Today’s word of the day, thanks to Words Coach (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary), is disputatious. Disputatious is an adjective that means “inclined to dispute” or “marked by disputation” or “provoking debate” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disputatious). M-W goes on to say this: “Disputatious is another lengthy adjective applied to people who like to start arguments or find something to disagree about, and it can be used to characterize situations and issues as well. For example, court trials are disputatious; that is, they are marked by the action of disputing. And an issue or matter is disputatious if it provokes controversy. However, if a matter, such as an assertion made by someone, is open to question rather than downright controversial, it’s merely disputable. In any case, there’s no arguing that disputatious, dispute, and disputable have diverged somewhat in meaning from their Latin source: the verb disputare means simply ‘to discuss’” (ibid.).

The pronunciation is / ˌdɪs pyʊˈteɪ ʃəs / (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disputatious), with the emphasis on the third syllable. And notice that the second syllable is not u but yʊ.

Etymonline.com says that it appears in English in the “1650s; see disputation + -ous. Related: Disputatiously. In the sense ‘inclined to disputation,’ earlier words were disputative (1570s), disputeful (1630s); Shakespeare used disputable (c. 1600)” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=disputatious). And for the root word disputation, the website says that it is from “from Old French desputasion and directly from Latin disputationem (nominative disputatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of disputare ‘weigh, examine, discuss, argue, explain’” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/disputation).

And the root word of that, dispute, appeared “c. 1300, ‘engage in argumentation or discussion,’ from Old French disputer (12c.) ‘dispute, fight over, contend for, discuss’ and directly from Latin disputare ‘weigh, examine, discuss, argue, explain,’ from dis- ‘separately, apart’ (see dis-) + putare ‘to count, consider,’ originally ‘to prune, make clean, clear up’ (from PIE root *pau- (2) ‘to cut, strike, stamp’).

“The Latin word was used in Vulgate in sense of ‘to argue, contend with words.’ In English, transitive sense of ‘argue against, attempt to disprove, deny’ is from 1510s” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=dispute).

On this date in 1140, according to On This Day, “French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy” (https://www.onthisday.com/events/june/3). Not to be disputatious, but that might be misleading.

Peter Abelard, nee “’Pierre le Pallet’, was born c. 1079 in Le Pallet,” France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Abelard). Though his father was a knight and a minor noble, he encouraged his son to study the liberal arts. So he became a teacher and a philosopher. He changed his surname to ‘Abelard’, sometimes written ‘Abailard’ or ‘Abaelardus’” (ibid.). Quick note: spelling was not as a big thing in the Middle Ages as it is today; we have six extant signatures by William Shakespeare, but there are five different spellings (though perhaps one or two are abbreviations).

“He first studied in the Loire area, where the nominalist Roscellinus of Compiègne, who had been accused of heresy by Anselm, was his teacher during this period” (ibid.). Around 1100, he moved to Paris and studied at the Notre Dame cathedral under William of Champeaux. But Abelard soon fell out with both Roscellinus and William over questions of philosophy.

After some personal problems which I’ll come back to, Abelard moved to a monastery, but he was soon teaching and studying again: “Using his studies of the Bible and — in his view — inconsistent writings of the leaders of the church as his basis, he wrote Sic et Non (Yes and No)” (ibid.) and then published some lectures on theology called Theologia Summi Boni (Theology of the Supreme Good). Apparently Abelard coined the term theology. But not everyone loved his work:  “Alberich of Reims and Lotulf of Lombardy, instigated proceedings against Abelard, charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial synod held at Soissons in 1121” (ibid.). He was fairly quickly found guilty and had to publicly burn Theologia Summi Boni.

Abelard was required to live at the Abbey of St. Denis, but he wasn’t happy there. In fact, he got on the monks’ nerves by arguing with them about all kinds of things. H was finally allowed to leave St. Denis, and he went off by himself, building a cabin for himself. But his students soon discovered where he was, and they flocked to him. So he built a more substantial building that he called the Oracle of the Paraclete. This pattern of behavior occurred again.

In 1136, he was teaching again when “William of St Thierry … discovered what he considered to be heresies in some of Abelard’s teaching” (ibid.). These accusations were sent on to higher ups in the church, including Bernard of Clairvaux. “Amid pressure from Bernard, Abelard challenged Bernard either to withdraw his accusations, or to make them publicly at the important church council at Sens planned for 2 June 1141. In so doing, Abelard put himself into the position of the wronged party and forced Bernard to defend himself from the accusation of slander. Bernard avoided this trap, however: on the eve of the council, he called a private meeting of the assembled bishops and persuaded them to condemn, one by one, each of the heretical propositions he attributed to Abelard. When Abelard appeared at the council the next day, he was presented with a list of condemned propositions imputed to him.” So when On This Day says he was “found guilty of heresy,” it’s not like there was actually a trial. Furthermore, after his death, the excommunication was lifted, implying that perhaps the heresies were not really heresies after all.

The personal problems I mentioned above had to do with a woman: “Héloïse d’Argenteuil lived within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the secular canon Fulbert. She was famous as the most well-educated and intelligent woman in Paris, renowned for her knowledge of classical letters, including not only Latin but also Greek and Hebrew” (ibid.). They met and fell in love, and she got pregnant. He called it a seduction, but her writings make clear that the feelings were mutual. They eventually married, but they lived most of their adult lives apart, mostly in abbeys. But at one point her uncle Fulbert hired a group of men to punish Abelard for seducing his niece—and Abelard was castrated. “In legal retribution for this vigilante attack, members of the band were punished, and Fulbert, scorned by the public, took temporary leave of his canon duties” (ibid.).

Alexander Pope, the great poet of the Eighteenth Century, known for his satires (“The Rape of the Lock” et al.) and poetic essays (“The Essay on Criticism,” “The Essay on Man,” et al.) composed what is likely his most Romantic poem, “Eloisa to Abelard,” an epistolary poem (so it reads like a letter written by Heloise to Abelard) on these two lovers. Not only is the poem full of feeling, a trait not normally associated with the Neoclassical age of poetry in England, but it is even a bit self-referential. It closes with this:

And sure, if fate some future bard shall join

In sad similitude of griefs to mine,

Condemn’d whole years in absence to deplore,

And image charms he must behold no more;

Such if there be, who loves so long, so well;

Let him our sad, our tender story tell;

The well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost;

He best can paint ’em, who shall feel ’em most.

Pope was, of course, that “future bard.”

Then again, I have read some criticism on the poem that tries to deny its Romantic qualities, but those authors were just being disputatious. Today’s image is of Eloisa to Abelard. Illustration for Golden Book of Famous Women (Hodder and Stoughton, c 1910), created by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/N842495/Eloisa-and-Abelard-Alexander-Pope-Eloisa-to-Abelard).