The Fame of Abelard

Abelard pushed the boundaries of group culture by establishing himself as a medieval celebrity, famous to a wider circle of people in medieval France. Fame in the Middle Ages was normally limited to the divine, the holy, and great rulers. But, with the arrival and adventures of Abelard, it came to include a new kind of scholar-celebrity from the minor nobility. This thesis examines how Abelard formed a new type of celebrity culture by adding new dimensions to the meanings, possibilities, and rewards of medieval fame. The complex nature of celebrity culture and Abelard’s life sparks interesting questions about how Abelard achieved fame and whether his fashioning of such was an intentional strategy, how people reacted to the emerging idea of individual fame, and the benefits and damages it brought in his case.