Death of Peter Abelard

April 21, 1142

At the Cluniac priory of Saint-Marcel near Chalon-sur-Saone, the broken philosopher died in his mid-sixties. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, sent his body secretly to Heloise at the Paraclete for burial. Their reunion in death would outlast any of his theological opinions. The epitaph Peter wrote for him praised his genius while carefully avoiding the controversial doctrines that had twice brought Abelard to ecclesiastical ruin.