Joseph McCabe

CLOUD UPON CLOUD

The abbey of St. MÉdard, to which AbÉlard accompanied his friendly jailer, was a very large monastery on the right bank of the Aisne, just outside Soissons. At that time it had a community of about four hundred monks. It derived a considerable revenue from its two hundred and twenty farms, yet it bore so high a repute for regular discipline that it had become a general ‘reformatory school’ for the district. ‘To it were sent the ignorant to be instructed, the depraved to be corrected, the obstinate to be tamed,’ says a work of the time; though it is not clear how Herr Hausrath infers from this that the abbey also served the purpose of monastic asylum. For this character of penitentiary the place was chosen for the confinement of AbÉlard. Thither he retired to meditate on the joy and the wisdom of ‘conversion.’ ‘God! How furiously did I accuse Thee!’ he says of those days. The earlier wound had been preceded, he admits, by his sin; this far deeper and more painful wound had been brought upon him by his ‘love of our faith.’

Whether Abbot Geoffrey thought AbÉlard an acquisition or no, there was one man in authority at St. MÉdard who rejoiced with a holy joy at his advent. This was no other than AbÉlard’s earlier acquaintance, St. Goswin. The zealous student had become a monastic reformer, and had recently been appointed Prior[18] of St. MÉdard. In the recently reformed abbey, with a daily arrival of ‘obstinate monks to be trained,’ and a convenient and well-appointed ascetical armoury or whipping-room, the young saint was in a congenial element. Great was his interest when ‘Pope Innocent,’[19] as his biographers say, ‘sent AbÉlard to be confined in the abbey, and, like an untamed rhinoceros, to be caught in the bonds of discipline.’ AbÉlard was not long in the abbey before the tamer approached this special task that Providence had set him. We can imagine AbÉlard’s feelings when the obtuse monk took him aside, and exhorted him ‘not to think it a misfortune or an injury that he had been sent there; he was not so much confined in a prison, as protected from the storms of the world.’ He had only to live piously, and set a good example, and all would be well. AbÉlard was in no mood to see the humour of the situation. He peevishly retorted that ‘there were a good many who talked about piety and did not know what piety was.’ Then the prior, say his biographers, saw that it was not a case for leniency, but for drastic measures. ‘Quite true,’ he replied, ‘there are many who talk about piety, and do not know what it is. But if we find you saying or doing anything that is not pious, we shall show you that we know how to treat its contrary, at all events.’ The saint prevailed once more—in the biography: ‘the rhinoceros was cowed, and became very quiet, more patient under discipline, more fearful of the lash, and of a saner and less raving mind.’

Fortunately, the boorish saint had a cultured abbot, one at least who did not hold genius to be a diabolical gift, and whose judgment of character was not wholly vitiated by the crude mystic and monastic ideal of the good people of the period. The abbot seems to have saved AbÉlard from the zeal of the prior, and possibly he found companionable souls amongst the four hundred monks of the great abbey, some of whom were nobles by birth. We know, at all events, that in the later period he looked back on the few months spent at St. MÉdard with a kindly feeling.

His imprisonment did not last long. When the proceedings of the council were made known throughout the kingdom, there was a strong outburst of indignation. It must not be supposed that the Council of Soissons illustrates or embodies the spirit of the period or the spirit of the Church; this feature we shall more nearly find in the Council of Sens, in 1141. The conventicle had, in truth, revealed some of the evils of the time: the danger of the Church’s excessively political attitude and administration, the brutality of the spirit it engendered with regard to heresy, the fatal predominance of dogma over ethic. But, in the main, the conventicle exhibits the hideous triumph of a few perverse individuals, who availed themselves of all that was crude and ill-advised in the machinery of the Church. When, therefore, such men as Tirric, and Geoffrey of Chartres, and Geoffrey of the Stag’s-neck, spread their story abroad, there were few who did not sympathise with AbÉlard. The persecutors soon found it necessary to defend themselves; there was a chaos of mutual incriminations. Even Alberic and Lotulphe tried to cast the blame on others. The legate found it expedient to attribute the whole proceeding openly to ‘French malice.’ He had been ‘compelled for a time to humour their spleen,’ as AbÉlard puts it, but he presently revoked the order of confinement in St. MÉdard, and gave AbÉlard permission to return to St. Denis.

