And ‘these,’ wrote Bernard, with fine contempt, to his friend, Pope Innocent, ‘are the chief errors of the theology, or rather the stultilogy, of Peter Abélard.’
CHAPTER XIII
THE FINAL BLOW
On the 4th of June 1141, the cathedral at Sens was filled with one of the strangest throngs that ever gathered within its venerable walls. Church and state and the schools had brought their highest representatives and their motley thousands to witness the thrilling conflict of the two first thinkers and orators of France. On the previous day the magnificent ceremony of the veneration of the relics had taken place. At that ceremony the abbot of Clairvaux had discoursed of the meaning and potency of their act. And when the vast crowds of gentle and simple folk had quickened and sobbed and enthused at his burning words, he had ventured to ask their prayers for the conversion of an unbeliever, whom he did not name.
Now, on the Monday morning, the great concourse had streamed into the cathedral once more, an intense eagerness flashing from the eyes of the majority. The red Mass of the Holy Spirit had been chanted by the clerics, and the clouds of incense still clung about the columns and the vaulted roof of the church. King Louis sat expectant, and stupid, on the royal throne; the Count de Nevers and a brilliant group of nobles and knights standing beside and behind him. Opposite them another gaily apparelled group presented Henry, Archbishop of Sens, with five of his suffragan bishops; beside him sat Samson, Archbishop of Rheims, with three suffragans. Mitred abbots added to the splendour with their flash of jewels. Shaven monks, with the white wool of Cîteaux or the black tunic of St. Benedict, mingled with the throng of canons, clerics, scholastics, wandering masters, ragged, cosmopolitan students, and citizens of Sens and Paris in their gay holiday attire.
It was, at first sight, just such an assembly as Abélard had dreamed of when he threw down the gauntlet to the Cistercian. But he must have looked far from happy as he stood in the midst of his small band of followers. As he passed into the cathedral, he had noticed Gilbert de la Porée in the crowd, the brilliant master who was to be Bernard’s next victim, and he whispered smilingly the line of Horace:
‘It is thy affair when thy neighbour’s house is on fire.’
With Abélard were the impetuous young master, Bérenger of Poitiers; the stern, ascetic, scornful young Italian, Arnold of Brescia, flashing into the eyes of the prelates the defiance that brought him to the stake fourteen years afterwards; and the young Roman noble, Hyacinth, who afterwards became cardinal.
Beside these, and a host of admiring nonentities, Abélard almost looked in vain for a friendly face amidst the pressing throng. The truth was that, as Rémusat says, ‘if Bernard had not prepared for debate, he had made every preparation for the verdict.’ The whole cathedral was with him. After his discourse of the preceding day, and the rumours that had preceded it, the priest-ridden citizens of Sens were prepared to stone the heretic, as the people of Soissons had threatened to do. The students would be divided, according to their schools. The monks longed to see the downfall of their critic. The king—the man who was to bear to his grave ‘the curse of Europe and the blessing of St. Bernard’—was not likely to hesitate. The Count de Nevers was a pious, credulous noble, who afterwards became a Cistercian monk. Otto of Freising says Count Theobald of Champagne was present, though the report does not mention him; in any case he had fallen largely under Bernard’s influence since his sister had gone down in the White Ship in 1120. The clergy of Sens were with Bernard; their motto was: ‘The church of Sens knows no novelties.’ Of the judges proper, Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, was almost the only one who could be termed neutral; and even he had now become greatly amenable to Bernard’s influence. Archbishop Henry was completely in the hands of Bernard, his converter, who scolded him at times as if he were a boy. Archbishop Samson of Rheims owed his pallium to Bernard, in the teeth of the king’s opposition; he was deprived of it some years afterwards. Hugo of Mâcon, the aged Bishop of Auxerre, was a relative of Bernard’s and a fellow-monk at Cîteaux. Joscelin of Vieri, Bishop of Soissons, was the former teacher of Goswin, and the associate of Bernard on a papal mission a few years before. Geoffrey, Bishop of Châlons, Abélard’s former friend at St. Médard, had since been helped to a bishopric by Bernard. Hatto, Bishop of Troyes, had been won to Bernard. Alvise, Bishop of Arras, is said to have been a brother of Abbot Suger and friend of Goswin. Of the only two other bishops present, Helias of Orleans and Manasses of Meaux, we have no information.