That Abelard should have fallen before so redoubtable an adversary (see the note on Pierre Abelard) is in no way surprising, but there can be no doubt that St.Bernard's "persecution" of Abelard was inspired solely by high ideals and an intense zeal for the truth as Bernard perceived it.
ABBEY OF ST.

GILDAS Traditionally, at least, this abbey was the oldest one in Brittany.
According to the anonymous author of the Life and Deeds of St.
Gildas, it was founded during the reign of Childeric, the second of the Merovingian kings, in the fifth century.

Be that as it may, its authentic history had been extensive before Abelard assumed the direction of its affairs.

His gruesome picture of the conditions which prevailed there cannot, of course, be accepted as wholly accurate, but even allowing for gross exaggeration, the life of the monks must have been quite sufficiently scandalous.

It was apparently in the closing period of Abelard's sojourn at the abbey of St.Gildas that he wrote the "Historia Calamitatum." He endured the life there for nearly ten years; the date of his flight is not certain, but it cannot have been far from 1134 or 1135.
LEO IX Leo IX, pope from 1049 to 1054, was a native of Upper Alsace.