INTRODUCTION

Abelard and Heloise are among the most famous figures of the Middle Ages. Their lives intersected with many of the preeminent persons of their day, some of whom were their supporters, and many of whom were not. We have a record of their lives that is most uncommon in its detail for any medieval person—we even know some of their most intimate personal feelings. Most of this knowledge comes from Abelard’s famous autobiography, Historia ca-lamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes), written around 10 years before his death. In it, we read of his arrogant confidence in his intellectual abilities, the sharply competitive world of the twelfth-century schools, his passionate affair with Heloise that resulted in Abelard’s brutal castration at the hands of Heloise’s relatives, the subsequent separation of the two lovers, and the condemnation of Abelard’s theological work on the Trinity at the Council of Soissons in 1121. The most well-known collection of letters from the Middle Ages are the eight letters (including the Historia calamitatum, which was also in the form of a letter), written in Latin, exchanged between Heloise and Abelard after they were forced to separate following Abelard’s brutal mutilation. For many, the lives of the famous couple seem to embody classic dichotomies: faith versus reason; free inquiry versus church repression; carnal lust versus divine love; novelty versus tradition. Yet, to simplify their story by putting it in terms of simple sets of opposites is to consign them to triteness. The lives of Heloise and Abelard encompass many aspects of what some historians identify as the twelfth-century renaissance, a period on the cusp of the high Middle Ages that witnessed cultural, political, and economic transformations spurred by an intellectual revitalization that produced the zenith of medieval culture.