similar terms to Roscelin.[1] Roscelin had his answer ;
in vituperation he was a match for his scholar : but
possibly the taint attaching to his name prevented the
affair from being carried further. The actual blow came
from Rheims, where those same masters, Alberic and
Lotulf, who had long before procured the discontinuance
of Abailard’s informal lectures at Laon, now presided
over the cathedral school. In the seven or eight years
that had passed since then they had risen to an influential
position.[2] They aspired to be the successors of Anselm
and William of Champeaux. and their authority stood high
in the counsels of Eodulph the archbishop of Rheims.
The latter they prevailed upon to arrange with the papal
legate, Conan, bishop of Palestrina, the assembly of a
council to enquire into Abailard s errors : and so it came
about. Abailard was tried before the council of Soissons
in 1121, and he was condemned.
Of the details of this affair it is difficult to judge.
- ↑ This is evident from the fact that while Roscelin s rejoinder keeps pretty closely to the lines of Abailard s extant letter, it also animadverts in set terms upon some expressions not to be found in that letter. Everything more over contradicts Cousin s notion, Abael. Opp. 2. 792, that Rosce- lin s letter drew forth that of Abailard to the bishop : for the latter, as appears from its be ginning, is an answer not to a specific letter but to a report which Roscelin had circulated ; while Abailard s countercharges are all presupposed in the letter of Roscelin. The discovery of this letter, it may be added, has finally settled an old controversy with reference to the authenticity and motive of Abailard s, and re markably confirmed the prior arguments of Andre Duchesne, Abael. Opp. 1. 50 sq., and Re- musat, vol. 1. 81 n. 2. Hitherto it had naturally been questioned whether Roscelin could be alive at so late a date. The new fact has been skilfully applied to fill in the detail of his biography by M. Haureau. Singularites histor- iques et litteraires 222-230, who had already discovered Rosce- lin s name (Roscelino do Com- pendio) among the signatories to a deed at Saint Martin s, Tours, about the year 1111, Gallia Christiana 14, instrum. 80 r> ; 1856.
- ↑ See the verses commemorat ing Alberic in the Life of Adelbert the Second, archbishop of Mentz, by one Anselm, vcr. 599-606, Jaffe, Bibliotheca Rerum Germani- carum, 3. 586. Part of it de scribes the master as follows : Qui nova pandendo, set non antiqua silendo, Littcra quae celat vetus aut nova scripta, rcvelat, Dogmatis immensi dux primus in urbe Remensi, Testamentorum pandens recretaduorum, ver. 603-6 6. For another sign of the regard in which Alberic was held, see the extract given above, p. 68 n. 30.
