Marenbon, John. 1992. "Abelard's Concept of Natural Law." In Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter. 2. Halbband, edited by Zimmermann, Albert and Speer, Andreas, 609–621. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"To understand Abelard's views about natural law it is necessary to begin, not with his own writings, but those of his teachers, Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, and their followers in the School of Laon. They were the first thinkers since the Fathers to consider natural law explicitly and in detail, and they provided the context for Abelard's own thoughts on the subject. Only when it is read within this context does the subtlety and originality of Abelard's treatment become clear." (p. 609)

(...)

"At first sight, Abelard's treatment of natural law looks disconcertingly close to the ideas of the School of Laon: not only is the terminology similar, but also the problems tackled are much the same. Could it be that Abelard copied the ideas of the two masters with whom he had ostentatiously quarelled, and those of their obedient pupils? More careful comparison shows, rather, that here — as in many other areas of his work — Anselm, William and their followers provided Abelard with a set of terms and starting-points, from which he developed his own, very different views. A striking example is provided by Abelard's treatment of the Golden Rule." (pp. 612-613)
———. 2004. "Life, milieu, and intellectual contexts." In The Cambridge Companion to Abelard, edited by Brower, Jeffrey E. and Guilfoy, Kevin, 13–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"In the first section, “Life and works,” I give a very brief sketch of Abelard’s life, and then of his works, and try to show the main direction of his intellectual interests in a career which, as I shall argue, falls into two distinct halves. In Section ii, I add a little detail to this bare account, by considering (in very roughly chronological order) the various cultural settings in which Abelard worked. Three of them are particular milieus to which he belonged: the logical schools at the beginning of the twelfth century, the world of twelfth century monastic thinking and reform, and the Paris schools, logical and theological, of the 1130s. One is a cultural setting in rather a different sense: Abelard’s reading. In Section iii, I have chosen two topics through which to examine more precisely, and very selectively, aspects of Abelard’s relation to earlier and contemporary medieval philosophers: Abelard’s nominalism, and his treatment of Plato’s idea of a World Soul." (p. 13)
———. 2007. "Peter Abelard and Platonic Politics." In The Political Identity of the West: Platonism in the Dialogue of Cultures, edited by van Ackeren, Marcel and Seummrell, Orrin Finn, 133–150. Bern: Peter Lang.
———. 2015. Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Chapter 5: Abelard, pp. 73-94.

"The first impression from the Theologia Christiana, the Collationes and many of his other works is that Abelard is a sort of counter-Augustine in his attitude to pagans, despite the extensive use he makes of Augustine’s works in discussing this theme. Where Augustine rejects pagan salvation and pagan virtues out of hand, Abelard appears to be arguing strongly for both of them. But this judgement is true only in part.

On examination, Abelard’s views turn out to be not entirely consistent, both less and more audacious than they seem initially. Their relation to Augustine’s position is much more complex than simple opposition. It is easiest to disentangle the various threads by starting with Abelard’s view on pagans’ knowledge of God, before looking at his treatment of the salvation of pagans and then the question of their virtues." (p. 4, a note omitted)
McCabe, Joseph. 1901. Peter Abélard. London: Duckworth.

"The author does not think it necessary to offer any apology for having written a life of Abelard.

The intense dramatic interest of his life is known from a number of brief notices and sketches, but English readers have no complete presentation of the facts of that remarkable career in our own tongue. The History of A.bailard of Mr. Berington, dating from the eighteenth century, is no longer adequate or useful. Many French and German scholars have re-written Abelard's life in the light of recent knowledge and feeling, but, beyond the short sketches to be found in Compayre, Poole, Rashdall, Cotter Morison, andothers, no English writer of the nineteenth century has given us a complete study of this unique and much misunderstood personality. Perhaps one who has also had a monastic, scholastic, and ecclesiastical experience may approach the task with a certain confidence." (Preface, p. V)
McDonough, Christopher J. 1986. "Hugh Primas 18: A Poetic Glosula on Amiens, Reims, and Peter Abelard." Speculum no. 61:806–835.

"The poem numbered 18 in the collection known as the Oxford poems was written a little before the middle of the twelfth century.(1) Composed in rhyming octosyllabic verse, the poem has three parts. It begins by praising the bishop and clergy of Amiens for an act of charity on behalf of the destitute poet. It continues with a celebration of the cathedral school of Reims under Master Alberic. It concludes with a biting attack upon an anonymous teacher who is unfit to be heard by the students of Reims. The author calls himself Primas, incorporating this name as an internal signature within the body of the poem. Primas has been identified with a certain Hugh of Orleans, who in his day enjoyed a reputation for wit and humor. A. firm terminus ante quem for the poem's composition is 1136/37, for at that time Alberic was translated from Reims to the see of Bourges, where he lived out his days. In fact the poem was probably written a few years earlier." (p. 806)

(...)

"Poem 18 is in many ways elusive for the modern reader. In recent years two problems in particular have claimed scholarly attention: the identity of the man ridiculed at the close, and the coherence of the poem's form with its content.4 I shall reexamine both questions. My first aim will be to demonstrate that Peter Abelard was the object of the poet's abuse. This identification provides a new perspective on the relationship between the second and third parts of the poem, and I shall proceed to reconsider the structure of the poem and the literary achievement of its author. Primas's poem is not only a histor- ical document that sheds light on the turbulent academic and theological life of the time, but also a work of literature, notable for the degree to which it compels awareness of its existence as a commentary and reflects upon the process of writing." (pp. 806-807, some notes omtted)

(1) (,,,) Citations of the text of the poem are from C. J. McDonough, ed., The Oxford Poems of Hugh Primas and the Arundel Lyrics (Toronto, 1984), pp. 61- 65. The text and a German translation can be found in Karl Langosch, Hymnen und Vagantenlieder (Basel, 1954), pp. 148-53.
McLaughlin, Mary Martin. 1967. "Abelard as Autobiographer: The Motives and Meaning of His “Story of Calamities”." Speculum no. 42:463–488.

"Although Abelard's Story of Calamities (Historia calamitatum) has long been regarded as the most original and significant of mediaeval autobiographies, it has also remained in many ways the most perplexing and the most often misunderstood. Setting out ostensibly to console an unidentified friend by writing about the calamities he himself had suffered, Abelard surveyed in his letter the most important phases and events of his career, from his early years to what seemed to him the unparalleled series of misfortunes that formed the pattern of his later life. In the course of his "story," he told us more about himself, more deliberately, than any other Western thinker between St Augustine and Petrarch, and much, incidentally, about the world in which he moved. For these reasons, Abelard's autobiographical letter is, as Knowles remarks, "a work of the highest value for its historical, psychological and human interest," indispensable, in fact, to all students of the intellectual and spiritual life of his age. Yet at the same time, as Knowles goes on to say, the Story of Calamities presents most acutely, "as might be expected from its author's character and career, all the difficulties of interpretation which are inseparable from the autobiographical form.(1)"

(1) D. Knowles, Evolution of Medieval Thought (London, 1962), pp. 116-117.
Mews, Constant J. 1986. "On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard." Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age no. 60:73–134.

Reprinted as Essay VII in: Constant J. Mews, Abelard and his Legacy, Aldershot: Ashgate 2001.

"Any attempt to assess the evolution of the thought of Peter Abelard (1079-1142) must be based on a firm grasp of the sequence of his various writings on logic and theology. The studies which follow concentrate on two works: the Dialectica and the Dialogus inter philosophum, Iudaeum et Christianum or Collationes. While a number of scholars have attempted to date individual works of Abelard, there has not yet emerged any clear consensus of opinion about the overall chronology of his writings.

By looking again at the Dialectica and the Dialogus in relation to his other writings on logic and theology it is hoped to gain a clearer picture of the development of his thought and so provide a perspective which is not to be found in the Historia Calamitatum(2)." (pp. 73-74, a note omitted)

"From this study of the evolution of Abelard’s terminology and thinking about language, we can suggest the following chronological sequence for his writings:

Ed. sup. Por.; sup. Cat.; sup. Per.; de divisionibus; Introductiones parvulorum; liber fantasiarum. [lost]

Dialectica.

