possessing. He lived a life of study and meditation.

But his enemies would not allow him to rest, even in generous labors.
They wished to punish him and destroy his influence. So they summoned
him to an ecclesiastical council to answer for his heresies. At first he
resolved to defend himself, and Bernard, his greatest enemy, even
professed a reluctance to contend with his superior in dialectical
contests. But Abélard, seeing how inflamed were the passions of the
theologians against him, and how vain would be his defence, appealed at
once to the Pope; and Rome, of course, sided with his enemies. He was
condemned to perpetual silence, and his books were ordered to be burned.

To this sentence it would appear that Abélard prepared to submit with
more humility than was to be expected from so bold and arrogant a man.
But he knew he could not resist an authority based on generally accepted
ideas any easier than Henry IV. could have resisted Hildebrand. He made
up his mind to obey the supreme authority of the Church, but bitterly
felt the humiliation and the wrong.

Broken in spirit and in reputation, Abélard, now an old man, set out on
foot for Rome to plead his cause before the Pope. He stopped on his way
at Cluny in Burgundy, that famous monastery where Hildebrand himself had
ruled, now, however, presided over by Peter the Venerable,--the most
benignant and charitable ecclesiastical dignitary of that age. And as
Abélard approached the gates of the venerable abbey, which was the pride
of the age, worn out with fatigue and misfortune, he threw himself at
the feet of the lordly abbot and invoked shelter and protection. How
touching is the pride of greatness, when brought low by penitence or
grief, like that of Theodosius at the feet of Ambrose, or Henry II. at
the tomb of Becket! But Peter raises him up, receives him in his arms,