In about 1102, Abelard left Paris to establish his own school at Melun, just south of Paris, but far enough away to reduce the likelihood that William could obstruct his goal of establishing himself as a master. Abelard described Melun as a fortress and royal seat of the king, but it seems likely that Abelard had other reasons for locating his school in Melun. Although he does not mention it in his autobiography, Abelard secured the support of Stephen of Garlande (ca. 1070-ca. 1148). Like William, Stephen was a canon of Notre Dame de Paris, but unlike William, he occupied a less canonically pure status, for he was both a knight and a cleric. Stephen also appears to have had the support of the king; he had been nominated by King Philip to the episcopal see of Beauvais in 1101, but his nomination was blocked by the powerful Ivo of Chartres (ca. 1040-1115) who complained to the pope that Stephen was unfit for the position because he was an adulterer, an excommunicate, and an illiterate layman. Ivo, much like William, was a vigorous supporter of the papal reform movement that sought to end clerical marriage and concubinage and to reduce the role of the laity in church administration. Although Ivo’s accusations should not be taken completely at face value, they draw a portrait of a man who benefited from royal favor and enjoyed lay and clerical privileges. With the security of royal authority behind him, Stephen protected Abelard and saw to it that the school in Melun was established, despite the antagonism of William, thereby extracting a small measure of revenge against the reformers who had blocked his episcopal nomination. It was not the last time that these two powerful men would wrestle, with Abelard as an incidental participant and beneficiary.
Abelard remained in Melun until about 1104. The young, irreverent teacher’s prestige attracted many students. The brilliant reputation of young Master Abelard lured former rivals and enemies in Paris away from the school of William of Champeaux. In the highly competitive world of the twelfth-century schools, reputation of the master was the central attraction for students; the prestige of the master, rather than the institution of the cathedral school itself, drew them. No doubt emboldened by success, Abelard decided to move to Corbeil, which was nearer to Paris and the site of another royal residence. He was creeping steadily closer to his rival, William, and to his ultimate goal of becoming the master of the cathedral school in Paris. However, he seems not to have stayed there for long because he suffered a sort of breakdown—an illness, in his words—from overwork. He abandoned his teaching, left France, and returned to Brittany. Now in Brittany, distant from the intellectual center of Paris, Abelard writes that some of his students followed him; such was the extent of his reputation.
Reputation of Masters and the Cathedral Schools
In the twelfth century, learning was on the rise in Europe. At the forefront of the wave of new learning were the cathedral schools. In the early Middle Ages, teaching was usually done by monks in a monastic setting. However, beginning around 1100, mirroring a shift that was taking place within the church as a whole, cathedral schools more often than not became the leading centers of intellectual activity. The transfer of intellectual leadership from monasteries to cathedrals came about for a number of interrelated reasons. First, in general, monasteries were tradition-bound institutions with long histories dedicated to preserving existing knowledge through activities such as copying of texts, but by the twelfth century many people regarded monasteries as out of touch with the new commercial and urban life that was developing across Europe. Beginning in the twelfth century, the most innovative minds were turned toward speculative theology, logic, and legal studies, and the proponents of the various approaches to these disciplines were often fierce intellectual rivals. Although there were exceptions, such as the monastery of Saint Victor in Paris, monastic learning was concerned with maintaining liturgical purity and piety, clearly out of step with the new vitality of the cathedral schools.
The teachers at the cathedral schools, the masters, were scholars who attached themselves to an episcopal church that was wealthy enough to support their educational endeavors by providing a regular stipend. In the expanding urban centers of the early twelfth century, some cities in northern France became centers of learning where students came to study the trivium and the quadrivium, drawn by the reputation of the master, not the city in which they studied. For instance, often a student would write that he had studied with a particular master, but fail to mention the place in which those studies occurred. Because reputation of a master was critical to attracting students, the cathedral schools of Abelard's day can be said to be de-institutionalized—they were not attached to institutions as the monastic schools had been, but rather a school thrived or failed by virtue of the master and his reputation. This situation does not last for long. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, new institutional ties were being created, as teaching came to be licensed and eventually attached to an institution called the studium, known today as the university.
His illness and retreat to Brittany was only a temporary setback. Abelard returned to Paris around 1108, ready to begin again as William of Champeaux’s student. In his absence, William had joined the canons regular at the monastery of Saint Victor outside the Ile de la Cite, where he had established a school to continue teaching. Although Abelard suggests that William joined Saint Victor only to increase his reputation for piety and thereby gain promotion to a higher prelacy, there is no evidence that William’s motive was quite so selfserving. The canons regular of Saint Victor followed a reformed rule of Saint Augustine, and perhaps William’s goal had been to pursue a reformed clerical life. In any case, the school at the abbey of Saint Victor became quite influential, contrary to the overall trend through the twelfth century in which the most important sites of learning were cathedral, not monastic, schools. William’s departure for the abbey of Saint Victor may have seemed like a victory for Abelard, but their rivalry, and the pattern of adversarial interaction between them, continued. Abelard once again engaged and defeated his teacher in at least one contest of disputation. The ebb and flow of their struggle continued as Abelard was placed at the head of the study of dialectic at the Paris cathedral school, only to have William of Champeaux undercut his position there through his considerable influence. Once again Abelard had to depart for Melun, but in 1109 William withdrew from Paris for Saint Victor’s and Abelard rushed back to Paris hoping, he writes, to be reconciled with William. If peace was truly his goal, Abelard was to be disappointed. William used his influence once again to block Abelard from acquiring a teaching position at Notre Dame and installed a handpicked master to take his place there after leaving for Saint Victor’s, so Abelard was obliged to establish a school and teach at Montagne Saint Genevieve on the south bank of the Seine. The dean of the abbey of Saint Genevieve was Abelard’s patron, Stephen of Garlande. Students from Saint Genevieve and Saint Victor engaged one another in contests of disputation.