Glosse sup. Por.; sup. Pred.; sup. Per.; Gl. sec. voc.; sup. Top. TSum (perhaps before sup. Per. and sup. Top.). Rhetorica (?); Grammatica; Tract. de int. Glossule. TChr.

The sequence proposed here is only tentative, as the evidence is often inconclusive." (p. 94)

(2) The authenticity of the Historia Calamitatum was doubted by R. Benton, ‘Fraud, fiction and borrowing in the correspondence of Abelard and Héloise’, Pierre le Vénérable.-Pierre Abélard, p. 469-506, but largely re-affirmed in his later communication, ‘A reconsideration of the authenticity of the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, Petrus Abaelardus, Trier, pp. 41-52. Although Benton’s earlier position is still supported by H. Sitvestre, ‘Pourquoi Roscelin n’est-il pas mentionné dans l’Historia Calamitatum?’, RTAM [Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale] 48 (1981), 218-24 and in Bull. TAM 13 (1983), 420-23, no solid arguments have yet, in the author’s opinion, been put forward to justify the hypothesis of a forgery. In consequence its authenticity is accepted.
———. 1986. "The Sententiae of Peter Abelard." Recherches de Theologie et Philosophie Médievales no. 53:130–184.

Reprinted as Essay VI in: Constant J. Mews, Abelard and his Legacy, Aldershot: Ashgate 2001.

"Conclusions

The liber sententiarum magistri Petri is only one of a number different collections of Abelard’s sententie. It can be compared most closely to the Sententie Abaelardi in the precision with which his argument is presented—part of its discussion of the redemption is identical to the quaestio on the subject in Abelard’s commentary on Romans, in the same way as the Sententie reproduce parts of a draft of the Theologia “Scholarium”. Both may have been compiled by an amaneuensis either from dictation or from Abelard’s lecture notes (or from both).

(.,,(

The Ethica developed that part of his teaching about charity, while the Anthropologia (if completed) would have covered that about redemption.

The Sententie Florianenses, Sententie Abaelardi, Sententie Parisienses and liber sententiarum magistri Petri (in that chronological order) do not belong to his strictly literary compositions, but they should be differentiated from those texts which combine ideas of Abelard with those of other teachers. To group all such works under the loose umbrella of ‘‘the school of Peter Abelard” is to misunderstand the significance of those which reproduce his teaching alone. The four texts mentioned shed important light on the ideas of Abelard about faith in God and in Christ, the sacraments and morality, not on the thinking of his disciples." (pp. 173-174)
———. 1995. Peter Abelard. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Authors of the Middle Ages. Vol. II n° 5-6.

Contents: 5. Constant J. Mews: Peter Abelard 1-88; V.I.J. Flint: Honorius Augustodunensis 89-183.

Reprint: New York: Routledge 2016.

"Interest in Abelard as a philosopher has tended to develop separately from analysis of his theology. In the Anglo-American analytic tradition, there has been a concentration on Abelard's doctrine of universals for its critique of traditional ontology. Rather different is the perspective of Jolivet, who has studied Abelard's ideas on universal categories as a part of a wider critique of language. Unease with the traditional nominalist label and the tendency to discuss Abelard's logic without reference to his theology, led him to suggest an underlying tendency in Abelard's thought to 'dereify' language. In more recent writing, Jolivet has examined the coexistence of Platonist semantics with Aristotelian categories in Abelard's thought. Comparing the thought of Roscelin, Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers, he has suggested that 'realist' and 'nominalist' labels might be inadequate to describe the different strategies each formulates to the question of universals. From a different standpoint, Courtenay and Normore have identified Abelard as the central stimulus for the nominalist school. However, as Jolivet has pointed out, it is misleading to understand Abelard as a nominalist in the fourteenth-century sense. While he has a sharp sense of physical reality and of the artificial nature of human statements, he never doubts that there is a reality beyond language, insisting only that this reality can never be fully defined. His dialectic seeks to show that images and definitions of truth are always of human origin, and thus transient in nature. It moves within a tradition shaped by Plato, Augustine and Boethius, although transformed by Aristotelian thinking about language in a particular way," (pp. 30-31, notes omitted)
———. 2001. Abelard and His Legacy. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Collection of essays previously published.

Contents: I. The development of the Theologia of Peter Abelard; II. A neglected gloss on the Isagoge by Peter Abelard; III. Man's knowledge of God according to Peter Abelard; IV. The lists of heresies imputed to Peter Abelard; V. Peter Abelard's Theologia Christiana and Theologia 'Scholarium' re-examined; VI. The Sententie of Peter Abelard; VII. On dating the works of Peter Abelard; VIII. Aspects of the evolution of Peter Abaelard's thought on signification and predication; IX. Un lecteur de Jérôme au XIIe siècle: Pierre Abélard; X. Peter Abelard and the Enigma of Dialogue; Addenda; Indexes.
———. 2002. "The Council of Sens (1141): Abelard, Bernard, and the Fear of Social Upheaval." Speculum no. 77:342–382.

"The Council of Sens, held on May 25-26, 1141, was most widely remembered through collections of the letters of Bernard, assembled soon after 1153. These letters do not give the full story, however, of the circumstances that provoked Abelard to ask the archbishop of Sens if he could defend himself at this council against the claims being made by Bernard of Clairvaux. While the theological differences between the two men should not be minimized, Bernard's anxieties about the dangerous implications of Abelard's teachings also have much to do with the increasingly polarized political situation facing the Latin church after the Second Lateran Council in April 1139.

(...)

Bernard himself did not originally wish to attend the council and came only because of pressure placed on him by certain powerful individuals, quite possibly Suger of Saint-Denis. As a leading adviser to the young Louis VII, it was in Suger's interest to support the cause of Samson, the newly appointed archbishop of Reims, a city whose commune was crushed sometime in 1140 or early 1141.

(..)

The fact that Arnold of Brescia, a notorious critic of episcopal and papal power, attached himself to Abelard helped make Abelard's theological critique of traditional understanding of divine omnipotence appear to be subversive thinking. As R. I. Moore has argued, the confrontation at Sens was part of a larger process by which new structures of authority came to be imposed.(155) Papal authority was now being invoked as the principal arbiter of orthodoxy. Social tension within urban communities undoubtedly inflamed the way Abelard's theology was perceived. For all his desire to overcome conflict through rational analysis, Abelard was unable to overcome an extremely polarized political situation. Perhaps the real victor of that confrontation was Suger of Saint-Denis. The construction of a magnificent new church provided, outwardly at least, a far more effective vehicle for creating social cohesion than either the theology of Peter Abelard or the interior conversion preached by Bernard of Clairvaux." (pp-379-380, a note omitted)

(155) R. I. Moore, The First European Revolution, c. 970-1215 (Oxford, 2000), with comment on the confrontation with Bernard at Sens (dated to 1140), although not in relation to Arnold of Brescia, pp. 124-25, 158, and 190.
———. 2006. "Faith as Existimatio rerum non apparentium: intellect, imagination and faith in the Philosophy of Peter Abelard." In Intellect et imagination dans la philosophie médiévale / Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy / Intelecto e imaginação na filosofia medieval / Actes du XIe Congrès international de philosophie médiévale de la Société internationale pour l'Étude de la philosophie médiévale (S.I.E.P.M.): Porto, du 26 au 31 août 2002. Vol. 2, edited by Pacheco, Maria Cândida and Meirinhos, José 915–926. Turnhout: Brepols.

"At the outset of the Theologia ‘Scholarium’ Peter Abelard introduces a definition of faith that some of his contemporaries found rather alarming: «Faith is estimation (existimatio) of things that do not appear, that not apparent to the bodily senses»(1). Both William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux considered this definition to contradict that attributed to St Paul (Hebrews 11:1): «Est autem fides sperandorum substantia rerum argumentum non parentum» (Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the argument for what does not appear(2). If, like William and Bernard, we look only at that bare sentence at the outset of his Theologia about faith as existimatio of things unseen, without any knowledge of Abelard’s theory of language, we might well remain similarly puzzled at this bare definition of faith. How is it connected to Abelard’s broader understanding of language, intellect and imagination, themes of this congress?" (p. 915)

(...)

