Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/161

Rh was about to visit Sens, and his presence would bring together a concourse of prelates to whose numbers and eminence the appellant could look with a greater probability of impartial judgement than it had been his lot to meet with at his trial at Soissons. Then too he had been the accused; now he was the challenger. The difference, it seems, truly characterises the change that Abailard's mind had undergone through his long years of suffering and disappointment. His confidence in his absolute orthodoxy had never failed him; but now for the first time was it a pressing need to him to bring it into clear publicity.

Fifteen years earlier Abailard had seen in Norbert and Bernard the two principal troublers of his peace: a monk himself, he had enough reason to distrust and rebel against the narrow and professional tendencies of his order. Now, Norbert was dead; but Bernard was still there, and all-powerful with a large section of the religious community. It was evident in Abailard's mind that the meeting at Sens was to be a duel, but Bernard was not equally eager to engage in it. Such contests, he said, he disdained; it was not to their decision that the verities of faith were to be subjected: Abailard's writings were by themselves sufficient to convict him. None the less did he circulate an inflammatory letter among the prelates who were about to take part in the council. At length he yielded to the representations of his followers and made his appearance at Sens. Abailard was also present; but hardly had the council opened, hardly was the recital of his heresies begun, when, by