Volume 286 of the Continuatio Mediaevalis presents the first critical edition of the sermons of Peter Abelard gathered by the author on behalf of the nuns of the Paraclete, as Abelard’s dedicatory letter to Heloise makes clear.
(Continue reading below the cover image)
The collection contains 35 sermons, 33 of which were edited 1616 by François d’Amboise and André Duchesne. Unfortunately, the manuscript that was kept at the Sorbonne and was used for the editio princeps, has disappeared. Only 6 out of the 33 sermons have survived, in three recently discovered manuscripts. A supplementary sermon (s. 34) of the same collection and a fragment of an extra sermon (against the Cistercians) turned up respectively in one of those manuscripts. Modern scholars have provided editions of the eight sermons that survived in the manuscripts. Well acquainted with Peter Abelard’s writings skills and style, the editor investigated and compared the six sermons of the editio princeps that are also present in the manuscripts. After this profound research, he took the immense job of re-editing the entire collection. Where necessary he intervened on the basis of his knowledge of the language and ideas of Abelard.
Unfortunately, Prof. Engels passed away in 2017. As he had agreed with Brepols, the editorial team of the Corpus Christianorum and Christine Vande Veire in particular completed the edition.