From Abelard’s Historia calamitatum, we learn that Heloise was the niece of Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral ofNotre-Dame, Paris. She had been raised and educated at the royal abbey of Argenteuil, but had moved to Paris to live in her uncle’s house in the cathedral cloister, in order to pursue further her studies. Nothing is known of her father, but her mother could have been Hersende of Champagne, a noble widow of Anjou, who befriended the controversial preacher Robert of Arbrissel, c. 1095, and enabled Fontevraud to be established c. 1100 as an abbey of which she became the prioress (Robl 2003; Mews 2006). Heloise inherited a similar revulsion for hypocrisy in religious life as inspired Robert of Arbrissel and the early community at Fontevraud, but combined this with a profound interest in classical literature and ethics, echoing the interests of Baudri of Bourgueil and his literary circle, which included women connected to religious houses like Argenteuil.
Her relationship with Abelard developed through an intense exchange of letters c. 1115-1117, climaxing in her becoming pregnant and giving birth to Astralabe. She initially resisted Abelard’s insistence that they should marry with arguments recalled by Abelard in the Historia calamitatum. After reluctantly yielding to Abelard’s desire for a secret marriage, Heloise moved back to Argenteuil, but only became a nun; thereafter, Abelard had been castrated, and had chosen to become a monk at St. Denis. Heloise rose to become prioress of the community at Argenteuil until 1129, when the nuns were expelled by Suger, abbot of St. Denis, who successfully took over the abbey in that year, replacing the nuns with his own monks. This prompted Heloise to obtain from Abelard control over the oratory, dedicated to the Paraclete that Abelard had initially established in 1122, after escaping from St. Denis. Abelard recalls these early years of the Paraclete in the Historia calamitatum, ostensibly written to provide encouragement for a ‘‘friend’’ then experiencing distress, but quite likely intended to offer guidance and support for the nuns of the Paraclete. Heloise proved much more successful than Abelard in building up this community, obtaining papal protection for it in 1131. By resuming contact with Abelard, through both letters and visits, Heloise elicited from him a significant series of letters and writings, by putting issues and questions to him that had a significant effect on his own intellectual development. The authenticity of her letters, once questioned by scholars, is now widely accepted (Newman 1992). She became widely respected by contemporaries for her wisdom, learning, and literary activity, otherwise only known through her exchanges with Abelard.
World History
