Week 23: Heloise, Abelard and the Troubadours
This is the week I thought my heart would burst. Maybe it’s because of last week’s awfulness, but I like to think it was for sheer beauty. We get plunged into the world of medieval love, courtly and not-so-courtly, and it is just not what my heart was ready for.
Week 23 of Ted Gioia’s Immersive Humanities Course is the letters of Abelard and Heloise, along with love lyrics from various poetry styles. The “love lyric” requirement was a little vague, but I found a beautiful edition of Troubadour poetry that, I think, served me well. More on that edition in a minute.
Peter Abelard was the pre-eminent logician in France in the 12th century. While at the pinnacle of his career, he fell in love with one of his students, Heloise, and they carried on a torrid, secretive love affair that resulted in a pregnancy, a secret marriage, and Heloise disguised as a nun. It also led to Abelard’s castration by the order of Heloise’s uncle and guardian. Abelard takes the warning, convinces Heloise to commit truly to a convent, and withdraws to his own monastery-like “Paraclete.” As time goes by, Abelard returns to Paris to teach. He offers the Paraclete to Heloise and her fellow nuns as a convent. Heloise becomes abbess there, and she and Abelard have a correspondence by letter. These letters are what we have as the reading, along with a few extra letters and statements from people around them.
Being dropped into medieval Europe a couple of weeks ago has been a real challenge in this reading list. The ground has shifted a lot—there are entire dynasties that have risen and fallen. The feudal system and the Christian church have well-developed hierarchies and controversies that I don’t have any background for. On top of that, these writers came before Chaucer and (it turns out) influenced him. I wish we had switched weeks just for that reason. As usual, though, I read the letters themselves first and then went through the introduction. The introduction was especially helpful this week after having heard Abelard and Heloise speak for themselves. More than usual, the introduction was extremely well-written and helped me to understand these two brilliant and brave people better.
I want to tell you how I felt about Peter Abelard, though; I had a whole story arc of feelings about him! His first letter isn’t actually to Heloise. It’s to a friend who has had some kind of difficulties. Abelard starts his letter by saying, “You think you have problems? Let me tell you what happened to ME.” (Yes, a paraphrase.) I don’t know how his friend felt about it, but it started him off on the wrong foot with me.
In Letter Five he refers to her “old perpetual complaint,” coming dangerously close to calling Heloise a nag. In the same letter he says she should count herself lucky to be an abbess, because she could have just had a bunch of kids and how bad would her life be if that had happened?! I’m a mom of four and a wife and a Christian, and I found this low view of marriage hard to take, especially considering that Heloise IS his wife. But I read on, and he gives kind and thoughtful advice as she asks for it, and there is a real depth to their faith and mutual love as the letters proceed.
We don’t get to hear Heloise’s voice for several years after her true entry into the convent. By the time she writes her first letter, she’s an abbess, but she is still desperately in love with Abelard. She can’t—and won’t—stop thinking about their physical relationship and the depth of her love for him. But there is clearly an intellectual match there as well. She’s definitely brilliant and she truly wants to lead the women in her charge well. Eventually Abelard brings her around to seeing the good of their both serving God rather than each other. I don’t believe it was easy for Heloise, though.
Sometimes it felt like Abelard decided that since he could no longer have a sexual relationship with Heloise, he was willing to turn to another life. And since he did it so easily, why couldn’t she? As smart as Peter Abelard was, I don’t think that he ever understood how a woman, particularly one as bright as Heloise, loves a man; that it is a bodily love, yes, but that mind and soul are important, probably more important. She wanted him, whatever she could have. Abelard, on the other hand, though he no longer had anything to give, and further seemed to have a pretty low view of marriage. To his great and everlasting credit, he does not have a low view of women, clearly considering Heloise his intellectual equal and writing emphatically on the role of women in Scripture.
A few other comments:
The Rule of St. Benedict is prominent in their lives. Heloise asks for help in applying it to women, and she calls the rule a “basis for virtuous living and the beginning of monastic life.” Abelard helps her think through what some of these applied rules should look like. (I’m glad we had some background with St. Benedict. I wrote about it here.)
Benedict’s Rule, and Bernard of Clairveaux’s new additions (to bring monastic life into full and complete compliance with the Rule) actually caused a huge problem for Abelard, resulting in his excommunication in an overtly political action by Pope Innocent II, but then reconciliation before Abelard’s death.
I would love to go back and compare Augustine to Abelard. Augustine says that he was lustful pretty much from the beginning, while Abelard points to pride in his career success as the source of his lust for Heloise. I think there is a lot to explore there; I just wish the women could speak more for themselves. (I covered Augustine here and here.)
There is a ton I don’t know about church and monastic history. For instance, the celibate priesthood was only instituted a few years before Abelard began teaching. He complains at one point about his monastery being overrun with monks’ children and concubines! I think a deep dive into this era will require some extra history books.
“A reader who holds a book but cannot do what the book was intended for is like an ass sitting before a lyre.” HA! I love this image—it’s from Cato and they both use it a couple of times.
Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny and present at Abelard’s death, wrote a beautiful letter to Heloise about Abelard’s last days. It was through Peter the Venerable’s eyes that I started to love Abelard.
I frankly would love to spend more time with these people, but I must turn to this week’s other reading. Rather than assemble a group of different traditions of poetry from the internet, I picked up Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours. This book, edited by Robert Kehew, is stunning. (And I’m talking about a poetry book!)
Ezra Pound, W.D. Snodgrass and Kehew are all poets in their own right, but in this volume they translate a wide variety of troubadour poems from the original Occidental French to English. The poems are presented side-by-side so you can see the rhyming schemes. In particular I loved Snodgrass’ translations, although it might also be his choice of poet. In addition, there is a helpful introduction to the history of the region and a short biography of each poet. The history of that region is very, very messy, and while the text doesn’t try to sort it out completely it does let you feel it without being overwhelmed.
It’s so interesting that these poems, and this whole “courtly love” society, were happening at roughly the same time as Abelard and Heloise and even some of the Crusades. The troubadour society quickly developed some of the now-classic poetry forms, and an awful lot of it centered on the adulterous love of the troubadour for his unattainable lady love who was always his superior socially. For the world at this time, upper class marriage was a business deal. Romance came from outside marriage and was therefore automatically adulterous.
But what is surprising is that the adulterous love didn’t result in a debasement of either party, but in fact a lifting up. The poets might have fantasized about more, but they were content with a glance, a brushed wrist, a passing on the steps. The love itself propelled the lover to better himself. After all, this is where we get our ideas of chivalry and honor towards ladies.
Lark in the Morning is one of the few books we’ve read so far that I really want you to seek out and buy. It’s expensive, maybe the most expensive book I’ve bought for this project, but it’s truly beautiful. I also think it will make a terrific entry point for Chaucer, Dante, and even Shakespeare.
I completely missed the art component this week (Gothic architecture) and only briefly listened to the Monteverdi Madrigals. I’m not really a fan of that music but you can certainly take a listen here:
Next week we turn to a high point in the reading: Dante! The first week we will tackle the Nuovo Vitae and Inferno, and then we will finish the Divine Comedy in Week 25. I’m traveling, and obviously getting a little bit of a late start with my reading, so I’ll be using my translation from Mark Musa. It’s excellent but possibly less lyrical. It will all be profitable, though.
As always, Ted’s list is here, and I’d love for you to join me. My Amazon list (not an affiliate link) of my exact editions is here.
Okay, have I convinced you to pick up Lark in the Morning? What about reading a little bit of Heloise and Abelard? I want to know!