19 melodies taken from Ambrosian, that is from Milanese, sources. 57 CLS 3, pp. 12–13. 58 CLS 3, pp. 67–68: the Paraclete followed Cistercian custom in continuing to sing Alleluia during Septuagesima, in spite of the criticism of this Cistercian particularity which Abelard made in Letter 10, ed. Smits, p. 245. 59 CLS 3, pp. 15, 348, 371–374. The Paraclete offered suffrages (intercessory prayers) daily and liberally in the Office of Lauds. Among the saints to whom they prayed were patrons of the Paraclete priories: St Mary Magdalene, St Martin, St Thomas Becket, St Flavy and St Nicholas. 60 On Abelard’s Sermons (published in PL 178, 379–610) see D. Van den Eynde, ‘Le recueil des sermons de Pierre Abélard’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp. 17–54; A. Granata, ‘La dottrina dell’elemosina nel sermone Pro sanctimonialibus de Paraclito di Abelardo’, Aevum, 47 (1973), pp. 31–59; Engels, ‘Adtendite a falsis prophetis’. 61 Letters 7 and 8 and the Rule that follows were written in response to Heloise’s Letter 6. On this Letter see L. Georgianna, ‘Any Corner of Heaven: Heloise’s Critique of Monasticism’, Mediaeval Studies, 49 (1987), pp. 221–253. 62 Letter 9, ed. Smits, pp. 219–237. On these writings cf. J. Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp.  72–81. Waddell, CLS 20, pp. 55–56, considered Letter 9 to be part of the Rule: ‘Letter IX begins precisely where the Rule leaves off ’.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d t h e a b b e y o f t h e pa rac l e t e 63 CLS, 3, pp. 389–390. The hymns for the Triduum (nos. 106–119) are published in CLS 9, pp. 144–159 from the Chaumont MS 31. Cf. CLS, 8, p. 6. 64 There are 39 references to the ‘leçonnier’ in the Ordinary, 24 to pericopes, and 15 to other Biblical sources. Cf. CLS 3, pp. 364–367; and pp. 291, 293, 297, 302. Also Mews, ‘La bibliothèque du Paraclet’, pp. 35–37. 65 CLS 3, pp. 354–356, 361–362; also pp. 123, 133, 145, 152, 157, 177, 184, 202, 203, 224, 237, 256, 268, 280. Index in CLS, 7, pp. 445–459. 66 CLS 3, pp. 359–361. The Paraclete canticles are published in CLS 7, pp. 379–393. 67 CLS 3, pp. 367–368; also pp. 39,43, 51,74, 96, 133, 148, 152, 176, 179, 195, 200, 212, 226, 237, 240, 246, 247, 252, 256, 268, 288. Index in CLS 7, pp. 463–466. 68 CLS 3, p. 297; ed. CLS, 4, p. 87, l. 31. 69 CLS 3, pp. 353–354, 369–370, 377–379; also pp. 95, 191, 193. See too the Postulations, ed. CLS 57, pp. 401–402. Index of all the collects in CLS 7, pp. 473–484, 489–490, 491. 70 CLS 3, pp. 168–169, 384, 239–240. 71 ‘Nihil in ecclesia legatur aut cantatur nisi de autentica sumptum scriptura, maxime autem de novo vel veteri t­ estamento . . . ­Expositiones vero ipsorum vel sermones doctorum seu quelibet scripture aliquid edificationis habentes ad mensam vel in capitulo recitentur’, Rule, ed. McLaughlin, p. 263. 72 For example, see CLS 3, pp. 80–81. 73 CLS 3, pp. 163–164. 74 CLS 3, pp. 357–359, 380; CLS 8, pp. 54–85; also CLS 3, pp. 61, 123, 127, 132, 145, 180, 184, 192, 194, 199, 200, 201, 215, 222, 223, 225, 226, 240, 241, 255, 257, 265, 267, 272, 284, 288, 289, 290, 292, 295, 298, 305, 380. Index in CLS 7, pp. 466–472. Edition in CLS 9. 75 The melody for the hymn has been transcribed and reconstituted in CLS 8, pp. 33, 45–54 (with references to earlier studies); on pp.  115–144 Waddell also reconstitutes other melodies found in the Ordinary with the incipits of the hymns; he thinks they reflect both Cistercian and non-­Cistercian sources. 76 PL 178, 379–380. 77 CLS 3, pp. 347–350. Index of all the sequences in CLS 4, p. 6. 78 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS nouvelle acquisition latine 3126. See CLS 3, pp. 125–126. The sequence has been edited by C. Waddell, ‘Epithalamica: An Easter Sequence by Peter Abelard’, Musical Quarterly, 72 (1986), pp. 239–271. For the manuscript see also G. Iversen, Chanter avec les anges. Poésie dans la messe médiévale: Interprétations et Commentaire, Paris, Cerf, 2001 (Patrimoines: Christianisme), pp. 183–189. 79 CLS 3, pp. 298–299. 80 CLS 3, pp. 183–184. 81 CLS 3, pp. 213, 253.* 82 CLS 3, p. 349. However, Peter Dronke has expressed his hesitation about the authenticity of the Epithalamica and has criticized the edition. See ‘Amour sacré et amour profane au Moyen Âge latin: témoignages lyriques et dramatiques’, in Dronke, Sources of Inspiration. Studies in Literary Transformations, 400–1500, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1997 (Storia e Letteratura 196), pp. 375–395. 83 CLS 3, pp. 339–344, 352. 84 Mews, ‘La bibliothèque du Paraclet’, p. 36. 85 CLS 3, pp. 384–387; also pp. 52, 96, 203, 239–240. 86 See too Van den Eynde, ‘Le recueil des sermons’.

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17 EXCERPTS FROM THE LETTER COLLECTION OF HELOISE AND ABELARD IN NOTRE DAME (INDIANA) MS 30 Some excerpts copied from the letter collection of Heloise and Abelard in the later fifteenth century have recently come to light and my purpose here is to draw attention to them.1 But it will be useful if I first set down briefly what is already known about the production of MSS of this famous collection and about their readers and owners towards the end of the Middle Ages. I shall rely for this information largely on the admirable survey of the MSS of the Historia calamitatum with which Monsieur Monfrin prefaced his edition of that work.2 With this material before us it will become easier to assess the place of the new excerpts in the context of the MS tradition as a whole. The text of the correspondence in all the extant medieval MSS is generally stable and uniform. Some copies are fragmentary in the extreme: Douai 797, for example, contains only the Historia calamitatum and the opening of Heloise’s first letter, while Paris, Bibl. nat. nouvelle acquisition française 20,001 has only the closing lines of Letter 7 and the short Letter 8 which prefaces Abelard’s Rule for nuns. But in all the cases where the MSS present less than the whole corpus, and omit or abbreviate parts of it, their copyists nonetheless drew, as regards the eight letters of the collection itself, upon a common stock of materials. However, the MSS fall into different classes when account is taken of the Rule that Abelard provided for the nuns of the Paraclete and when account is taken also of other pieces relating to Heloise and Abelard that were sometimes copied along with the letter collection. Thus, Monsieur Monfrin has shown that the Troyes MS 802, which includes the Rule in full and also other documents relating to the organization of the Paraclete and of other nunneries, probably resembles the MSS that were preserved within houses belonging to the order of the Paraclete.3 Most MSS, however, did not reproduce the Rule: either they stopped at Letter 8 which prefaces the Rule, or they stopped earlier. Some MSS contain additional pieces relating to Abelard, such as the writings of Berengar, Abelard’s impetuous but highly fluent admirer who became engaged in his defence at the time of the papal condemnation of 1140.4 In contrast to many of Abelard’s theological and logical works, his correspondence with Heloise and his Historia calamitatum are not found in any 265

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e MS that is earlier than the mid thirteenth century, nor, indeed, has any clear quotation from or allusion to the letter collection been found before this date.5 But from the mid or late thirteenth century onwards copies multiply as do traces of their ownership and provenance. Ten medieval MSS are extant and another ten copies can be shown to have existed by reference to their former owners or readers. Although it is tedious to list some basic features of these MSS, nevertheless it is instructive to do so if we are shortly to appreciate what is ordinary as well as what is special about the new MS, Notre Dame (Indiana) 30. In all likelihood the earliest surviving MS is Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2923 which may have been copied in the south of France not earlier than the mid thirteenth century and which became c.1337 the property of Petrarch.6 The famous Troyes MS. Bibl. municipale 802, which may have been copied in the early fourteenth century or possibly in the late thirteenth century, was bought in 1346 from the chapter of Notre Dame, Paris, by one of its canons, Roberto de’Bardi, who was chancellor of Paris University. Roberto de’Bardi was a friend of Petrarch and had in 1340 invited Petrarch to come to Paris to be crowned with laurel.7 Paris, Bibl. nationale lat. 2544, which contains a copy written either in the late thirteenth or the early fourteenth century, was owned in the mid fourteenth century by a certain magister Jacobus de Gantis who may also have been a Parisian master.8 The origins of Reims, Bibl. municipale MS 872, which was also copied either in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, are unknown but in the early fifteenth century it belonged to the chapter of Reims cathedral.9 The fragment found now in Paris, Bibl. nat. nouv. acq. franç. 20,001 was copied in 1361 by Mathias de Rivau at the Parisian house of Jean de Cherchemont, bishop of Amiens (1325–73).10 The late-­fourteenth-­century copy in Oxford, Bodleian Library Add. C. 271 belonged in or before 1471 to Jo. Lambertus who was a canon of Cambrai.11 It was also in the late fourteenth century that a copy of the French translation of the Letters (possibly made by Jean de Meun in the thirteenth century) was provided, Paris, Bibl. nat. français 920.12 Douai, Bibl. municipale 797, which contains only a fragmentary copy made in the first half of the fifteenth century, comes from the abbey of Marchiennes nearby.13 However, nothing is known of the origins or of the medieval provenance of the late-­fifteenth-­ century MS Paris, Bibl. nat. nouv. acq. lat. 187314 or of the late-­fifteenth-­ century MS made by a French scribe. Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2545.15 These extant copies clearly prove that France and particularly Paris provided the most favoured home for the collection in the late Middle Ages, and that poets and humanists mingle with clerics and religious of different types and functions among their owners and readers. The same impression also emerges from the evidence relating to the now lost copies once owned or read by Jean de Hesdin,16 Jean de Montreuil,17 Nicolas de Baye,18 and Roger Benoiton.19 The MSS seen by François d’Amboise prior to the edition of 1616 included one communicated to him by the poet Philippe Desportes, abbot of 266

e xc e r p t s f ro m t h e l e t t e r c o l l e c t i o n Tiron, and another communicated by the abbess of the Paraclete, Marie de la Rochefoucauld.20 Among the MSS seen by André Duchesne when preparing the same edition published in 1616 were a MS belonging to the abbey of St Victor in Paris (GGG 17) and a MS in the possession of Papire Masson.21 By contrast, copies of the collection known to have existed outside France are rare in the Middle Ages. One such was probably sent by Jean de Montreuil to Coluccio Salutati, the Florentine chancellor;22 another was among the books given by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester to the University of Oxford in 1443.23 Our newly discovered copy of extracts from the correspondence was made in the third or fourth quarter of the fifteenth century. It is a unique witness to the diffusion of the letters of Heloise and Abelard because it circulated c.1484 among clerics in eastern Europe. The MS included much material from other letter collections, especially that of Aeneas Sylvius, and it is further unique because although only brief fragments of the letters of Heloise and Abelard are ­given – ­and although they occupy in the MS only 82 lines, many of which are very ­short – t­ hese are fragments which have been carefully and intelligently quarried from the body of the correspondence by a purposeful excerptor who found in his sources many striking proverbs and examples of fine style. Who the excerptor was we are not told. The fragments do, however, confirm current impressions regarding the textual history of the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard in so far as they provide nothing by way of variant readings that alters our understanding of the text. Moreover, as the excerptor uses all the letters but not Letter 3 or the Rule, his exemplar may, like so many of the extant MSS, have offered all the letters but lacked the Rule at the end. But he includes excerpts from the writings of Berengar which, as we have seen, sometimes accompanied the correspondence. The recent catalogue made by J.A. Corbett of the medieval and renaissance MSS of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, contains a detailed description of our volume.24 MS 30 consists chiefly of excerpts from letters and other writings by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pope Gregory I and Bernard of Clairvaux. Aeneas Sylvius, who was Pope Pius II from 1458 till his death in 1464, is the principal author represented here. Of 201 folios in the volume, seventy are devoted to his Chronica Bohemorum, written in 1458. Pius’ Bull de Profectione in Turcos (1463) appears as well as various pieces relating to the Council of Basel (1431–49). Dispersed through the volume are many varied excerpts from Aeneas’ letters. How important they are as evidence of the handwritten spread of an interest in Aeneas’ writings it is beyond my competence to say; I know of no census of MSS containing the works of Aeneas Sylvius. In Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30 the scribe usually confined himself, as Mr Corbett indicates, to copying only short extracts, not the complete text of Aeneas’ letters. In this he perhaps resembles some of the early printers who also took an especial interest in Aeneas’ maxims. For example, in the Basel edition of Aeneas’ works published in 1571 (Aeneae 267

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Sylvii Piccolominei Senensis opera quae extant omnia . . . Basileae, ex officina Henricpetrina) there is added at the end of the printed opera a Gnomologia ex Aeneae Sylvii Piccolominei Senensis . . . in omnibus operibus diligenter collecta, Per Conradum Lycosthenem Rubeaquensem. Aeneas habitually pointed his remarks with gnomologiae or apophthegms and anecdotes. ‘He was’, Mandell Creighton wrote in his History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,25 ‘a master of proverbs’, some of which Creighton reproduced, following in this the example of Platina, when he surveyed Pius’ pontificate in his Lives of the Popes. There are also excerpts from the letters of Gregory I on ff. 130–2v, from the letters of Leonardo Bruni Aretino on ff. 134v–5, from the letters of Bernard of Clairvaux on ff. 156–6026 and from those of Cyprian on ff. 160v–2. Folios 162v–3v contain the excerpts from the letters of Heloise and Abelard with which we are here concerned. I have not yet examined the whole MS either in person or on film and it is therefore at present impossible for me to discuss the character of the different series of excerpts. However, the Head of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the Memorial Library of the University of Notre Dame, Mr A.C. Masin, kindly sent me a photocopy of the inside front cover and of ff. 162v–3v. Mr Corbett’s descriptions clearly encourage one to think that the compiler of the volume was generally interested in making excerpts from patristic, medieval and indeed contemporary letter collections. As elsewhere in the MS, so here in the case of the letters of Heloise and Abelard, the copyist did not aim to reproduce complete letters, but to select from them short passages only. In the margins of ff. 162v–3v he sometimes added headings which indicated in Latin or in German the theme which his extract illustrated. Such headings are ‘examples’, ‘religious men’, ‘an old man’, ‘Minerva’, ‘prosperity’, ‘St Joseph’, ‘beautiful-­ugly’, ‘bliss and its opposite’, ‘against the prosperous in this life’, and ‘beautiful irony’. The anthology does not provide a digest or abridgement of the letter collection as a whole; it is too short to do this. It simply consists of clippings or ‘flores’ which provide fine aphorisms and provocative maxims. In this respect Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30 is unique among MSS of the letters of Heloise and Abelard, for nowhere else to my knowledge was the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard put to such use in the Middle Ages. It might be going too far to suggest that the compiler intended to instruct himself or his readers specifically in the art of letter-­writing or to compose a new ars dictandi or ars dictaminis (dictamen being the practice of formal letter-­writing).27 On the other hand, an otherwise uninformed reader of these excerpts would gain no idea of what had actually troubled Abelard and Heloise, or against whom Berengar delivered his ‘beautiful irony’. ‘Senex’ is not identified with Anselm of Laon nor William of Champeaux with the ‘Religiosi’. The copyist provides only a general introductory heading which indicates that the excerpts have been taken from the letters of Abelard of 268

e xc e r p t s f ro m t h e l e t t e r c o l l e c t i o n Paris and his Heloise. But he does not distinguish the letters he uses or name any persons or attempt to chronicle any of the events which underlie the passages cited. In the main the compiler is interested in phrases with an epigrammatic character or showing an elegance which enriches an interesting topos. His compilation shares with other medieval artes dictandi a predilection for proverbs that might be used, or at least had been used, in letters.28 Moreover, he provides examples of salutation and valediction.29 And he drew upon earlier letter collections as did the artes dictandi. Perhaps then these excerpts can best be described (using a phrase of James J. Murphy30) as a dictamencentred proverb collection. As a witness to the text of the letters of Heloise and Abelard Notre Dame (Indiana) 30 reinforces the impression that it underwent little alteration in the course of copying in the Middle Ages. The comment of Monsieur Monfrin with respect to the Historia calamitatum holds good for the remaining letters even after allowing for considerable omissions and lacunae in some MSS containing the later letters: ‘la tradition manuscrite ­est . . . ­remarquablement homogène: tous les manuscrits en effet présentent un plus ou moins grand nombre de fautes mineures, distractions ou initiatives de copistes, mais pas de discordances véritables’.31 The variant readings found in Notre Dame (Indiana) 30 are, when compared with the texts of the Historia calamitatum and the other letters given by Monsieur Monfrin and by the late Father Muckle,32 usually found in other MSS also or else arise from the adaptation of passages in the course of making excerpts which are not always strictly accurate quotations. The extracts in Notre Dame (Indiana) 30 do not always follow the order of the letters in the collection. On the other hand, it would be unjustifiable to see in this disregard of the sequence of the letters evidence of a different recension of the corpus. The transpositions probably reflect the compiler’s unsystematic methods of work; certainly they do not prove that in his exemplar the sequence of letters had been disturbed. The copyist is not named nor does he comment on his purposes. In appearance his hand is pointed, sloping and bâtarde; there are sweeping flourishes and many abbreviations but the characters are generally well-­spaced and regular. He may have been French for he closed the top loop of the letter g with a straight stroke that extended to the next letter. Although he wrote German headings, he did not write German ws in place of semi-­consonantal us. He was probably not Italian because he used -cio and -cia endings, not -tio and -tia.33 The latest document in the MS is apparently Pius’ Bull of 1463, yet by 1484 at least the MS was north of the Danube in the hands of a certain dominus Johannes Andree of Neisse. Three fifteenth-­century possession marks are found inside the front cover and the volume’s binding is apparently the original binding which has kept its boards, two metal clasps and five chain links, although the straps and the chains themselves have disappeared. After the death of Johannes Andree in or before 1484 the volume was given to one 269

