The movement was vigorous and earnest, and it was a really studious host which thronged to the lessons of Abelard at Paris, on Mount St.Genevieve, at Melun, at Corbeil, and at the Paraclete; but this host contained but few of the people; the greater part of those who formed it were either already in the church, or soon, in various capacities, about to be.

And the discussions raised at the meetings corresponded with the persons attending them; there was the disputation of the schools; there was no founding of sects; the lessons of Abelard and the questions he handled were scientifico-religious; it was to expound and propagate what they regarded as the philosophy of Christianity, that masters and pupils made bold use of the freedom of thought; they made but slight war upon the existing practical abuses of the church; they differed from her in the interpretation and comments contained in some of her dogmas; and they considered themselves in a position to explain and confirm faith by reason.

The chiefs of the church, with St.Bernard at their head, were not slow to descry, in these interpretations and comments based upon science, danger to the simple and pure faith of the Christian; they saw the apparition of dawning rationalism confronting orthodoxy.

They were, as all their contemporaries were, wholly strangers to the bare notion of freedom of thought and conscience, and they began a zealous struggle against the new teachers; but they did not push it to the last cruel extremities.

They had many a handle against Abelard: his private life, the scandal of his connection with Heloise, the restless and haughty fickleness of his character, laid him open to severe strictures; but his stern adversaries did not take so much advantage of them as they might have taken.