A large number of ‘lives’ of Abélard have been founded on these documents. In French we have _La vie de P. Abélard_ of Gervaise, a monkish admirer of the eighteenth century, far from ascetic in temper, but much addicted to imaginative description: the historical essay of Mme. and M. Guizot, prefixed to M. Oddoul’s translation of the letters of Abélard and Heloise: the _Abélard_ of M. Rémusat, pronounced by Ste. Beuve himself to be ‘un chef d’œuvre’: and the _Lettres Complètes_ of M. Gréard, with a helpful introduction. In German Reuter chiefly discusses Abélard as a thinker in his _Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung_: Deutsch is mainly preoccupied with his theology in his _Peter Abälard_, but gives an exhaustive study of the last years of his life in _Abälards Verurtheilung zu Sens_: Neander discusses him in his _Heilige Bernhard_: and Hausrath offers the most complete and authoritative study of his career and character in his recent _Peter Abälard_. In English we have, as I said, the eighteenth-century work of Berington, a small fantastic American version (quite valueless), and the more or less lengthy studies of Abélard found in Rashdall’s fine _Universities of Europe_, Cotter Morison’s _Life and Times of St. Bernard_ (scarcely a judicious sketch), Compayré’s _Abélard and the Universities_ (in which the biography is rather condensed), Roger Vaughan’s _Life of St. Thomas of Aquin_, and Mr. R. L. Poole’s _Illustrations of the History of Mediæval Thought_ (from whom we may regret we have not received a complete study of Abélard). _January_ 31, 1901. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE QUEST OF MINERVA 1 II. A BRILLIANT VICTORY 18 III. PROGRESS OF THE ACADEMIC WAR 41 IV. THE IDOL OF PARIS 64 V. DEAD SEA FRUIT 96 VI. THE MONK OF ST. DENIS 124 VII. THE TRIAL OF A HERETIC 146 VIII. CLOUD UPON CLOUD 163 IX. BACK TO CHAMPAGNE 181 X. THE TRIALS OF AN ABBOT 202 XI. THE LETTERS OF ABÉLARD AND HELOISE 224 XII. A RETURN TO THE ARENA 253 XIII. THE FINAL BLOW 281 XIV. CONSUMMATUM EST 309 XV. THE INFLUENCE OF ABÉLARD 329 CHAPTER I THE QUEST OF MINERVA