Why did Peter Abelard criticize Anselm of Laon’s teaching?

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Peter Abelard Peter Abelard, with Héloïse, miniature portrait by Jean de Meun, 14th century; in the Musee Conde, Chantilly, France.

When Peter Abelard attended the school of Anselm of Laon around 1114, he quickly developed a strong contempt for the master's teaching, which he characterized as vacuous.1

Abelard, a passionate logician who pioneered the use of dialectics in theology, found Anselm’s approach lacking in substance and intellectual rigor. While Anselm was a leading biblical scholar of his day known for his Interlinear Glosses, Abelard’s dissatisfaction with the instruction he received at Laon prompted him to return to Paris to pursue his own independent methods of inquiry.213