Heloise and Abelard. The Story of Forbidden Love

The exchange of letters between Heloise and Peter Abelard constitutes one of the most famous collections of medieval correspondence. Created in the twelfth century, it extends far beyond the framework of ordinary love letters. It began over a decade after the tragedy that separated both, and transformed from personal confessions into a philosophical-theological discussion.

Romance of Teacher and Student

The dramas that preceded the correspondence unfolded in Paris around 1115-1117. Peter Abelard, born in 1079, had already achieved the position of an outstanding philosopher and theologian, whose lectures at the cathedral school gathered crowds of listeners. Heloise was born around 1100 or 1101 as the niece of Canon Fulbert of Notre Dame Cathedral.

The girl became famous for her extraordinary erudition – she was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Fulbert employed thirty-six-year-old Abelard as a tutor for his seventeen-year-old niece. The philosopher himself later admitted in his autobiography that he accepted this position with the intention of seducing his student.

Pregnancy and Secret Marriage

The romance led to Heloise’s pregnancy. Abelard secretly took her to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son named Astrolabe. Wishing to appease the enraged Fulbert, the philosopher proposed a secret marriage to the canon.

Heloise herself opposed this union, arguing that marriage would destroy Abelard’s career as a philosopher obligated to celibacy. The couple took a secret vow despite her resistance. Fulbert initially accepted the situation, but soon began publicly announcing information about the marriage, which Heloise denied to protect her husband’s reputation.

Cruel Revenge and Monastic Life

The canon felt he had been deceived. He hired mercenaries who broke into Abelard’s bedroom at night and castrated him. After this tragedy, the philosopher entered as a monk into the abbey of Saint-Denis, simultaneously forcing Heloise to take monastic vows at the convent in Argenteuil.

The famous exchange of letters began only around 1132, more than ten years after those events. Its direct impulse was not a desire to resume contact, but Abelard’s work titled Historia calamitatum mearum (The History of My Calamities). It was an autobiographical letter addressed to an anonymous friend, intended to console him by listing his own greater misfortunes.

Dramatic Exchange of Feelings

Abelard described his entire life, including the romance, marriage, castration, and subsequent persecution by theological opponents. A copy reached Heloise, who already held the position of abbess at the oratory of Paraclete – a monastery founded by Abelard himself. The preserved correspondence divides into two distinct phases.

The first encompasses letters from first to seventh (counting the History… as the first letter) and has a deeply personal character. Shaken by reading it, Heloise wrote a pain-filled reproach, confessing that her love remained unchanged through the years. She admitted that she took the habit not out of love for God, but solely out of obedience to Abelard.

In this letter fell the famous words that she would prefer to be called his prostitute or whore (Latin meretrix or scortum) than empress. She challenged divine justice, asking why he was so cruelly punished for a union sanctified by marriage. Abelard’s responses remained formal, cold, and maintained a pastoral tone.

Transition to Spiritual Matters

The philosopher consistently rejected personal confessions, trying to move the relationship exclusively to a spiritual plane. He admonished Heloise to cease dwelling on the past and focus on her role as abbess and bride of Christ. He asked that she treat him as a brother in Christ and spiritual master, directing her love toward God, and that she pray for his soul.

After this dramatic exchange, the tone of correspondence underwent a complete transformation. Heloise, seeing no response to personal confessions, abandoned laments and moved to substantive matters. She requested help in organizing monastic life at Paraclete, indicating that the Benedictine rule was unsuitable for women.

Monastic Rule and Theological Works

Abelard fulfilled the request, writing an extensive letter containing a new monastic rule. From this later, substantive phase of contact also come other works: Problemata Heloissae (answers to forty-two theological questions posed by Heloise) and Hymnarius Paraclitensis (a collection of hymns for the entire liturgical year written for her convent).

In 1974, Ewald Könsgen discovered a collection of one hundred thirteen anonymous love letters in a fifteenth-century manuscript, known as Epistolae duorum amantium (Letters of Two Lovers). Some scholars, including Constant Mews, advanced the thesis that these are authentic earlier letters of Heloise and Abelard from the period of their romance. Peter Abelard died in 1142, Heloise passed away on May 16, 1164, directing the monastery of Paraclete until the end of her life.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• https://www.medieval.eu/medieval-love-story-abelard-heloise/
• https://lifeinruralfrance.com/heloise-and-abelard/
• https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/source/heloise1.asp
• https://jedynka.polskieradio.pl/artykul/1584162,Abelard-i-Heloiza-%E2%80%93-zakazana-mi%C5%82o%C5%9B%C4%87-%C5%9Bredniowiecza
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heloise-French-nun