Abelard and his Legacy

The literary achievements of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), in particular his logic and theology, form the subject of this volume. In the essays Dr Mews has challenged many traditional assumptions about Abelard's development as both a logician and as a theologian. He offers a new framework for understanding the chronology of his writings and argues that a number of texts that have been classified as compositions of Abelard's students, merit particular attention for what they reveal about the evolution of his own ideas, elaborated in the course of his teaching. Abelard emerges as a figure who was continuously revising his thought in response to criticism from his contemporaries. Though he has often not been taken seriously as a theologian, these essays show that he deserves to be seen as one of the most creative thinkers of the 12th century, not least because of this readiness to rethink the ways in which he formulated his ideas.