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[p. i]
PETER ABÉLARD
[p. ii]
All rights reserved
Copyrighted in America
[p. iii]
PETER ABÉLARD
BY
JOSEPH McCABE
AUTHOR OF
‘TWELVE YEARS IN A MONASTERY,’ ETC.
LONDON
DUCKWORTH and CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1901
[p. iv]
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
[p. v]
PREFACE
The author does notthink it necessary to offer any apology for having written a lifeof Abélard. The intense dramatic interest of his life is known froma number of brief notices and sketches, but English readers have nocomplete presentation of the facts of that remarkable career in ourown tongue. The History of Abailard of Mr. Berington, dating fromthe eighteenth century, is no longer adequate or useful. Many Frenchand German scholars have rewritten Abélard’s life in the light ofrecent knowledge and feeling, but, beyond the short sketches to befound in Compayré, Poole, Rashdall, Cotter Morison, and others, noEnglish writer of the nineteenth century has given us a completestudy of this unique and much misunderstood personality. Perhapsone who has also had a monastic, scholastic, and ecclesiasticalexperience may approach the task with a certain confidence.
[p. vi]
In the matter of positive information the last century has addedlittle directly to the story of Abélard’s life. Indirectly, however,modern research has necessarily helped to complete the