"Faith is thus not an abstract gift, a form of knowledge quite distinct from human knowledge. Abelard’s understanding of faith as an estimation of what not appear to the senses is necessarily shaped by his understanding that what is said by a proposition is never a thing or res in itself, with some extra-linguistic existence.

(...)

Ultimately faith will give way to a knowledge that is beyond all imagination, and that will endure." (p. 926)

(1) Theologia ‘Scholarium’ [TSch] 1.1, E.-M. Buytaert and CJ. Mews (eds.), Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis [CCCM] 13, Tumhout 1987, p. 318.

(2) William of Saint-Thierry, Disputatio Adversus Petrum Abaelardum, P.L. vol. 180, c. 249; Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 190, Sancti Bernardi Opera, Rome 1957-77, 8:78.
———. 2009. "William of Champeaux, Abelard and Hugh of Saint-Victor: platonism, theology and scripture in early 12th century France." In Bible und Exegese in der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris: Form und Funktion Eines Grundtextes im Europaischen Raum. Band 3, edited by Berndt, Rainer, 131–163. Münster: Aschendorff.
———. 2009. "Peter Abelard." In The History of Western Philosophy of Religion. Vol. 2: Medieval Philosophy of Religion, edited by Oppy, Graham and Trakakis, N. N., 97–108. Stocksfield: Acumen.

"Peter Abelard (1079–1142) introduces a new perspective into the philosophy of religion in the Latin West through his emphasis on the common source of pagan and religious philosophical insight. Although not the first person to argue that pagan philosophers shared some understanding of truths manifest through divine revelation to Jews and then to Christians, Abelard was one of the first teachers to create a coherent synthesis of theologia in which this insight was the driving principle.

Boethius (c.476–c.525) had pursued philosophical enquiry into orthodox Christian doctrines relating to the Trinity, but never reflected explicitly on the relationship of pagan philosophy to Christian revelation. Rather than commenting on the Opuscula sacra (Sacred works) of Boethius, Abelard decided to create his own independent synthesis on the subject, a treatise about the Trinity, now known as the Theologia ‘summi boni’ (hereafter TSum). After the work was condemned as heretical at the Council of Soissons in 1121, he revised it in the early 1120s as his Theologia Christiana (Christian theology; hereafter TChr), transforming it yet again into his Theologia (the Theologia ‘scholarium’; hereafter TSch) by the early 1130s. This final version was identified by the famous Cistercian abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, at the Council of Sens, held on 25 May 1141, as containing many heresies (Mews 2002)." (p. 97)

References

Mews, C. J. 2002. Reason and Belief in the Age of Roscelin and Abelard. Aldershot: Ashgate,
———. 2011. "William of Champeaux, the Foundation of Saint-Victor (Easter, 1111), and the Evolution of Abelard's Early Career." In Arts du langage et théologie aux confins des XIe et XIIe siècles, edited by Rosier-Catach, Irène, 83–104. Turnhout: Brepols.

"The common understanding of Parisian intellectual life in the twelfth century as dominated by an on-going conflict between the traditionally minded William of Champeaux and a philosophically radical Peter Abelard, has long been dependent on how we interpret Abelard account of their interaction in the Historia calamitatum." (p. 83)

(...)

Bautier's proposed dating of Abelard’s early career needs revision [*]. Rather than assuming that Abelard studied under William for just two years, it is more likely that he remained at the cathedral school for at least four years (1100-1104 ?), before deciding to establish his own school at the royal palace of Melun (c. 1104-1106 ?) and then at Corbeil (c. 1106-1107 ?). His decision to return home, ostensibly to recover from a period of overwork (c. 1107-1111 ?), thus occurred when William of Champeaux was becoming active as an archdeacon in Paris, and possibly was was helped by some assistant, who could communicate and expand upon his master’s teaching on these subjects.

(...)

This revised chronology has implications for understanding the evolution of Abelard's writings on dialectic. Having spent at least four years studying under William, Abelard may have started to compose his Dialectica even before he returned to Paris in 1111. While Abelard did not accept William's original understanding of a universal as a substance or material essence independent of differentiae, this did not stop him from using the phrase res universalis on three separate occasions within the Dialectica. After the unfolding of his affair with Heloise in 1117, Abelard started to adopt a more radical perspective. He now argued that a universal was not any kind of thing. He also had to counter the views of a much wider range of teachers than just William of Champeaux. (pp. 103-104, notes omitted)

[*] Bautier, Robert-Henri. 1981. "Paris au temps d'Abélard." In Abélard en son temps. Actes du Colloque international organisé à l'occasion du IXe centenaire de la naissance de Pierre Abélard (14-19 mai 1979), edited by Jolivet, Jean, 21-77. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

According to Bautier "Abelard studied under William for only two years (1100-1102), before starting to teach at Melun c. 1102 and at Corbeil c. 1104, but returned to Paris in 1108, after perhaps three years recovering from overwork. We shall present evidence for considering that William moved to Saint-Victor at Easter 1111." (p. 83)
———. 2013. "Patristic notions of «caritas» in the writings of Abelard and Heloise and their contemporaries." In Les réceptions des Pères de l'Église au Moyen Age. Le devenir de Ja tradition ecclésiale, edited by Berndt, Rainer and Fédou, Michel, 689–706. Münster: Aschendorff.

"Love can be understood in many different ways. Augustine defined caritas in consciously theological terms in the De doctrina Christiana, as a movement of the spirit to enjoy God for his own sake and one’s neighbour for the sake of God.(1) By contrast, Abelard’s mature understanding of love in the Theologia ‘Scholarium’ suggests that he preferred a definition shaped more by Ciceronian ideals of friendship. In this paper, I explore the evolution of Abelard’s understanding of love in relation to that of the Fathers, and the possible influence on him of his contemporaries, in particular of Heloise. A number of distinguished scholars have commented on the possible impact of her ideas, including Matthias Perkams in an excellent monograph on the notion of love in Abelard’s theological system. This study offers a further reflection on this theme explored not just through his theological teaching, but through his early exchanges with Heloise as well as in the thinking of some of their contemporaries." (p. 689)

(1) Augustinus De doctrina Christiana, 3, 10, p. 89 : “Caritatem uoco motum animi ad fruendum deo propter ipsum et se atque proximo propter deum; cupiditatem autem motum animi ad fruendum se et proximo et quolibet corpore non propter deum.”

(2) Gilson 1934, p. 183–189; Marenbon 1997, p. 300; Perkams 2001, p. 267–268.

References

Etienne Gilson: La théologie mystique de Saint Bernard, Paris 1934.

John Marenbon: The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, Cambridge 1997.

Matthias Perkams: Liebe als Zentralbegriff der Ethik nach Peter Abaelard (BGPhThMA. NF 58), Münster 2001.
———. 2019. "Peter Abelard, Anselm of Havelberg, and Nicholas of Cusa: Sources of an Ecumenical Tradition." In Inventing Modernity in Medieval European Thought, ca. 1100–ca. 1550, edited by Nedermann, Cary J. and Koch, Bettina, 155–170. Berlin: de Gruyter.

"Nicholas of Cusa never identifies by name Abelard, Thierry of Chartres or Anselm of Havelberg in his writing. Nonetheless, each of these three figures of the twelfth century offered ideas to Nicholas of Cusa quite different from the most widely copied theologian of the twelfth century, namely Peter Lombard. As is evident from the contents of the library at Cusa (of which Abelard’s Theologia was originally part), Nicholas was aware of the diversity of medieval thought, in particular of the twelfth century, to a much greater degree than most of his contemporaries. Yet Nicholas was also influenced by later writers, such as Ramon Lull and Meister Eckhart, that I have not touched on here. The originality of Nicholas is such that his ideas cannot be traced back to any single literary source. Nonetheless, this little glimpse into one corner of his library enables us to see that he was always fascinated by how other writers handled the same problems of diversity and concord with which he was engaged." (pp. 165-166)
Mews, Constant J., and Jolivet, Jean. 1990. "Peter Abelard and His Influence." In Contemporary Philosophy. Vol. 6.1: Philosophy and Science in the Middle Ages, edited by Guttorm, Floistad, 105–140. Amsterdam: Kluwer.