It was a question of Scylla or Charybdis, of Prior Goswin or Abbot Adam. The legate seems to have acted in good faith in granting the permission—perhaps we should say in good policy, for he again acted out of discreet regard for circumstances; but when we find AbÉlard availing himself of what was no more than a permission to return to St. Denis we have a sufficient indication of the quality of his experience at St. MÉdard. He does indeed remark that the monks of the reformed abbey had been friendly towards him, though this is inspired by an obvious comparison with his later experience at St. Denis. But St. MÉdard was a prison; that sufficed to turn the scale. A removal from the penitentiary would be equivalent, in the eyes of France, to a revocation of the censure passed on him. So with a heart that was hopelessly drear, not knowing whether to smile or weep, he went back, poor sport of the gods as he was, to the royal abbey.

For a few months Brother Peter struggled bravely with the hard task the fates had set him. He was probably wise enough to refrain from inveighing, in season and out of season, against the ‘intolerable uncleanness’ of Adam and his monks. Possibly he nursed a hope—or was nursed by a hope—of having another ‘cell’ entrusted to his charge. In spite of the irregularity of the abbey, formal religious exercises were extensively practised. All day and night the chant of the breviary was heard in the monastic chapel. There was also a large and busy scriptorium; the archivium of the ancient abbey was a treasury of interesting old documents; and there was a relatively good library. It was in the latter that Brother Peter found his next adventure, and one that threatened to be the most serious of all.

Seeing the present futility of his theological plans, he had turned to the study of history. There was a copy of Bede’s History of the Apostles in the library, and he says that he one day, ‘by chance,’ came upon the passage in which Bede deals with St. Denis. The Anglo-Saxon historian would not admit the French tradition about St. Denis. He granted the existence of a St. Denis, but said that he had been Bishop of Corinth, not of Athens. The legend about the martyrdom of Denis the Areopagite, with his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, at Paris in the first century, is now almost universally rejected by Roman Catholic historians, not to mention others. It is, however, still enshrined with honour in that interesting compendium of myths of the Christian era, the Roman breviary, and is read with religious solemnity by every priest and every monastic choir in the Catholic world on the annual festival.

However, the abbey of St. Denis, the monastery that owed all its wealth and repute to its possession of the bones of ‘the Areopagite,’ was the last place in the world in which to commence a rationalistic attack on the legend. With his usual want of tact and foresight Brother Peter showed the passage in Bede to some of his fellow-monks, ‘in joke,’ he says; he might as well have cut the abbot’s throat, or destroyed the wine-cellar ‘in joke.’ There was a violent commotion. Heresy about the Trinity was bad, but heresy about the idol of the royal abbey was more touching. It is not quite clear that AbÉlard came to the opinion of modern religious historians, that the St. Denis of Paris was a much later personage than the Areopagite of the Acts of the Apostles, but he seems to hold that opinion. In any case, the monks felt that to be the substance of his discovery, and held it to be an attack on the glory of the abbey. Venerable Bede was, they bluntly replied, a liar. One of their former abbots, Hilduin, had made a journey to Greece for the special purpose of verifying the story.

When the monks flew to Abbot Adam with the story of Brother Peter’s latest outbreak, Adam saw in it an opportunity of terrifying the rebel into submission, if not of effectually silencing him. He called a chapter of the brethren. One’s pen almost tires of describing the cruel scenes to which those harsh days lent themselves. The vindictive abbot perched on his high chair, prior and elder brethren sitting beside him; the hundreds of black-robed, shaven monks lining the room; on his knees in the centre the pale, nervous figure of the Socrates of Gaul. With a mock solemnity, Abbot Adam delivers himself of the sentence. Brother Peter has crowned his misdeeds, in his pride of mind, with an attack, not merely on the abbey that sheltered him, but on the honour and the safety of France. The matter is too serious to be punished by even the most severe methods at the command of the abbey. Brother Peter is to be handed over to the king, as a traitor to the honour of the country. The poor monk, now thoroughly alarmed, abjectly implores the abbot to deal with him in the usual way. Let him be scourged—anything to escape the uncertain temper of King Louis. No, the abbey must be rid of him. He is taken away into confinement, with an injunction that he be carefully watched until it is convenient to send him to Paris.

