Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete
Overview
Biography
Heloise had already been very well educated by her uncle, Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame, when he hired his fellow canon, Peter Abelard, to tutor her in exchange for a room, c.1113. She was trained in the classics, with a good knowledge of Latin letters and rhetoric and Abelard advanced her knowledge in philosophy. She also knew some Greek and Hebrew.(1) It is hard to imagine why Fulbert encouraged such learning, unless he hoped she would have a brilliant career as an abbess. The love affair between tutor and pupil might have been expected to end such a dream, but instead it seems to have made it possible. The story of their love affair, the birth of a son, the enforced marriage which Heloise opposed because it would harm Abelard’s career, his castration, her entrance into and departure from a monastery at Argenteuil, and her subsequent success as abbess and administrator of the abbey of the the Paraclete, which he gave her, and the five priories attached to it are well known.(2) Their extant correspondence — they mention earlier letters which we do not have — has been the subject of much scholarly argument, and will probably continue to be, but it is generally accepted as authentic now.(3) After a personal exchange, they settled into a professional relationship, in which she requested material for study at her convent and he produced it, indeed much of his extant writing was done for her. We have only two letters of request from Heloise, but Abelard’s responses to her other requests give us some idea of what was in them. Their exchanges constitute the bulk of Heloise’s correspondence, but there are also letters from churchmen who admired her, like Peter the Venerable and Hugh Metel, and official letters from a series of popes. Recently an argument has been made for ascribing Latin love letters between an unnamed man and woman to Abelard and Heloise. The letters were first edited by Ewad Könsgen, Epistolae duorum amantium: Briefe Abaelards und Heloises? (Leiden: Brill, 1974), and now they have been reproduced and translated by Neville Chiavaroli and Constant Mews, and Mews makes a strong case for authenticity, though it is of necessity based on circumstantial rather than on absolute evidence, Constant J. Mews, The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard, Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). Whether or not they were written by Heloise and Abelard, the letters are an interesting example of a contemporary male-female exchange.
Letters from Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete
A letter to Peter AbelardA letter to Peter Abelard
A letter to Peter Abelard (1130-34)
A letter to Peter Abelard (1130-34)
A letter to Peter the Venerable (1144)
Letters to Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete
A letter from Alexander III, pope (1163)A letter from Eugene III, pope (1147)
A letter from Hugh Metel, Augustinian canon ()
A letter from Hugh Metel, Augustinian canon ()
A letter from Innocent II, pope ()
A letter from Innocent II, pope (1131)
A letter from Innocent II, pope (1136)
A letter from Lucius II, pope (1142)
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard ()
A letter from Peter Abelard (1133-37)
A letter from Peter the Venerable (1143-44)
A letter from Peter the Venerable (1144)
A letter from pope Anastasius IV (1153)
A letter from pope Hadrian IV (1154-59)
A letter from pope Hadrian IV (1154-59)
A letter from pope Hadrian IV (1157)