both physically and in spirit, and remained for a few months at the
abbey of Cluny, whence his friends removed him, a dying man, to the
priory of St. Marcel, near Châlons-sur-Saône. Here he died on April
21, 1142.

A discussion of Abélard's position among the scholastic
philosophers would necessarily go far beyond the proper limits of a
mere historical note. He stands out less commandingly as a
constructive philosopher than as a master of dialectics. He was, as
even his enemies admitted, a brilliant teacher and an unconquerable
logician; he was, moreover, a voluminous writer. Works by him which
have been preserved include letters, sermons, philosophical and
religious treatises, commentaries on the Bible, on Aristotle and on
various other books, and a number of poems.

Many of the misfortunes which the "Historia Calamitatum" relates
were the direct outcome of Abélard's uncompromising position as a
rationalist, and the document is above all interesting for the
picture it gives of the man himself, against the background of
early twelfth century France. A few dates will help the general
reader to connect the life surrounding Abélard with other and more
familiar facts. William the Conqueror had entered England thirteen
years before Abélard's birth. The boy was eight years old when the
Conqueror died near Rouen during his struggle with Philip of
France. He was seventeen when the First Crusade began, and twenty
when the crusaders captured Jerusalem.

Two of the men who most profoundly influenced the times in which
Abélard lived were Hildebrand, famous as Pope Gregory VII, and
Louis VI (the Fat), king of France. It was to Hildebrand that the