There were, however, some of the monks who were disgusted at the savage proceeding. A few days afterwards he was assisted to escape from the monastic dungeon during the night, and, ‘in utter despair,’ he fled from the abbey, with a few of his former pupils. It was, in truth, a desperate move. As a deserter from the abbey, the canons required that two stalwart brothers should be sent in pursuit of him, and that he be reimprisoned. As a fugitive from the king’s justice, to which he had been publicly destined, he was exposed to even harsher treatment. However, he made his way into Champagne once more, and threw himself on the mercy of his friends.

One of the friends whom he had attached to himself during his stay at Maisoncelle was prior of St. Ayoul, near the gates of Provins. It was a priory belonging to the monks of Troyes, and both Hatton, Bishop of Troyes, and Theobald, Count of Champagne, were in sympathy with the fugitive. The prior, therefore, received AbÉlard into his convent, to afford at least time for reflection. His condition, however, was wholly uncanonical, and the prior, as well as the abbot of St. Peter of Troyes, urged him to secure some regularity for his absence from St. Denis, so that they might lawfully shelter him at St. Ayoul. AbÉlard summoned what diplomatic faculty he had, and wrote to St. Denis.

‘Peter, monk by profession and sinner by his deeds, to his dearly beloved father, Adam, and to his most dear brethren and fellow-monks,’ was the inscription of the epistle. Brother Peter, it must be remembered, was fighting almost for life; and he was not of the heroic stuff of his friend and pupil, Arnold of Brescia. There are critics who think he descended lower than this concession to might, that he deliberately denied his conviction for the purpose of conciliating Adam. Others, such as Poole, Deutsch, and Hausrath, think the letter does not support so grave a censure. The point of the letter is certainly to convey the impression that Bede had erred, and that AbÉlard had no wish to urge his authority against the belief of the monks. In point of fact, Bede is at variance with Eusebius and Jerome, and it is not impossible that AbÉlard came sincerely to modify the first impression he had received from Bede’s words; in the circumstances, and in the then state of the question, this would not be unreasonable. At the same time a careful perusal of the letter gives one the impression that it is artistic and diplomatic; that AbÉlard has learned tact, rather than unlearned history. It reads like an effort to say something conciliatory about St. Denis, without doing serious violence to the writer’s conscience. Perhaps the abbot of St. Peter’s could have thrown some light on its composition.

Shortly afterwards Abbot Adam came to visit Count Theobald, and AbÉlard’s friends made a direct effort to conciliate him. The prior of St. Ayoul and AbÉlard hurried to the count’s castle, and begged him to prevail upon his guest to release AbÉlard from his obedience. The count tried to persuade Adam to do so, but without success. Adam seemed determined, not so much to rid his happy convent of a malcontent, as to crush AbÉlard. He found plenty of pious garbs to cover his vindictiveness with. At first he deprecated the idea that it was a matter for his personal decision. Then, after a consultation with the monks who accompanied him, he gravely declared that it was inconsistent with the honour of the abbey to release AbÉlard; ‘the brethren had said that, whereas AbÉlard’s choice of their abbey had greatly redounded to its glory, his flight from it had covered them with shame.’ He threatened both AbÉlard and the prior of St. Ayoul with the usual canonical penalties, unless the deserter returned forthwith to obedience.

Adam’s departure, after this fulmination, left AbÉlard and his friends sadly perplexed. The abbot had the full force of canon law on his side, and he was evidently determined to exact his pound of flesh. However, whilst they were busy framing desperate resolves, they received information of the sudden death of Abbot Adam. He died a few days after leaving Champagne, on the 19th of February 1122. The event brought relief from the immediate pressure. Some time would elapse before it would be necessary to resume the matter with Adam’s successor, and there was room for hope that the new abbot would not feel the same personal vindictiveness.

The monk who was chosen by the Benedictines of St. Denis to succeed Adam was one of the most remarkable characters of that curious age. Scholar, soldier, and politician, he had an enormous influence on the life of France during the early decades of the twelfth century. Nature intended him for a minister and a great soldier: chance made him a monk; worldly brothers made him an abbot, and St. Bernard completed the anomaly by ‘converting’ him in 1127. At the time we are speaking of he was the more active and prominent of two men whom Bernard called ‘the two calamities of the Church of France.’ He was born of poor parents, near one of the priories or dependencies of St. Denis. His talent was noticed by the monks, and his ‘vocation’ followed as a matter of course. He was studying in the monastic school when King Philip brought his son Louis to St. Denis, and the abbot sent for him, and made him companion to the royal pupil. He thus obtained a strong influence over the less gifted prince, and when Louis came to the throne in 1108, Suger became the first royal councillor. Being only a deacon in orders, there was nothing to prevent him heading the troops, directing a campaign, or giving his whole time to the affairs of the kingdom. He had proved so useful a minister that, when some of the monks of St. Denis came in great trepidation to tell the king they had chosen him for abbot, they were angrily thrust into prison. Suger himself was in Rome at the time, discharging a mission from the king, and he tells us, in his autobiography, of the perplexity the dilemma caused him. However, before he reached France, the king had concluded that an abbot could be as useful as a prior in an accommodating age. In the sequel, St. Denis became more royal, and less abbatial than ever—until 1127. St. Bernard complained that it seemed to have become the ‘war office’ and the ‘ministry of justice’ of the kingdom.

