This book has been translated from the French by Henry Adams Bellows, a very poor English speaker. This book is unreadable.

Few things can lift me up more effortlessly than the account of another man’s misfortunes, if the account is well told, and if the misfortunes are grievous enough. The Story of my Misfortunes is a lucid recital of pain, shame, and ongoing hardship. Therefore I judge that the author’s aim, “that, in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought, or at the most of small account, and so shall you come to bear them more easily,” (Foreword), has found its target audience at least once. It is not from glorying in another man’s trouble that one should enjoy a book like this. The knowledge of another man’s evil fortune will make you dwell less on your own by showing you that, in some aspects at least, you are better off than the dejected man whose history you are learning about.

The cause of many of these misfortunes was Abelard’s advocacy and practice of Nominalism, the definition of which is covered in the Introduction by Ralph Adams Cram and in the Appendix under the head, The Universals. What is written about it fore-and-aft, however, is not sufficient to convey a satisfactory comprehension of it. The reason is that the medieval controversy between Nominalism and Realism cannot be easily explained and understood, which I was soon forced to admit when my research on the issue turned up little that could help me more than what this volume included on it. My own take on the terms from the notes I gathered might not help much. But here is my cobbled-together effort, anyway. Realism affirms that there are types in the divine mind of the things that exist. Nominalism says that our concepts of these things are notions in our mind, nothing more. Vis-à-vis theology, the Realist relies on Special Revelation (Scripture) more than on Reason, and allows that Revelation to dictate truths that Reason cannot get its mind around, like the doctrine of the Trinity. The Nominalist would rather come to truths about God by Reason alone, and he would use logic to develop and vindicate the doctrines that he believes in. A clash may occur between the Nominalist and the Realist when the results of each come to be applied to such doctrines as the Trinity, the atonement, and original sin. So do not believe the simpleton when he says that this controversy is merely academic. The issues are to die for, and many have. Because Nominalism says that there is no conception of a Church above the individuals who are in it, the Nominalist approach by Abelard tended also to undermine the authority of his own Church of Rome (p. 86.) Nominalism usually leads, because of its reliance on fallen reason, to Rationalism: any worldview that begins with man alone (apart from Scripture) to discover life’s meaning. So even though the term Nominalist is little known and used today, most people, be they intellectuals or not, are Nominalists through-and-through. Special Revelation, or Scripture, is reasonable, but sometimes above Reason, and so must be trusted above Reason even as Reason is used by the individual to understand what God has revealed in his word.

Most readers will be thankful that the nuts and bolts of this controversy between Realism and Nominalism are kept out of Abelard’s narrative of sorrowful events. The story is more about practical consequences than theoretical antecedents. The centerpiece of Abelard’s misfortunes, moreover, may have less to do with the consequences of Nominalism than with love and lust. I will not spoil the sad story by revealing too much. Keeping it general from Abelard’s own words, the sum is this: “But prosperity always puffs up the foolish, and worldly comfort enervates the soul, rendering it an easy prey to carnal temptations…First was I punished for my sensuality, then for my pride” (pp. 14, 15.) Because of its full disclosure of events, the Introduction should be read after the narrative, not before.

That Introduction, by the way, which informs very well and eloquently, is not just full of spoilers, but of strange opinions too. Was there really a wide ‘diversity of speculation and freedom of thought’ (p. iv) in Abelard’s era under Roman Catholicism? Did feudalism and Catholicism really produce ‘the unifying force of a common and vital religion’? (p. iv.) If ‘Catholicism was universally and implicitly accepted’ (an overstatement, p. iii), was it not because it was forced? Is forced religion really ‘unified’ and ‘vital’? Was the society that came about through the Renaissance and the Reformation really worse than feudalism? (p. iv.) Did the Puritans really put sexual sins ‘at the head of the whole category’? (p. xviii.) On that page, Mr. Cram seems to go quite easy on ‘sins of the flesh,’ over and against his exaggerated presentation of Puritanism. He is a Roman Catholic, no doubt, for ‘subjective intention’ determines moral value, in his opinion (p. xxi), and there is not a word from him about what faith in the righteousness of Christ might determine for us.

Peter Abelard, being Roman Catholic, obviously accepted dogmas of Rome that are to Protestants, unorthodox. But his history is hardly about any of that. And he is not afraid to point out embarrassments about his Church: “The abbey…to which I had betaken myself was utterly worldly and in its life quite scandalous” (pp. 33, 34.) Has anything changed? Again, “I fell among Christians and monks who were far more savage than heathens and more evil of life” (p. 61.) Quite similar in spirit to what can happen today, is it not?

The Story of my Misfortunes is interesting, not just because it is from an age that we are fascinated to learn about, but because the author, being fascinated by stories from ages previous to his own, has scattered many of these throughout his text. There are excellent lessons to be taken from this book, not just from Abelard’s great moral failure, but through these ancient stories related by him, particularly on pages 52 and 53 concerning mortification, a virtue that is now nearly completely absent from Christendom.

This book is small but satisfying. It could become one of your little favorites. At the top of each page, the original title appears in a somber font, Historia Calamitatum. Very affecting, too, is the facsimile of the original manuscript that is generously included. This tiny paperback is nice in every way, from the telling picture on the front cover to the Catalog of Dover Books at the end. This book of misfortunes, through a show of sufferings greater than our own, is really a book of comfort.

So many books and so little time. The story of Peter Abelard has to be a classic along with the misery he went through for the love of a woman and his church.