recounted in detail, we will fix upon two, which were the most striking,
and the most productive of important consequences in the whole history of
the epoch, the quarrel of Abelard with St. Bernard and the crusade
against the Albigensians. We shall there see how Northern France and
Southern France differed one from the other before the bloody crisis
which was to unite them in one single name and one common destiny.

In France properly so called at that time, north of the Rhone and the
Loire, the church had herself accomplished the chief part of the reforms
which had become necessary. It was there that the most active and most
eloquent of the reforming monks had appeared, had preached, and had
founded or regenerated a great number of monasteries. It was there that,
at first amongst the clergy, and then, through their example, amongst the
laity, Christian discipline and morals had resumed some sway. There,
too, the Christian faith and church were, amongst the mass of the
population, but little or not at all assailed; heretics, when any
appeared, obtained support neither from princes nor people; they were
proceeded against, condemned, and burned, without their exciting public
sympathy by their presence, or public commiseration by their punishment.
It was in the very midst of the clergy themselves, amongst literates and
teachers, that, in Northern France, the intellectual and innovating
movement of the period was manifested and concentrated. The movement was
vigorous and earnest, and it was a really studious host which thronged to
the lessons of Abelard at Paris, on Mount St. Genevieve, at Melun, at
Corbeil, and at the Paraclete; but this host contained but few of the
people; the greater part of those who formed it were either already in
the church, or soon, in various capacities, about to be. And the
discussions raised at the meetings corresponded with the persons
attending them; there was the disputation of the schools; there was no
founding of sects; the lessons of Abelard and the questions he handled