cribed by a modern writer:

The pupil who had left Paris when both William and Abelard
disappeared in 1113 would find a marvellous change on returning
to it about 1116 or 1117. He would find the lecture hall and the
cloister and the quadrangle, under the shadow of the great
cathedral, filled with as motley a crowd of youths and men as any
scene in France could show. Little groups of French and Norman
and Breton nobles chattered together in their bright silks and
fur-tipped mantles, with slender swords dangling from embroidered
belts, vying with each other in the length and crookedness of
their turned-up shoes. Anglo-Saxons looked on, in long fur-lined
cloaks, tight breeches, and leathern hose swathed with bands of
many colored cloth. Stern-faced northerners, Poles and Germans,
in fur caps and with colored girdles and clumsy shoes, or with
feet roughly tied up in the bark of trees, waited impatiently for
the announcement of _Li Mestre_. Pale-faced southerners had
braved the Alps and the Pyrenees under the fascination of "the
wizard." Shaven and sandalled monks, black-habited clerics, black
canons, secular and regular, black in face too, some of them,
heresy hunters from the neighboring abbey of St. Victor, mingled
with the crowd of young and old, grave and gay, beggars and
nobles, sleek citizens and bronzed peasants....

Over mountains and over seas the mingled reputation of the city
and the school were carried, and a remarkable stream set in from
Germany, Switzerland, Italy (even from proud Rome), Spain, and
England; even "distant Brittany sent you its animals to be
instructed," wrote Prior Fulques to Abelard (a Breton) a year or
two afterwards.[5]

What was there in the teaching of Abelard which brought together this
extraordinary gathering? One may admit the presence of unanalysable
genius in this master, and still find certain qualities indispensable to
the efficient teacher of to-day,--a winning personality, fulness of
knowledge, and technical skill as a teacher. These are admirably set
forth in the following description:

It is not difficult to understand the charm of Abelard's
teaching. Three qualities are assigned to it by the writers of
the period, some of whom studied at his feet; clearness, richness
in imagery, and lightness of touch are said to have bee