The precise locality of the ‘cell’ which was entrusted to Brother Peter is matter of dispute, and the question need not delay us. It was somewhere on the estates of Count Theobald of Champagne, and therefore not very far from Paris. Here Abélard consented to resume his public lectures, and ‘gathered his horde of barbarians about him’ once more, in the jealous phrase of Canon Roscelin.
Otto von Freising relates that Abélard had now become ‘more subtle and more learned than ever.’ There is no reason to doubt that he continued to advance in purely intellectual power, but it seems inevitable that he must have lost much of the brightness and charm of his earlier manner. Yet his power and his fascination were as great as ever. Maisoncelle, or whatever village it was, was soon transformed into the intellectual centre of France. It is said by some historians that three thousand students descended upon the village, like a bewildering swarm of locusts. Abélard says the concourse was so great that ‘the district could find neither hospitality nor food’ for the students. One need not evolve from that an army of several thousand admirers, but it seems clear that there was a second remarkable gathering of students from all parts of Christendom. There was no teacher of ability to succeed him at Paris; he was still the most eminent master in Europe. Even if he had lost a little of the sparkle of his sunny years, no other master had ever possessed it. Indeed, it is not audacious to think that the renewal of his early success and the sweetness of life in lovely Champagne may have in time quickened again such forces and graces of his character as had not been physically eradicated. He began to see a fresh potentiality of joy in life.
Unfortunately for Abélard, his perverse destiny had sent him down to the neighbourhood of Rheims. It will be remembered that Anselm of Laon was urged to suppress Abélard’s early theological efforts by two of his fellow-pupils, Alberic of Rheims and Lotulphe of Novare. Alberic appears to have been a man of ability, and he had been made archdeacon of the cathedral, and head of the episcopal school, at Rheims. He had associated Lotulphe with himself in the direction of the schools, and they were teaching with great success when Abélard appeared on the near horizon. Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux had gone, and the two friends were eager to earn the title of their successors. The apparent extinction of Master Abélard had largely increased their prestige, and had filled the school of Rheims. Indeed, we gather from the details of a ‘town and gown’ fight which occurred at Rheims about this time that the students had almost come to outnumber the citizens.