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Joseph Czelfkendorf (?) in Cracow: ‘Liber Johannis Andree de Nyssa detur post mortem suam Ioselph Czelfkendorf in Cracovia’. And then in the same hand: ‘manu propria idem’. The name Joselph Czelfkendorf is legible only with difficulty as it has been effaced with a thick ink line. On the same side of the cover we also learn, from another fifteenth-­century hand, that on the day after the Nativity of St John the Baptist in the year 1484 (in medieval England the Nativity was observed on June 24) the executors of the last will of dominus Johannes Andree of Neisse, namely dominus Nicholas Halbendorff, canon of Neisse, and Martin Kwineyse, vice-­cantor of the major church of Wratislava, gave the book to Martin Leheure who, it would appear, wrote this inscription: Anno domini MCCCCLXXX quarto in crastino nativitatis sancti Johannis Baptiste iste liber donatus est mihi Martino Leheure per honorabiles viros dominos Nicolaum Halbendorff, canonicum Nissensem et Martinum Kwineyse vicecantorem ecclesie maioris Wratislavi executores ultime voluntatis olim domini Johannis (Corbett: Johannes) Andree de Nissa cuius anima in pace quiescat’ (Corbett: requiescit). Above these two entries is a third indication of provenance: ‘Pro ecclesia in Reichenbach 1493’. After 1493 the whereabouts of the MS are unknown; Corbett’s catalogue does not indicate when or whence it came to Indiana. I have not found lists of clergy for the towns mentioned in these ‘ex libris’, but lists of students at the University of Cracow are printed. Johannes Andree was a common name among such students and many students went to Cracow University from Neisse,34 but no Johannes Andree de Nissa apparently became dominus there.35 Students called Nicholas who came from Neisse were also quite common but none can be clearly identified with the Nicholas Halbendorff who was a canon of Neisse in 1484.36 Several students came to Cracow University from Czeyskensdorff in Cracow and the Jos. Czeyskendorff de Cracovia, who was promoted bachelor of arts in 1471, could well be identical with one of the owners of the MS from 1484.37 Students came too from Wratislava38 and from Reichenbach.39 We can say therefore that by 1484 our MS was clearly circulating among clerics who were probably typical of the graduates of the University of Cracow in the later fifteenth century; the MS is accordingly a witness to the interests of some of its graduates and of some of the clergy in the larger ecclesiastical centres not too far away. In the transcription below, 1) I give the text of Notre Dame (Indiana) 30, ff. 162v–3v. The scribe’s sub-­headings (which I have italicized for ease of identification) are in the MS itself usually in the outer margin and the excerpts themselves are often introduced by double inverted commas which I have reproduced. I have not always been able to decipher the handwriting and have indicated this by the use of . . . . I have tried to distinguish the scribe’s use of v and u. For punctuation the scribe used full stops and two kinds of stroke: 270

e xc e r p t s f ro m t h e l e t t e r c o l l e c t i o n / which is usually a medial pause and ɾ which usually signified the end of a sentence. 2) I give after each excerpt which corresponds closely to the text of the best available printed edition a reference to the edition but, if differences need to be noted. I place the corresponding passages in double columns to facilitate comparison. For the Historia calamitatum (HC) I have used the edition of J. Monfrin, cit. supra, for the Letters of Heloise and Abelard, that of J. Muckle in Mediaeval Studies, 15 (1953), p. 47–94; 17 (1955), p. 240–281. The sigla used to indicate the different MSS of the correspondence are: A B C D E R T Y

Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2923 (includes works of Berengar) Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 2544 Paris, Bibl. nat. nouv. acq. lat. 1873 (includes Abelard’s Rule for nuns) Douai, Bibl. mun. 797 Paris, Bibl. nat. lat. 25445 (includes Abelard’s Rule for nuns) Reims, Bibl. mun. 872 Troyes, Bibl. mun. 802 (includes Abelard’s Rule for nuns) Oxford, Bodley Add.C. 271 (includes works of Berengar)

For the writings of Berengar I have used the text printed in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. 178 supplemented by that of R.M. Thomson. ‘The Satirical Works of Berengar of Poitiers: An Edition with Introduction’, Mediaeval Studies, 42 (1980), p. 89–138. The numbering of the fragments is my own. Ex Epistolis Abaelardi parisiensis rapulata Et heloyssa sua Exempla 1) “Sepe humanos affectus aut prouocant aut mitigant amplius exempla quam uerba. As HC, 11, 1–2. Religiosi 2) “Aliquando se viri litterati ad ­Guillhelmus . . . a­ d regularium religiosum statum conuertunt. Ut clericorum ordinem se convertit; ea ut quo religiosiores credantur ad maioris referebant intentione ut quo religiosior prelacionis gradum promoueantur crederetur ad majoris prelationis gradum promoveretur (HC, 11, 73–5) Senex 3) “Accessi (igitur add. HC) ad hunc senem cui magis longeuus usus quam ingenium uel memoria nomen comparauerat. Ad quem si quis de aliqua questione pulsandus (pulsandum HC) accederet incertus, redibat incercior. As HC, 11, 164–7 Scho‘ne bo‘ze 4) “Mirabilis quidem in oculis (erat add. HC) astancium (ascultantium, HC), sed nullus in conspectu questionancium. Verborum usum habet (habebat HC) mirabilem sed sensum (sensu TBR) contemptibilem et racione vacuum. As HC, 11, 167–70.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e Minerua 5) “Bonum est minerue gremio educari ­ut . . . ­Martis curie penitus abdicarem ut Minerve gremio educarer (HC, 11, 24–5) Prosperitas 6) Prosperitas stultos inflat et mundana tranquillitas vigorem eneruat animi

Sed quoniam prosperitas stultos semper inflat et mundana tranquillitas vigorem enervat animi . . . (HC, 11, 252–3)

7) “Minor non succedat dolor quam precessit amor As HC, 11, 556–7. 8) “Vita posterior frequenter (frequenter om. HC) iudicat de priori As HC, 11, 808–9, citing Jerome, Epist, 54. 9) Quanto dolore estuaui, quanta confundebar erubescencia, quanta desperacione perturbabar sentire tunc potui, proferre non possum

Quanto autem dolore estuarem, quanta erubescentia confunderer, quanta desperatione perturbarer, sentire tunc potui, proferre non possum (HC, 11, 917–19)

Wonne et Contraria 10) “Relicta frequencia urbium, ortulos quero suburbanos vbi agri irrigui et arborum come, susurrus auium fontis speculum, riuus murmurans, et multe oculorum auriumque illecebre etc Ne per luxum et habundanciam copiarum animi fortitudo mollesceret et eius pudicicia stupraretur. Inutile quippe est crebro videre per que aliquando captus sis et eorum te experimento committere, quibus difficulter careas. Nam et pythagorei huiuscemodi frequenciam declinantes in solitudine et desertis locis habitare consueuerant. Sed ipse plato elegit achademiam villam procul ab urbe non solum desertam sed et pestilentem vt cura et assiduitate morborum libidinis impetus frangerentur, discipulique sui nullam aliam sentirent voluptatem nisi earum rerum quas discerent. Talem et filii prophetarum heliseo adherentes vitam referuntur duxisse, qui sibi edificabant casulas iuxta fluenta iordanis, et derelictis urbibus polenta et herbis agrestibus victitabant, etc. Tu autem non contentus cum iacob de carnibus domesticis servias quorum cum esau, etc

“. . . multi philosophorum reliquerunt frequentias urbium et ortulos suburbanos ubi ager irriguus et arborum come et susurrus avium, fontis speculum, rivus murmurans, et multe oculorum auriumque illecebre, ne per luxum et habundantiam copiarum anime fortitudo mollesceret et ejus pudicitia stupraretur. Inutile quippe est crebro videre per que aliquando captus sis, et eorum te experimento committere quibus difficulter careas. Nam et Pytagorei hujuscemodi frequentiam declinantes, in solitudine et desertis locis habitare ­consueuerant . . . S ­ ed et ipse Plato, cum divus esset et thorum ejus Diogenes lutatis pedibus conculcaret, ut posset vacare philosophie elegit Academiam villam, ab urbe procul, non solum desertam, sed et pestilentem: ut cura et assiduitate morborum libidinis impetus frangerentur, discipulique sui nullam aliam sentirent voluptatem nisi earum rerum quas discerent” (end of a citation from Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, 8–9). Talem et filii prophetarum, Helyseo adherentes, vitam referuntur duxisse, de quibus ipse quoque Jheronimus, quasi de monachis illius temporis, ad Rusticum monachum, inter cetera ita scribit: “Filii prophetarum,

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quos monachos in veteri legimus Testamento, edifficabant sibi casulas prope fluenta Jordanis, et turbis et urbibus derelictis, polenta et herbis aggrestibus victitabant”. (HC, 11, 1067–1090)

11) “Non est rationi aduersum quamuis consuetudini incognitum

. . . non esset rationi adversum, licet consuetudini incognitum (HC, 11, 1094–5)

Soror femina circumducenda 12) Sanctus Paulus dicit, Numquid non habemus potestatem mulierem sororem circumducendi sicut fratres domini et cephas etc non dicit amplectendi

. . . beato Paulo dicente: Numquid non habemus potestatem sororem mulierem circumducendi, sicut fratres Domini et Cephas? Vide insipiens quia non dixit: Numquid non habemus potestatem sororem mulierem amplectendi, sed: circumducendi (HC, 11, 1429–33)

13) “Incomparabilior maior est dolor ex amissionis modo quam ex dampno

. . . incomparabiliter maior sit dolor ex amissionis modo quam ex damno (Heloise to Abelard, letter 2, ed. Muckle, p. 70, paragraph 5).

14) “Duo tibi specialiter fateor adherent, quibus feminarum quarumlibet statim animos allicere potes dictandi videlicet et cantandi gratia

Duo autem fateor tibit specialiter inerant quibus feminarum quarumlibet animos statim allicere poteras, dictandi videlicet et cantandi gratia . . . (Heloise, ibidem. pp. 71–2).

15) “Non enim rei effectus sed efficientis affectus in crimine est. Nec que fiunt sed quo animo fiunt equitas pensat As Heloise, ibidem, p. 72, parag. 2 16) “O inestimabilem caritatis ardorem. As Abelard to Heloise, letter 7, ed. Muckle, p. 255, parag. 2 de sancto yozeph “Vnde et dominus ipse matri sue procuratorem apostolum pocius quam virum eius preuidit. As Heloise to Abelard, letter 6, ed. Muckle, p. 252, parag. 2 notabile ad multa 18) “Nisi eius prius praua uoluntate animus corrumpatur, peccatum esse non poterit quicquid exterius agatur in corpore As Heloise to Abelard, ibidem, p. 251, parag. 1 19) Omnis vita misera iocundum exitum habet. As Abelard to Heloise, letter 5, ed. Muckle, p. 86, parag. 3 20) “Ab infectione heresis nulla te purgabit herba fullonis (Folio 163)

Loc. non repert.

21) “Amico suo post Christum vnico. Epistolam vestram dilectissime tanto

Unico suo post Christum unica sua in Christo (Heloise to Abelard, letter 4,

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e ardencius cepi legere quanto scriptorem carius amplector. Vt cuius rem perdidi, verbis saltem tamquam eius quadam imagine recreer

Med. Stud., 15 (1953), p. 77) Missam ad amicum pro consolatione epistolam, dilectissime, vestra, ad me forte quidam nuper attulit. Quam . . . tanto ardentius eam coepi legere, quanto scriptorem ipsius carius amplector, tamquam eius quadam (quadam: om. BDRY) imagine recreer (Heloise to Abelard, letter 2, ed. Muckle, p. 68, parag. 2

22)”Numquam tuas epistolas (epistolam tuam Muckle) accipio quin protinus una simus. Si imagines nobis amicorum absencium iocunde sunt, que memoriam renouant et desiderium absencie falso atque inani solacio leuant, quanto iocundiores sunt littere que amici absentis veras notas afferunt As Heloise to Abelard, ibidem, p. 69, parag. 1. A citation from Seneca, ep. 40 ad Lucilium. 23) Quod frequenter michi scribis gratias ago nam quo uno modo potes te michi ostendis As ibidem, From Seneca, ep. 40 ad Lucilium 24)

“Non enim mecum animus meus est, sed tecum est. Sed et nunc maxime si tecum non est, nusquam est, esse uero sine te nequaquam potest. Sed ut tecum bene sit age obsequio, — quocumque scribendi uel etc bene autem tecum fuerit si te propicium inuenerit

Non enim mecum animus (Meum add. Monfrin, p. 116) sed tecum erat. Sed et nunc maxime si tecum non est, nusquam est. Esse vero sine te nequaquam potest. Sed ut tecum bene sit age, obsecro. Bene autem tecum fuerit, si te propitium invenerit . . . (Heloise to Abelard, ibidem, p. 73, parag. 1)

25) “Longam epistolam breui fine concludo Vale unice As Heloise to Abelard, ibidem, parag. 2 26) “Dic unum si vales, cur post nostram separacionem in tantam tibi negligenciam atque obliuionem venerim, ut neque colloquio presentis recreer nec absentis epistola consoler. Attende obsecro que requiro et parua hec esse videbis et tibi facilima. Dum tui presencia fraudor, uerborum saltim votis quorum tibi copia est tu michi etc frustra te in rebus dapsilem expecto, si in verbis auarum sustineo

Dic unum si vales cur, post conversionem nostram quam tu solus facere decrevisti, in tantam tibi negligentiam atque oblivionem venerim ut nec colloquio praesentis recreer nec absentis epistola consoler. (Heloise to Abelard, ibidem, p. 72, parag. 3) . . . Attende, obsecro, quae requiro et parva haec videbis (uideris T) et tibi facillima. Dum tui praesentia fraudor verborum saltem votis quorum tibi copia est tuae mihi imaginis praesenta dulcedinem. Frustra te in rebus dapsilem (daxilem CET; docilem R; dixissem B) exspecto si in verbis avarum sustineo (Heloise to Abelard, ibidem)

notabile Senuit mundus Et ideo multa sunt moderanda 27) “Senuisse iam mundum conspicimus, hominesque ipsos cum ceteris que mundi sunt pristine nature vigorem amisisse, et iuxta illud veritatis ipsam caritatem non tam multorum quam fere omnium refriguisse. Vt iam videlicet pro qualitate hominum, ipsas propter homines scriptas uel mutari uel temperari necesse sit regulas etc As Heloise to Abelard, letter 6, ed. Muckle, p. 246, parag. 3

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e xc e r p t s f ro m t h e l e t t e r c o l l e c t i o n 28) “Attende itaque attende karissime (carissima Muckle), quibus misericordie sue retibus a profundo huius tam periculosi maris nos dominus piscatus fuerit (ACE as well as Notre Dame 30; piscaverit, other MSS), et a quanta (quantae Muckle; quanto BR) caribdis uoragine naufragos licet inuitos extraxerit. Vt merito uterque nostrum in prorumpere posse videatur uocem, ominus sollicitus est mei As Abelard to Heloise, letter 5, p. 88, parag. 4 29) “O inclementem clementiam O infortunatam fortunam que iam in me vniuersi conaminis sui tela in tantum consumpsit ut quibus in alios seuiat iam non habeat. Plenam in me pharetram exhausit, ut frustra iam alii bella eius formident, nec si ei adhuc telum aliquod superesset locum in me vulneris inuenerit. Unum inter tot uulnera metuit scilicet fortuna (underlined in Notre Dame 30, but om. Muckle) ne morte supplicia finiam, et cum interimere non cessat (cesset Muckle) interitum tamen quem accelerat timet. As Heloise to Abelard, letter 4, ed. Muckle, p. 78, parag. 3 30) “Quid (autem add. Muckle) te amisso sperandum michi superest aut que in hac peregrinacione causa remanendi. Vbi nullum nisi te remedium habeam, (et add. Muckle) nullum allud in te nisi hoc ipsum quod viuis omnibus (de (a BRY) te add. Muckle) michi aliis uoluptatibus interdictis (intermissis BRY) As Heloise to Abelard, ibidem. 31) “Etsi religioso albescas vellere, non tamen cupias esse sine serpente columba

Qui hoc dicunt, etsi religioso vellere albescant, tamen dum sine serpente cupiunt esse columbae, fatuitate linguam inficiunt (Berengar, Epistola ad episcopum Mimatensem, Migne PL. 178, 1871B11–14; Thomson, Medieval Studies, 42 (1980), p. 134).

