A Saint And A Half Author:Denis Meadows These two incandescent figures, Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard, have long cried out for the new research, new interpretations of their role in church history. Bernard has too often been pictured as a man of excessive austerity and gloomy asceticism. Not a dour Puritan, but rather a cheerful giver, a man with a direct intuitive knowledg... more »e of the reality of God. New light is shed, too, on the immortal love story of Abelard and Heloise, their sorrow, agony and repentance, finally achieving a great spiritual friendship.« less