Peter Abelard and a History of His Calamities

    Throughout his life, Peter Abelard  had been no stranger to persecutions.  He believed he was persecuted so often that, in his pseudo auto-biography, “Historia Calamitatum”, he simply puts together a string of calamities that he felt was the most significant defining characteristic of his life.  The most famous of which, the story of his love affair with Heloise, often, in my opinion, overshadows many of the other life shaping hardships he went through as a person.  The first of which, his persecution from his teacher Master William of Champeaux, in my opinion sets the stage for the rest of the story. What’s significant about this is it shows his tendency to flaunt his intelligence by questioning his superiors, and generally winning the debate. This is a theme present throughout the entire history, and while it set him apart as the individual he was, it also contributed quite a bit to the problems he had in life.
   
Peter grew up in the small town of Palets in France. His father, while a soldier by profession, was particularly fond of learning and a fairly intellectual man.  This intelligence helped to form Peter’s love of learning, as his father made him focus on it, as opposed to teaching him about fighting.  While Peter was growing up, his love for acquiring knowledge kept getting greater, as the more learned, the more he wanted to learn.  His love was so great, that instead of taking up arms, he decided to take up using the only weapon he felt he needed; his mind.  He left home and traveled, debating as he went from town to town. Eventually he got to Paris where he met his first true teacher in his art of dialectics, William of Champeaux.  William was well renowned for his intelligence and skill in his art.  They got along well at first, as Peter followed him around attempting to learn all he could from this more experienced individual.  After time, however, Peter began to refute some of his teachers opinions, and in debating him, was often times deemed the winner.  Not only was this frustrating to William, but also to his other students, who had been learning from the man for a much greater period of time.  Peter then wanted to set up his own school, which infuriated his teacher even more, as Peter was beginning to get a greater reputation than him.  William was doing everything in his power to bring Peter’s reputation down and to prevent him from opening his school.  Peter eventually was able to set up his school, but was constantly persecuted by his former master, William.  In time, due to a variety of factors, he was forced to stop teaching for a few years and lost his school a number of times, only to fight back to his prior position.  Eventually, after much struggling, he regained his position as a great teacher and a wide variety of pupils. Throughout this time, there was no major singular catastrophe. Rather, there was a series of small ups and downs, as Peter’s school was never quite stable. A few times during this period, he didn’t even have a school, and it never was based in one place as he wanted it to be. Instead, he had to constantly fight and defend his title from his old teacher and a variety of rivals.  What’s significant about the entire series of events, was the fact that Peter broke the norm of following ones teacher’s beliefs and went so far as to question them, allowing him to form new ones. While this is a great thing to do, as nothing new in life is formed unless something else is questioned, it is something he personally did to negatively affect the course of his life, creating hardships all along the way. 
  
 After this series of events, Peter sought out Anslem, Williams old teacher, with a hope that he could learn more by going to the source.  Peter came upon him, and after attending many of his lectures, found him to be less spectacular than he had hoped. Anslem was a very intelligent man, however, all his lectures did, in the mind of Peter, was confuse.  He had great diction and was a great speaker, but behind the words, Peter felt there was no wisdom. Peter began to attend fewer and fewer of Anslem’s lectures, to avoid the ambiguity and confusion they brought about.  Some of the other students noticed Peter’s absence, and reported it to their master as a sign of contempt.  They began to speak against Peter in their master’s presence, to build a bad name for him. Soon enough, Peter was hated by Anslem and most of the others present.  Peter was challenged by a group of the other students to, since he didn’t feel the need to attend Anslem’s lectures as often anymore, give his own lecture interpreting the obscure prophecy of Ezekial.  He gave the lecture the very next day, and won over the crowd, building up a following for himself.  Almost immediately, Anslem, spurred by rage and envy towards Peter’s new following, began to persecute him in a similar manner to how William persecuted Abelard. Anslem then forbade Peter from his school, under the misguided notion that were he to make a blunder in his scriptural teachings, it we be pinned on Anslem himself.  This was a very drastic move, and it infuriated many of the other scholars.  The obvious rancor in his decision to do so, however, made his motives apparent, further reducing his own reputation and building to Peter’s fame.  Again, this was construed by Peter as a catastrophe, as it was a seemingly unfounded change in his life that he really was not prepared for.  Again, while it was not necessarily his intention to bring this about, his actions directly resulted in this change of life.  His disregard towards attendance of Anslem’s lectures and his accepting of the challenge from the students both spawned this change of life. While neither of these decisions seemed major, the consequences brought on by them were. In the general scheme of things, however, Peter’s actions under Anslem only helped to spread his name around more, and make him even more well regarded by the intellectual community.
  