"This chronicle is based on one prepared by Jean Jolivet, reviewing literature on Abelard up to 1972; I have updated it to take into account publications which have appeared 1972-1985" (p. 105).
Monagle, Clare. 2021. "Introduction: Communities of Learning – Constant J. Mews." In The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages, edited by Monagle, Clare, 9–22. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Abstract: "This chapter articulates a number of key contributions made by Constant J. Mews to the field of Medieval Studies over the course of his career. In particular, it focuses upon his expertise in Abelard and Heloise, his insights into musicology and musical communities, and his groundbreaking work in the study of women intellectuals in the Middle Ages. All of his scholarly work, the chapter argues, should be understood in the frame of his devotion to the communities of learning, both of the past and in the present."
Murray, A. Victor. 1967. Abelard and St. Bernard: A Study in Twelfth Century "Modernism". Manchester: Manchester University Press.

"The actual quarrel between Abelard and St Bernard does not appear to have been viewed in any very serious light by their contemporaries. John of Salisbury, the scholar, and Otto of Freising, the wordly churchman, see little more in it than a clash between two temperaments, in which there was a good deal to be said on both sides, but in which, on the whole, Abelard suffered by reason of his opponent’s powerful position and diplomatic unscrupulousness. It was a rather glaring instance of something which was going on all the time, namely, St Bernard’s insistence on having his own way in spite of either opposition or proper evidence. Inevitably it involved ecclesiastical party politics — the French, under the earnest reformative leadership of Bernard, against the Italians, in whom familiarity with Papal machinery had bred a measure of indifference to the deeper issues of faith, and who were willing to study the works of Abelard and see what he had to say. That Rome itself was not disturbed by these ‘novelties’ which Bernard declared were so heinous, is shown by the fact that a follower of Abelard was raised to the Papacy only a year after the Council of Sens." (p. 159)
Normore, Calvin G. 2005. "Who is Peter Abelard?" In Autobiography as Philosophy: The Philosophical Uses of Self-Presentation, edited by Mathien, Thomas and Wright, D. G., 64–75. New York: Routledge.

"If the tale I have sketched here is correct, Abelard’s Historia calamitatum can indeed be seen as a letter of consolation, for it is a tale of how God can make good out of evil. It is also a genuine work of philosophy in the tradition of the slogan of Augustine and of Anselm of Canterbury, fides quaerens intellectum. Abelard discerns and presents in the Historia a pattern to the calamities of his life that he can best understand by seeing them as part of a grander providential scheme and seeing himself as a latter-day Jerome. It is a pattern which he cannot demonstrate in the sense of prove, but which he can demonstrate in the sense of point out to us, and it is a pattern which he thinks shows how Christian faith both transcends and perfects the philosophy of the Ancients." (p. 74)
Novikoff, Alex J. 2014. "Peter Abelard and Disputation: A Reexamination." Rhetorica no. 32:323–347.

Abstract: "This paper examines Abelard’s engagement with disputation (disputatio) from the vantage point of twelfth-century scholasticism. Eschewing the well-worn details of Abelard’s personal life and philosophical positions, analysis is instead focused on two parallel dimensions of his career: the manner in which he attempted to face-off with his adversaries through public debate and his underlying theory of disputation. It is argued that Abelard’s theory is to be found not in his theological or logical works, but in his polemical letters and his ethical dialogue, the Collationes, which together offer a coherent hermeneutical strategy for discerning truth.

Abelard’s contribution to the art of disputation needs to be assessed in light of his broader involvement in the scholastic method and contemporary Jewish-Christian relations."
Orlandi, Giovanni. 2001. "On the Text and Interpretation of Abelard's Planctus." In Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, edited by Marenbon, John, 327–342. Leiden: Brill.

"The path towards a full appreciation of the literary value of this cycle of six rhythmical compositions, put together by Abelard for Heloise and her nuns of the Paraclete, was opened up only in the 1960s by two scholars of distinct generations, Wolfram von den Steinen and Peter Dronke. It is thanks to them that we now recognise to its full extent the originality of Abelard's Planctus in comparison with their direct sources: their biblical counterparts along with their currently circulating commentaries.

To turn now to the piece which has a specific interest for the present discussion, the Planctus uirginum Israel super filia lepte Galadite: after a paper published by Dronke in 1965, which is the first substantial

contribution to the understanding of this kind of poetry,(3) von den Steinen(4) demonstrated that, until the twelfth century, the commentaries on Abelard's source, Judges 11, 29—40, treated only the doctrinal

and juridical side of the story or its spiritual (that is 'typical' or 'figural') interpretation; nobody showed any real interest in the personality of the two figures featuring in this drama: Jephtha, who rashly promised God, if he gave him the victory over his enemies, to sacrifice the first member of his family he would encounter returning from the battle, and his unnamed daughter, innocent victim of such a rash vow. And it is precisely on this aspect—the two figures of the story, their emotions and thoughts—that Abelard focuses his poem; still more, in this recreation of the myth the daughter rises to the status of protagonist of the entire drama. After a fascinating chapter on these poems, in a book of 1970, dealing in particular with the planctus for Samson,(5) Dronke, in a second, more complex article of 1971, written in collaboration with Margaret Alexiou,(6) refined and deepened his analysis of the piece on Jephtha's daughter and, above all, carried out fresh researches about sources and parallels in various epochs and areas, focusing on the final, extraordinary episode of the wedding/execution ceremony and showing how many cultural streams might have crossed together in Abelard's poetry without impairing at all its original flavour." (pp.327-328)

(3) P. Dronke, 'Medieval Poetry—I: Abelard', The Listener 74 (1965), 841-45.

(4) Die Planctus Abaelards—Jephthas Tochter', Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 4 (1967), 122~44. Another important paper, concerning the whole cycle, was printed in Wolfram von den Steinen, Menschen im Mittelalter (Bern and Munich 1967), pp. 215-30.

(5) Peter Abelard: Planctus and Satire' in Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1970), Chapter 4, pp. 14—49. There has been a second, enlarged edition of this book (London 1986) (Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies 1).

(6) 'The Lament of Jephtha's Daughter: Themes, Traditions, Originality', now in Dronke, Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe (Rome 1992) (Edizioni di storia e letteratura, Studi e testi 183), pp. 345-388.
Otten, Willemien. 1997. "The Bible and the Self in Medieval Autobiography: Otloh of St. Emmeram (1010-1070) and Peter Abelard (1079-1142)." In The Whole and Divided Self: The Bible and Theological Anthropology, edited by McCarthy, John and Aune, David, 130–157. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company.

"When one thinks about models of Christian autobiographical writing, the example that invariably comes to mind is that of the Confessions.

This work's fascinating narrative in which the early Christian bishop Augustine describes the chastening struggle to shape his self to God continues to attract attention. It has even transcended the boundaries of the Christian tradition in that it has come to define the archetype of Western autobiography.(1)

In this essay I want to study two Western autobiographies from the medieval period to see how they elaborate on the same Christian theme of a self that understands itself explicitly as restless in its struggle to find the fullness of a life in God. Before examining them, however, I will make a few comments on the self in medieval autobiography and on the role and function of the Bible in the two autobiographical documents under review here." (p. 130)

(1) An authoritative essay on the autobiographical genre in the West that generally seems to hold this view is K J. Weintraub, The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), esp. p. 1.
———. 2007. "The Poetics of Biblical Tragedy in Abelard’s Planctus." In Poetry and Exegesis in Premodern Latin Christianity: The Encounter between Classical and Christian Strategies of Interpretation, edited by Otten, Willemien and Pollmann, Karla, 245–261. Leiden: Brill.

