Abelard and Heloise

As I wandered around Plep yesterday, I ran across the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, possibly the two most tragic lovers in the history of mankind. Romeo and Juliet pale beside them. At least Romeo and Juliet made sense. The thing is, though, Heloise and Abelard were real people who lived in 12th century France. In all my years, I’d never actually read their letters to each other and took it as conventional wisdom that they were the most celebrated romantics in history. Yesterday, I read their translated letters. All five of them.

Well then.

First let me say that the scholar who wrote the introduction to this small collection of astonishing letters was still living in the 12th century (as of 1901 when he wrote it). His final take on the tale of the two lovers is that “they remain to us, the typical lovers; he with a man’s mania to master, she with a woman’s one desire to submit.” Second thought, I totally agree with the first half of his statement.

So allow me give you my version of the tale of Abelard and Heloise.

Abelard was a scholar and teacher, of noble birth, with ambitions to rise in the Church hierarchy. He fancied himself something of a genius in the realm of theophilosophy and church doctrine and distanced himself from the ordinary plebeian concerns of the world around him. But a guy’s gotta eat. He secured a position as a tutor to a Church Canon’s teenage niece. She lived under her uncle’s roof and he was her guardian. One point in his favor, he recognized that his niece was extremely intelligent and he chose to school her in languages (Latin, Greek, and Hebrew) and philosophy and theology. I should mention here, that Heloise was also drop dead gorgeous.

The 37 year old Abelard took one look at Heloise and fell head over heels in love, apparently for the first time in his life. It wasn’t long before the impressionable Heloise returned his passion. They carried on a lusty relationship under her uncle’s nose until he figured out what was going on. He put his foot down and tossed Abelard out of the house. But Heloise and Abelard managed to still meet. And then...oops...Heloise turned up pregnant.

Well, Abelard suggested then that they do the right thing. I’m guessing his heart wasn’t entirely in it. He proposed marriage, but Heloise, providently, warned him that marriage would ruin his chances of rising in the Church hierarchy. No, she’d prefer to stay his mistress. There was freedom in that choice for both of them. There are, however, indications that they did secretly wed. To make things right with God, dontcha know.

Heloise’s uncle was, understandably, upset with this turn of events. A pregnant niece out of wedlock wasn’t a feather in his Canonical cap. He decided to get his revenge against Abelard and hired a common thug to steal into Abelard’s chambers one night to castrate him. The deed was done.

Naturally, Abelard was devastated by his emasculation and wanted to hide from the world. He was also, surely, thinking that romance was not all it was cracked up to be and Heloise just wasn’t worth that much. One could hardly blame him. On the other hand, he didn’t think much of the idea that anyone else should follow in his footsteps and taste those sweet fruits of Heloise’s love that he had possessed.

So, he used all the wits and poetry that he could garner to convince her to enter a convent and take the vows of chastity, tout de suite. And she, still being an impressionable love-struck girl with a reputation that had just been dragged through the streets’ gutters and a furious uncle, figured there wasn’t really a better option. She would suffer nobly for her love. She joined the convent and struggled with her passion for Abelard for the next ten years. Abelard, meanwhile, ran away (or was exiled) to Brittany, kind of on the outer edges of civilization, and became a monk who suffered the abuses of living with humans of barely discernible intelligence.

One day, around the age of 32, a letter from Abelard to a friend, fell into Heloise’s hands. She learned from it, that he still harbored his love for her. Sort of. It was one of those letters to a friend in the vein of, buddy of mine, you think you have it bad, listen to what happened to me. All because of this woman who I still can’t get out of my mind.

Heloise immediately wrote him a letter laying her heart down for him. She still loved him desperately. She struggled with her vows as a Bride of Christ, when she really wanted to still be Abelard’s woman. In so many words. She went on for pages of high minded writing. Bottom line, though...she still loved him and longed for him.

He wrote back and admitted that he still loved her, too, although the letter to his friend was surely never meant for her eyes. He was a trifle chagrined. He admonished her to remain true to her vows to the Church. They’d sinned most grievously and they had a lifetime of penance to work through. He admitted that he’d urged her to join the convent so that no one else could have her, but that was pretty much water under the bridge at this point. Be strong, Heloise, he begged her. Forget me and devote yourself to God (because, honey, I still can’t bear the thought of you with another feller).

That letter didn’t necessarily sit well with Heloise, so she tried a different tact. Let us not lose contact, she pleaded. Write to me and be my teacher. Teach me how to be a good Bride of Christ. I won’t mention my love for you again, but please don’t abandon me.

No answer.

She tried again.

Abelard finally wrote back and told her to leave him alone. No more letters. They both must devote their lives to God and she was a distraction. His life was pretty much over in terms of scholarly endeavors and Church ambitions. The people surrounding him at his monastery were almost too stupid to breathe. The only thing left was to devote himself to God. She must be a good nun and he must be a good monk. That was where they belonged and farewell and adieu.

He lived another few decades of misery and was finally buried in her convent where she had become abbess. She lived another twenty years and was buried next to him.

The end.

My apologies to those who swoon over this tragic love story, but Abelard was a selfish jerk. A tragic one, for sure, but still. It wasn’t enough that he managed to get himself into a life altering mess when he should have known better, but he had to go and convince Heloise in her most vulnerable state that she must cloister herself to atone for their sins. Whether that made her miserable wasn’t his concern. He just didn’t want anyone else to have her.

Well, I guess that’s pretty tragic all right.

I see it as a dreadful waste of lives. Their son, incidentally, was shipped off to an out of the way monastery where he become a monk, too. He never had a chance and one wonders if Abelard even cared. Or Heloise, for that matter. They never spoke of him. Yes, times were obviously much different back in those days, but human emotions were not.

Love letters, my aunt fanny. How many different ways are there to tell a woman to go away. Abelard found them in abundance in all of his eloquent high prose. He didn’t even have the strength or integrity after all those years to admit that he’d made a terrible mistake and that he was sorry to the depths of his soul for sending her off to the convent and that perhaps she should rethink that. I truly don’t know what her excuse was for remaining loyal to him and her idealized vision of love. You’d think after living at the convent for forty-something years, she’d have had enough time to reflect and catch a clue. But she still ended up buried next to him. Together for eternity. How romantic.

For all their Godly devotion, intelligence, and probable good works, this is what they’re remembered for. Just bleah.