Week 15
Abelard and Heloise were famous for their 12th-century love affair, which became a tragic tale of forbidden love, intellectual passion, and a resulting scandal. Abelard, a brilliant philosopher and teacher, and Heloise, his equally brilliant and educated student, fell deeply in love, leading to a secret relationship and a child. This affair was discovered by Heloise's uncle, who retaliated by hiring a band of thugs to castrate Abelard. The scandal was one of the most famous incidents ever to happen in Medieval Paris. They then chose to go into religious orders: Abelard as a monk and Heloise as a nun, where they maintained a passionate correspondence through letters, al of which have survived.
REQUIRED READING
There are two very fine introductory essays at the beginning of this Penguin edition. The translator Betty Radice writes a useful introduction to the collection of letters, and M. T. Clanchy provides an interesting update on the fate of the letters in his "The Letters of Abelard and Heloise in Today's Scholarship."
"Historia Calamitatum" pp. 3–43
"Personal Letters" pp. 47–89
RECOMMENDED READING
For those of you who get caught up in the drama of Abelard and Heloise and want to read more about their story there is one great classic study from one of the most important French Medieval historians of all time, Etienne Gilson. It is a small, rich book based on lectures Gilson delivered in Paris in 1936 and thanks to the University of Michigan Press it is still in print. Especially interesting is the detailed analysis Gilson provides for our proper understanding of the marriage and why it was a mistake for Abelard in relation to his career as a professor of theology.
