Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
Even since that, they would not keep quiet. And quite recently,
since the expulsion of those of whom I have spoken, when I returned
to the abbey, abandoning myself to the rest of the brothers who
inspired me with less distrust, I found them even worse than the
others. It was no longer a question of poison; it was the dagger
that they now sharpened against my breast. I had great difficulty in
escaping from them under the guidance of one of the neighbouring
lords. Similar perils menace me still and every day I see the sword
raised over my head. Even at table I can hardly breathe ... This is
the torture that I endure every moment of the day; I, a poor monk,
raised to the prelacy, becoming more miserable in becoming more
great, that by my example the ambitious may learn to curb their
greed.
With this, the "Story of Calamity" ends. The allusions to Innocent
II seem to prove that it was written not earlier than 1132; the
confession of constant and abject personal fear suggests that it was
written under the shock caused by the atrocious murder of the Prior
of Saint-Victor by the nephews of the Archdeacon of Paris, who had
also been subjected to reforms. This murder was committed a few
miles outside of the walls of Paris, on August 20, 1133. The "Story
of Calamity" is evidently a long plea for release from the
restraints imposed on its author by his position in the prelacy and
the tacit, or possibly the express, contract he had made, or to
which he had submitted, in 1125. This plea was obviously written in
order to serve one of two purposes:--either to be placed before the
authorities whose consent alone could relieve Abelard from his
restraints; or to justify him in throwing off the load of the
Church, and resuming the profession of schoolman. Supposing the
second explanation, the date of the paper would be more or less
closely fixed by John of Salisbury, who coming to Paris as a
student, in 1136, found Abelard lecturing on the Mont-Sainte-
Genevieve; that is to say, not under the license of the Bishop of
Paris or his Chancellor, but independently, in a private school of
his own, outside the walls. "I attached myself to the Palatine
Peripatician who then presided on the hill of Sainte-Genevieve, the
doctor illustrious, admired by all. There, at his feet, I received
the first elements of the dialectic art, and according to the
measure of my poor understanding I received with all the avidity of
my soul everything that came from his mouth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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