Quotes About Abélard

It would seem that on hearing Abélard's lecture, Anselm of Laon became "wildly jealous," circumstances that Abélard assigned to every conceivable cause except the one that he had set in motion. "Since the beginning of the human race," Abélard observed with some asperity in his autobiography, Historia Calamitatum (A History of My Misfortunes), women have "brought the noblest men to ruin.

All the same, Abelard opened the mind of the Middle Ages in new and startling ways. He gave the name of Aristotle and Aristotle's logic an edgy glamour it never entirely lost. Aristotle had said: All men desire to know. Abelard now added: All men need to question and doubt in order to know. These were important signposts for the future. For now, medieval civilization was about to swing down another path, one emblazoned by the Neoplatonist imagination.

Under his leadership, the Cistercians had grown from a handful of monasteries to more than 350 houses by 1140. Although he was ten years younger than Abelard, Bernard was already the single most influential churchman of the age.

In a purely technical sense, Sens Cathedral is probably the first Gothic church. When Abelard and Bernard met there in the spring of 1140, they probably did not notice that an architectural revolution was taking place over their heads. Its builders pioneered many of the characteristic elements of the Gothic style, from ribbed interior vaults and a three-part elevation, to the famous pointed Gothic arch for its windows.

Now it was up to Bernard to consolidate his victory not just over Abelard, but over the entire Aristotelian worldview. What had offended Bernard most was how Abelard had tried to use the ancient pagan philosopher to pry open the most delicate divine mysteries.

The guards then proceeded to inform the other prisoners that Abelard was a homosexual and a Communist — That is untrue! Abelard protested — but who is going to listen to a gay comunista?

certain Abelard and Heloise allegations between a history teacher and his formerly favorite student

o ella lo sedujo a él, como Eloísa sedujo a Abelardo, ¡porque no olvides que a través de la mujer penetra el diablo en el corazón de los hombres!

In 1215, a statute was promulgated in the name of the pope, legally affirming the independence of Paris' university from the bishop. A year earlier, a similar measure had established the legal status of the colleges that, over the preceding decades, had begun to appear in the English town of Oxford. Universities were soon mushrooming across Christendom. Not merely tolerated, the methods of enquiry pioneered by Abelard had been institutionalised.