In point of historical fact there is no reason for thinking that Abélard made any effort to gather supporters. The few we read of accompanied him from Paris. He had scarcely a single friend in the ranks of his ‘judges.’ On the other hand we _do_ know that Bernard himself sent out a strong and imperious ‘whip’ to his episcopal supporters. There is a brief letter, contained in the _Migne_ collection, which was despatched to all the French bishops on whom Bernard could rely for sympathy and support. They have heard, he says, of his summons to appear at Sens on the Octave of Pentecost. ‘If the cause were a personal one,’ he goes on, ‘the child of your holiness could perhaps not undeservedly look to your support [patrocinium]. But it is your cause, and more than yours; and so I admonish you the more confidently and entreat you the more earnestly to prove yourselves friends in this necessity—friends, I should say, not of me, but of Christ.’ And he goes on to prejudge the case in the mind of the official judges with his rhetorical denunciation of Abélard’s heresies. ‘Be not surprised,’ he concludes, ‘that I summon you so suddenly and with so brief a notice; this is another ruse of our cunning adversary, so that he might meet us unprepared and unarmed.’
The consequence of the sending of this whip will be apparent when we come to examine the composition of the gathering at Sens. It marks the beginning of a period of most remarkable intrigue. The idyllic picture of the poor abbot making his way at the last moment to the assembly with a sublime trust in Providence and the righteousness of his cause must be regarded again at the close of the next chapter.
Whether Bernard formally accepted the summons or not, therefore, authentic information was conveyed to both sides that the debate would take place. It will be readily imagined how profoundly stirred the kingdom of France would be over such an expectation. The bare qualities of the antagonists put the discussion leagues above any remembered or contemporary event in the scholastic world; the object of the debate—the validity of the new thought that was rapidly infecting the schools—was a matter of most material concern. Deutsch has a theory of the conflict which seems to be only notable as an illustration of the profundity of the Teutonic mind. He opines there may have been a political struggle underlying the academic demonstration. Louis was just beginning his struggle with Rome over the vexed question of investitures, and it is conceivable that the Abélardists leaned to the side of the king, in opposition to Bernard and the ‘ultramontanes.’ It is conceivable, but not at all probable. Abélard’s sermon on St. Peter indicates a really ultramontane sentiment; moreover, he has ever kept aloof from the political side of life. His follower, Arnold of Brescia, would be likely enough to fall in with any such regal design. Arnold was a young Luther, of premature birth. Born in Italy at the beginning of the twelfth century, he had travelled to France, and studied under Abélard, at an early age. He returned to Italy, and assumed the monastic habit. An enthusiastic idealist and a man of proportionate energy and audacity, he soon entered upon a fiery crusade against the sins of the monks, the clergy, and the hierarchy. He was driven from Italy in 1139, then from Switzerland, and he had just taken refuge in Paris when Bernard started his campaign. Since one of his most prominent theories was that the higher clergy should be stripped of all temporal privileges and possessions, his place is easily determined on the question of investitures. However, it is most unlikely that he should have dragged Abélard into these semi-political and dangerous questions. And although Bernard most sedulously urges the association of the hated Arnold with Abélard in his letters to Rome, he never mentions a suspicion of such a coalition as Deutsch suggests; nor, in fine, does the conduct of the secular arm give the least countenance to the theory.