Heloïse is best known as one half of the Middle
Ages’ most celebrated couple. The romantic correspondence she shared with Pierre Abélard makes
up what is, perhaps, the most legendary account
of passionate, romantic love. Having been orphaned at a young age, Heloïse was the ward of her
uncle Fulbert, a cleric and canon of Notre Dame in
Paris. She was the pride and joy of her uncle, who
acknowledged Heloïse’s intellectual capabilities
and ensured she received a proper education;
Heloïse quickly became known as one of the most
learned young ladies of the day. Fulbert happened
to move in the same circle as Peter ABÉLARD, a brilliant French philosopher who was a master at the
school of Notre Dame and known as one of the
most intelligent men of his time. Having heard of
Heloïse’s reputation, Abélard persuaded Fulbert to
trust him with Heloïse’s education, and, moreover,
to let him move in with the unsuspecting Fulbert
and his beautiful niece. In The Letters of Abélard
and Heloise, Abélard schemingly comments,“I was
amazed by his simplicity—if he had entrusted a
tender lamb to a ravening wolf it would not have
surprised me more” (Abélard 2004, 11). During
this time, when Abélard was 40 and Heloïse was 18,
the pair fell in love and engaged in a passionate affair, which soon rendered Heloïse pregnant.
When Abélard found out Heloïse was expecting
a child, he abducted her and carried her away to
live at his sister’s home, and there she gave birth to
their child, Astrolabe, in 1118. When Heloïse’s
Uncle Fulbert found out about the pregnancy and
about the abduction of his niece, he was furious.
To appease Fulbert, Abélard offered to marry
Heloïse, although he wished to keep the marriage a
secret in order to retain his status as a cleric, canon,
and theology teacher, and, although Heloïse opposed the marriage because she preferred to be
known as Abélard’s lover rather than his wife, the
couple wed in a secret ceremony. Uncle Fulbert was
infuriated—because of the secrecy of the wedding,
he was suspicious that the couple did not actually
marry and that Abélard was plotting to abandon
Heloïse to a convent. Thus, in 1118, he had Abélard
castrated. The public shame Abélard experienced
led him to join the Benedictine monastery St.
Denis. At this time, at Abélard’s request, Heloïse
joined the convent Argenteuil, just outside of Paris.
As a nun and a monk, the lovers developed their
own separate lives and did not communicate for
some time. During this period Abélard recorded
his misfortunes in a letter written to console a
troubled friend, and this letter became known as
his Historia Calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes). By chance (according to tradition), Heloïse
saw Abélard’s account, which centered on their life
together, and responded to him in a letter explaining that although she was a nun, she lived an unsatisfied life of longing over her past with Abélard.
Abélard, however, felt that the religious life had
saved the pair from an affair that would have inevitably turned catastrophic. Through the ongoing
correspondence, Heloïse was eventually convinced
monastic life was, indeed, the answer to her and
Abélard’s problems. In 1129, when the Abbot
Suger of St. Denis established his abbey’s ownership of Argenteuil and expelled all the nuns,
Heloïse and her nuns joined Abélard at Le Paraclet,
where Abélard acted as magister (master) of the
house and Heloïse served as prioress and later
abbess of the spiritual community.
While Heloïse is distinguished for her education and knowledge, she is also known, perhaps
better, as a monastic administrator who was honored by popes and other religious figures, such as
Peter the Venerable. She published no other work
besides her correspondence to Abélard, and the authenticity of even this work has been questioned—
many believe the letters were all written by
Abélard, while others think they were all written by
an outsider (particularly since no known manuscripts date before 1350)—although today most
scholars believe that they are, certainly, genuine.
Abélard and Heloïse were both 63 years of age
when they died. Abélard was buried at Le Paraclet
after his death in 1142, and in accordance with his
wishes, Heloïse was buried next to him after she
died in 1164. Legend has it that when she was
buried there, Abélard reached out from his grave to
embrace her. Their remains were reinterred at Père
Lachaise Cemetery in Paris in 1817, where there is
a monument celebrating the couple.
This legendary relationship of passion, revenge,
steadfastness, spirituality, and even obsession has
become a prominent theme in European literature.
Their romance been immortalized by JEAN DE
MEUN in the ROMAN DE LA ROSE, Francis PETRARCH,
Alexander Pope, François VILLON, and JeanJacques Rousseau, among others.
Bibliography
Abélard, Pierre. The Letters of Abélard and Heloïse.
Rev. ed. Translated with an introduction by Betty
Radice. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Radice, Betty.“The French Scholar-Lover: Héloïse.” In
Medieval Women Writers, edited by Katharina M.
Wilson, 90–108. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
Townsend, David, and Andrew Taylor, eds. The
Tongue of the Fathers: Gender and Ideology in
Twelfth-Century Latin. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1998.
Leslie Johnston