Contra prosperos secundum seculum 32) “Etsi nauis tua prosperiori feratur nauigio, tamen serenitas maris in dubio est. Nam nec auster adhuc tibi fidem dedit ne ratem tuam concuciat, nec boream calcasti sub pedibus nec euri nochique minas euasisti, nec ab eolo rege uentorum extorsisti inducias

Cujus navis, etsi prosperiori feratur navigio, tamen serenitas (severitas: Migne) maris in dubio est. Nam nec auster adhuc ei fidem dedit, ne ratem ejus concutiat; nec boream calcavit ipse sub pedibus, nec euri notique minas evasit; nec ab Æolo rege ventorum extorsit inducias. (Berengar, Epistola ad episcopum Mimatensem, PL. 178, 1871C3–8; Thomson, ibidem, 42 (1980), p. 134).

(Folio 163v) Yronia pulchra 33) “Jam dudum sanctitudinis tue odorem ales per orbem fama dispersit, preconizavit merita, ­miracula declaravit (declamavit in the editions), felicia iactabamus moderna secula tam chorusci sideris uenustata nitore, mundumque iam debitum perdicioni tuis subsistere meritis (meritis subsistere: Berengar) putabamus, sperabamus in lingue tue arbitrio celi sitam clemenciam, acris temperiem, ubertatem terre, fructuum benedictionem. Caput tuum nubes tangebat, et iuxta vulgare prouerbium rami tui vmbras montium transcendebant. Sic diu vixisti, sic ecclesiam castis institucionibus ­informasti. Vt ad semicintia tua rugire demones autumaremus, et beaticulos (beatulos: Berengar) nos tanto gloriaremur patrono. Nunc proch dolor patuit quod latebat, et colubri soporati

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tandem aculeos suscitasti. Recitacio facti (these last two word are not in Berengar’s Apologeticus which now proceeds to narrate the events leading up to Abelard’s condemnation at the council of Sens).

As Berengar, Apologeticus contra beatum Bernardum. PL. 178, 1857C12–1858A11; Thomson, ibidem, 42 (1980), p. 112. Folio 163v continues with short excerpts headed “Ex epistolis Enee in cardinalatu”, some of which are accompanied by marginal sub-­headings.

Notes   1 This paper is offered as a warm tribute, which would be supported by many others besides myself, to what Professor J.M. De Smet has done and continues to do to promote new editions of the writings of Abelard. My thanks are due to Dr C.S.F. Burnett and Professor D. Hay for reading and commenting on a draft of this article.   2 J. Monfrin (ed), Abélard. Historia calamitatum. Texte critique avec une introduction, 2e édition (Paris, 1962). I number the letters as does Monsieur Monfrin: Letter 1 is the Historia calamitatum and the final letter of the collection is number 8.*  3 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, esp. pp. 17–18.  4 For some further remarks on the different types of collection, see my paper ‘The Letters of Heloise and Abelard since Cluny, 1972’, in Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142). Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. R. Thomas, Trierer Theologische Studien, 38 (Trier, 1980), p. 19–39, here pp. 29–30 (reprinted above; see chapter 15); J. Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité de la correspondance d’Abélard et d’Héloïse’, in Pierre Abélard–Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 409–424, here pp. 416–421.  5 This is not to say that the relationship between Abelard and Heloise was not otherwise much commented on in the twelfth century. See on this and on later testimonies P. Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies (University of Glasgow Press, 1976). Dronke suggests (pp. 15–16 and no. 33) that Abelard’s Carmen ad Astralabium is very close in some of its phrases to Heloise’s second letter, and (pp. 19–21) that two short poems of the twelfth century show affinities with the letter collection. The important parallels he finds certainly constitute a good case against dismissing the letter collection as a document which is incompatible with twelfth-­century thought and emotion, but it is harder to demonstrate who read it in the twelfth century since there were other available sources of information about Abelard’s life and thought.  6 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 18–19.  7 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp.  9–18; F. Bruni, ‘Historia Calamitatum. Secretum, Corbaccio: tre posizioni su luxuria (-amor) e superbia (-gloria)’, in Boccaccio in Europe – Proceedings of the Boccaccio Conference, Louvain, December 1975, ed. G. Tournoy. Symbolae Facultatis Litterarum et Philosophiae Lovaniensis, Series A/Vol. 4 (Leuven, 1977), pp. 23–52, here p. 32.  8 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 20–21.  9 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 21–22. 10 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 50. 11 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 23–25. 12 Carla Bozzolo, ‘L’humaniste Gontier Col et la traduction française des Lettres d’Abélard et Héloïse’, Romania, 95 (1974), pp. 199–215. 13 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 22–23.

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e xc e r p t s f ro m t h e l e t t e r c o l l e c t i o n 14 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 25–27. 15 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, pp. 27–28. 16 B. Smalley, ‘Jean de Hesdin O. Hosp. S. Ioh.’, RTAM, 28 (1961), pp. 283–330, here p. 293. 17 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 50 with further references. 18 Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, pp. 417–418, n. 31. 19 Monfrin, ‘Le problème de l’authenticité’, pp. 417–418, n. 31. 20 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 41. 21 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 42. 22 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 50. 23 See H. Anstey (ed.), Epistolae Academicae Oxonienses, Oxford Historical Society, 1 (1898), pp. 232–237, here p. 235: ‘Item, “Epistolas” Petri Abaralardi secundo folio dicens’. 24 James A. Corbett, Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1978), here pp.  137–157. My encounter with this catalogue is due to the discernment with which Mr Alan Cass, Assistant Librarian in the University of Sheffield, selects books for purchase with limited funds. 25 Vol. II. New Edition (London, 1892), p. 483. See also W. Boulting, Aeneas Silvius (London, 1908), pp. 220–223 where 47 of Aeneas’ proverbs are printed in English. Boulting refers to a collection entitled Enee Silvii Senensis Poete Prouerbia published at Cologne in 1475. 26 This MS is not listed by J. Leclercq in Sancti Bernardi Opera (Rome, 1974), VII. Nor does J. Leclercq mention it in such other discussions of the textual history of Bernard’s letters as ‘Recherches sur la collection des lettres de S. Bernard’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 14 (1971), pp. 205–219; Recueil d’études sur Saint Bernard et ses écrits, 3 vols, Storia e Letteratura 92, 104, 114 (Rome 1962–69); ‘Études sur S. Bernard et le texte de ses écrits’. Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, IX, 1–2 (1953). MSS of Bernard’s letters are, of course, very numerous. Thirty-­six letters of Bernard are used by the copyist in Notre Dame MS 30; the excerpts are short and sometimes consist of a single line, although in the case of letter 193, which is addressed to Cardinal Ivo on the subject of Abelard’s errors, lines 5–20 of the edition in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. 182, 359, are reproduced. 27 For a general introduction to the study of the dictamen see C. H. Haskins, ‘The Early Artes Dictandi in Italy’, in Studies in Medieval Culture (Oxford, 1929), chap. 9. This may now be supplemented by F. J. Schmale, ‘Die Bolognese Schule der Ars dictandi’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 13 (1957), pp.  16–34. See too James J. Murphy, Medieval Rhetoric, A Select Bibliography, Toronto Medieval Bibliographies (University of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 55–70 (on the ars dictaminis). I am grateful to Dr C. H. Clough of the University of Liverpool for steering me towards the dictamen when preparing this paper. On the central place of the art of letter-­writing in the literary culture of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance see G. Constable, Letters and Letter Collections, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, ed. L. Genicot, fasc. 17. A-­11 (Turnhout, 1976), pp. 39–41. 28 On the use of proverbs in letters see James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (University of California Press, 1974), chap. 5; W. A. Pantin, ‘A Medieval Treatise on Letter-­Writing with Examples, from the Rylands Latin MS. 394’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 13 (1929), pp. 326–381. 29 For a survey of the different types of salutation presented in the artes dictandi see Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, chap. 5.

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d h e l o i s e 30 Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, chap. 5, especially p. 234. Murphy refers (inter alia) to the Candelabrum of Bene of Florence, an ars dictaminis (c.1220) which includes 171 proverbs; to the Summa of Pons (or Sponcius) of Provence (1252); to the massive fifteenth-­century collection in Latin and English discussed by W. A. Pantin, cit. supra; and to the Summa de vitiis et virtutibus of Guido Faba (thirteenth century). Another such collection has just come to light in a fourteenth-­ century MS, Durham Cathedral Library, A. IV. 8, ff. 53–59. The excerptor in this MS worked with the letters of John of Salisbury, Abelard’s pupil for a time, and of Thomas Becket. As in Notre Dame MS 30, the compiler was content to reproduce snippets, but he went far more thoroughly through his source and provided some 400 excerpts arranged under 235 subject headings running in alphabetical order from ‘Absencia’ to ‘Penitencia’; the remainder is missing. He normally indicated the number of the letter from which he drew each quotation, the name or personal title of the addressee, and the approximate position of the quotation within its source, e.g. under the heading ‘Exular’ the entry runs: ‘bis exulat qui domi exulat 387 archidiacono exon prope finem’. This information is kindly provided by Mr Alan Piper whose most useful discovery, which includes evidence of unknown letters of John of Salisbury, is to be published in the forthcoming volume of essays on John of Salisbury, ed. Michael J. Wilks (Ecclesiastical History Society, Subsidia series).* A collection of moralizing quotations from Latin writings, especially those of Plutarch, was made by Cardinal Giacomo Ammannati (1422–79) for the purpose of enhancing his own epistles; see F. R. Hausmann, ‘Die Briefsammlung des Kardinals Giacomo Ammannati und ihre Bedeutung fuer die humanistische Briefliteratur des Quattrocento’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 20 (1971), pp. 23–36, especially p. 34. For an ars dictaminis prepared c.1470 and therefore roughly contemporary with the extracts from letter collections found in Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30 see G. G. Meersseman, ‘La raccolta dell’umanista fiammingo Giovanni de Venis “De arte epistolandi”’, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 15 (1972), pp. 215–281. 31 Monfrin, Historia calamitatum, p. 53. 32 J. Muckle’s editions appeared in the journal Mediaeval Studies, 12 (1950), pp. 163–213 (Historia calamitatum), 15 (1953), pp. 47–94, 17 (1955), pp. 240–281. 33 Where the volume was written and put together remains unclear and there is no one place only where in the fifteenth century copyists might be expected to take an especial interest in the writings of Aeneas Sylvius. Basel, however, is one centre where scriveners and booksellers must have remained particularly active after the council which Aeneas Sylvius had, before he was pope, so warmly supported. See Aeneas Sylvius Piccolominus (Pius II), De Gestis Concilii Basiliensis Commentariorum Libri II, ed. and translated by D. Hay and W.K. Smith, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1967), introduction, pp. xxx–xxxiv. 34 See the lists for the years 1400 to 1489 published in the Album Studiosorum Universitatis Cracoviensis, ed. Z. Pauli [B. Ulanowski], tom. 1 (Cracoviae, 1887). Further indications of the names of masters and students may be gained from the Acta Rectoralia Almae Universitatis Studii Cracoviensis inde ab anno MCCCCLXIX, ed. W. Wislocki, t. I (1469–1537) (Cracoviae, 1893–97) and from H. Zeissberg, Das älteste Matrikel-Buch der Universität Krakau, Beschreibung und Auszüge (Innsbruck, 1872). 35 Several graduates named Johannes de Nissa appear in Statuta nec non Liber promotionum philosophorum ordinis in Universitate studiorum Jagellonica ab anno 1402 ad annum 1849, ed. J. Muczkowski, vol. 1 (Cracoviae, 1849), e.g. for the years 1448, 1455, 1457, 1466, 1469, 1472, 1484. But none listed here was called Johannes Andree de Nissa. A connection with the Italian copyist Giovanni Andreas seems

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36 37 38

39

impossible; Johannes Andree died as a simple dominus; Giovanni Andreas has been identified with Messer Giovanni Andrea abate, a noted humanist who was abbot of Santa Giustina at Sezzadio from 19 November, 1455, and later bishop of Aleria. See Alfred A. Strnad, ‘Studia piccolomineana. Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der Bibliothek der Päpste Pius II. and III.’, in Enea Silvio Piccolomini Papa Pio II. Atti del Convegno per il quinto centenario della morte e altri scritti raccolti da Domenico Maffei, Accademia Senese degli intronati (Siena, 1968), p. 328 and n. 127 (with further references). Statuta . . ., ed. Muczkowski, I, sub annis 1459, 1462; also Conclusiones Universitatis Cracoviensis ab anno 1441 ad annum 1589, ed. Henryk Barycz (Krakow, 1933), p. 39 (1473). Statuta . . ., ed. Muczkowski, I, sub anno 1471. One Joseph Johannis Czeyskendorf de Cracovia is named in Album . . ., ed. Z. Pauli, tom, 1, sub anno 1466. Album . . ., ed. Z. Pauli, tom. 1. References to the affairs of Vratislavia appear in several letters of Aeneas Sylvius: 97, 126, 153, 176, 184 (all from the year 1453) and 291 (1454), ed. R. Wolkan, Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini. III. Abteilung (Wien, 1918), Fontes rerum Austriacarum, 68. Bd., p. 171, 231, 285, 315, 361, 554. None of these letters appears in Notre Dame MS. 30. Statuta . . ., ed. Muczkowski, vol. 1.

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Peter Abelard

Monk

18 PETER ABELARD AND MONASTICISM

Notwithstanding the excellent account given by Dom Jean Leclercq,1 the relationship of Abelard with monasticism has not attracted much attention during the small revolution that has taken place in Abelard studies recently. One thousand six hundred and sixteen columns in Migne’s Patrologia Latina contain the theological writings and the letters of Abelard. More than a third of these t­ exts – fi ­ ve hundred and sixty-­eight ­columns – a­ re devoted to the religious life of men and women. And there are further discussions of the religious life in the Historia calamitatum and in the Dialogus or Collationes. Abelard was well-­known for his monasticism. As a monk he lived in four ­abbeys – ­those of Saint-­Denis, Saint-­Médard, Saint-­Gildas and Cluny. He also lived in several priories or hermitages, as at Provins and Saint-­Marcel. He was also the founder of the Paraclete.2 According to S. Hilpisch he is the only person in the twelfth century who offered a theory about double monasteries, that is, monasteries with both men and women.3 There are at least three important aspects of the relationship of Abelard to monasticism that are yet to be explored. The first is Abelard’s view of the philosophers of antiquity in whom Abelard found a model for monastic life. The second is the value and the merits of Abelard’s criticism of the monks of his own time. The third is the question of obediences, that is, of monastic dependencies in some of which Abelard lived but which in general he criticized vehemently. Dom Leclercq has commented very well on Abelard’s thirty-­third Sermon, his sermon on St John the Baptist. But he misleadingly tells us that references made by Abelard outside this sermon are very brief.4 There are many contributions in his Theologia christiana and in the letter which he wrote to St Bernard shortly after 1130. In the second book of the Theologia christiana Abelard extols the exemplary value of the lives of pagan philosophers and statesmen in the ancient world. He finds in these lives the qualities needed to live the life of a monk – contemptus mundi, a love of solitude, manual work, continence, temperance, literary studies including by women. The truth of the philosophical teachings of these pagans is the fruit of the perfect lives they led.5 283

