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
were scientifico-religious; it was to expound and propagate what they
regarded as the philosophy of Christianity, that masters and pupils made
bold use of the freedom of thought; they made but slight war upon the
existing practical abuses of the church; they differed from her in the
interpretation and comments contained in some of her dogmas; and they
considered themselves in a position to explain and confirm faith by
reason. The chiefs of the church, with St. Bernard at their head, were
not slow to descry, in these interpretations and comments based upon
science, danger to the simple and pure faith of the Christian; they saw
the apparition of dawning rationalism confronting orthodoxy. They were,
as all their contemporaries were, wholly strangers to the bare notion of
freedom of thought and conscience, and they began a zealous struggle
against the new teachers; but they did not push it to the last cruel
extremities. They had many a handle against Abelard: his private life,
the scandal of his connection with Heloise, the restless and haughty
fickleness of his character, laid him open to severe strictures; but his
stern adversaries did not take so much advantage of them as they might
have taken. They had his doctrines condemned at the councils of Soissons
and Sens; they prohibited him from public lecturing; and they imposed
upon him the seclusion of