"While the rhetorical identification with biblical figures may astound if not confuse our modern theological sensibilities because of its fresh irreverence,(21) the complications that can arise out of such biblical role playing are even more striking in the case of poetic exegesis. As a case in point I will now turn to Abelard’s planctus. Whereas my advice above was not to take the biblical inerrancy of the scholastic era overly seriously, as it does not rule out creative exegetical interpretation, in the discussion that follows I want to demonstrate that we should also not exaggerate Abelard’s poetic license in dealing with Scripture, as he may be less concerned with the details of his personal life than is often expected." (pp. 252-253)

(21) A case in point is Abelard’s identification with Christ in his correspondence with Heloise for which even contemporary scholarship criticizes him. See my analysis in ‘The Bible and the Self in Medieval Autobiography: Otloh of St. Emmeram (1010–1070) and Peter Abelard (1079–1142)’, in: D.E. Aune and J. McCarthy (eds), The Whole and Divided Self. The Bible and Theological Anthropology, New York 1997, 130–157, esp. 138–146. See also D. Frank, ‘Abelard as Imitator of Christ’, Viator 1 (1970) 107–113.
Presutti, Fabio. 2011. "Realism and Ontology in Spinoza, Abelard and Deleuze." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology no. 42:209–222.

Abstract: "Deleuze’s relation to Spinoza’s philosophy is a detailed investigation of the ontology of immanence. This article presents an interpretation of Spinoza’s definition of substance’s essence based on Deleuze’s own original ontology of the virtual. It will do so by analysing the concepts of difference and expression as co-extensive with the more historically dated but philosophically actual concept of realism. Spinoza’s realist account of substance’s essence does not define a form of a transcendent universal, but an ‘immanent’ conception of universality: a universal whose logical independence from any thinking activity coincides with its own ontological (existential) self-sufficiency. To investigate the relation between ‘immanence’ and ‘realism’ in Spinoza’s philosophy requires us to undertake a parallel outline of Peter Abelard’s reformulation and solution of the problem of universals."
Ruys, Juanita Feros. 2002. "Planctus magis quam cantici: The generic significance of Abelard’s planctus." Plainsong and Medieval Music no. 11:37–44.

Abstract: "What did the planctus mean to Abelard? During the 1130s Abelard was rethinking this musical genre and its potential for expressing personalized, dramatic lament. Abelard’s relationship with Heloise at this time (and indeed her own literary output) ay have provoked a reaction to the generic features of the planctus."
———. 2008. "Peter Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium and Medieval Parent-Child Didactic Texts: The Evidence for Parent-Child Relationships in the Middle Ages." In Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality, edited by Classen, Albrecht, 203–227. Berlin: de Gruyter.

"Peter Abelard's Carmen ad Astrolabium

What I would like to do now is to examine in greater detail one of these parental didactic texts, Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium, to determine what it can tell us of medieval views of children. Abelard was intensely interested in the human condition. He addressed questions of the biological sex differences between males and females in his exegesis of the sixth day of creation in his Expositio in Hexaemeron, and the more complex questions of the gender implications associated with these biological differences absorbed and perhaps even perplexed him throughout his writing career, recurring particularly in the texts he wrote for Heloise and the nuns of the Paraclete, but remaining there largely unresolved.(43)

In terms of life-span, Abelard was interested in the human body from the moment of conception (which he dealt with in detail in his solution to Heloise's Problem 42), and from its earliest infancy to the point of death and purgation (which he particularly treated in his Collationes) and beyond. What then does his poem of advice to his son tell us about his impression of childhood and youth?" (pp. 214-215)

(...)

"Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium must make us think again about the nature of parent-child relationships in the Middle Ages and the medieval view of children.

Clearly childhood was perceived as a separate stage of life possessing its own typical behaviors and requiring its own forms of instruction. Nevertheless, childhood was not for this reason sentimentalized in a fashion that would become synonymous with the nineteenth century, nor did authors condescend to children with simplistic texts or diluted concepts. There appears to be an understanding that instruction was a serious matter that required advanced forms of comprehension which children had to learn to develop for themselves. It is not true that familial feeling is completely absent from Abelard's text: on the contrary, at certain points in the text the power of Abelard's love for his son, and his desire that Astralabe should similarly comprehend his mother's love for him, shine through. Yet these sentiments are on the whole subordinated by Abelard to the more important task of equipping his son to lead a moral, ethical, and spiritual life that would avoid the many pitfalls and mistakes of which Abelard was able to warn him, both through the observations of a full and active life, and quite often too through bitter personal experience. In this we see, as with the other medieval parental authors who wrote didactic texts for their children, medieval parental instruction as an indicator of parental love." (pp. 226-227)
———. 2014. The Repentant Abelard. Family, Gender, and Ethics in Peter Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium and Planctus. New York: Palgrave Macmillam.

"This book offers a complete study of Abelard’s Carmen ad Astralabium and Planctus. It begins with a literary and conceptual analysis of these texts, taking into account how they reflect Abelard’s thought as evidenced elsewhere in his writings, as well as how they extend, question, and complicate his earlier ideas.

For the Carmen I explore issues of theme and style in order to counter the popular perception that this poem is merely a meandering collection of unremarkable sentential advice. On the contrary, I argue that it constitutes a compact summary of the ethical thought of an original and innovative thinker, its ideas woven intimately together, flowing through and more often over the traditional elegiac hexameter form of its verse. To this end, I indicate how it differs in significant ways from other didactic compositions and compilations circulating in late eleventh- and early twelfth-century Europe. Throughout chapter 1, my major focus is on the Carmen as a didactic text, including how it was received as such in the Middle Ages. I suggest that one of the shorter recensions of the Carmen arising and circulating later in the twelfth century gives evidence of a Cistercian origin and ask what this might indicate regarding a Cistercian career for Astralabe. In particular, I explore how the Carmen was transmitted, read, and used through medieval paratexts such as the interlinear glosses and marginal manuscript annotations it accrued, the additional sentential verses it attracted in manuscripts, and the excerpts of it included in florilegia. The chapter concludes with brief considerations of the Carmen’s modern title and the historical reasons that led to questions about its authenticity." (p. 5)
———. 2021. "Carnal Compassion: Peter Abelard’s Conflicted Approach to Empathy." In The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages, edited by Monagle, Clare, 25–42. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Abstract: "Abelard addresses the cognitive-affective concept of empathy (compassio) across a range of his writings. He questions its ethics in his philosophical writings, taking his lead from Seneca’s De clementia in viewing empathy as a femininized emotional response lacking in judgment. This Stoic-inspired understanding of empathy becomes more personal in his first-person life writing, the Historia calamitatum, where Abelard explores the negative impact of empathy on his own life as both feeling subject and recipient.

Then in seeking to displace himself as the subject of Heloise’s sympathetic identification of suffering in favor of Christ and his Passio, Abelard conceptualizes the redemptive love of Christ that will infuse his theological writings, leading to a rejection of the ransom theory of the Crucifixion and presaging the affective piety of the later Middle Ages."
S., Kaufmann. Linda. 1986. Discourses of Desire: Gender, Genre, and Epistolary Fictions. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Chapter 2: The Irremediable: Heloise to Abelard, pp. 63-90.
Schepers, Kees. 2017. "Abelard’s Exegesis of the Song of Songs in his Second Letter to Heloise." The Journal of Medieval Latin no. 27:107–131.

Abstract: "In this paper I am making the argument that the brief excursus on the Song of Songs in Abelard’s second letter to Heloise (the fifth in the Correspondence) contains exegesis of a few phrases of this biblical book that is so far out of the ordinary that it cannot be taken seriously and was not intended to be. This argument is based on the following observations: the lines presented as being from the Song of Songs are not really biblical verses; no remotely comparable exegesis of these phrases exists in earlier and contemporaneous exegesis; the literal interpretation that Abelard applies besides an allegorical reading was expressly forbidden by authorities both old and new; and finally Abelard’s alleged exegesis conflicts absolutely with his own exegesis of the same elements in authenticated works."
Sikes, Jeffrey Garrett. 1965. Peter Abailard. New York: Russell and Russell.

