Every reader of Abelar's Historia Calamilatum, the ‘story of his misfortunes’, knows how he mocked histnaster, Anselm of Laon. What has not been made clear is that he mocked in a comparable way a master of even greater standing, St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury. The reason why this latter attack has not been emphasised is that it appears in one version only of Abelar's Theologia, and its interpretation as mockery depends on detailed scrutiny. Abelard delighted in jokes, particularly when they were dangerous. ‘He cannot restrain his laughter,’ St Bernard warned, ‘listen to his guffaws.’ Jokes depend so much for their effect upon tone and context that it is difficult for an historian to keep an ear out for them when he only has formal texts as evidence; furthermore, a joke loses its cutting edge once it has been laboriously explained. Nevertheless, Abelar's mockery of St Anselm does have to be explained step by step if it is to be appreciated at all. The circumstances are as follows.

One of the most remarkable changes to take place at German Protestant universities during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first twenty years of the seventeenth century was the return of metaphysics after more than halfa century of absence. University metaphysics has acquired a reputation for sterile aridity which was strengthened rather than diminished by its survival in early modern times, when such disciplines are supposed deservedly to have vanished with the end of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, this survival has attracted some attention this century. For a long urne it was assumed that German Protestants needed a metaphysical defence against the intellectual vigour of the Jesuits. Lewalter has shown, however, that this was not the case.

The Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom (APUC), a joint Anglican/Roman Catholic association of prayer, was founded on 8 September 1857. Seven years later it was condemned by the Holy See for encouraging indifferentism by claiming that the Roman, Greek and Anglican Churches had an equal right to the title ‘Catholic’, the distinctive mark of a true Church. The papal rescript in which the condemnation was contained, Ad omnes Angliae episcopos, also offered a precise definition of the nature of the ‘Catholic Church’ which, in effect, excluded all possible schemes for reunion between the Churches except on the basis of unconditional submission to the Holy See.