Peter Abelard is one of the most famous and influential intellects and one of the most notorious figures of the twelfth century, an era designated one of the renaissances of human thought because of the intensity of its intellectual and literary activity. His birthplace in Brittany was the wellspring of Arthurian narrative and a cradle of fin'amor (fine or noble love); however, Abelard renounced his claim to his patrimony to enter the lists of intellectual debate. Abelard's cause was that of reason in the service of faith; his approach to authority was to apply the process of dialectic in a respectful questioning, the purpose of which was often misinterpreted by his opponents. His methods, which were so suspect and vilified during his lifetime, paved the way for the flowering of Scholasticism in the thirteenth century.

Abelard was born circa 1079 into a house of the minor nobility of Brittany...