[3] The name occurs in a dozen different forms in the ancient records. I adopt the form which is generally used by modern French writers. D’Argentré and other historians of Brittany say that it was not unknown about Nantes in those days. We must remember that it was the period when nicknames, trade-names, etc., were passing into surnames. Another pun on the name, which greatly tickled the mediæval imagination, was ‘Aboilar,’ supposed to convey the idea that he was a dog who barks at heaven (_aboie le ciel_). It was perpetrated by Hugo Metellus, a rival master. There are several good reasons for retaining the historical framework of the anecdote. It is a fact that Abélard never mastered mathematics; chancing to mention arithmetic in one of his works, he says, ‘Of that art I confess myself wholly ignorant.’ It was unfortunate for mathematics. Most probably the puerility of that liberal art, in its early mediæval form, repelled him. In the next place, there was a distinguished master living in France of the name of Tirric, or Theodoric, who is said to have had a leaning to mathematics. He taught in the episcopal school at Chartres, long famous for the lectures of his brother Bernard. Finally, a Master Tirric (presumably the same) turns up at Abélard’s trial in 1121, and boldly and caustically scourges papal legate and bishops alike. However, if we attribute so much authority to the story, it clearly refers to a later date. The picture of Abélard, already a teacher, sated with knowledge, coming ‘in private’ to repair an omission in the course of his studies, must be relegated to one of the intervals in his teaching at Paris, not, as Mr. Poole thinks, to the period between leaving Roscelin and arriving at Paris.