Heloise And Julbert Summary

These letters are about a teacher falling madly in love with one of his fellow students. About a thousand years ago they started this affair of theirs. They secretly made love in convents and in Heloise's Uncle Fulbert's home. They both wrote countless letters to one another, and when Heloise was impregnated, they got married in secrecy. We also learn of Fulbert and his terrible act of vengeance when henchmen brake into Abelard's room in the middle of the night and castrate him. At the request of Abelard, Heloise took religious orders and he took up the life of a monk. They each departed into different monasteries and continued to write each other these letters until they passed away - a sheer example of true love. And what a love it was. A love that we can read directly in exactly five letters discovered in the 13th century and long after the two have passed away. Despite being 6 letters, the first letter, however, wasn't Abelard writing to Heloise. Instead, the letter was written for a monk to read meant to comfort him by making him believe that Abelard's problems were greater than that of his friend. It was a letter of consolation. This early ''Historia Calamitatum'' is how we learn of Abelard's arrival in Paris and his growing renown as a teacher and his encounter with Heloise. We also
For her, love does not belong with law or finance - it's personal. For this reason, she opposed Abelard's wanting to be wed. "I never sought anything in you except yourself. . . . I looked for no marriage bond. "She proclaims, "if Augustus, emperor of the whole world, saw fit to honor me with marriage and conferred all the earth on me to possess forever, it would be dearer and more honorable to me to be called not his empress, but your whore." This woman, who was prepared to literally sacrifice her reputation and the lord's salvation for the sake of her love for