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k Here Abelard resumes what he had already written in a work which is now lost, the Exhortatio ad fratres et commonachos, an Exhortation to the monks of Saint-­Denis composed in the year 1120 or 1121.6 Later, in 1127, he briefly restated these ideas in his thirty-­third Sermon.7 His principal source was St Jerome. Monsignor Philippe Delhaye very rightly thought that no other twelfth-­century author represented the teaching given in the first book of Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum on virginity and on the lives lived by the pagan philosophers with as much zeal and understanding as did Abelard.8 In the Historia calamitatum we read that Heloise said that among all ­peoples – ­gentiles and Jews as well as ­Christians – ­were to be found some who detached themselves from the world to seek virtue.9 This was Abelard’s view also. Abelard insisted that there was a universal monastic instinct. Among the Jews there were Essenes, Nazarenes and, earlier, the disciples of Elisha.10 Among the earliest Christians there were the Desert Fathers and the great figure of St John the Baptist. The rarity in twelfth-­century monastic writings of other discussions of the monastic example provided by pagan philosophers apart than those of Abelard and Heloise is rather striking. Certainly monasticism before Benedict was much studied by twelfth-­century monks, in particular by Peter the Venerable.11 But Abelard insists more than anyone else on the monastic example set by pagan philosophers. To him St John the Baptist and Diogenes were comparable. The raison d’être of the oratory at Quincey was the pursuit of philosophy in solitude; prayer and study were its two leading features. The second aspect of Abelard’s thought about monasticism on which I wish to comment is his hostility towards several large abbeys.12 The question may be asked whether Abelard’s criticisms arose from a desire to preach a new and higher ideal of monasticism or are a witness to the reality of the situation of monasticism in France at the time. Abelard admired few of his religious contemporaries. Anselm of Canterbury, yes, but for theological reasons;13 Robert of Arbrissel also, because he encouraged religious women.14 But he was very hostile to many canons, among them William of Champeaux,15 Roscelin and the canons of Tours,16 Fulbert and Norbert,17 and also to Cistercians, including St Bernard himself.18 Abelard had some monastic friends. The welcome he received from the monks at Provins after 112119 was renewed by Peter the Venerable when Abelard entered the abbey of Cluny after the Council of Sens.20 Fulk of Deuil had praised his entry into Saint-­Denis21 although Heloise had asked him to become a canon.22 Yet Abelard’s monastic career aroused many reservations. Roscelin denounced Abelard for entering Saint-­Denis in 1117 or 1118.23 Bernard and Norbert denounced Abelard for undertaking teaching in a cell of the abbey of Saint-­Denis.24 The monks of Saint-­Denis accused Abelard of having damaged the reputation of the kingdom of France by his criticism of the historical figure of St Denis.25 Adam, abbot of Saint-­Denis, did not agree to Abelard’s request for permission to live as a monk wherever he chose.26 The 284

p e t e r a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m troubles at Saint-­Gildas are very well known.27 Two novi apostoli criticized the oratory of the Paraclete,28 and the ongoing relationship between Abelard and Heloise at the Paraclete provoked much further criticism.29 Around the year 1140 St Bernard called Abelard a monk without a Rule with nothing of the monk about him apart from the name and the habit (‘sine regula ­monachus . . . n ­ ihil habens de monacho praeter nomen et habitum’).30 In his Ethics Abelard deplored the invidium and the odium currently displayed by religious figures who enjoyed at least a nominal pre-­eminence (‘qui nomine religionis preminent’).31 Clearly, then, the monastic world was generally hostile to Abelard and Abelard himself was generally disdainful of the monasticism of his own day. He was outspoken in his criticisms of the worldliness of monks whom he knew or knew about. He believed that abbeys were too involved in secular matters, enjoying urban living and property management, and in many cases chasing bishoprics. As for the Cistercian Order he offered a very different kind of criticism, not denouncing their innovations as such, for he was not a conservative like the Paganus Bolotinus whom Dom Leclercq has made so familiar to us.32 In principle Abelard accepted variety but he found the quality and the adequacy of the Cistercian liturgy to be wanting and he made his criticisms in a letter he wrote to St Bernard shortly after 1130.33 This is a letter which has never attracted the attention it deserves in early Cistercian history. Similarly the disgust Abelard felt at the scandalous behaviour of the monks of Saint-­Denis and Saint-­Gildas also merits investigation. Abelard passed judgement on them largely from a Jeromian and a pre-­Benedictine standpoint which stressed solitude, contempt of the world and prayer with study. Abbot Suger, on the other hand, as he showed in his Liber de rebus in administratione sua gestis, was much engaged in economic matters, proof of this being found in his account of the reclamation by his abbey of the house at Argenteuil where Heloise lived.34 Abelard was not exceptional in his criticism of monastic shortcomings; the main lines of many of his criticisms were familiar from St Bernard, for example, who in his Letter 78, called the abbey of Saint-­Denis the ‘the Devil’s synagoge’,35 or from Peter Damian in the previous century who denounced abbots seeking fame.36 The third matter in the present enquiry concerning Abelard as a monk is the problem of obediences. On several occasions Abelard quitted a monastery to live a more isolated life in a cella. He left Saint-­Denis for a cella. In 1122 he even chose to live outside a cell and he asked the abbot of Saint-­Denis for permission to live wherever he pleased. Thereupon he established a school at Quincey and resumed his teaching. Later he left Saint-­Gildas to occupy a cell, although on this occasion the reason was no doubt the necessity of protecting himself from the brutality of his monks. He also left the great abbey of Cluny to live in the priory of Saint-­Marcel but it seems that illness was the cause of this.37 Yet Abelard heavily criticized monks who did what he did and opted for life in a priory away from their mother-­house. His Sermon 33, addressed to 285

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k the monks of Saint-­Gildas, contains an attack on monks who wish to escape from regular observances and from the stability of a monastery cut off from the world. Similar thoughts are found in his Letter 8. The question that arises is whether there is a contradiction between what Abelard preached and what he did. Historians of medieval monasticism tell us that priories and obediences are historically of great importance.38 Dependencies were multiplying around the year 1100. Some of them doubtless did offer the possibility of a less regular life, but others offered the possibility of a more eremitical or more contemplative life. It is therefore possible, at least to a certain extent, to reconcile what Abelard taught with how he lived. The word monachus means alone, solus.39 At Saint-­Gildas Abelard wanted his monks to become eremitical but the obediences of the abbey were too independent and too worldly for this to happen. At Saint-­Denis Abelard was not an abbot and could not try to reform the cloister, but as at Saint-­Gildas he struggled to do so and, when checked in his efforts, withdrew from the cloister to obediences. The cloister should be the hermitage but if it was not a place where it was possible to contemplate and to study, retreat to a smaller establishment was advisable. The close resemblances between Abelard’s and Jerome’s attitudes to religious life are striking and Abelard cites Jerome’s writing frequently. His interpretation of the words monachus and solus, and indeed all his thinking about monasticism is Jeromian. Like Jerome, he admired Origen; he prepared a psalter and he also provided direction for religious women. Like Jerome he ran into hostility and fled to the ‘desert’. He wrote on the education of virgins. Heloise, who may have known some Hebrew, comes across as a second Paula. The thrust of the Historia calamitatum – its arguments in favour of withdrawal from the world to live a religious life that was also a philosophical ­one – ­is fully inspired by the teaching of Jerome and of Origen. Abelard’s life was, in a way, an imitation, a retake, of that of his master in the religious life.

Notes  1 ‘Ad ipsam sophiam Christum. Das monastische Zeugnis Abaelards’, in Sapienter Ordinare. Festgabe für Erich Kleineidam, Leipzig, St-­Benno Verlag, 1969 (Erfurter theologische Studien, 24), pp. 179–198.   2 See P. Schmitz, Histoire de l’Ordre de saint-Benoît, VII, Maredsous, 1956, p. 89 et seq.; L’Abbé Lalore, Collection des Principaux Cartulaires du Diocèse de Troyes, 2. Cartulaire de l’Abbaye du Paraclet, Paris, 1878, p. vi.  3 Die Doppelkloster. Entstehung und Organization, Münster i. W., Aschendorf, 1928 (Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des Benediktinerordens, 15, ed. I. Herwegen).  4 ‘Ad ipsam sophiam Christum’, p. 180.  5 Tchr, II, 56–115, pp. 154–184. Cf. Tsch. 101–102, p. 442; TSch, I, xv, in PL 178, 1004–1005.  6 See his Soliloquium, PL 178, 1877D–1878A; D. Van den Eynde, ‘Les Ecrits

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p e t e r a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m perdus d’Abélard’, Antonianum, 37 (1962), pp.  470–473; E.M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, I (CCCM, 11(1969)), p. XXI. See also Tchr, II, 45–73, pp. 150–163.   7 PL 178, 591–592.  8 P. Delhaye, ‘Le dossier anti-­matrimonial de 1’Adversus Iovinianum et son influence sur quelques écrits latins du xiie siècle’, Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1951), p. 71.  9 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 482 et seq. 10 Tchr, II, 67, pp.  159–160; Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1075 et seq.; Héloïse, Letter 7, ed. Muckle, pp. 253 et seq. 11 Letter 20, ed. G. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967 (Harvard Historical Studies, 78), pp. 27–41. See J. Leclercq, ‘Pierre le Vénérable et l’érémitisme Clunisien’ in Petrus Venerabilis, 1156–1956; studies and texts commemorating the eighth centenary of his death, ed. G. Constable and J. Kritzeck, Rome, Herder, 1956 (Studia Anselmiana, 40), p. 111 et seq. 12 Tchr, II, 71, p. 163; Comm. Rom. IV (XI, 15), p. 261; Sermo XXXIII, PL1781, 587 et seq.; Epistola XII, PL 178, 351. Cf. Heloïse, Letter 6, ed. Muckle, p. 245. 13 Epistola XIV, written in 1119–20, PL 178, 358A. 14 Ibidem, 357B. Cf. Roscelin of Compiègne, Epistola XV, ed. J. Reiners, Der Nominalismus in der Frühscholastik, Münster i.W., Aschendorf, 1910 (BGPTMA, 8), pp. 67 et seq. 15 ‘. . . ut quo religiosior crederetur ad majoris prelationis gradum promoveretur’, Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 70 et seq. 16 Epistola XIV, PL 178, 358A; Roscelin of Compiègne, Epistola XV, ed. Reiners, p. 63. 17 Sermo XXXIII, written c.1127, PL 178, 605. 18 Epistola X, written c.1130, PL 178, 335–340, and again at the time of the council of Sens. 19 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 985 et seq. 20 Letters 98, 115, 167, ed. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, pp. 258–259, 303–307, 400–401. 21 Epistola XVI, PL 178, 371–376. 22 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 528–535. 23 Epistola XV, ed. Reiners, pp. 65, 78, 79. 24 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 665 et seq. 25 Ibidem, ll. 941 et seq. 26 Ibidem, ll. 996 et seq. 27 Ibidem, ll. 1200 et seq. 28 Ibidem, ll. 1229 et seq. 29 Ibidem, ll. 1341, et seq. 30 Epistola CXCIII, PL 182, 359B. Cf. Epistola CCCXXXI, ibidem, 536D, Epistola CCCXXXII, ibidem, 537C. 31 Ethics, ed. Luscombe, p. 126. 32 J. Leclercq, ‘Le Poème de Payen Bolotin contre les faux ermites’, Revue Bénédictine, 68 (1958), pp. 52–86. 33 Epistola X, PL178, 335–340. For a comparison see the discussion of legitimate varieties of monastic life contained in the Dialogus de mundi contemptu vel amore, attributed to Conrad of Hirsau, ed. R. Bultot, Louvain, Nauwelaerts, 1966 (Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia, 19), ll. 497 et seq. 34 Oeuvres complètes, éd. A. Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, J. Renouard, 1867 (Société de l’Histoire de France), pp. 160–161, 441–442. The Bull confirming the restitution of the priory of Argenteuil was published (along with many of Suger’s charters)

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p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k by J. Doublet, Histoire de l’abbaye de Saint Denys en France, Paris, Chez Nicolas Buon, 1625, p. 484. 35 PL182, 194A. For reforms introduced by Suger before 1127, see O. Cartellieri, Abt Suger von Saint-Denis, 1081–1151, Berlin, E. Ebering, 1898 (Historische Studien, 11), pp. 75 et seq.* 36 Opusculum XXI. De fuga dignitatum ecclesiasticarum, PL 145, 455–464. 37 Pierre le Vénérable, Letter 115, ed. G. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, p. 307. 38 J. Dubois, ‘Les Dépendances de l’abbaye de Mont Saint-­Michel et la vie monastique dans les prieurés’, in Millénaire monastique du Mont Saint-Michel. Mélanges commemoratifs publiés sous les auspices de la Société parisienne d’histoire et d’archéologie normandes, I. Histoire et vie monastique, ed. J. Laporte, Paris, Lethielleux, 1966, pp. 654 et seq; A. Dufief, ‘La Vie monastique au Mont Saint-­ Michel pendant le xiie siècle (1085–1186)’, ibidem, pp.  93–94; J. Leclercq, ‘Le Poème de Payen Bolotin contre les faux ermites’, Revue Bénédictine, 68 (1958), pp. 52–86; Peter the Venerable, Letter 123, ed. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, p. 317; J. Leclercq, ‘Pierre le Vénérable et l’érémitisme clunisien’, in Petrus Venerabilis, 1156–1956, ed. Constable and Kritzeck, pp. 99 et seq. 39 Cf. J. Leclercq, Etudes sur le vocabulaire monastique du Moyen Age, Rome, Herder, 1961 (Studia Anselmiana, 48).

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19 MONASTICISM IN THE LIVES AND WRITINGS OF HELOISE AND ABELARD

When the name of Heloise is mentioned we immediately think of a clever girl who became a desperately unhappy nun. But when the name of Abelard is mentioned we do not usually associate him with monasticism. He finds little place in our standard histories of the medieval monastic and religious orders. Rather, I suppose, our first thoughts are likely to relate him to Heloise, the girl and pupil he married and whose correspondence with Abelard has enjoyed a wide readership and much celebrity over several centuries. Or we think first and immediately of Abelard’s notoriety as a controversial academic and philosopher. The spur to doing so lies in his autobiographical letter of consolation to an unknown friend known as The History of My Troubles, Historia calamitatum mearum. There we find a narrative of his quarrels with the leading masters of the schools in the cities of Paris and Laon, with William of Champeaux on questions of epistemology and logic, and with Anselm of Laon over methods to be used in teaching the Bible to students. There too we find an embittered account of how Alberic and Lotulph, two masters in the schools of Rheims, managed by a series of clever manoeuvres to persuade enough bishops in the course of a synod held in Soissons in 1121 to condemn Abelard for heresy, the heresy being concerned with the doctrine of the Trinity. Abelard’s first treatise on this subject was ignominiously cast into the fire and publicly burnt. Seen in this light Abelard is often remembered as the teacher who did most in Paris, during the course of what we call the Renaissance of the twelfth century and during a period of precocious urban development, to stimulate argument and to help to turn Paris itself into Europe’s first university city. It is he, as the late Paul Henry once said to me, who first taught the West how to t­ hink – a­ fter the long centuries in which a somewhat obscure tradition of philosophical and theological reflection had been kept ticking over quietly inside the closed environment of scattered monastic communities. Or, when we turn our minds to Abelard and to what his life was associated with, we think of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the austere leader of the Cistercian order which championed the cause of monastic reform during a time of sensational evangelical awakening. Bernard in the late 1130s engaged 289

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k Abelard in an acrimonious public slanging match and he succeeded in having Abelard condemned as a heretic for the second time, condemned in fact to perpetual silence as a teacher as well as to being excommunicated by none less than Pope Innocent II. The issues raised by this quite vast dispute have remained controversial to this day. There are those who will tend to view Bernard and his Cistercian friend William of Saint Thierry as the rallying points of a conservative, somewhat obscurantist, monastic tradition of meditation upon Scripture and upon the spiritual teachings of the Fathers of the Church; and there are those who may be inclined to see in Abelard the champion of academic freedom, the freedom to doubt and to pursue rational enquiry for its own sake and whithersoever it may lead, even if the end point is the adjustment of some traditional formulas used to express the Christian faith. But there are other scholars who will credit Bernard with the courage needed to stop dialectical theology from getting out of hand. Seen in this light, perhaps, the conflict between Bernard and Abelard which reached its climax in the year 1141 was almost a necessary conflict between faith and reason, a bloodletting both for monastic and for scholastic culture. Monastic culture consists, we might say, in an ongoing tradition of combining study and prayer within a dedicated community, of reading in order to shape the personal and collective experience of living the Christian life, whereas scholastic culture appears to be the cultivation of the skills of logical argumentation, based upon the techniques provided by Aristotle and Boethius, which facilitated the critical analysis of any claim through the use of human language. Abelard therefore has no unchallengeable claim to historical importance as a monk. His fame is that of a schoolman and a philosopher or, if you like, a philosophical theologian. The monastic establishment of the twelfth century rejected him and brought him down. Yet it was perhaps a Pyrrhic victory: although a heretical master from Paris was destroyed, the Benedictine centuries were then drawing imperceptibly to a close and the new Europe of the towns, the friars and the universities, of well-­drilled armies of scholastic masters at work in the great cities of the later Middle Ages, was about to dawn. This may easily be thought to be true, at least in broad and simple historical terms. Yet Abelard was a monk, no less than Heloise was a nun. He became a monk in about 1119 at the age of forty or so and was professed in the royal and ancient abbey of Saint-­Denis to the north of Paris. And at almost the same time Heloise went into the nunnery at Argenteuil where she had been to school as a child and which was only about seven or eight kilometres away from the abbey of Saint-­Denis. Abelard himself came to live in four abbeys. In 1121, after his first condemnation for heresy, he was ordered to be confined in the abbey of Saint-­Médard in Soissons until he was ready to be returned to his own abbey of Saint-­Denis. In about 1127 he accepted election as abbot of another monastery, that of Saint-­Gildas which was far away in his native Brittany, in the diocese of Vannes. Then in 1141 following his second 290

h e l o i s e , a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m condemnation for heresy, having set out on the long journey to Rome to make a personal appeal to his well-­placed friends close to the Pope against the sentence of the French bishops, Abelard decided to terminate his journey after visiting the great abbey of Cluny. The abbot, Peter the Venerable, persuaded him to stay as a member of the monastic community. In addition to inhabiting four abbeys Abelard also lived at various times in a number of priories and hermitages. He apparently left his first monastery in or shortly after 1119 to move to a smaller house belonging to Saint-­Denis in order to be free to carry on teaching. And when he was returned to the abbey of Saint-­Denis from Saint-­Médard after the condemnation in 1121 he again only stayed for a short while. He fled in fact and went secretly to a priory far away in Champagne in the town of Provins. There he negotiated for his release from the strict obligation to live in the abbey of Saint-­Denis and obtained permission to live as a monk wherever he chose provided that he did not enter into obedience to another abbot. So it was that in 1122 Abelard obtained some land in the parish of Quincey not far from the town of Nogent-­on-­ Seine. And there he constructed a small oratory and hermitage and lived in retreat for a number of years. And finally, after entering the abbey of Cluny in 1140, as his health deteriorated, Peter the Venerable moved him away from the great abbey to a nearby small dependent priory at Chalon-­sur-­Saône, and there at Saint-­Marcel on the banks of the river he died. As for Heloise, in 1129 she and her sisters in the convent of Argenteuil were made homeless following the repossession of their property by the abbey of Saint-­Denis. Abelard, who was then abbot of Saint-­Gildas in Brittany, offered Heloise the property he had in Quincey. Heloise and some of her sisters moved there and thus there came into being the convent of the Paraclete of which Heloise remained head until her death in 1163. This convent became the head of a small congregation of houses, six in all, and therefore can be said to have done well under Heloise’s direction. These then are the bare external facts about the religious life led by Abelard and also by Heloise. We should bear in mind as well that Heloise had an uncle, Fulbert, who was a canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and that both Abelard’s father and his mother retired separately and by mutual agreement at the end of their lives into religious houses. If, however, Abelard used monasteries only as a refuge from the schools after his violent castration and after his rejection of the married life, there might be little left to say that is worthy of discussion here. For we could continue to follow convention and to relegate both Abelard and to a lesser extent Heloise to the margins of the wider history of that vast subject which is medieval monasticism. But this we cannot do. One reason why we cannot do so is that monasticism looms so very large in Abelard’s written output. It is true that his writings on logic, his commentaries on the philosophical textbooks written by Porphyry and by Boethius, his own book on dialectic, are bulky and have nothing to do with monasticism.1 They were not included in volume 178 of Migne’s 291