"Seven years ago, while studying St Bernard under the direction of Dr Coulton, I looked for some biography of Abailard which would incorporate the recent work of modern scholarship. No single volume was available except the writings of Deutsch. Excellent though these are, much research and criticism has been done since their appearance. Dr Geyer has edited the Logica ‘ Ingredientibus ’, which gives a fuller account of Abailard’s logical theories, while only last year Ruf and Grabmann published a new fragment of his Apologia to St Bernard. Abailard’s theological writings, however, still await an editor, and it is to be hoped that in more settled conditions the appearance of a critical text will be possible. But in the meantime there seemed to be room for a new study of Abailard’s life and thought. In preparing this I have attempted to trace wherever it seemed possible the sources of his ideas, and to compare these with those of his contemporaries, especially with the theological standpoint of St Bernard." (Autjords' Note, p. IX)

References

Samuel Martin Deutsch, Peter Abälard: Ein kritischer Theologe des zwölften Jahrhunderts, Leipzig: von S. Hirzel 1883.
Smalley, Beryl. 1957. "Prima Clavis Sapientiae: Augustine and Abelard." In Fritz Saxl, 1890-1948: A Volume of Memorial Essays from His Friends in England, edited by Gordon, D. J. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Reprinted in B. Smalley, Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning From Abelard to Wyclif, New York: Bloomsbury Academic 19841, pp. 1-8.

"Abelard's prologue to his Sic et non was regarded at one time as the most significant and daring of his writings.

Modern scholarship has softened the colours. He was not original in pointing out the conflicting opinions among his authorities or in wishing to harmonise them by means of dialectic. The quaestio, by means of which a difficulty would be raised and solved, went back to patristic literature and earlier;(1) it had been used in conjunction with dialectic of a simple kind by Abelard's master in theology, Anselm of Laon.(2) Today attention is shifting to the contents of the Sic et non as distinct from its prologue. Abelard provided students in theology with a formidable instrument de travail, a compilation of authorities where they could look up the various opinions held by the Fathers on topics disputed in the schools.(3) This was a solid and lasting contribution to research, the prologue standing for the hors-d'oeuvre.

But when all has been said, the prologue remains a forceful defence of doubt as a method of enquiry. Abelard meant to carry the use of dialectic further than his predecessors had done." (p. 1 of the repritnt)

(1) G. Bardy, "La littérature patristique des Quaestiones et responsiones sur l'Écriture sainte," in Revue Bibtique, XLI (1932), pp. 210 ff., 341 ff., 515 ff.; KLII (1933), pp. 14 ff., 211 ff., 328 ff-

(2) O. Lottin, "Nouveaux fragments thélogiques de l'£cole d'Anselme de Laon. Conclusions et tables,'' In Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, XIV (1947), pp. 157 ff. ; "Manegold de Lautenbach, source d'Anselme de Laon," ibid., p. 222.

(3) See the discussion and bibliography in J. de Ghellinck, Le Mouvement Théologique du XIIe Siècle, Bruges [etc.] 1948, pp. 149-80-
Stammberger, Ralf M. W. 2002. ""De longe ueritas uidetur diuersa iudicia Parit": Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard." Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia no. 58:65–92.

Abstract: "The relations of William of Champeaux, who began the founding of the abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, and Peter Abelard are known from the Historia calamitatum which the peripateticus palatinus wrote years after the event. We have no historical report that Abelard ever met Hugh of Saint Victor but already their contemporaries brought together their works in the manuscripts into which they copied them. A detailed analysis of their writings reveals that they had much more in common than is generally believed. They both use the terms 'potentia ', 'sapientia' and 'benignitas' to refer to the three persons of the Trinity, and together with Walter of Mortagne they both deal with the wisdom ('sapientia') of the incarnated second person. Also, together with Bernard of Clairvaux they discuss the necessity of baptism for salvation. All these questions are linked to the question of universals for which Abelard is a famous protagonist and the comparison reveals that Hugh's position, to which we have only indirect access, is quite close to Abelard's in its nominalist orientation but differs because he has a different concept of how we achieve knowledge about God.

Hugh also develops a special position - not to be found in other authors of his day - on how words signify things in the Sacred Scriptures."
Starnes, Kathleen M. 1981. Peter Abelard: His Place In History. Washington, D. C.: University Press of America.

"Peter Abelard epitomized the intellectual vitality of the twelfth century renaissance. He was a master of dialectic who dared to apply Aristotelian logic to both philosophy and theology. Under his influence and example, Medieval realism gave way to a modified nominalism, and rationalism was injected into theology. Neither of these incursions into the realms of Plato and the Church was welcomed, and thus the man who laid the foundation for the University of Paris and provided the impetus for scholasticism became persecuted by scholars who could not combat his logic and by theologians who saw his rationalism as a desecration of faith. Although Abelard was not so much concerned with the subject matter as with the excitement of the debate, he nevertheless exercised a profound influence and acted as a catalyst in the transition of the twelfth century schools of thought from a traditional to an analytical methodology." (Preface, pp. IX-X)
Stewart, Marc, and Wulstan, David, eds. 2003. The Poetic and Musical Legacy of Abelard and Heloise: An Anthology of Essays by Various Authors. Ottawa: The Institute of Mediaeval Music.

Contents: Michael Clanchy: Foreword V; Introduction VIII; Short-title references IX; Editorial conventions XI; Chronology XII; Map showing places mentioned in this book XIV; Family Tree of Peter Abelard XV; 1 David Wulstan: Abelard's Paraclete Hymnal and its Rhythms 1; 2 Constant J. Mews: Liturgy and Identity at the Paraclete: Heloise, Abelard and the Evolution of Cistercian Reform 19; 3 David Wulstan: Secular Lyrics from Paris and the Paraclete 34; 4 Ann Buckley: Abelard's planctus and Old French lais: melodic style and formal structure 49; 5 S Anneus Wouters: 'Abner fidelissime': Abelard's version of a biblical lament 60; 6 David Wulstan: Heloise at Argenteuil and the Paraclete 67; 7 Juanita Feros Ruys: Hearing Mediaeval Voices: Heloise and Carmina Burana 91; 8 Constant J. Mews: Heloise, the Paraclete Liturgy and Mary Magdalen 100; 9 David Wulstan: Sources and Influences: lyric and drama at the 'School of Abelard' 113; 10 Brenda M. Cook and Others: Some additional notes and comments 140; II Translations of texts in the music examples 157; About the contributors 164.
Sweeney, Eileen C. 2006. Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille. Words in the Absence of Things. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter 2: Abelard: a Twelth-Century Hermeneutics of Suspicion pp. 63-126.

"If Boethius's goal in his logical commentaries is to distinguish in order to unite, Abelard's goal seems simply to distinguish. Boethius's construction of a narrative from Aristotle's cryptic remarks in the Peri hermeneias is one Abelard follows carefully and also criticizes, finding Boethius's connections more a confusion than a synthesis of the elements in Aristotle's text. He argues that Boethius constructs a unity that is inauthentic, which asserts a happy ending, a union between language, understanding, and the world that is not quite achievable. His own corpus of commentaries breaks down this narrative to consider its parts much more carefully.

Abelard's perception of gaps in Boethius's narrative and his desire to take it apart is signaled in many ways. It comes across at a general and formal level in his account of the relationship between the Categories and Peri hermeneias in his later glosses on Porphyry (known as the Logica nostrorum petitioni sociorum). In these later glosses, he argues that Aristotle's two works are not two pieces of a single narrative, an account of words leading to one of sentences, as Boethius claims (and as was a tradition Abelard himself Follows in his earlier glosses), but the separate consideration of words insofar as they signify things (the Categories) and words insofar as they signify intellectus (the Peri hermeneias) (LNPS 508. 32-37). Beginning with this division, then, I would like to consider Abelard's account of the distinction between words and things in the earlier Glosses on Porphyry and the later gloss on Porphyry, and between words and understanding in the Commentary on the Peri hermeneias. (10) I will attempt to examine the kind of a narrative Abelard constructs, insofar as he constructs any, of the processes of abstraction and sentence construction." (pp. 66-67)

(10) See Constant Mews, "On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard," ADHLMA 52 (1985): 73-134; Marenbon, Peter Abelard, pp. 40-53; and L. M. de Rijk, "Peter Abelard's Semantics and His Doctrine of Being," Vivarium 24, 2 (1986): 103-108. It is widely agreed that the Glosses on Porphyry and Commentary on the Peri hermeneias, both part of the Logica ingredientibus, are earlier (1118-20) than the later glosses on Porphyry (here: LNPS) and De intellectibus (from the mid-1120s).
———. 2014. "Abelard and the Jews." In Rethinking Abelard: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Hellemans, Babette S., 37–50. Leiden: Brill.

