1212, in a Chronicle of Saint Martin at Tours of slightly later date, and in other compilations. It occurs under the date of the council of Sens, assembled, says the record, against Peter Abailard; but instead of even suggesting what the acts of the council were, it at once turns to a panegyric of the man: he was of intellect most subtil, and a marvellous philosopher;[1] who founded a religious house in the land of Troyes, famous as the abbey of the Paraclete. In the same way another chronicle, actually a chronicle of Sens itself, commemorates Abailard's death as that not of a convicted heretic but as of one of the canons of the church of Sens, who established convents of nuns, particularly the abbey of the Paraclete, where he is buried with his wife.[2] The multiplication of Abailard's good deeds shews how his local fame had grown with years: but that it was his religious work that survived, and the scandal of his opinions that was forgotten, is a fair proof of the relative notoriety of the two.
Abailard's heresy, however, is not always ignored. An early chronicler, the English monk, William Godell, who wrote about the year 1173, enters into some detail on the subject; and his evidence is the more instructive since he is particularly well informed about the affairs of the diocese of Sens, in which he is supposed to have lived. There flourished also, he says, in this same time (he has just commemorated saint Bernard) master Peter Abaelard, a man of very subtil intellect, and a great writer and teacher. Howbeit he was made by some the object of blame, and especially by the aforesaid abbat Bernard: for which
- ↑ In his obituary in a Breton chronicle he is described as 'mirae abstinentiae monachus, tantaeque subtilitatis philosophus cui nostra parem nec prima [leg. priora?] secundum secula viderunt:' Chron. Britann., a. 1143, Bouquet 12. 558 b. The first words of the sentence are very remarkable when we bear in mind the assertions commonly made as to Abailard's loss of credit in consequence of his relations with Heloïssa.
- ↑ 'Magister Petrus Abaulart, canonicus primo maioris ecclesie Senonensis, obiit; qui monasteria sanctimonialium fundavit, specialiter abbatiam de Paraclito, in quo sepelitur cum uxore:' cited from the chronicle of Saint Pierre le Vif at Sens in the Histoire littéraire de la France, 21. 12 n. 1; 1847.