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k Patrology containing Abelard’s writings. But in that volume of the Patrology we have other writings by Abelard which are not philosophical as such, but mainly theological and these fill 1616 columns of which more than one-­third – ­to be precise, 562 ­columns – ­contain works written explicitly for people in the religious life. And not only for them, as these are works explicitly about one or other aspect of the religious life as lived by monks and nuns and regular canons. Furthermore, the other works in this volume of the Patrology include within them long and substantial enquiries into monasticism. These are found in the midst of such writings as the autobiography and the Christian Theology and the Dialogue between the Philosopher, the Jew and the Christian. To discover what Abelard and also Heloise tried to say about monasticism, as well as to attempt to assess this historically it may be helpful to organise some observations around a few themes. Firstly, we may ask what were Abelard’s views about the monastic tradition, about the origins and purpose of monasticism, both male and female. Secondly, what did he say about monasticism as it existed in his own time? Thirdly, what are we to make of the efforts of this separated couple to live the monastic life, and especially what are we to think of Abelard for all that hopping in and out of religious houses over much of France? And finally what did Abelard do for Heloise and for the convent of the Paraclete and what did Heloise think of that? So first, to find Abelard’s views about traditional monasticism we can hardly do better than read his autobiography, the Historia calamitatum. There Heloise is reported as saying that in all the peoples of history, among the Gentiles and Jews as well as among Christians, there have always been some who have left the world in order to seek virtue;2 and that unquestionably is a fundamental premise for Abelard also. It is the key to understanding almost all that he stood for during the last two decades of his life. Abelard insists again and again on the universality of the monastic instinct. Among the Jews there were communities of Essenes and Nazarenes and before them there were the followers of Elisha. Among the earliest Christians there was the great figure of John the Baptist and later there were the Desert Fathers. But also among the gentiles there were philosophers who ­lived – ­although they were ­pagans – ­a monastic way of life. The lives of the pagan philosophers illustrate many of the exemplary features of the monastic life such as contempt for this world, the love of solitude, the undertaking of manual work, the practice of continence and temperance, the pursuit of study. The truth of so much that the pagan philosophers taught is the fruit as well as the proof of the virtuous lives lived by, among others, Plato and Socrates, Cicero and Seneca. And Diogenes, living in his tub, reminds one of John the Baptist existing merely on locusts and honey. These thoughts are expressed by Abelard again and again and especially in his thirty-­third Sermon which is on St John the Baptist,3 also in the second book of his Christian Theology4 and in a letter he wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux shortly after 1130,5 as well as earlier in a work which carries the title of Exhortation to the brothers and the fellow monks 292

h e l o i s e , a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m of Saint-­Denis.6 Abelard was by no means alone in his time in extolling the values of pre-­Benedictine monasticism, of the palaeo-­Christian monasticism of the Desert Fathers, but where he is somewhat singular is in the emphasis he places on including the pagan philosophers of antiquity within the universal framework of monasticism. To do this and for support he turns especially to two of the western Fathers. The first is St Jerome who in the first book of his work against Jovinian had used the example of the pagan philosophers to reinforce his own arguments in favour of virginity.7 The second Father is Saint Augustine who in his City of God had applauded the Platonists for the truth of their teaching on ethics, on God, even on the Trinity, although they did not foresee the Incarnation of Christ. If we now turn, secondly, to what Abelard thought about monasticism in his own time what do we find? We certainly find a good deal of criticism levelled against contemporary institutions. Much of this is generalized: Abelard denounces the worldliness of contemporary monastic life, the absorption of monks in urban life or in estate management, their craving for preferment to bishoprics or their preference for living away from the cloister in the comfort of a small priory or cell or obedience. For the Cistercian order, however, Abelard in one of his letters reserves a more restricted kind of criticism over its reform of the liturgy which he thought was a half-­baked reform which had resulted in impoverishment.8 But if he is indeed the author of the sermon which begins Adtendite a falsis prophetis, he regarded the whole Cistercian order as immoderate and hypocritical.9 He was also extraordinarily harsh in his judgements upon reforming regular canons such as St Norbert, the founder of Prémontré10 or William of Champeaux when he founded the canonry of Saint Victor.11 While Abelard had monastic friends such as those who received him at Provins around 112212 or such as Peter the Venerable himself,13 and while he found models to admire such as Robert of Arbrissel, the founder of Fontevraud,14 and while in general we must compensate for the fact that Abelard was always more discreet when writing about his friends than his enemies, there can be no question but that Abelard was thoroughly disliked by many monks and canons and that he just as thoroughly disliked those monks and canons in return, especially if they were reformed monks and reformed canons. Relations between Abelard and Bernard were not always cold but they certainly went through periods of bitter strain and there was also tension and conflict with other monks at Saint-­Denis and at Saint-­ Gildas. At Saint-­Denis quarrels erupted into a polemic concerning the origins of the abbey and the historical character of its patron St Denis himself.15 At Saint-­Gildas Abelard’s attempt to make the monks live in the abbey resulted in his being nearly poisoned by them and also in his flight from Brittany.16 His own attempt to find peace and stability at Quincey was apparently ruined by hostile criticisms from other religious elsewhere,17 and so on. By 1141, and long after Abelard had abandoned his abbatial responsibilities at Saint-­ Gildas, Bernard was able to savage him saying that he was an abbot without 293

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k monks, and a monk without a rule who had nothing of the monk about him except the habit and the name, and a master who was incapable of staying in the order; he was also a dissembler, Herod within but John without, wholly ambiguous.18 Is there any other monk of the time who was so ill thought of by Saint Bernard? Yet what are we to make of the attempts Abelard himself made to live the monastic life? Abelard only became a monk because of his shame and confusion on being forcibly castrated by the agents of his wife’s uncle who objected to his niece’s marriage. He perhaps only became an abbot at Saint-­Gildas to acquire a status in the church that he had earlier hoped for when he tried to obtain a chair in the cathedral school of Paris. By any standard of judgement, Abelard lived, even as a monk, a very disturbed life. And he acknowledged it frequently; he complained often of the invidia, the envy, shown towards him by other men of religion; he presented himself as a persecuted monastic fugitive. But he had a coherent idea of what the essence of monasticism is and this we may summarize as follows. The word monk, monachus, as St Jerome wrote, means to be alone, solus, from the Greek word monos. The monk must therefore seek to be like a hermit, at least in spirit. And he must be eremitical in purpose, in order to contemplate. The pursuit of virtue creates the conditions for meditation but meditation requires study. And this study brings us to philosophy, philosophy being the love and pursuit of wisdom. The monk therefore should create the conditions in which, by the practice of virtue and of study, he comes to be wise. Thus the good monk is a philosopher. And that was what St John Chrysostom meant when he wrote that St John the Baptist philosophized in the hermitage. And that is what is meant when people say that the true philosophy is that of Christ, vera philosophia Christus, because Christ is the Logos, the Word, or the Wisdom of God. All this underlies Abelard’s descriptions of what he set out to achieve in his small oratory at Quincey and also what he tried to do, though with far less success, on the remote Atlantic coastline of Brittany. But there is another monastic activity or cause in which Abelard engaged, one to which he devoted much time and for which it would be too harsh to judge him a failure. This is his encouragement of the nuns at the Paraclete. It is now an established view that the convent of the Paraclete under Heloise’s direction adopted mainly Cistercian customs.19 The convent was not accepted into the Cistercian order but like many other contemporary houses of religious women the Paraclete borrowed Cistercian customs. However, Heloise, once installed in the Paraclete, also sought Abelard’s own guidance. She does so in Letter 4 of the collection of their letters where she reminds Abelard that he alone after God is the founder of the oratory and the builder of the community, and moreover that he knows far more than do the nuns about the teachings of the holy Fathers who had in the past written so much to encourage as well as to console holy women. So Heloise draws attention to her need to have in writing some guidance for the new community, and in 294

h e l o i s e , a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m Letter 6 she specifies her needs by making requests and putting questions and problems to Abelard to which he replied in Letter 7, which is a treatise on the feminine religious life, and in Letter 8 which prefaces a Rule which he had written for the convent. One of the main elements found in this exchange of views is the theme that the weaker sex needs the help of the stronger and that a convent of women should be supported by a monastery of men. Abelard himself in his Rule for the Paraclete developed his argument that women should be governed not by a woman but by a man to the point of stipulating that there should be an abbot presiding over the abbess and her sisters.20 Another theme consists of exhortations to study Scripture and to follow Jerome’s example. And whatever else one may think of the value or otherwise of Abelard’s prescriptions for life in the abbey of the Paraclete he was in this respect appreciated there. In Letters 3 and 8 Abelard asked the nuns to collect any questions they had about Scripture and present them to him.21 And this they apparently did for we have outside the collection of the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard a letter from Heloise saying that she and the sisters were following Abelard’s advice to study Scripture and also following the example set by Jerome.22 This letter presents forty-­two questions raised by the community in the course of its studies and to these Abelard provided detailed answers which were collected along with the questions to form a small book that has been known in modern times as The Problems of Heloise.23 The very last question has a personal twist to it: is it ever sinful, Heloise asks, to do what one is commanded to do by one’s lord or master?24 Earlier in Letter 2 Heloise had reproached Abelard for commanding her to enter the religious life, and this she protested she had done not out of choice and not out of love of God but because of Abelard’s command, his iussio.25 As Professor Dronke has rightly suggested, ‘it is hard to read this final Problema without perceiving an echo of the anguished reproach Heloise had made Abelard in her second letter’.26 Another valuable fruit of this engagement in the study of Scripture would certainly appear to be Abelard’s written Commentary on the opening of the Book of Genesis.27 For this Commentary is preceded by a personal letter from him to Heloise whom he addresses as sister once dear to him in the world and now most dear to him in Christ.28 Abelard emphasizes that it is she who has pressed him to send the Commentary. In it Abelard sought to weave together moral and mystical exegesis of the Creation stories inside a literal and historical framework of interpretation. So the six days of creation become a mirror of the six ages of the world and also a mirror of the path of the individual human soul towards salvation.29 Nor is this all we have by way of writings undertaken by Abelard on behalf of the convent. In another letter to Heloise Abelard writes that he is sending her sermons which he has written at her request for her and for her spiritual daughters in the oratory.30 He explains that the sermons are arranged to follow the feasts in the church’s year from the beginning of the task of redeeming 295

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k mankind. Surviving copies of Abelard’s Sermons have become detached from this letter-­preface. But the main surviving collection does indeed begin with a Sermon on the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary and in fact the opening words are Exordium nostrae redemptionis, The beginning of our redemption . . .31 There are around thirty-­two sermons that can be probably associated with the collection sent to the Paraclete and a few more besides prepared for other occasions. A copy of the collection was once kept in the convent of the Paraclete although it is now apparently lost. One of the sermons, one that was not obviously prepared for reading in the Paraclete, consists of an appeal for alms for the Convent.32 Furthermore, we have surviving today a collection of hymns and sequences composed by Abelard and accompanied by three letters written by him to Heloise.33 In the first of these letters Abelard quotes some lines from an otherwise unknown communication from Heloise giving her view that the hymns in use in the Latin and in the Gallican church are not satisfactory, that it is necessary to stick to authentic and accurate texts and to dispense with hymns that have corrupt versification or are the work of uncertain authors, and to avoid incorrect translations of the Psalms. So persuaded was he by Heloise’s pleading, he writes, that he has written a new collection of hymns to remedy the deficiencies of tradition to which Heloise has drawn his attention.34 The collection of hymns survives and it is unusually large. There are 129 newly written pieces and they are carefully arranged in three books, each of which has its own plan and its own letter preface. Book one has hymns for Sundays and for weekdays; these celebrate the theme of creation and offer parallels with the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest, as this was expounded in the Commentary that Abelard wrote on the Book of Genesis. The night hymns are concerned with what happened during the six days; the day hymns offer allegorical and moralizing interpretations of it. The second book contains hymns for solemn feasts concerned, rather like the sermon collection, with the mysteries of the Redemption. The third book dwells on the joys of heaven, on the Virgin and on the saints who are in glory. These hymns include hymns to saints who had had a special place in Abelard’s life, such as St Denis and St Gildas and also St Benedict and St Ayoul. Moreover, Abelard provided melodies, although only one now survives.35 Now, all these ­ texts – ­ the hymns, the Biblical problems, the Genesis Commentary, the Sermons, the Rule, and the collected letters between Abelard and ­Heloise – p ­ rove one thing beyond any reasonable doubt. This is that Abelard made a prodigious effort to endow the convent at the time of its establishment with a carefully reasoned programme of prayer and study and also with a choral or sung office. I can think of no other monastic foundation of those times of numerous new beginnings that was accompanied by so much new writing by a single friend or patron. However, it is far from clear what came of all of this and far from clear whether Abelard’s efforts were put to use or were appreciated in the longer 296

h e l o i s e , a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m term. Professor Christopher Brooke, in his most perceptive commentary on these events and on the correspondence, writes that Heloise sets Abelard to work to give her useful advice about the example of holy women from the past, and to provide a Rule for her community; but being a strong-­minded woman with a clear view of her own, she takes the precaution of telling him with some rigour what to ­say . . . ­Abelard dutifully did what he was told, dug out all he could from the New Testament and the early fathers about the devout life of widows and nuns, and lots of good commendable references to holy women; then he finally provided her, at great length, with a Rule. It is fascinating to observe the way in which he picked up every hint in her letter and solemnly carried her own arguments to their logical ­conclusion . . . H ­ eloise was undoubtedly a very masterful woman, and she is not the only wife in history to have ruled over a man she promised to obey. Peter the Venerable likened her to the Queen of the Amazons, and to Deborah. Abelard she would obey, in her own way, to the end; but it was not in her nature to place herself at the disposal of any other man.36 With all this and indeed with much else that Christopher Brooke has written on these matters I readily agree. One should not be lulled into thinking of Abelard as the sole driving force and of Heloise as a clinging violet and a helpless petitioner bringing her requests meekly to her husband without trying to shape the response. But it does not follow that the Paraclete observed Abelard’s prescriptions in every detail or even at all, and as far as can be known the situation was something like this.37 At an early period in the history of the convent and still during the lifetime of Heloise, a document known as the Institutes was drawn up.38 The Institutes aim to provide uniform observances that could be followed in all the five houses dependent upon the mother house of the Paraclete, so we are in the period following the early expansion of the Paraclete community, probably after Abelard’s death but before that of Heloise. The Institutes manifestly make use of the Rule of Abelard on such matters as clothing, beds and bedding. But they do not follow Abelard in his most unconventional ideas such as his permission to the sisters to eat meat and his provision of a male superior set over the abbess. Moreover, the Institutes take in material from the statutes of the Cistercian General Chapter as these existed from about 1136. It would seem therefore that Abelard’s Rule was not ignored at the Paraclete; indeed, it was one of the principal texts used for writing the Institutes. At bottom the Rule of St Benedict was followed but it was followed in the light of a selection of detailed supplementary provisions taken partly from Abelard’s guidance but mostly from the then popular Cistercian customs. Further evidence of Paraclete observances survives in the Paraclete 297