"I begin with Abelard’s theologies, where Abelard compares the Jews to the philosophers both in knowledge of the divine nature and the Trinity, as well as in their ethical principles and behavior.(4) I turn next to Abelard’s Collationes in the dialogue between the Philosopher and the Jew, connecting and comparing it to the Commentary on Romans; both these texts are concerned as well with the comparison between Jews and gentiles in relation to reason and righteousness.

An examination of these texts and the role of Jews and Judaism as Abelard understands them show, first, that Abelard’s reflections on the Jews are reflections of his own thought and, second, that they have a role to play in the shifting ground of Christian anti-Jewish polemic in the twelfth century.

Abelard’s Commentary on Romans and his Collationes are struggling with the same issues and with the same ambivalence about the Jews and their relative goodness compared to the gentiles, the same problematic that motivates the discussion of the Jews in his theologies. Paul’s letter to the Romans compares the situation of the Jews and gentiles on the gap between their knowledge of and righteousness toward God." (pp. 37-38)

(4) Abelard essentially rewrote and reworked his work of systematic theology a number of times in response to condemnations and criticisms. I refer here to the three main rewritings, known as the Theologia ‘Summi Boni’ [TSB], Theologia Christiana [TC], and Theologia ‘scholarium’ [TSch]. Buytaert’s critical edition notes the passages in common between the different versions. For their dates of composition, see Mews, “On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 52 (1985), 73–134.
Tweedale, Martin. 1998. "Abelard, Peter (1079–1142)." In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Volume I, edited by Craig, Edward, 196–226. New York: Routledge.

"Abelard stands out as a consummate logician, a formidable polemicist and a champion of the value of ancient pagan wisdom for Christian thought. Although he worked within the Aristotelian tradition, his logic deviates significantly from that of Aristotle, particularly in its emphasis on propositions and what propositions say.

According to Abelard, the subject matter of logic, including universals such as genera and species, consists of linguistic expressions, not of the things these expressions talk about. However, the objective grounds for logical relationships lie in what these expressions signify, even though they cannot be said to signify any things. Abelard is, then, one of a number of medieval thinkers, often referred to in later times as ‘nominalists’, who argued against turning logic and semantics into some sort of science of the ‘real’, a kind of metaphysics. It was Abelard’s view that logic was, along with grammar and rhetoric, one of the sciences of language.

In ethics, Abelard defended a view in which moral merit and moral sin depend entirely on whether one’s intentions express respect for the good or contempt for it, and not at all on one’s desires, whether the deed is actually carried out, or even whether the deed is in fact something that ought or ought not be done.

Abelard did not believe that the doctrines of Christian faith could be proved by logically compelling arguments, but rational argumentation, he thought, could be used both to refute attacks on Christian doctrine and to provide arguments that would appeal to those who were attracted to high moral ideals. With arguments of this latter sort, he defended the rationalist positions that nothing occurs without a reason and that God cannot do anything other than what he does do." (p. 196)
Valente, Luisa. 2015. "Happiness, Contemplative Life, and the tria genera hominum in Twelfth-Century Philosophy: Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury." Quaestio. Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics no. 15:73–98.

"In the first section of this article I will provide an outline of the substantial discussion about true happiness as beatific vision as is found in Peter Abelard’s Collationes or Dialogus inter philosophum, iudaeum et christianum. In the following sections, I will present some twelfth-century triads of genera hominum,

in which the ideal of the philosophical life plays a significant role." (p. 74)
———. 2015. "Aliquid amplius audire desiderat: Desire in Abelard’s Theory of Incomplete and Non-Assertive Complete Sentences." Vivarium no. 53:221–248.

Abstract: "One of the peculiarities of Peter Abelard’s analysis of incomplete and non-assertive sentences is his use of the notion of desire: in both Dialectica and Glosses on Peri hermeneias the terms desiderium and desidero move to the foreground side by side with optatio, expectatio, suspensio and the related verbs. Desire plays a structural role in Abelard’s descriptions of the compositional way in which the linguistic message is received, changing step by step from incomplete to complete: the person who receives the incomplete message (e.g., ‘Socrates’ or ‘Socrates legens’) desires to get further information through other words since he knows that the purpose of such words or sequences of words (their causa inventionis) is to combine with other words in order to form a complete sentence. On the other hand, the expression of the speaker’s attention to his inner affections renders the same semantic content a different complete sentence (injunction, prayer, or desiderativa oratio)."
———. 2024. "“Lovers of Wisdom”: Etymology in the Service of Philosophy and Christianity in Peter Abelard’s Writings." Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin no. 93:80–110.

Abstract: "My contribution investigates how Peter Abelard considers and uses etymology in his writings. I will start with some general considerations about the notion of etymology in the early Middle Ages, while the following two parts will concern Peter Abelard’s reflections on, and use of, etymologies in his logical and theological works respectively."
Verball, Wim. 2005. "The Council of Sens Reconsidered: Masters, Monks, or Judges?" Church History no. 74:460–493.

Extract: "The Council of Sens (May 25, 1141), during which the teaching of Peter Abelard († 1143) was condemned by an ecclesiastical court, has long been one of the most disputed subjects in twelfth-century scholarship. The outcome of the Council, understood as a victory for Bernard of Clairvaux († 1153) over master Abelard, bequeathed us centuries of distorted historical interpretation. For far too long, understanding of what happened was firmly based on the account given by Bernard's biographers, in the first place his secretary (and adoring admirer) Geoffrey of Auxerre, who related the confrontation between Bernard and Abelard in his contribution to the hagiographical biography of the abbot. Not unnaturally, the Vita places Bernard at the center of his time, making him the dominant figure of the twelfth century. Thus no doubt was admissible concerning Abelard's heresy and Bernard's right and justice in condemning him."
Vitz, Evelyn Birge. 1989. Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire. New York: New York University Press.

Chapter 1: Abelard’s Historia calamitatum and Medieval Autobiography, pp. 11-37.
Wade, Francis C. 1963. "Abelard and Individuality." In Die Metaphysik im Mittelalter: ihr Ursprung und ihre Bedeutung. Vorträge des 2. Internationalen Kongresses für mittelalterliche Philosophie, Köln, 31. August-6. September 1961, edited by Wilpert, Paul, 165–171. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"Peter Abelard, in his Logica Ingredientibus proposed to inquire into and solve "diligenter et perquiramus et solvamus"(1) the questions concerning genus and species, which Porphyry had refused to answer in

his Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle. Abelard states his intention: "and since it is known that genera and species are universals and in them Porphyry touches on the nature of all universals generally, let

us inquire here into the common nature of universals by studying these two (genus and species), and let us inquire also whether they apply only to words or to things as well."(2)

The thesis of this brief paper is that Abelard, in spite of his diligent inquiry, could not explain genus and species owing to his unanalyzed conception of an individual." (p. 165)

(...)

"Abelard's failure, therefore, is that of a logician who tried to account for the validity of universal knowledge with no metaphysical doctrine about the constitution of the individual. With no adequate analysis of the individual, it was impossible to give a better answer than he did. His failure thus points up one demand, that one first explain diversity before he try to understand how different things agree, seeing that agreement is between things that are diverse. And yet, in one sense Abelard did not fail. He did not fail philosophy; rather he lived the two commitments that make philosophy a worthwhile human venture. First, even when he could not explain them, he held firmly to the data — that we have universal knowledge, and that existents are individuals. Secondly, though unsuccessful in his own explanation, he never hesitated to affirm that universal knowledge was valid knowledge" (p. 171(

(1) Logica Ingredientibus, 913. All references to Abelard will be made to B. Geyer, Peter Abaelard's Philosophische Schriften, in: BGPhMA. 21, Münster, H. 1 1919, H. 2 1921, H. 3, 1927, H. 4 1933.

