  The extent of William's and Abelard's involvement on opposite sides of the major political struggles of the day is also beginning to come to light. William was a man of considerable influence in the monastic reform movement. Abelard was a man of considerably less influence allied with the opposite faction. It is probably true that Abelard attracted the better students and so precipitated William's move from Paris to St. Victor. But far from retiring in shame, William became a statesman, ambassador, and confidant to the Pope, all the while retaining enough political clout to prevent Abelard from either holding his former chair as canon of Notre Dame or establishing a school in Paris. One recent biographer of Abelard points out that in 1119, while Abelard was recovering from his castration and was soon to be facing charges of heresy, William was a bishop acting as papal negotiator to the court of Emperor Henry V.  Unfortunately for William's reputation, it was Abelard whose writings captured the imagination of readers in later centuries (Clanchy 1997: 296ff).