p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k Ordinal of the late thirteenth century, and in the Paraclete Book of Burials of the same date,39 and in the Paraclete Breviary and Calendar which date from around the year l500.40 These are all later documents than the Institutes but they tell us something of how much or how little of Abelard’s work remained in use in later centuries. Cistercian influences are clearly dominant as always. But we nonetheless find some of Abelard’s hymns still in regular use, together with sequences, antiphons and responsories arranged by him. These are found in the offices of Holy Week and on the feast of the Transfiguration. We find also collects that were written by him. We find too that some of his Sermons are required to be read in the Refectory and that the selection of Biblical lessons to be read on feast days was called the lectionary or leconnier of the master and it conforms to what Abelard outlined in his Rule. In total these are just traces and they are dwarfed by more powerful Cistercian influences. But they are there, even in the sixteenth century, the remnants after the passage of many years of a once very powerful impetus. What Abelard made of the Cistercian influence upon the way of life at the Paraclete we can only conjecture. New as well as old religious foundations in the Middle Ages experienced many tensions and changes in policy. There is some reason to think, in view of the Cistercian influence upon the Paraclete, that the first nuns must have felt some hesitation and uncertainty in deciding between Abelard and Cîteaux, especially since Abelard’s own opinion of Cîteaux was so low. In fact, there was a short quarrel between Bernard and Abelard over the Paraclete on which we are informed by means of a letter that Abelard addressed to Bernard between about 1131 and 1135.41 The occasion was a criticism made by Bernard of the unusual wording of the Lord’s Prayer in use at the Paraclete. This wording, supersubstantial bread as in the Gospel of St Matthew instead of daily bread as in the Gospel of St Luke, was certainly Abelard’s own preference and we know too that Bernard made his criticism of this reading during or following a visit he made to the Paraclete. Abelard’s response to Bernard’s objection was an outpouring of wide-­ranging counter-­criticism of the usages of the Cistercian order which were, he claimed, not only novel but bad; moreover, they wholly undermined Bernard’s right to accuse Abelard of improper innovation or of taking liberties with the monastic office. It was a sad moment and also an early warning that if Abelard was ever to be brought into a greater difference of opinion with Bernard there would be even more animated and larger-­scale exchanges of criticism. Possibly Abelard reacted so sharply at this time because he already felt aggrieved that Bernard and the Cistercians were winning a battle for the hearts and minds of Heloise and her companions. Certainly Bernard had made a deep impression upon the nuns during this visit; even Abelard writes that it had provoked great rapture and had been an encouragement to the community. And later in 1150 we find Bernard writing to Pope Eugenius on behalf of Heloise.42 History is full of unexpected twists and turns. It is ironical that in the very years when Abelard found his last consolations 298

h e l o i s e , a b e la r d a n d m o n a s t i c i s m among the Black monks of Cluny, the Paraclete turned for help to the White monks of Cîteaux.

Notes   1 For a listing of Abelard’s writings, of their editions and of their manuscripts, see J. Barrow, C. Burnett, D. Luscombe, ‘A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise’, Revue d’Histoire des Textes, 14–15 (1984–1985), pp. 183–302. For earlier discussions of the some of the issues reconsidered in this paper see the references contained in Luscombe, ‘Pierre Abélard et le monachisme’ (item no. 18 above); Luscombe, Peter Abelard, London, The Historical Association, 1979 (General Series, 95), ‘The Letters of Abelard and Heloise since “Cluny 1972”’ (item no. 14 above), and Luscombe, ‘From Paris to the Paraclete’ (item no.1 above).  2 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 483 et seq.  3 Sermon 33, PL 178, 582–607.  4 Tchr, II, 60–115, pp. 156–184.  5 Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247; also PL 176, 335–340.   6 Now lost but mentioned in Abelard’s Soliloquium, PL 178, 1877D–1878A.  7 Cf. P. Delhaye, ‘Le dossier antimatrimonial de l’Adversus Jovinianum et son influence sur quelques écrits latins du XIIe siècle’, Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1951), pp. 65–86.  8 Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247 (with commentary, pp. 120–136).   9 Ed. L. J. Engels, ‘“Adtendite a falsis prophetis”. (Ms Colmar 128, ff. 152vo–153vo). Un texte de Pierre Abélard contre les Cisterciens retrouvé?’ in Corona Gratiarum. Mélanges E. Dekkers, II, Bruges and the Hague, 1975, pp. 195–228. 10 Sermon 33, PL 178, 605. 11 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 70 et seq. 12 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 985 et seq. 13 Peter the Venerable, Letters 98, 115, 167, ed. G. Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967, pp. 258–259, 303–307, 400–401. 14 Letter 14, ed. Smits, p. 280; PL 178, 357B. 15 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 941 et seq.; Letter 11, ed. Smits, pp. 249–255. 16 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1229 et seq. 17 Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1200 et seq. 18 Letters 193, 331, 332, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, S. Bernardi Opera, VIII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, pp. 44–45, 269, 271. 19 C. Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes. Institutiones nostrae. Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms 802, ff. 89r–90v. Introduction, Edition, Commentary, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1987 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 20). 20 Abelard, Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, p.  259; Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, ll. 1464–1488; Heloise, Letter 6, ed. Muckle, pp. 243, 253. 21 Letter 3, ed. Muckle, p. 73; Letter 8, ed. McLaughlin, p. 292. 22 PL 178, 677–678. 23 PL 178, 677–730. 24 PL 176, 723–30.PL 178, 723–730. 25 Ed. Muckle, p. 72. 26 P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 134–139: 137. 27 PL 178, 731–784. 28 PL 178, 731–732.

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p e t e r a b e la r d : m o n k 29 See E. Kearney, ‘Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator; A Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron’, in Petrus Abaelardus, ed. Thomas, pp. 199–215. 30 PL 173, 379–380; PL 178, 379–380. 31 PL 178, 379. 32 See Barrow, Burnett, Luscombe, ‘Checklist’, no. 304; L. J. Engels, ‘Adtendite’, pp. 195–228. 33 The most recent edition is by C. Waddell, OCSO, Hymn Collections from the Paraclete. 34 Ed. Waddell, Hymn Collections, II, pp. 5–9. 35 See Waddell, Hymn Collections, pp. 45–54. 36 C.N.L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, Oxford, 1989, pp. 116–118. 37 See on this my ‘From Paris to the Paraclete’ (item no. 1 above), pp. 271–278. 38 See note 20 above. 39 C. Waddell, The Old French Paraclete Ordinary (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms français 14410) and the Paraclete Breviary (Chaumont, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms 31), 3 vols., Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky, 1985, 1983 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 3–7). The Ordinal is edited in vol. 2 (1983); the Book of Burials and the Ordinal are discussed in vol. 1 (1985). 40 The Breviary and the Calendar are edited and studied by Waddell in the aforementioned work, vol. 3 in three parts (1983). 41 Abelard, Letter 10, ed. Smits, pp. 239–247, with commentary on pp. 120–136. 42 Bernard, Letter 278, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, S. Bernardi Opera, VIII, Rome, Editiones Cistercienses, 1977, p. 190.

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20 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Chapter 1: From Paris to the Paraclete A number of the topics discussed in this lecture, especially on pp. 250–261, have been reworked in the published edition, listed in the Bibliography, of The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise. See, for example, pp. 24–25 and note 60 (Heloise’s relatives), and Further Notes, 1 (Roscelin), 2.i–v (William of Champeaux), and 4 (Abelard’s emasculation). Note ­108 – f­or a more recent edition see the Bibliography: Hymns, ed. Waddell. Note ­110 – f­or Heloise’s letter see now Hymns, ed. Waddell, vol. 1, p.  5, l. 13, p. 9, l. 10. Note 1­ 11 – ­on the plan see Hymns, ed. Waddell, vol. 1. Note ­115 – t­ he new edition of the Sententiae of Peter Abelard is: Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi, ed. D. Luscombe with the assistance of J. Barrow, C.  Burnett, K. Keats-­Rohan and C. J. Mews; Liber Sententiarum Magistri Petri, ed. C. J. Mews with the assistance of D. Luscombe, in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica VI, Turnhout, Brepols, 2006 (CCCM 14). Note 1­ 18 – ­new edition by C. Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes: Institutiones nostrae. Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 802, ff. 89r–90v. Introduction, Edition, Commentary. Cistercian Liturgy Series 20 (Gethsemani Abbey Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1987). Note ­156 – ­see also Ioannis Saresberiensis Metalogicon, ed. J. B. Hall with the assistance of K.S.B. Keats-­Rohan, Turnhout, Brepols, 1991 (CCCM 98), pp.  70–71, and John of Salisbury, Metalogicon. Translation and notes by J. B. Hall. Introduction by J. P. Haseldine, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013 (Corpus Christianorum in Translation, 12), p. 198.

Chapter 2: Peter Abelard Note ­4 – ­the Scritti filosofici were republished in 1969 with a new title and in a different series but with the same pagination: M. Dal Pra, Pietro Abelardo. Scritti di Logica, Florence, 1969 (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e 301

s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s filosofia dell’Università di Milano, 34. Sezione a cura dell’Istituto di storia della filosofia, 3). Note ­7 – ­a much improved edition of the commentary on De interpretatione, based on the Berlin and Milan MSS, has now been made: Petri Abaelardi Glossae super Peri Hermeneias, ed. K. Jacobi and C. Strub, Turnhout, Brepols, 2010 (CCCM, 206).

Chapter 3: Nature in the thought of Peter Abelard Para. 1­ – ­The classic starting point for studies of the idea of nature in the twelfth century remains chapter 1 of M.-D. Chenu’s book, La Théologie au douzième siècle. Paris, 1957 (Etudes de philosophie médiévale 45): ‘La nature et l’homme. La Renaissance du XIIe siècle’, pp.  19–51. Further studies now include: T. Gregory, ‘L’idea di natura nella filosofia medievale prima dell’ingresso della fisica di A ­ ristotele – ­Il secolo XII’, and J. Jolivet, ‘Elements du concept de nature chez Abélard’, in La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo. Atti del terzo congresso internazionale di filosofia medioevale. Passo della Mendola (Trento) – 31 agosto – 5 settembre 1964, Milano, Società Editrice Vita e Pensiero, 1966, pp.  27–65 and pp.  297–304. A. Speer, Die entdeckte Natur: Untersuchungen zu Begründungsversuchen einer ‘scientia naturalis’ im 12. Jahrhundert, Leiden, Brill, 1995 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 45).

Chapter 4: Peter Abelard and the arts of language For further discussion that may be found helpful see my study on ‘Peter Abelard and lingua nostra’, Philosophie et langage ordinaire de l’antiquité à la renaissance, ed. J.-M. Counet, Louvain, Peeters, 2014 (Bibliothèque philosophique de Louvain, 91), pp. 113–124.

Chapter 5: ‘Scientia’ and ‘disciplina’ in the correspondence of Peter Abelard and Heloise Note ­15 – ­cf. also Letter 8 (PL 178, 310A). One of the statues on the south side of the south tower of Chartres cathedral is of an ass trying to play a lyre or a harp. For a photograph see E. Jeauneau, Rethinking the School of Chartres, translated from the French by C. P. Desmarais, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2009, figure 2; cf. Jeauneau, ibidem, p.  13. Literary allusions to this motif include Jerome, Epistola LXI ad Vigilantium, 4, ed. J. Hilberg, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum,54, p. 581, l. 7 (PL 22, 605); Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, i, prosa iv, ed. L. Bieler, CCSL, 94 (1957), p. 6; trans. V. E. Watts, Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Harmondsworth, 1969 (Penguin Classics), p.  40; Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, viii, p.  807, ed. J. Willis, Leipzig, Teubner, 1983, p.  305, and 302

s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s Phaedrus, Aesop’s Fables, Perotti’s Appendix, 12, ed. J. P. Postgate, Oxford, Clarendon Press, c.1920 (Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis), ed. and trans. B. E. Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, Cambridge, Mass., 1965 (Loeb Classical Library), pp. 390–391.

Chapter 8. The school of Peter Abelard revisited Note ­5 – ­for a more recent edition of the Ethics or Scito teipsum see R. M. Ilgner, ed., Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, 2001 (CCCM, 190). Note ­6 – i­n 2006 a new edition was published of these Sententie: Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi, ed. David Luscombe with the help of J. Barrow, C. Burnett, K. Keats-­Rohan and C. J. Mews in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, VI, Turnhout, Brepols, 2006 (CCCM, 14), pp. 1–152. Note ­7 – ­in the Introduction to the new edition of the Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi, pp. 1*–109*: 49*–51*, I accepted the possibility that Hermannus may have ‘revised, expanded and polished’ early drafts of the Sententie written by Abelard but thought it more likely that the fullest version of the Sententie is the work of Abelard himself into a copy of which Hermannus attached his name in the course of presenting examples of different kinds of actions. Note ­11 – ­a new edition of the Liber Sententiarum, made by C. J. Mews, is included in the edition of Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi, mentioned above, on pp. 153–171. Note 1­ 2 – ­see Chapter 13 later in this volume. For virtue in the writings of the ‘school’, see P. Bejczy, The Cardinal Virtues in the Middle Ages. A Study in Moral Thought from the Fourth to the Fourteenth Century, Leiden, Brill, 2011, pp. 87–92.

Chapter 9: The Bible in the work of Peter Abelard and of his ‘school’ Note ­63 – ­Abelard’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans has been translated by Steven R. Cartwright, Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 2011 (The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, 12). See too J. Doutre, ‘Romans as read in school and cloister’, and B. Dean Schildigen, ‘Female monasticism in the twelfth century: Peter Abelard, Heloise, and Paul’s Letter to the Romans’, in Medieval Readings of Romans, ed. W. S. Campbell and others, New York, T. & T. Clark International, 2007, pp. 33–57 and 58–68. Note ­76 – f­ or a new edition by the late Mary Romig, published in 2004, see the Bibliography: Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Romig. On this Expositio see too R. Heyder, Auctoritas Scripturae. Schriftauslegung und Theologieverständnis Peter Abaelards unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Expositio in Hexameron, Münster, Aschendorf, 2010 (BGPTMA, Neue Folge, 74).

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s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s Chapter 11: Peter Abelard’s carnal thoughts Note ­12 – I­ . Bejczy has argued that Abelard’s insistence that good actions do not increase merit is flawed, ‘Deeds without value. Exploring a weak spot in Abelard’s ethics’, Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, lxx (2003), pp. 1–21.

Chapter 12: St Anselm and Abelard Note ­60 – ­more recent contributions which reflect differing approaches to the study of Abelard’s views on Anselm have been provided by J. Marenbon in his Abelard in Four Dimensions. A Twelfth-Century Philosopher in His Context and Ours. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana (2013), ch. 3, pp. 93–116, ‘Abelard and Anselm’, and in Anselm and Abelard. Investigations and Juxtapositions, ed. G.E.M. Gasper and H. Kohlenberger, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006.

Chapter 14: Berengar, defender of Peter Abelard Note ­7 – ­In 1980 R. M. Thomson published a new edition of the writings of Berengar, ‘The Satirical Works of Berengar of Poitiers: An Edition with Introduction’, Mediaeval Studies, 42 (1980), pp. 89–138. Among many valuable observations he noticed (p.  113) that Berengar wrongly attributed two lines of verse to Gallus. Professor Thomson is currently preparing an English translation of Berengar’s writings. Descriptions of the MSS of Brugge, Stadsbibliotheek 398, Oxford, Bodleian Library Add. C. 271 and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 2923 will also be found in The Letter Collection, listed in the Bibliography, pp.xxxix–xli, xliv–xlvi and lvi–lix. Note ­16 – ­the date of the council of Sens has proved difficult to determine. C. J. Mews is the latest in a line of scholars who have opted for 1141 rather than 1140. His reconsideration of the council is valuable: ‘The Council of Sens 1141, Abelard, Bernard and the fear of social upheaval’, Speculum, 77 (2002), pp. 342–382. Note ­58 – ­see now Liber Sententiarum Magistri Petri, ed. C. J. Mews assisted by D. Luscombe in Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica VI, Turnhout, Brepols, 2006 (CCCM, 14), pp. 153–171, and M. Clanchy, ‘Was Abelard right to deny that he had written a book of “Sentences”?’ in Rethinking Abelard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. B. S. Hellemans, Leiden, Brill, 2014, pp. 105–118. Note ­87 – ­the suggestion that one MS copy of the Apologeticus (Oxford, Bodleian Library Add. C. ­271 – ­see note 7 above) is perhaps of Italian origin should be disregarded; it seems to be French.