(2) Log. Ingred. 913~17, trans, by R. McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers, I, New York: Scribner's Sons, 1929, 221.
Weinrich, Lorenz. 1969. "Peter Abelard as musician - I." The Musical Quarterly no. 55:295–312.

"While we can precisely trace discussions of his theological-philosophical works, the source history of his melodies has been poorly explored.

For a long time one could not form an independent evaluation but could only lament the loss of his music.(2)

But a small ray of light has been shed on Abaelard's sacred songs; since the discovery of the planctus by Carl Greith in 1838 and the hymns by Emile Gachet in 1840, we have possessed at least the texts of these

songs. And now that we have the music for one hymn and two manuscripts containing the melody for a planctus, we may attempt to determine more precisely than before Abaelard's position in the history of

music.

It is perhaps strange that nowhere in his theological and philosophical works does Abaelard express himself on musical matters. In his letters there are only a few scattered remarks that are at all informative and that contribute anything to an attempt to construct a chronology.

Two phases of musical activity need to be distinguished in Abaelard's life ( 1079-1142): (1) the period of his love poems, circa 1115, and (2) the period of his preoccupation with sacred songs, 1130-1135. But

it must be pointed out that there is no direct source tradition for the first phase, and that we are informed about the early songs only by remarks made at a later time." (p. 296)

(2) J. T. Muckle, ed., "Abelard's Letter of Consolation to a Friend (Historia Calamitatum)," Mediaeval Studies, XII (1950), 184 (cap. 6).
———. 1969. "Peter Abelard as musician - II. The Neumes of the Manuscripts of Planctus VI." The Musical Quarterly no. 55:464–486.

"To summarize: two different developments can be distinguished.

Abaelard's planctus, which were religious elegies in content and sequences in form, in one instance found a position in the liturgy and served as a model for the Marian Planctus, a sequence not belonging to the Mass. In another instance both the music and rhythmic structure were used in a French secular lai, a love song. Two new important poetic idioms thus took advantage of Peter Abaelard's bold creations.

But Abaelard's musical oeuvre remained alive in its own right as well. After the early love songs for Heloise had been forgotten, a planctus of Abaelard's continued to be heard." (p. 485)
Wetherbee, Winthrop. 2004. "Literary works." In The Cambridge Companion to Abelard, edited by Brower, Jeffrey E. and Guilfoy, Kevin, 45–125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Though the main concern of this volume is Abelard’s work in philosophy and theology, he made important and original contributions in a number of fields. His substantial essays in apologetic and biblical exegesis are discussed in other chapters.1 Studies still in progress are revealing his extensive and wide-ranging activity as a liturgist, and seeking to recover concrete evidence of his work as a composer of music. But his most remarkable non-philosophical role is as a literary artist, a master of narrative and lyric form who produced art of a high order out of his own complex and tormented life." (p. 45)
Wilks, Ian. 2011. "Peter Abelard." In Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500, Second Edition, edited by Lagerlund, Henrk, 1406–1413. Dordrecht: Springer.

Abstract: "The characteristic doctrines of Peter Abelard (1079–1142) can be arranged under the headings of logic, metaphysics, and ethics.

Abelard rejects the position that logical theory deals with universals taken as things (res).

It deals with words, whose signification is explained by their association with thoughts stripped of individuating detail. His account of propositions is shaped by his distinction between propositional force and propositional content, and by his notion of the dictum, the causally efficacious non-thing which is what a proposition says. His account of inference is especially focused on the nature of conditionals and the sorts of relationships between terms that can be used to verify them.

Abelard’s most characteristic metaphysical view is that the only things which exist are individuals. Forms exist as individual to the things they inhabit, not as shared between things. Material objects are indeed matter/form composites, but their forms are simply arrangements of underlying matter; material objects are thus usefully subject to mereological analysis (i.e., analysis in terms of part/whole relations). Humans, but not animals, have immaterial souls, and are capable of freedom. By contrast God is not free; he can only do the things he does.

Abelard’s most characteristic ethical view is that it is the consent, not the action, that is to be judged as sinful or meritorious. A sinful consent is marked by contempt for God, and is formed explicitly in violation of God’s law.

Law is itself revealed both in the Old and New Testament – yielding Old and New Law, respectively – but is also innately present to humans in the form of natural law. Meritorious consent is marked by love of God – in other words, by charity. Charity is the theological equivalent of justice, which itself holds central place among the cardinal virtues. Justice and charity both enjoin regard for the interests of others, but charity additionally does this as a product of the love of God, and for that reason counts as a more fundamental virtue than justice."
Williams, Carol J. 2021. "The Emotional Landscape of Abelard ’s Planctus David super Saul et Ionatha." In The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages, edited by Monagle, Clare, 99–127. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Abstract: "In Abelard’s Letter 16 addressed to ‘Héloise, sister to be revered in Christ and loved’, he refers to a set of six planctus or laments written in the voices of a number of Old Testament characters. The last of these, Planctus 6, in which David laments for Saul and Jonathan, is probably the most famous and is the only one for which a reliable, original music setting survives.

The laments are all in the first person and provide a deeply personal reflection on the tragic events which inspired them; they are virtuosic in language and almost shockingly intense in emotional range. This study examines Planctus 6 considering the link between Abelard’s language and the expression of specific emotions and, wherever possible, examines how music serves to intensify that expression."
Wulstan, David. 2002. "Novi modulaminis melos: the music of Heloise and Abelard." Plainsong and Medieval Music no. 11:1–23.

Abstract: "Recent developments have uncovered the early correspondence of Heloise and Abelard.

This discovery has allowed the identification of a number of ‘lost’ lyrics by Abelard and has revealed that Heloise, too, was a lyricist of great stature. This article reviews some of their works and touches upon their connection with the ‘goliardic’ tradition, the Carmina Burana, and their influence upon Walther von der Vogelweide and other poets. The sequences and liturgical dramas of Heloise survive with music of an individual style. The dramas, moreover, are of notable originality: they influenced the later history of the genre (including the Carmina Burana Easter dramas) to a considerable and enduring extent.(1)"

(1) This article is necessarily a compression of a rather larger body of material. A fuller discussion will be found in The Poetic and Musical Legacy of Heloise and Abelard [2003]; (hereafter The Poetic and Musical Legacy) and Music from the Paraclete (hereafter MP), both to be published by the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society. Despite the title, MP will include all the secular songs that can be ascribed to Heloise and Abelard.
Ziolkowski, Jan M. 2007. "Peter Abelard as Textual Critic and Historian." The Journal of Medieval Latin no. 17:361–371.

"As a letter writer Peter Abelard is known best for the autobiographical Historia calamitatum, which presents itself ostensibly as a consolatoria [epistola] to an unnamed friend, and his correspondence with Heloise, which amounts to seven letters, often subsumed into the so-called Personal Letters (Letters 2–5) and the so-called Letters of Direction (Letters 6–8)." (p. 361)

(...)

"Less studied have been at least a half dozen other letters, among which are Letters 9–14, which were edited definitively by the late Edmé Smits (1950–1992).(3) These other writings have the disadvantages of not being as closely associated with the personal engagement of Peter Abelard and Heloise, of having separate addressees, and of being transmitted separately rather than in an organic collection. But several of them stand out for being as extraordinary in their own right as is the personal correspondence, and they hold the potential to repay the effort of close examination. In this case I would like to probe two of them to glean insights into Peter Abelard’s practice as a historian and as a textual critic.

Letters 11 and 10 will be treated chronologically, not according to the traditional numbering." (pp. 361-362)

(3) Edmé Renno Smits, ed. Letters IX–XIV. An Edition with an Introduction (Groningen, 1983).

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