 After time, and a variety of other mishaps in his life, Peter set out to write a book giving an explanation for the much debated concept of the Holy Trinity.  The book turned out well, and was well accepted into the public, as it was a clear explanation of a topic other officials seemed to skirt around.  His rivals became exceedingly angry, and spread many rumors about him and the book, in an attempt to turn the masses against him.  Eventually, they got the archbishop, Rodolphe, against him, and convinced him to hold a council in Soissons to analyze the text.  Upon reaching the town, however, Peter was nearly stoned by a crowd who believed his book was stating there were three separate gods. The significance of the rumor spreading was overwhelming.  At the council, the judges of the value of the book were his two rivals (those spreading the rumors) and the Archbishop himself.  No flaws in the book were apparent, and during the council, Peter spoke openly about his views to further his cause.  Eventually, the council found no fault in his book, however, his rivals were able to convince the archbishop to burn it. The book was sentenced to be burnt and Peter was sentenced to spend a year in a foreign monastery.  The charge they brought against him was for reading the book in public without asking permission from the church.  This calamity proves to be considerably more malicious to Peters life, as he put a considerable amount of work into the book, which was such a great work. This calamity was again, along the same lines as the others, technically from his own deeds.  He did not need to write the book he did, but he felt the need to and carried through with it.  Also, like the other calamities, this one served little to his rivals’ cause, as it simply brought Peter more fame and recognition.
   
Throughout this account, Peter gives a first person history of the events of his life.  It is a fairly complete account and leaves little room for question. Take into account, however, the fact that maybe this is not exactly how the events came about.  This is a personal letter written by Peter.  Not only is it from one perspective, but it is also from a fairly biased one.  In nearly every section of the work, Peter consistently seems to boast on himself, whether directly or indirectly. He claims often that it is his intellect that make him successful. He also claims that he was very famous and well known throughout, and that his book was very popular upon introduction.  While I have no right to say whether or not it is exactly the case, I do feel the need to make it apparent that this was written about Peter by Peter, and that it is an account of his interpretation of the events, not necessarily what actually happened.  Also, there is the possibility that maybe Abelard did not include all of the actions he took, as the hardships are all blamed on other people’s envy or greed.  If he were to have made some folly that brought about some of his problems, why would he include that in his writing?  His general sense of pride and his boasting present in certain situations throughout his letter may hint at him having a generally prideful arrogant nature.  Obviously, I have no room to speak negatively about him or his works, but that was simply an interesting point I observed which could prove to be food for thought.  Also of note, are the recurring themes throughout his hardships.  He always seems, while enduring defamation and other physical and emotional consequences, to come out with an improved reputation, more fame, and a generally greater following.  His calamities certainly were not pleasant to endure, however, he oftentimes comes out of them all the better. 
  
 Regardless of whether his perspective on the events were significant, we do know that Peter Abelard was a very intelligent man with his obvious intentions lying on the greater understanding of truth.  He sustained considerable hardships throughout his life, some great, some minor, but all of which affected his life and what he inevitably did with it.  Abelard was a great person in history, as his constant questioning helped to change the way some think, and from that, he changed the world.