AbÉlard now seems to have been taken in hand by a more astute admirer, Burchard, Bishop of Meaux. They went to Paris together, and apparently did a little successful diplomacy before the arrival and consecration of Suger. The newly created abbot (he had been ordained priest the day before his consecration) refused to undo the sentence of his predecessor. He was bound by the decision of the abbey, he said; in other words, there was still a strong vindictive feeling against AbÉlard in the abbey, which it was not politic to ignore. It is quite impossible that Suger himself took the matter seriously.

But before Suger’s arrival AbÉlard and his companions had made friends at court. Whether through his pupils, many of whom were nobles, or through his family, is unknown, but AbÉlard for the second time found influence at court when ecclesiastical favour was denied. One of the leading councillors was Étienne de Garlande, the royal seneschal, and means were found to interest him in the case of the unfortunate monk. We have already seen that Stephen had ecclesiastical ambition in his earlier years, and had become a deacon and a canon of Étampes. But when his patron, King Philip, submitted to the Church and to a better ideal of life, Stephen concluded that the path to ecclesiastical dignities would be less smooth and easy for the ‘illiterate and unchaste,’ and he turned to secular ambition. At the time of the events we are reviewing he and Suger were the virtual rulers of France; from the ecclesiastical point of view he was the man whom St. Bernard associated with Suger as ‘a calamity of the Church.’

‘Through the mediation of certain friends’ AbÉlard had enlisted the interest of this powerful personage, and the court was soon known to favour his suit. There are many speculations as to the motive of the king and his councillors in intervening in the monastic quarrel. Recent German historians see in the incident an illustration of a profound policy on the part of the royal council. They think the king was then endeavouring to strengthen his authority by patronising the common people in opposition to the tyrannical and troublesome nobility. Following out a parallel policy with regard to the Church, whose nobles were equally tyrannical and troublesome, Stephen and Suger would naturally befriend the lower clergy in opposition to the prelates. Hence the royal intervention on behalf of the monk of St. Denis is associated with the intervention on the side of the peasantry a few years before.

The theory is ingenious, but hardly necessary. AbÉlard says that the court interfered because it did not desire any change in the free life of the royal abbey, and consequently preferred to keep him out of it. That is also ingenious, and complimentary to AbÉlard. But it is not a little doubtful whether anybody credited him with the smallest influence at St. Denis. We shall probably not be far from the truth if we suppose a court intrigue on the monk’s behalf which his friends did not think it necessary to communicate fully to him. Geoffrey of Chartres and other friends of his were French nobles. Many of his pupils had that golden key which would at any time give access to Étienne de Garlande.

In any case Stephen and Suger had a private discussion of the matter, and the two politicians soon found a way out of the difficulty. AbÉlard received an order to appear before the king and his council. The comedy—though it was no comedy for AbÉlard—probably took place at St. Denis. Louis the Fat presided, in robes of solemn purple, with ermine border. Étienne de Garlande and the other councillors glittered at his side. Abbot Suger and his council were there to defend the ‘honour’ of the abbey; and Brother Peter, worn with anxiety and suffering, came to make a plea for liberty. Louis bids the abbot declare what solution of the difficulty his chapter has discovered. Suger gravely explains that the honour of their abbey does not permit them to allow the fugitive monk to join any other monastery. So much to save the face of the abbey. Yet there is a middle course possible, the abbot graciously continues: Brother Peter may be permitted to live a regular life in the character of a hermit. Brother Peter expresses his satisfaction at the decision—it was precisely the arrangement he desired—and departs from the abbey with his friends, a free man once more, never again, he thinks, to fall into the power of monk or prelate.