Meet Héloïse, the Medieval Woman Philosopher Who Turned a Doomed Love Affair into a Meditation on Ethics

The ill-fat­ed romance of Abelard and Héloïse may be a per­ma­nent cul­tur­al fix­ture, but it’s worth ask­ing what any of us under­stand about Abelard or Héloïse them­selves. Before the two ever crossed paths, Peter Abelard was already a cel­e­brat­ed philoso­pher in France whose class­es drew large and enthu­si­as­tic crowds. This was, bear in mind, a time and place where argu­ing real­ism ver­sus con­cep­tu­al­ism amount­ed to a spec­ta­tor sport. A mod­ern fram­ing might analo­gize him to a cross between an intel­lec­tu­al ath­lete and a pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. That he would attract admir­ing pupils is a giv­en, but none seems to have exud­ed the sheer allure of Héloïse d’Ar­gen­teuil.

That allure, more­over, was of the mind at least as much as of the body. “A prodi­gy from a young age, Héloïse was flu­ent in sev­er­al lan­guages and renowned for her poet­ry, musi­cal prowess, and fiery wit,” explains the nar­ra­tor of the new video from Aeon above. ”

As women could­n’t attend uni­ver­si­ty, her uncle and guardian arranged for her to con­tin­ue her edu­ca­tion with a renowned young schol­ar.” That, of course, was Abelard, who did­n’t need too much one-on-one time with his new pupil before decid­ing to cast off his famous­ly ascetic ways and roll the dice on love. Alas, we all know at least the more dra­mat­ic points of how it turned out: cas­tra­tion for Abelard, self-imposed clois­ter­ing for the both of them. Yet even that did­n’t mark the end of their asso­ci­a­tion.

In her nun­hood, Héloïse “came to pos­sess a let­ter Abelard intend­ed to send to a friend, eulo­giz­ing their time togeth­er. In response, she ini­ti­at­ed a years-long cor­re­spon­dence.” The let­ters “are steeped in long­ing, yet they tran­scend the sighs of star-crossed lovers, weav­ing heart-wrench­ing per­son­al sen­ti­ment with trail­blaz­ing the­ol­o­gy and phi­los­o­phy.” At one point, Héloïse brings her philo­soph­i­cal mind to bear on the prob­lem of their own rela­tion­ship, arriv­ing at her simul­ta­ne­ous guilt and inno­cence on the premise that “it is not the deed, but the inten­tion of the doer, which makes the crime.” Here we have an ear­ly exam­ple of what philoso­phers today call “inten­tion­al­ist,” as opposed to “con­se­quen­tial­ist,” ethics. How much com­fort her argu­ment that “there can be no sin in an action done out of love” pro­vid­ed Abelard is unclear. But sure­ly he appre­ci­at­ed its intel­lec­tu­al mer­its, giv­en that his mind, at least, was left whol­ly intact.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ency­clo­pe­dia of Women Philoso­phers: A New Web Site Presents the Con­tri­bu­tions of Women Philoso­phers, from Ancient to Mod­ern

The Con­tri­bu­tions of Women Philoso­phers Recov­ered by the New Project Vox Web­site

A Short Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Hypa­tia, Ancient Alexandria’s Great Female Philoso­pher

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Fem­i­nist Phi­los­o­phy of Simone de Beau­voir

Kierkegaard on Why We All Mis­un­der­stand the True Mean­ing of Love: An Ani­mat­ed Expla­na­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.