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s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s Chapter 15: The Letters of Heloise and Abelard since ‘Cluny, 1972’ Note ­17 – f­or a more recent and improved translation see John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, trans. J. B. Hall, introduction by J. P. Haseldine, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013 (Corpus Christianorum in Translation, 12). Note ­28 – ­this essay was published in 1980 at a time when the authorship and authenticity of the letter collection of Abelard and Heloise were still actively disputed. A second controversy was soon to begin over the authorship of the Epistolae duorum amantium published by E. Könsgen in 1974. Constant J. Mews argued the case for seeing in these letters authentic relics of correspondence between Abelard and Heloise: see The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France, with a translation by N. Chiavaroli and C. J. Mews, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1999 (The New Middle Ages). Opinions currently remain divided. Two of the most recent contributions are those of C. Stephen Jaeger, ‘The Epistolae duorum amantium. Abelard and Heloise: An Annotated Concordance’, Journal of Medieval Latin, 24 (2014), pp. 185–224, and B. Newman, Making Love in the Twelfth Century. “The Letters of Two Lovers” in Context. A new translation with commentary. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016 (The Middle Ages Series). Jaeger is persuaded that the authors are Abelard and Heloise; Newman considers this highly probable but unprovable. Note ­30 – ­reprinted in Dronke, Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe, Rome, 1992 (Storia e Letteratura 183), pp. 247–294, at p. 272. Note ­39 – ­Jaeger’s paper was published in Euphorion, 74 (1980), pp. 1–15. Note ­69 – f­or an excellent introduction to the genre of medieval letters and letter collections in the period between 1050 and 1200, see A. Morey and C.N.L. Brooke, Gilbert Foliot and His Letters, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1965 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, New Series, 11), ch. 2: The Letters. Note ­78 – ­the Troyes MS 802 may have been produced earlier and perhaps shortly before 1236/8. See The Letter Collection, ed. Luscombe, p. lxxix. For a further description of the Troyes MS see The Letter Collection, ed. Luscombe, pp. lxxi–lxxxi. Note ­80 – ­I wrongly wrote here that Dronke dated the Paris MS to the early fourteenth century. The date he suggested is around 1400. See also ‘Checklist’, no. 146 (early fifteenth century). Note ­83 – f­or a further description of the Paris MS, Bibl. nat. de France, latin 2923 see The Letter Collection, pp. lvi–lix. M. M. McLaughlin with B. Wheeler, in The Letters of Heloise and Abelard: A Translation of the Collected Correspondence and Related Writings, New York, Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009 (The New Middle Ages) on p. 319, correctly challenged my remark that the collection in the Troyes MS was ‘arranged and presented to show the legislative history of the order’ of the Paraclete. Rather, they write, ‘the character of 305

s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s this collection does support the hypothesis that it may well have been a canon lawyer’s dossier, put together to serve the needs of an ecclesiastical inquiry of some kind’. Such an enquiry, they suggested, may have begun in May 1247 over the right of dependent houses to participate in the election of the abbess of the mother house, the abbey of the Paraclete. Note 8­ 4 – ­see The Letter Collection, pp. ciii–civ, cxv, for a slightly more rosy view of the reception of the Historia calamitatum. Note ­92 – ­a longer list of lost MSS of the letter collection is found in The Letter Collection, pp. lxxxi–c. Note ­94 – ­on this MS, Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30, see Chapter 17 in this volume. Note ­95 – a­ new edition of the Institutiones has been provided by C. Waddell, The Paraclete Statutes, Institutiones nostrae, Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms 802, ff. 89r–90v. Introduction, Edition, Commentary, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky 40051, 1987 (Cistercian Liturgy Series, 20). Note ­102 – ­for a new edition of The Letter Collection in Oxford Medieval Texts see the Bibliography.

Chapter 16: Peter Abelard and the abbey of the Paraclete Note 82 – Epithalamica: the late Professor David Wulstan attributed these poems and their melodies to Héloïse, ‘Novi modulaminis melos: The Music of Heloise and Abelard’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 11 (2002), pp. 1–23.

Chapter 17: Excerpts from the letter collection of Heloise and Abelard in Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30 Note ­2 – f­ or a fuller and more recent review of the MSS containing the letter collection see the introduction to The Letter Collection, ed. Luscombe, pp. xxxviii–civ. The number of the known surviving MSS now stands at sixteen and of known non-­surviving MSS at twenty-­one. The Troyes MS 802, and not Paris, Bibl. nat. de France, latin 2923, is now thought to be the earliest surviving copy of the letter collection, dating from perhaps shortly before 1236/8; see ibidem, pp. lxxii and lxxvi where reference is made to J. Dalarun, ‘Nouveaux aperçus sur Abélard, Héloïse et le Paraclet’, Francia 32 (2005), pp. 19–66 at 23–25. Note ­30 – o ­ n the Durham tabula see now A. Piper, ‘New Evidence for the Becket Correspondence and John of Salisbury’s Letters’, in The World of Salisbury, ed. M. Wilks, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984 (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 3), pp. 439–444.

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s u p p l e m e n ta ry n o t e s Chapter 18: Peter Abelard and monasticism Note ­35 – ­the reputations of both the abbey of Saint-­Denis and the nunnery of Argenteuil were questionable at the time of the expulsion of the nuns (including Heloise) from Argenteuil and their replacement by monks from Saint-­Denis in 1129, and opinions remain divided. Suger clearly claimed both that the property belonged to Saint-­Denis and that the conduct of the nuns living there was deplorable. R.-H. Bautier (‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, in Abélard en son temps. Actes du colloque international organisé à l’occasion du 9e centenaire de la naissance de Pierre Abélard (14–19 mai 1979), ed. J. Jolivet, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1981, pp. 71–75) thought that their expulsion was scandalous, but L. Grant (Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France, London, Longman, 1998 (The Medieval World), pp. 192–193) noted that it was supported by respected bishops. T. G. Waldman (‘Abbot Suger and the Nuns of Argenteuil’, Traditio, 41 (1985), pp.  239–272 at 246–249; French trans. by J. Dufour, ‘L’abbé Suger et les nonnes d’Argenteuil’, in Le vieil Argenteuil: Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique d’Argenteuil & du Parisis, 29 (1986–1987), pp. 5–26) provides a full examination of the historical sources and draws attention to Suger’s reputation for improving the quality of religious life, but his arguments as well as those of other scholars that documents were forged to provide support for Suger’s actions have been questioned. See M. Groten, ‘Die Urkunde Karls des Grossen für St.-Denis von 813 (D. 286), eine Falschung Abt Sugers’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 108 (1988), pp. 1–36; L. Morelle, ‘Suger et les archives’, in Suger en question: Regards croisés sur Saint-Denis, ed. R. Grosse, Munich, Oldenbourg, 2004 (Pariser Historische Studien, 68), pp. 117–139; J. Führer, König Ludwig VI. von Frankreich und die Kanonikerreform, Frankfurt a. M., Lang, 2008 (Europäische Hochschulschriften, III, 1049), pp. 222–225 at 222. For the agreement of King Louis VI and his son Philip to restore Argenteuil to the abbey of Saint-­Denis see J. Dufour, Recueil des actes de Louis VI, roi de France (1108–1137), II, Paris, Bocard, 1992, no. 281, pp. 100–106.

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INDEX

Abel 48, 65 Abelard: Anthropologia 144, 238; and Carmen (or Monita) ad Astralabium 22, 70, 102, 109, 113, 115, 117, 234, 235; Collationes 49, 59, 65, 73, 112, 114, 137, 167–8, 176, 283, 292; Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed 75, 149; Commentary on the Athanasian Creed 149; Commentary on Ezekiel 87, 137, 138, 142, 232, 258; Commentary on Genesis, Exposition of Hexameron 9, 10, 51, 63, 83, 93, 137, 142, 144–5, 154–61, 187, 229, 231; Commentary on Pater noster 142; Commentary on Romans 16, 74, 111, 112, 115, 137, 142, 143–4, 158, 182, 183; Confession of faith to Heloise 210, 215, 231; Confession of faith ‘Universis’ 15; De intellectibus 37; De syllogismis categoricis 238; De syllogismis hypotheticis 238; Dialectica 1, 6, 37, 38, 43, 90, 91, 99, 100, 101; Dialogue of the Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, see Abelard, Collationes; Ethics or Know Thyself 50, 60, 98, 112, 127, 128, 129, 130, 143, 158, 187, 285; Exhortatio ad fratres et commonachos 59, 238, 284, 292; Historia calamitatum 3, 4, 6, 10, 18–23, 41, 43, 44, 48, 55, 86, 87, 90, 102, 103, 118, 176, 178, 179, 208, 227, 229, 231, 232, 236, 241, 255, 256, 257, 265, 269, 283, 284, 286, 289, 292; Grammatica 37, 238; Hymnarius Paraclitensis, Hymns 9–10, 12, 14, 25, 26, 29, 78, 100, 101, 106, 109–10, 145, 146, 229, 238, 241, 252, 257, 296, 298; Introductiones parvulorum 36;

Letters passim; Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ 36, 40–2; Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum’ 37, 38, 41, 42, 87, 92, 115; Planctus 29, 51, 109, 110, 145, 259; Problemata Heloissae 9, 10, 14, 15, 24, 25, 83, 87, 145–6, 229, 230, 238, 252, 257, 295, 296; Psalterium 237–8, 285; Rhetorica 37, 238; Rule, Regula 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 24, 27, 29, 87, 88, 170, 230, 236, 238–41, 251, 253–5, 257, 258, 295, 296, 297; Secundum vocales 37; Sentences (on logic) 37, 53; Sententiae Petri Abaelardi (SPA) 10, 26, 27, 127, 130, 131, 133, 144; Sequences 9, 10, 29, 110, 118, 258, 259, 296, 298, 306; Sermons 9, 10, 13, 14, 25, 28, 29–30, 48, 75, 93, 106, 113, 142, 149, 228, 229, 231, 242, 257, 258, 259, 283, 284, 285, 292, 293, 296, 298; Sic et non 9, 10, 26, 47, 70, 76, 104, 122, 129, 139, 140, 148, 188, 227; Soliloquy 48; Theologia 22, 43, 44, 45, 47, 71, 98, 110, 114, 115, 127, 128, 129, 139, 144; Theologia christiana 79, 110, 140, 141–2, 167, 176, 178–81, 229, 283, 292; Theologia ‘Scholarium’ 75, 110, 116, 140, 141, 176, 180, 188; Theologia ‘Summi boni’ 21, 44, 45, 48, 73, 79, 113, 140, 141, 148, 178, 179, 182 Abraham 48, 65 Achilles 113 Adam 158–9, 163, 202 Adam, abbot 3, 20, 284 Adam, Lateran canon 207 Adam of Saint-Victor 69 Adela of Blois 230 Adelard of Bath 144, 154, 159 Adelaudis 7

309

index Adrian, St 254 Aelfric 187 Aélis of Louvain 230 Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini 267, 278 Aethelwold, St 187, 188 Aix-la-Chapelle 239, 252 Ajax 113, 233 Alan of Lille 154 Alberic of Rheims 100, 102, 179, 289 Alberic, author of a Summa Sententiarum 128 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln 7 Alexandria 89 Alexis, St 254 Allegoriae super novum testamentum 143 Amazons 31, 297 Amboise, F. d’ 238, 266 Ambrose, St 110, 111, 154, 157, 158, 212, 215 Ambrosiaster 143 Amiclas 112 Ammannati, Cardinal Giacomo 278 Anchises 116 Andreas, Giovanni 278 Angers 16, 17, 228, 229 Anglo-Saxon 188, 189 Anjou 1, 229 Anna 117, 146 Anseau de Garlande 3 Anselm of Bec and Canterbury, St 5, 6, 58, 69, 129, 175–86, 284 Anselm of Laon 87, 102, 114, 137, 175, 177, 179, 268, 289 Anthony, St 142 Antiochus 247 Apollinaris 94 Apulia 207 Arabic 137, 138 Ardusson 7 Argenteuil 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 23, 24, 229, 285, 287, 290, 291, 307 Aristotle 36, 38, 42, 43, 44, 47, 72, 93, 99, 100, 153, 164, 165, 210, 290 Arius 98 Arnold of Brescia 207 Asaph 139 Astralabe 1, 16, 70, 102, 109 Augustine, St 43, 47, 48, 70–1, 72, 76, 93, 100, 101, 103, 110, 111, 114, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 154–8, 164, 165, 167, 176, 177, 180, 181, 189, 214, 215, 293

Auxerre 7 Ayoul, St 258, 290 Bacchus 208 Barannia 89, 94 Basel 267, 278 Basil of Caesarea 154, 157 Baudri of Bourgueil 16, 69, 229 Bayeux tapestry 230 Beata nobis gaudia 72 Beaumont family 1 Becket, Thomas 267, 278 Bede 87, 154, 155, 158, 212, 215 Benedict, St 11, 88, 170, 171, 187, 251, 253, 255, 256, 258, 284, 296, 297 Benoiton, Roger 239, 266 Benton, J. F. 11, 14, 18, 20, 22, 24, 27, 71, 227, 231, 232, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244 Berengar 16, 207–23, 236, 238, 265, 271 Berengar of Tours 223 Bernard of Chartres 99 Bernard of Clairvaux, St 7, 11, 12, 15, 16, 28, 29, 31, 46, 69, 77, 103, 104, 107, 110, 114, 128, 167, 175, 176, 179, 207–23, 232, 236, 237, 257, 267, 268, 283, 284, 285, 289, 290, 292, 293, 298 Bernardus Silvestris 157 Besançon 5 Bethlehem 89 Boethius 36, 37, 40, 42, 44, 47, 70, 72, 85, 88, 93, 100, 110, 122, 129, 131, 132, 164, 165, 233, 290, 291 Boso 182 Bouchard 4 Boyer, B. B. and McKeon, R. 139 Brice, St 254 Brittany 1, 2, 228, 229, 290, 291, 293, 294 Brooke, C. 19, 23, 297 Bruni, F. 245 Bruni, Leonardo 268 Budic 16 Bulst, W. 229 Burnett, C. 25, 128, 187–205, 276 Bury St Edmunds 19 Bussy-Rabutin 233 Buytaert, E.M. 70, 81, 143, 150 Caelius Sedulius 119 Caen 229

310

index Caesar 114 Calcidius 47, 155 Canavero, A.T. 83 Canticle see Song of Songs Carmina burana 117 Carthusians 217 Cass, A. 277 Catherine of Siena, St 237 Cato 112, 113 Catullus 110 Celestine III see Hyacinth Cévennes 223 Chalon-sur-Saône 291 Châlons-sur-Marne 3, 28 Champagne 230, 291 Chartres 302 Chatillon, F. 302 Chenu, M.-D. 88, 159 Chibnall, M. 209 Chrysostom, John, St 294 Cicero, Ciceronian 37, 74, 76, 110, 111, 130, 292 Cistercians 7, 11–13, 22, 27, 28, 29, 83, 103, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259, 284, 285, 289, 290, 293, 294, 297, 298 Cîteaux 7, 11, 253, 256, 298, 299 Clanchy, M. 175–86 Clarembald of Arras 88, 156 Claudian of Lyons see Claudian Mamertus Claudian Mamertus 101, 213, 215 Clough, C.H. 277 Cluny 16, 30, 71, 138, 210, 227, 231, 232, 253, 256, 283, 284, 285, 291, 299 Col, Gontier 242 Commentarius Cantabrigiensis 137, 138, 143 Conan III 1, 17 Cono, legate 228 Conrad of Hirsau 287 Constable, G. 102–3, 236 Constance 229 Corbeil 1, 2, 138 Corbett, J.A. 267, 268, 270 Cornelia 115 Courtenay, W. J. 127 Cracow 270 Creighton, M. 268 cursus 14 Cynthia 110 Cyprian 111, 268 Czelfkendorf, Joseph 270

Czeyskensdorff 270 Czeyskendorff, Joseph de Cracovia 270 Daedalus 113 Dagobert 19 Damian, Peter 6, 285 Debora, Debra 16, 31, 146, 147, 297 Delhaye, P. 284 Delia 110 Denis, St 114, 258, 284, 296 Desert Fathers 284, 292, 293 Desportes, Philippe 266 Deuil 4 Deuteronomy 4, 190 Didimus 89, 94 Diogenes 48, 284, 292 Dionysius the Areopagite see Denis, St Dionysius Cato 115 Dives 74, 168 Dominic see Gundissalinus Dronke, P. 14, 24, 25, 78, 114, 116, 117, 118, 146, 163, 233–5, 244, 263, 276, 295 Duby, G. 233 Duchesne, A. 267 Echo 112 Eleanor of Aquitaine 230 Elijah 142 Elisabeth 117, 146 Elisha 142, 284, 292 Engels. L. J. 25, 69, 70, 71, 74, 77, 78, 111, 112 Enoch 48, 65, Epicureanism, Epicureans 49, 153, 167 Epistolae duorum amantium 230, 305 Essenes 142, 284, 292 Esther 146, 147 Ethiopian woman 169 Eugenius III 12, 28, 298 Eustace, St 254 Eustathius 154 Eve 158, 169, 202 Faba, Guido 278 Festus 208 Flavy, St 262 Fontevraud 1, 2, 228, 255, 293 Fraioli, D. 19 France 1, 2, 3, 229, 230, 266, 284, 292

