Rethinking Abelard: A Collection of Critical Essays ed. by Babette S. Hellemans (review)

Abelard has been dead for nearly nine centuries, but his appeal across that expanse of time has not dwindled. It is the mother of all weariness to repeat uncritically the wisdom or findings of the past. This volume avoids adding to the burden of redundancy. In rethinking Abelard, new ground is gained and a measure of provocation has been offered for the road ahead; the adage of finding new ways to approach old problems is fulfilled in this volume.

There is little to critique beyond personal quibbles (which may rightly be excluded) in this collection of essays. Contributions by Constant Mews, Michael Clanchy, and Wim Verbaal are particularly useful. What is evident is that among the multiple interpretations and hermeneutical quagmires that beset any complex historical topic, this collection appears to facilitate understanding and encourage questions in concert with the spirit of Abelard himself. If Abelard used letters, poetry, and preaching to reform monasticism, the thirteen contributors have drawn our attention to almost as many updated or newly blazed pathways for approaching Abelard.

Verbaal’s admonitions about Abelard as icon, and the savagery of the guardians of the icon who are offended by proper scholarship, are both sound and sobering. What is needed, indeed required, is a rethinking of Abelard which takes seriously the encouragement to regard Abelard himself as a perverse twelfth-century topic (or text) which should be subjected to a robust and rigorous perverse reading in order to avoid a real perverse historicisation. After all, an entire coterie in his own time considered him perverse. Perverse heretic! This is more refreshing than the ideologically constructed icon. Hellemans may be right to suggest that Abelard’s greatness has less to do with linguistic speculations, or theology, or philosophical discourse, or even logic, but more in his withdrawal from these preoccupations. Intellectually fearless, Abelard charged straight at whatever obstacle lay in his path. This book suggests the same approach in its rethinking of a man whose teaching (if we take William of St Thierry literally) was even more monstrous than that suggested by the monstrous titles of his books. What a compelling predicament. Never pedestrian, seldom disappointing, always exciting, Abelard should be praised for distressing his world. This book might also be lauded for shining new light into the dark corners of one of the truly fascinating men of the Middle Ages.