Table Of ContentTHE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor
The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with
particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses. This
peer-reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture
Patronage, and Piety edited by Stewart Gordon
edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly
Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern
The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On Literature
Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Christine
by Gregory B. Stone M. Rose
Presence and Presentation: Women in the Chinese Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the
Literati Tradition Middle Ages
edited by Sherry J. Mou edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and
Pamela Sheingorn
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard:
Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages: Ocular
by Constant J. Mews Desires
by Suzannah Biernoff
Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault
by Philipp W. Rosemann Listen, Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and the
Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages
For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de
edited by Constant J. Mews
Burgh
by Frances A. Underhill Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology
by Richard A. Lee, Jr.
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the
Middle Ages Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the
edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Renaissance
Weisl edited by Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England Malory’s Morte D’Arthur: Remaking Arthurian
by Mary Dockray-Miller Tradition
by Catherine Batt
Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a Twelfth-
Century Woman The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval
edited by Bonnie Wheeler Religious Literature
edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski,
The Postcolonial Middle Ages
Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren
edited by Jeff rey Jerome Cohen
Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages:
Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies
Image Worship and Idolatry in England
of Discourse
1350–1500
by Robert S. Sturges
by Kathleen Kamerick
Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on
Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and
Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women
Literary Structure in Late Medieval England
Writers
by Elizabeth Scala
edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho
Creating Community with Food and Drink in
Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the
Merovingian Gaul
Later Middle Ages
by Bonnie Eff ros
by Laurel Amtower
Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses: Chaucer’s Jobs
Image and Empire by David R. Carlson
by Anne McClanan
Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on
Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity
Objects, Texts, Images by John M. Ganim
edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet
Queer Love in the Middle Ages
Snyder
by Anna Klosowska
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady
Performing Women in the Middle Ages: Sex,
edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi
Gender, and the Iberian Lyric
Parsons
by Denise K. Filios
Isabel La Católica, Queen of Castile:
Necessary Conjunctions: The Social Self in
Critical Essays
Medieval England
edited by David A. Boruchoff
by David Gary Shaw
Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male
Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages
Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth Century
edited by Kathryn Starkey and Horst
by Richard E. Zeikowitz
Wenzel
Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage,
Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Jeremy
and Politics in England 1225–1350
duQuesnay Adams, Volumes 1 and 2
by Linda E. Mitchell
edited by Stephanie Hayes-Healy
Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla to Joan of Arc
False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later
by Maud Burnett McInerney
Middle English Literature
The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative by Elizabeth Allen
Adventures in Contemporary Culture
Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity in
by Angela Jane Weisl
the Middle Ages
Capetian Women by Michael Uebel
edited by Kathleen D. Nolan
Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern
Joan of Arc and Spirituality Cultures: New Essays
edited by Ann W. Astell and Bonnie edited by Lawrence Besserman
Wheeler
Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages
The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the edited by Jane Chance and Alfred
Southern Low Countries K. Siewers
edited by Ellen E. Kittell and
Representing Righteous Heathens in Late Medieval
Mary A. Suydam
England
Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other Cultural by Frank Grady
Clusters of a Dark Age
Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Dress
by Paul Edward Dutton
in Eighth-to-Twelfth Century Painting
Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in by Jennifer L. Ball
Medieval Text and Image
The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work”
edited by Emma Campbell and Robert Mills
of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350–1500
Queering Medieval Genres by Kellie Robertson
by Tison Pugh
The Dogaressa of Venice, 1250–1500: Wife and
Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism Icon
by L. Michael Harrington by Holly S. Hurlburt
The Middle Ages at Work Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard,
edited by Kellie Robertson and and Alan of Lille: Words in the Absence of Things
Michael Uebel by Eileen C. Sweeney
The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the On Farting: Language and Laughter in the
Medieval Religious Renewal Movement Middle Ages
by Patricia Ranft by Valerie Allen
On the Purifi cation of Women: Churching in Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre, and
Northern France, 1100–1500 the Limits of Epic Masculinity
by Paula M. Rieder edited by Sara S. Poor and Jana K. Schulman
Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve Essays Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema
edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon edited by Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh
Meecham-Jones
Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High Middle Ages
Lonesome Words: The Vocal Poetics of the Old by Noah D. Guynn
English Lament and the African-American
England and Iberia in the Middle Ages,
Blues Song
12th–15th Century: Cultural, Literary, and
by M.G. McGeachy
Political Exchanges
Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval edited by María Bullón-Fernández
English Nunneries
The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making
by Anne Bagnell Yardley
Process
The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid to by Albrecht Classen
Chaucer
Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval
by Robert R. Edwards
Literature
Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays by Cary Howie
in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk
Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature
edited by Bonnie Wheeler
by Heather Blurton
Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork,
The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval English
and Other Cultural Imaginings
Guild Culture
edited by E. Jane Burns
by Christina M. Fitzgerald
Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?: The
Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood
Case for St. Florent of Saumur
by Holly A. Crocker
by George Beech
The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women
Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the
by Jane Chance
Middle Ages
by Erin L. Jordan Manmade Marvels in Medieval Culture and
Literature
Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval
by Scott Lightsey
Britain: On Diffi cult Middles
by Jeff rey Jerome Cohen American Chaucers
by Candace Barrington
Medieval Go-Betweens and Chaucer’s Pandarus
by Gretchen Mieszkowski Representing Others in Medieval Iberian Literature
by Michelle M. Hamilton
The Surgeon in Medieval English Literature
by Jeremy J. Citrome Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies
edited by Celia Chazelle and Felice Lifshitz
Temporal Circumstances: Form and History in the
Canterbury Tales The King and the Whore: King Roderick and La Cava
by Lee Patterson by Elizabeth Drayson
Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious Writing Langland’s Early Modern Identities
by Lara Farina by Sarah A. Kelen
Odd Bodies and Visible Ends in Medieval Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages
Literature edited by Eileen A. Joy, Myra J. Seaman,
by Sachi Shimomura Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey
Hildegard of Bingen’s Unknown Language: Authority and Subjugation in Writing of Medieval
An Edition, Translation, and Discussion Wales
by Sarah L. Higley edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon
Meecham-Jones
Medieval Romance and the Construction of
Heterosexuality The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary:
by Louise M. Sylvester Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance
by Seeta Chaganti
Communal Discord, Child Abduction, and Rape in
the Later Middle Ages The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages:
by Jeremy Goldberg Power, Faith, and Crusade
edited by Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey
Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture in the
Fifteenth Century The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein: An English
edited by Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea Translation of the Complete Works (1376/77–1445)
Denny-Brown by Albrecht Classen
Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing:
Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle
Reading the Book of Life
English Literature
edited by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Liz
by Tison Pugh
Herbert McAvoy
Sex, Scandal, and Sermon in Fourteenth-Century
Ethics and Eventfulness in Middle English
Spain: Juan Ruiz’s Libro de Buen Amor
Literature: Singular Fortunes
by Louise M. Haywood
by J. Allan Mitchell
The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in
Maintenance, Meed, and Marriage in Medieval
the Late Middle Ages
English Literature
edited by Catherine E. Léglu and Stephen
by Kathleen E. Kennedy
J. Milner
The Post-Historical Middle Ages
Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and edited by Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico
Identity in the Chinese Middle Period
edited by Don J. Wyatt Constructing Chaucer: Author and Autofi ction in
the Critical Tradition
Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and Early by Geoff rey W. Gust
Modern Hispanic Literature
by Emily C. Francomano Queens in Stone and Silver: The Creation of a
Visual Imagery of Queenship in Capetian France
Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval by Kathleen Nolan
Queenship: Maria de Luna
Finding Saint Francis in Literature and Art
by Nuria Silleras-Fernandez
edited by Cynthia Ho, Beth A. Mulvaney,
In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and John K. Downey
and the Relevance of the Past
Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early
edited by Simon R. Doubleday and David
Medieval Landscape
Coleman, foreword by Giles Tremlett
by Alfred K. Siewers
Chaucerian Aesthetics
Julian of Norwich’s Legacy: Medieval Mysticism
by Peggy A. Knapp
and Post-Medieval Reception
Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi edited by Sarah Salih and Denise N. Baker
Drama
The Letters of Heloise and Abelard: A Translation of
by Theodore K. Lerud
Their Collected Correspondence and Related Writings
Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages: Translated and edited by Mary Martin
Archipelago, Island, England McLaughlin with Bonnie Wheeler
edited by Jeff rey Jerome Cohen
Heloise and the Paraclete: A Twelfth-Century
Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth Quest (forthcoming)
and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics by Mary Martin McLaughlin with Bonnie
by Susan Signe Morrison Wheeler
THE LETTERS OF HELOISE AND
ABELARD
A TRANSLATION OF THEIR
COLLECTED CORRESPONDENCE
AND RELATED WRITINGS
Translated and edited by
Mary Martin McLaughlin with Bonnie Wheeler
THE LETTERS OF HELOISE AND ABELARD
Copyright © Estate of Mary Martin McLaughlin and Bonnie Wheeler, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-312-22935-1
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-38593-5 ISBN 978-0-230-10187-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230101876
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abelard, Peter, 1079–1142.