311

index Fulbert 1, 4–7, 20, 227, 284, 291 Fulk of Deuil 4, 5, 233, 236, 284 Galatea 113 Gallus 214 Galo 7 Galo, bishop 2, 3 Garlande, de 2 Gauthier see Walter of Châtillon Geoffrey of Auxerre 219, 220 Geoffrey of Châlons-sur-Marne 218 Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres 114 Gerard 212 Gerbert, bishop 2 Gerhoh of Reichersberg 207 German 269 Gerson, J. 223 Geyer, B. 36, 37, 53, 55 Ghellinck, J. de 69, 70 Gilbert of Poitiers 3, 7, 22, 47, 88, 209 Gilbert of Sempringham 7 Gildas, St 254, 258, 296 Gilson, E. 218, 227 Girbert, bishop of Paris 228 Grabmann, M. 176 Greece 49, 51 Greek, Greeks 8, 24, 65, 76–8, 86, 89, 90, 137, 139, 154 Gregory I 70, 71, 111, 140, 267, 268 Gregory VII 103 Gregory, T. 153, 154, 163 Gualo 2 Gui de Rochefort 3 Guillaume. bishop of Paris 2 Guitmund of Aversa 103 Gundissalinus, Dominic 88 Haskins, C.H. 69, 70 Haimeric, Cardinal 211 Halbendorff, Nicholas 270 Haverholme 7 Hay, D. 276 Haymo 143 Hebrew, Hebrews 18, 76–8, 83, 89, 90, 111, 138, 163, 286 Heloise 1, 3, 5, 6, 7–16, 21–6, 48, 51, 71, 77, 83, 100, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 138, 154, 167, 168–71, 188, 210, 215, 227–38, 251–63, 265, 267, 268, 269, 284–6, 289–300; and Letter 2 (3) 8, 9, 23, 145, 169, 230, 234, 237, 295; Letter 4 (5) 8, 9, 169, 230, 234, 294; Letter

6 (7) 8, 11, 14, 24, 113, 119, 169–71, 230, 234, 235, 236, 295; letter-preface to Problemata Heloissae 9, 145; see Abelard, Problemata Heloissae Henry, archbishop of Sens 7, 218 Henry, P. 289 Hermann, Hermannus 127, 303 Hermann of Carinthia 156 Hermes 114 Hexaemeron 137 Hilarion 142 Hilary, Master, poet 228, 229 Hilary, St 110, 213, 214 Hildebert of Lavardin 69 Hilpisch, S. 283 Hopkins, G.M. 64 Horace 112, 114, 115, 212, 214 Hugh of Amiens 163 Hugh Metellus 104 Hugh of St Victor 69, 88, 91, 94, 128, 143, 149, 153, 179, 214 Hugh, archbishop of Sens 253 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester 239, 267 Hyacinth (later Pope Celestine III) 207 Icarus 113 Innocent II 7, 16, 22, 104, 207, 210, 219, 220, 290 Institutes, Institutiones nostrae, see Paraclete Isaac 48 Isaiah 139 Iseut 230 Isidore, St 111, 113, 153, 158 Italy 138 Ivo, Cardinal 227 Ivo of Chartres 2, 239, 240, 251 Jacob 48, 65 Jacobus de Gantis 266 Jaeger, C. Stephen 101–3 James the Apostle, St 171 James of Venice 94 Janson, T. 30 Jean de Cherchemont 266 Jean de Hesdin 216, 239, 266 Jean de Meun 227, 234–5, 237–8, 239, 242, 266 Jean de Montreuil 239, 266, 267 Jeauneau, E. 20 Jephtha 146

312

index Jeremiah 139 Jerome 3, 8, 19, 24, 47, 48, 70, 76, 77, 83, 86, 89, 94, 111, 113, 139, 141, 143, 145, 213, 214, 215, 229, 240, 284, 285, 286, 293, 294, 295 Jerusalem 89 Jews 31, 49, 65, 77, 116, 137, 138, 142, 208, 284, 292 Jo. Lambertus 266 Job 48, 65, 109, 142 Jocelyn 201 Johannes Andree 270 Johannes Andree de Nissa 239, 269 John the Baptist, St 48, 142, 254, 270, 283, 284, 292, 294 John the Evangelist, St 208 John of Salisbury 15, 30, 69, 91, 95, 127, 207, 209, 229, 278 John the Saracen (?) 94 Jolivet, J. 56, 71, 98, 109, 129, 232, 241 Joseph, St 139 268 Joseph Johannis de Czeyskendorf de Cracovia 279 Jovinian 293 Judith 147 Julie 241 Justinian 103 Juvenal 112, 113 Kearney, E. 138, 145, 158 Ker, N. R. 187 Klibansky, R. 207, 218 Knowles, D. 216 Kőnsgen, E. 230 Kwineyse, Martin 270 Ladner, G. 117 Laeta 76, 86 Langton, Stephen 4, 20 Laon 91, 137, 138, 289 Latin 8, 24, 69–70, 76, 77, 78, 86, 89, 137, 154, 163, 170, 187, 188 Latzke, T. 117 Laurie, H. 114 Lawrence, St 254 Lazarus 74, 168 Leclercq, J. 220, 232, 283, 285 Leheure, Martin 270 Lesbia 110 Liber sententiarum magistri Petri 128, 130, 131 Loches 1, 5, 229

Loire 2, 5, 229 Lord’s Prayer, the 12, 29, 77–8, 103, 298 Lotulf 100, 289 Louis VI 1, 2, 7, 15, 17 Louis, prince 2 Lot 48, 65 Lottin, O. 137 Lucan 112, 113, 114–15, 231 Lucilius 214 Lucy 1 Luke, St 12, 77, 78, 103, 168, 237, 298 Mabillon, J. 104, 211, 214 Macharius 142 Macrobius 47, 78, 81, 114, 116, 170 Marbod 16, 69, 229 Marcella, St 76 Marchiennes 266 Marcigny 16 Marenbon, J. 20, 117, 121 Marie de Champagne 230 Marie de la Rochefoucauld 267 Marmoutier 254 Marrou, H.-I. 88 Mars 233 Martial 214 Martianus Capella 88 Martin, St 254, 262 Mary, the Virgin, St 109, 139, 169, 185, 254 Mary of Egypt 146 Mary Magdalen 117, 146, 262 Masin, A.C. 268 Masson, Papire 267 Mathias de Rivau 266 Matthew, St 12, 77, 78, 103, 139, 298 McLaughlin, M. M. 161, 231 McLeod, E. 252 Melchisedech 48, 65, 140 Mélisende 254 Melun 2, 3, 14, 138 Mende, see William III Mercury 233 Metamorphosis Goliae episcopi 110, 234 Meulan 1, 3 Mews, C. J. 22, 25, 79, 128, 139, 141, 148, 182 Miethke, J. 241 ‘Milan glosses’ 36 Milo of Troyes 2 Monfrin, J. 227, 231, 234, 236, 237, 238, 265, 269

313

index Montmorency 1, 4 Mont Sainte-Geneviève 3, 127, 138, 229 Moonan, L. 81 Moos, P. von 114, 227, 231, 232, 235–6, 237, 246 Morigny 228 Moses 48, 49, 74, 143 Muckle, J. 269 Murphy, J. J. 269 Nabuchodonosor 113 Nantes, Nantais 1, 229 Nardi, B. 153 Nazarenes 142, 284, 292 Neisse 270 Nestorius 98 Nicholas, St 262 Nicholas of Montiéramey 237 Nicolas de Baye 239, 266 Nile 177, 180 Nogent-sur-Seine 7, 291 Noah 48, 65 nominalist school 5, 80 Norbert of Prémontré, St 7, 107, 255, 284, 293 Norbertines, see Premonstratensians Odo, count 2 Odo, historian 4 Odyssey 231 Omnebene (and SO) 128, 131 Origen 76, 138, 143, 153, 169, 212, 213, 214, 215, 286 Orleans 234 Orlandi, G. 121 Otto of Freising 133, 219 Ovid 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 122, 233 Oxford 267 Paganus Bolotinus 285 Palestine 111 Pallet, Le 36, 229 Paraclete, oratory and abbey 7–15, 22–3, 27–8, 48, 76–7, 89, 101, 103, 138, 227, 228, 231, 234, 237–9, 240–1, 243, 251–63, 283, 285, 291, 292, 294–9; Breviary 12, 29, 30, 257, 298; Calendar 12, 256; Epithalamica 13, 29; Institutes, Institutiones nostrae 10–12, 27, 238–41, 251–3, 254–5, 256, 297; Ordinal, Ordinary 12, 13,

22, 28, 30, 241, 251, 256, 257–9, 298; Necrology or Book of Burials 12, 22, 28, 298; order of processions 12, 28, 253–4; other offices 12, 13, 28, 29, 257, 258, 259, 298; Petit Moustier 253–4; and see Abelard, Commentary on Genesis, Hymnarius Paraclitensis, Problemata Heloissae, Psalterium, Rule, Sequences, Sermons Parc, abbaye du 19 Paré, G., Brunet, A. and Tremblay, O. 91 Paris 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 15, 30, 182, 188, 216, 228, 229, 239, 269, 289, 290, 294; and cathedral of Notre Dame 1, 239, 266, 291; Cité 2, 3; basilica of SaintEtienne 2; Petit Pont 2 Paul, monk 142 Paul, St 47, 65, 77, 101, 111, 113, 114, 116, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 161, 208, 210, 212 Paula 76, 286 Pelagius 98 Penthesilea 31 Peppermüller, R. 138, 143, 149, 150, 182 Peripatetic 36 Persius 113, 214 Peter, St 140, 210 Peter Abelard, see Abelard Peter the Chanter 22 Peter Lombard 133 Peter the Venerable 16, 19, 24, 31, 167, 231, 236, 253, 255, 260, 284, 291, 293, 296 Petrarch 236, 238, 239, 266 Pharisees 142, 178, 208 Philip the Deacon, St 13, 28, 254 Philip the Fair 242 Pilate, Pontius 77 Piper, A. 278 Pisa 7 Pius II see Aeneas Sylvius Platina 268 Plato, Platonic, Platonism, Platonists and Timaeus 42–3, 47, 48–9, 64, 73, 101, 110, 116, 129, 140, 141, 145, 153, 154, 155, 157, 164, 167, 213, 292, 293 Plutarch 278 poetry, poets 70, 109–23 Poitiers 217 Pomeraye, La 253 Pompey 114, 115 Pons of Provence 278

314

index Porphyry 36, 37, 42, 43, 44, 47, 72, 92, 93, 100, 291 Pra, M. dal 36 Prémontré 11, 251, 255, 293 Premonstratensians 7, 11, 239 Principia 76 Priscian 42, 76 Propertius 110 Prophets 73, 74, 137, 138, 140 Prosperetti, F.E. 232 Provins 283, 284, 291, 293 Prudentius 110 Psalm, Psalmist, Psalter 9, 113, 115, 137, 296 Pythagoras 141, 213 Quincey 7, 48, 101, 103, 112, 142, 229, 284, 285, 291, 293, 294 Rabanus Maurus 153 Raby, F. 109 Radice, B. 169 Rambot-Bouhot, J. 240 Regensburg collection 229 regular canons 12 Reichenbach 270 Rennes 229 Reticius 212, 215 Retius see Reticius Rheims 209, 266, 289 Richard of St Victor 149 Rijk, L.M. de 37 Ripoll collection 117 Rivière, J. 186, 220 Robert of Arbrissel, St 1, 5, 7, 228, 255, 284, 293 Robert of Melun 143, 207 Roberto de’Bardi 239, 266 Robertson, D.W. 232–3 Rochefort 2 Roger, count of Meulan 3 Roland 128 Roman de la Rose 227, 234, 237–8, 242 Rome, Romans 4, 5, 6, 8, 49, 51, 76, 77, 83, 86, 101, 145, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 235, 254, 291 Romig, M. 25, 150 Ronceray, Le 17, 228 Roscelin 5, 6, 16, 20, 21, 22, 178, 179, 182, 228, 233, 284 Rouen 239, 251 Rubingh-Bosscher, J.M.A. 78, 113

Sabellius 178 Saducees 142 Saint-Aubin 7 Saint-Ayoul 10, 138 Saint-Denis 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 20, 22, 100, 101, 138, 139, 179, 254, 283, 284, 285, 296, 290, 291, 293, 307 Saint-Etienne 2 Saint-Gildas de Rhuys 1, 7, 10, 15, 17, 48, 103, 138, 142, 228, 254, 283, 285, 286, 290, 291, 293, 294 Saint-Marcel 283, 290, 291 Saint-Médard 283, 290, 291 Saint-Preux 241 Saint-Thierry 254 Saint-Victor 2, 138, 201, 267, 293 Sainte-Geneviève 3 Salutati, Coluccio 242, 267 Salvian of Marseille 101 Samson 51 Samuel 140 Satyr 212 Schmeidler, B. 227, 231 Seine 1, 2, 3 Sempringham 255 Seneca 292 Sens 15, 110, 188, 207–23, 284, 287, 304 Sententie Parisienses (SP1and 2) 128, 131, 132, 133 Sentences of St. Florian 128 Serlo of Bayeux 222 Severus Milevitanus 221 Sévigné, Mme de 233 Sezzadio, Santa Giustina 279 Sicily 138 Sidonius 119 Silvestre, H. 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 238 Simon de Plumetot 24 Smalley, B. 137 Smet, J.M. De 276 Smits, E. 24, 59, 70, 72, 78 Socrates 48, 115, 141, 167, 292 Soissons 5, 6, 16, 79, 100, 102, 114, 148, 176, 178, 179, 208, 289, 290 Solomon 109 Song of Songs 211–12 Southern, R.W. 99, 107, 168, 186, 216 Spain 138 Statius 113 Stephen, St 28 Stephen de Garlande 2, 3, 7, 15 Stoic, Stoicism 130, 153

315

index Suger 285, 307 Summa Sententiarum 202, 214 Suzanne, abbess 254 Sybilline prophecy, Sybils 116, 117 Szővérffy, J. 26, 145, 146, 238

Verdon, J. 241 Verger, J. 20 Victorine 132, 133 Virgil 78, 112, 115, 116 Vulgate 78, 86

Temple 140 Terence 113 Terentia 110 Theobald of Troyes 7, 22 Thersites 113 Thibaut or Thierry, St 254 Thierry of Chartres 47, 144, 154, 155, 159, 161 Thomas of Morigny 128 Thomas, R. 81, 121, 176 Tibullus 110 Timaeus see Plato Tours 5, 6, 229, 284 Tristan 230 Troyes 7, 230

Waddell, C. 11, 16, 23, 26, 28, 118, 241, 251–63 Walter of Châtillon 69 Walter of Honnecourt 21 Walter of Mortagne 15, 98, 214 Weingart, R. 183 William III, bishop of Mende 207, 209, 210, 212, 215 Willliam IX, duke of Aquitaine 230 William of Champeaux 2, 3, 5, 7, 17, 18, 36, 41, 43, 52, 55, 56, 85, 103, 113, 179, 233, 268, 284, 289, 293 William of Conches 47, 107, 154, 159, 161, 163 William of Saint-Thierry 128, 131, 133, 176, 214, 290 Williams, W.W. 221 Worcester 187 Wratislava 270

Ulger 5, 16, 244 Val d’Oise 1 Van den Eynde, D. 10, 11, 24, 25, 27, 242, 252 Vannes 1, 290 Varro, M. 167 Vasletus 5

Ysagoge in theologiam 119, 138 Zachariah 139

316

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS

Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale 135 150 Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz Lat. Fol. 624 36 Bruges, Bibliothèque municipale 398 217, 222, 304 Brussels, Bibliothéque royale 10147–10158 25, 26, 238 Cambridge, University Library, Ii. iii. 18 19 Cambridge, Pembroke College 52 20 Cambridge, Pembroke College 53 19 Cambridge, Pembroke College 211 20 Chaumont, Bibliothèque municipale 31 26, 28, 118, 241 Colmar, Bibliothèque municipale 128 25, 83 Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, e don. 138 4o 187 Douai, Bibliothèque municipale 797 266, 271 Durham, Cathedral Library A. IV. 8 278 London, British Library, Add. 14788 19 London, British Library, Add. 17737 19 London, British Library, Add 28106 19 London, British Library, Cotton, Faustina A.X 128, 187–205 London, British Library, Harley 2798 19 London, British Library, Harley 2803 19 Lunel, Bibliotheque municipale 6 36

Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana M 63 sup. 36 Monte Cassino, Abbazia della Badia 386 136 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 17142 229 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Cod. sim. 168 135 Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII C 43 135 Notre Dame University, Indiana 30 265–79 Orleans, Bibliothèque municipale 78 217, 222 Orleans, Bibliothèque municipal 284 118 Oxford, Bodleian Library Add A. 44 217 Oxford, Bodleian Library Add C. 271 217, 222, 266, 271, 394 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 534 149 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 920 239, 255 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 14410 12, 22, 28 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 1896 217, 222 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, latin 2544 239, 266, 271 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 2545 266, 271 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 2923 217, 222, 238, 247, 266, 271, 304, 305, 306

317

index of manuscripts Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 7493 36 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 13368 36 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 14511 24, 25, 247 Paris, Biliothèque nationale de France, latin 14614 37 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 17251 150 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, latin 18108 128 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelle acquisition française 20001 239, 265, 266 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelle acquisition latine 1873 266, 271

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelle acquisition latine 3126 29, 263 Reims, Bibliothèque municipale 872 239, 266, 271 Trent, Biblioteca comunale 1711 11 Troyes, Médiathèque 770 149 Troyes, Médiathèque 802 10, 27, 237, 238, 239, 240, 251, 265, 266, 271, 305, 306 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Lat. Ottobonianus 445 149

318