Had Abelard's courage held good, he might have won his case, for Bernard was frankly terrified at the prospect of meeting so formidable a dialectitian, but Abelard, broken in spirit by the prolonged persecution from which he had suffered, contented himself with appealing to the Pope.

The indefatigable Bernard at once proceeded to secure a condemnation of Abelard from Rome, whither the accused man set out to plead his case.

On the way, however, he collapsed, both physically and in spirit, and remained for a few months at the abbey of Cluny, whence his friends removed him, a dying man, to the priory of St.Marcel, near Chalons-sur-Saone.

Here he died on April 21, 1142.
A discussion of Abelard's position among the scholastic philosophers would necessarily go far beyond the proper limits of a mere historical note.

He stands out less commandingly as a constructive philosopher than as a master of dialectics.