There were few formal laws but there was _Custom_ which
was a sovereign law in itself, and above all there was the moral
law of the Church, establishing its great fundamental principles
but leaving details to the working out of life itself. Behind the
sin of Abelard lay his intolerable spiritual pride, his selfishness
and his egotism, qualities that society at large did not recognize
because of their devotion to his engaging personality and their
admiration for his dazzling intellectual gifts. Their idol had
sinned, he had been savagely punished, he had repented; that was
all there was about it and the question was at an end.
In reading the Historia Calamitatum there is one consideration that
suggests itself that is subject for serious thought. Written as it
was some years after the great tragedy of his life, it was a
portrait that somehow seems out of focus. We know that during his
early years in Paris Abelard was a bold and daring champion in the
lists of dialectic; brilliant, persuasive, masculine to a degree;
yet this self-portrait is of a man timid, suspicious, frightened of
realities, shadows, possibilities. He is in abject terror of
councils, hidden enemies, even of his life.
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