[Letters. English]
The letters of Heloise and Abelard : a translation of their collected
correspondence and related writings / translated and edited by
Mary Martin McLaughlin with Bonnie Wheeler.
p. cm. — (The new Middle Ages)
1. Abelard, Peter, 1079–1142—Correspondence. 2. Héloïse,
1101–1164—Correspondence. 3. Theologians—France—
Correspondence. 4. Abbesses, Christian—France—Correspondence.
I. McLaughlin, Mary Martin, 1919–2006. II. Wheeler, Bonnie, 1944–
III. Héloïse, 1101–1164. Letters. English. IV. Title.
PA8201.A4 2009
189(cid:1).4—dc22 2009006223
[B]
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Chronology xi
Maps xv
Abbreviations xix
Introduction 1
I The Correspondence of Heloise and Abelard
1 Abelard’s Letter of Consolation to a Friend: A Story of Calamities 17
2 Heloise to Abelard 51
3 Abelard to Heloise 57
4 Heloise to Abelard 63
5 Abelard to Heloise 71
6 Heloise to Abelard 85
7 Abelard to Heloise: The Origin of the Religious Life of Nuns
(Concerning the Authority and Dignity of the Order of Nuns) 99
8 Abelard to Heloise: A Rule for Nuns 133
9 Peter Abelard: To the Nuns of the Paraclete On Studies 195
Abelard to Heloise: A Profession of Faith 209
II Heloise’s Questions (Problemata Heloissae):
Forty-Two Questions Posed by Heloise and Answered by
Abelard, with an Introductory Letter by Heloise
Heloise to Abelard 213
III Related Letters and Other Writings
10 Abelard to Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux 271
viii CONTENTS
11 Abelard to His “Comrades” 279
12 Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux to Cardinal Ivo 281
13 Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux to Pope Innocent II 285
14 Peter the Venerable: Letter to Pope Innocent II 289
15 Peter the Venerable: A Letter to Heloise 293
16 Heloise to Peter the Venerable 299
17 Peter the Venerable to Heloise 301
18 Peter the Venerable: A Letter of Absolution for Abelard 303
19 Peter the Venerable: An Epitaph for Abelard 305
20 The Nuns of the Paraclete: An Epitaph for Heloise 307
21 A Last Epitaph at the Paraclete, 1780 309
Appendices
1 Institutiones Nostrae [Our Statutes] 313
2 MS T (Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 802):
The Paraclete and the Early History of the Correspondence
of Abelard and Heloise 317
Explanatory Notes 327
Bibliography 349
PREFACE
This work was begun by the eminent medieval historian and magnificent
Latinist Mary Martin McLaughlin many years ago and remained unfinished
when, having asked me on her deathbed to complete it, she died in June of 2006.
She wished to express her long-standing debt to the late Paul Oskar Kristeller
for his helpful suggestions regarding the manuscript problems posed by the
correspondence. Over the many years in which she considered these translations,
she found particular comfort in her rich conversations with Giles Constable,
Chrysogonus Waddell, Caroline Walker Bynum, Penelope Johnson, and Peter
von Moos. Her niece Kathleen Derringer and her husband Dick were special
supports to Mary for the duration of this project.
In her later years, I was privileged to collaborate with Mary on this volume,
as did historian Jeremy duQuesnay Adams. I am also grateful for the determined
assistance, while Mary was alive, of my student Kathryne Martin Morris, and
of Katherine Allen Smith, and after Mary’s death, of the estimable Katie Keene.
I know Mary would join me in thanking her friends Lester Little, Constance
Bouchard, and Sharan Newman for their help with this work.
Bonnie Wheeler
Dallas
2009
