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Article: Abelard: A Medieval Life.(Review)
- Article from:
- Canadian Journal of History
- Article date:
- April 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Canadian Journal of History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Abelard: A Medieval Life, by M.T. Clanchy. Oxford, England, Blackwell, 1997. xiii, 416 pp. $59.95 U.S.
This is a difficult book. At dual purposes and, indeed, cross purposes, it consequently falls into a grey area between academic biography and textbook. This makes it hard to appraise as we can not be certain which type the author is pursuing at some points. That said, the biographical sections provide an excellent examination of a truly bizarre life while the textbook sections are highly useful teaching tools. Although such a combination would seem guaranteed to fail, in Clanchy's hands it seems to work.
The textbook aspects are these: a brief account ...