n France. Instead of becoming
the head of his family and adopting the career of a soldier, he
abandoned his birthright and the profession of arms for the life of the
scholar and the battlefields of debate. His early life as a student
wandering from school to school is thus described by himself:

The more fully and easily I advanced in the study of letters the
more ardently I clung to them, and I became so enamored of them
that, abandoning to my brothers the pomp of glory, together with
my inheritance and the rights of the eldest son, I resigned from
the Councils of War that I might be educated in the camp of
Minerva. And since among all the weapons of philosophy I
preferred the arms of logic, I exchanged accoutrements and
preferred the conflicts of debate to the trophies of war.
Thenceforward I walked through the various provinces engaging in
debates wherever I had heard that the study of this art [logic]
flourished, and thus became a rival of the Peripatetics.

At length [about 1100 A.D.] I reached Paris, where for some time
this art had been prospering, and went to William of Champeaux,
my instructor, distinguished at the time in this particular by
his work and reputation as a teacher. Staying with him for a
while, I was at first acceptable, but shortly after was very
annoying to him, namely, when I tried to refute some of his
opinions, and often ventured to argue against him and, not
seldom, seemed to surpass him in debate.[4]

_In scholis militare_--to wage war in the schools--was the phrase aptly
used to describe this mode of debate. William of Champeaux was then the
head of the cathedral school of Notre Dame and the leading teacher of
logic in France. "Within a few months Abelard made his authority totter,
and set his reputation on the wane. In six or seven years he drove him
in shame and humiliation from his chair, after a contest which filled
Christendom with its echoes." By overcoming William in debate he
established his own reputation as a teacher. At various times between
1108 and 1139 he taught in Paris, whither crowds of students came to
hear him. His fame was at its height about 1117, shortly after his
appointment to the chair which William himself had held. Few teachers
have ever attracted a following so large and so devoted. His remarkable
success in drawing to Paris students from all quarters is vividly
des