It was to Hildebrand that the
Church owed much of that regeneration of the spirit which gave it
such vitality throughout the twelfth century. Hildebrand died,
indeed, when Abelard was only six years old, but he left the Church
such a force in the affairs of men as it had never been before. As
for Louis the Fat, who reigned from 1108 to 1137, it was he who
began to lift the royal power in France out of the shadow which the
slothfulness and incompetence of his immediate predecessors, Henry
I and Philip I, had cast over it. Discerning enough to see that the
chief enemies of the crown were the great nobles, and constantly
advised by a minister of exceptional wisdom, Suger, abbot of St.
Denis, Louis did his utmost to protect the towns and the churches,
and to bring that small part of France wherein his power was felt
out of the anarchy and chaos of the eleventh century.
It was the France of Louis VI and Sager which formed the background
for the great battle between the realists and the nominalists, the
battle in which Abelard played no small part. His life was divided
between the towns wherein he taught and the Church which
alternately welcomed and denounced him.
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