Abelard and the Garlande Family:
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
Abelard never mentions the Garlande family in his Historia calami-tatum. Yet, it seems likely that this influential family acted as his protector and patron during the hostilities centering on the twelfth-century cathedral schools. There were four Garlande brothers, and all of them were influential at the highest levels in secular and religious governments. In particular, Abelard probably made an alliance with Stephen of Garlande (ca. 1070-ca. 1148), who was a close advisor first to King Philip I (10521108) and then to King Louis VI (1081-1137). Stephen held the positions of chancellor (an administrative head, similar to a cabinet minister) and seneschal (a top military office and head of the royal household) to the king, but at other times, he and his family were out of favor with the monarch. Therefore, the fortunes of Abelard's career mirrored the vicissitudes of Stephen of Garlande's political career.
The Garlande family's rise to prominence came about in spectacular fashion, because King Philip had marital difficulties. Philip had set aside his wife Bertha of Holland, mother of the future king Louis VI, and in a fit of passion married Bertrada of Montfort even though at the time she was married to Count Fulk V of Anjou (1043-1109). Bertrada's brother, William of Montfort, was the bishop of Paris between 1096 and 1103. There was fierce opposition from many prominent churchmen. The powerful Abbot Suger of Saint Denis vilified Bertrada as a seductress, and others hurled accusations of sorcery. Ivo of Chartres, who had written important compilations of canon law that were instrumental in the Church's evolving definition of marriage in the twelfth century, led the official opposition to the marriage. In fact, Ivo refused to officiate at the bigamous marriage, and the royal displeasure with the churchman's opposition was expressed by having Ivo imprisoned for a time. The Garlandes, on the other hand, were in support of the king's marriage arrangements, and they benefited handsomely from royal gratitude. By 1105 Stephen was Philip's chancellor.
When Abelard came to Paris for the first time, Stephen was an archdeacon of Paris, which carried responsibilities for revenue collections but not many clerical duties. He was also a knight. He had a large chapel and a house near the cloister of Notre Dame. But it was after his nomination by Philip I to the episcopal see in Beauvais that Stephen's enemies emerged. The nomination was blocked by Ivo of Chartres, who objected to Rome that Stephen was unsuitable for the episcopate because he was an adulterer, an excommunicate, and an illiterate layman. Although there is no evidence to confirm or discredit these salacious accusations, Ivo's charges certainly stem from his support for the papal reform movement that since the last century had affected relations between church and state. Born from the desire of the papacy to remove lay interference in what it regarded as church matters, papal reform was particularly concerned with eliminating lay nomination to high clerical positions such as archbishops and bishops and clerical marriage, and these concerns are reflected in the charges that Ivo levied against Stephen. William of Champeaux also was closely associated with the reform movement, and he was an ally of Ivo. Therefore, the rivalries between Stephen of Garlande and William of Champeaux were often played out in arenas peripheral to that of papal reform, such as in the career of Peter Abelard.
Many of the central events in Abelard's life correspond to political successes, failures, and machinations of his patron. So, when Abelard to set up his school at Melun, where the king also had a residence, he writes that he had the help of certain powerful enemies of William. The time when Abelard moved his school from Melun to Corbeil corresponded to the period when the Garlande family had broken ties with the king. Abelard's retreat to Brittany due to illness—brought on, he says, by overwork—was also the period when the Garlandes were out of royal favor; when he returned to Paris from Brittany and William had left for Saint Victor's, the Garlan-des once again were enjoying royal esteem. Stephen of Garlande was the dean at the church of Saint Genevieve, where his family owned vineyards and where Abelard established his school. On the outskirts of Paris, Saint Genevieve answered to the king, not to the canons of Notre Dame. When Abelard achieved his goal and became the master at Notre Dame in Paris after 1109, it coincided with the zenith of the Garlande family's influence. When Abelard went to study theology at Laon, the bishop of Laon owed
His office to Stephen. By 1127, Stephen had spent his royal favor and was dismissed from all his royal offices, and although he managed to earn the good graces of the king once again, he fell permanently from power in 1137 with the death of Louis VI. Stephen retired to the abbey of Saint Victor around 1140, around the time that Abelard was prosecuted for heresy at the Council of Sens.
Although Abelard provides no direct insight into the political intrigues that may have directed the success of his career, it seems likely that the intense hostility between William of Champeaux and Abelard can be interpreted within the context of competing political factions. Certainly, Abelard did not agree with William on the matter of universals, but he does not attack William's intellectual abilities with the same contempt that he reserves for Roscelin of Comiegne and Anselm of Laon. Therefore, while they were certainly rivals, the level of Abelard's disagreement with William did not rise to the same level as that of Anselm, whom he rudely disrespected, claiming he was completely lacking intellectual merit.
Once again, Abelard returned to Brittany, this time because his mother was about to enter a convent. His father had already entered a monastery. It was not an uncommon practice for the laity, as they neared the end of their lives, to enter a monastery, often motivated by the desire to ease their transition to the next world through dedication to a spiritual rather than a secular life. Furthermore, in this way parents could retire to monastic life and supervise the distribution of their property to their heirs during their lifetimes. Abelard does not comment on his parents’ motives, but for a child to return to his parents’ former home on the occasion of their leaving for a monastic life, as Abelard returned to Le Pallet, also was a common practice. Although he had forsworn any claim to familial property when he left Le Pallet for a life of study, confirmation by anyone who might also have a claim to the property was prudent.
World History
