Heloise and Abelard  

By

James Burge

“God is my witness that if Augustus, emperor of the whole world, honoured me with marriage it would be sweeter to me to be not his empress but your whore.”

Abelard and Heloise fell in love in Paris 900 years ago. Together they created a secret world of spiritual love and intense eroticism.

When their affair was discovered, dark desires and revenge led to violence and tragedy. Abelard was castrated and the couple separated. He devoted himself to the logical philosophy that would soon bring him into conflict with the authorities.

Heloise became a nun but, despite an outward show of conformity, she never lost sight of her inner goal: to find some way to recapture the love and spiritual closeness that she had lost...

Heloise and Abelard

By James Burge

The year is 1163. We find Heloise as an old woman on her deathbed. She is an abbess, surrounded by the nuns of the convent of which she is head. A priest is there to administer the last rites. All those present treat her with great respect.

During her lucid moments she asks repeatedly for the “Easter hymn”. One of the nuns leaves the room to fetch the book of hymns while another remarks that the Easter hymn is one which Heloise wrote herself. The nun returns and begins to read aloud. The Easter hymn is a love poem: a bride before her wedding day declares how much she longs for her husband.

The priest explains, partly to the barely conscious Heloise and partly to the other nuns, that the hymn is a metaphor: the joy of a soul as it is reunited with God (as Heloise’s will soon be) is represented by the blissful anticipation of the bride of her union with her husband. A smile crosses Heloise’s face. ‘Yes’ she says, ‘I remember’

* * *

FLASHBACK (which comprises the main action of the film)

 We find the young Heloise in the cathedral cloister in Paris, watching Abelard lecture to a group of students. She hides herself because women are not allowed to attend lectures. Abelard is charming, witty and animated. Clearly the students like and respect him very much. But when an older visitor asks a slightly carping question we see Abelard’s capacity for the sharp put-down. He has a gift for irritating people.

When the crowd has dispersed, Heloise approaches Abelard and asks a question about the lecture. He responds with unexpected modesty and kindness. Plainly the intelligence of the questioner has impressed him.

His friend Ranaldus teases him, ‘she would be perfect for you’. It is plain that the possibility has also occurred to Abelard. We learn from their conversation that Heloise is the niece of one Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral. Since Abelard, as master of the cathedral school, is also a canon he can approach him as an equal. Perhaps he should offer to give Heloise some philosophy lessons.

Abelard attends the council of canons. The main subject of debate is a move by some of them to tighten up the rules for celibacy. We do not get involved in the detail but we do observe that the meeting is split into factions and that the leader of one of them (the anti-reformers), Stephen, regards Abelard as his protégé.

Abelard’s main purpose in being there, however, is to buttonhole Fulbert after the meeting. He does so and raises with him the subject of Heloise. He is slightly surprised when Fulbert interrupts him and tells him that Heloise has asked for a philosophy tutor and would he like the job. She has got there first. Abelard is even more taken aback when he hears, ‘There is plenty of room in my house you can move in and lodge with us if you like’.

Abelard moves into the house of Fulbert and very soon the affair starts. We see the couple’s love growing as they laugh, read and discuss philosophy together, all the time behind closed doors under the guise of tuition.  We see them exchange furtive notes on wax tablets. We see the physical side of their love expand as Heloise luxuriates in the sensuality of giving herself totally to her lover. The secret world they create together at this time will be the ideal of their love for the rest of their lives.

* * *

Two inevitable things happen now in quick succession: Heloise discovers she is pregnant; Fulbert finds the couple together in bed. Abelard spirits her away to his home in Brittany to have their baby.

When Fulbert discovers that Heloise has been taken away his rage is close to insanity. She is clearly very important to him. Eventually Abelard goes to see him. He has firstly to dissuade him from violence against him by reminding him that Heloise is in the care of his family and would not be safe if anything happened to him. Abelard does eventually persuade Fulbert that if he marries Heloise honour will be satisfied. The marriage however must remain secret otherwise it would make his position impossible as master of the school of Notre Dame.

Abelard explains to Heloise the deal he has made with Fulbert and the decision to marry. Surprisingly, Heloise is strongly opposed to this.  Marriage, she says, will ruin his career; it will not pacify Fulbert. But most of all their relationship is so strong and so rooted in their spiritual selves that they don’t need any formal expression of it. She argues her case with energy but in the end – as she always will – she obeys Abelard. After an all-night vigil in the private chapel of Stephen de Garland they are married in secret at dawn.

Even though they are now married they live apart. Heloise returns to Fulbert’s house while Abelard lodges with Stephen, his patron. From the start the secret marriage seems doomed. For one thing it is not secret: rumours of it are rife, spread (we are given a hint) by Fulbert. Heloise finds herself challenged by some clerics who tease her about her marriage. She denies it but, embarrassed by being obliged to lie, she overreacts and causes a scene. When she returns home Fulbert has already heard about the incident and is now furious at the dishonour her denial has caused their family.

Heloise calms him; she talks to him about the love which she believes is fundamental to existence. For a moment they achieve a real closeness but Fulbert, who is inept and vulnerable, makes a clumsy pass at her. She rebuffs him gently but, as he leaves her, he is aware that he has destroyed any chance he had of closeness with her.

Abelard realises that her position at Fulbert’s house has now become impossible. At his insistence she leaves immediately and stays for the time being at the convent where she was educated, Argenteuil, just outside Paris.

 When Fulbert discovers that Heloise has been taken away again his pain, embarrassment and rage are so deeply driven inside him that he appears calm on the outside. He calls a meeting of his powerful family. He tells them relatives that the honour of the family has been insulted and calls on them to help him with his plan ... 

At night, a group of Fulbert’s family members breaks into Abelard’s lodgings. They hold him down and castrate him while with Fulbert himself observes from the background. Two of the gang are themselves caught on their way out by the henchmen of Stephen, Abelard’s patron. Stephen decides to make an example of them and they are in turn castrated, blinded and then released onto the street. Dawn finds Abelard stunned in his room while a grieving crowd gathers outside.

* * *

The cathedral council decides that Abelard should become a monk at the great monastery of St Denis. This will get him away from the scandal in Paris but allow him continue his career as a philosopher.

When Heloise is at last able to meet Abelard again he is cold with her and insists that she, like him, enter holy orders and become a nun. She opposes this but he insists, telling her that it is an opportunity for her to become close to God. Once again, she eventually obeys him.

At her investiture ceremony she stands before the bishop clad in the simple white shift of a novice nun. She is sacrificing herself for her husband and we perhaps glimpse again the Heloise who derived such pleasure by giving herself totally to her lover.

At the monastery of St Denis we find Abelard in conversation with his brother monks.  Almost as a joke he points out that he has discovered that the monastery is in fact founded on a mistake. The Denis whose relics they revere was not a biblical saint at all.  The monks become angry – their livelihood and prestige depend on the authenticity of the monastery. Abelard is surprised by this. He continues to pursue the point relentlessly and the situation escalates into a major row. When it comes before the abbot he is in favour of handing Abelard over to the king on a charge of treason. Stephen intervenes to persuades him instead to transfer him to another monastery. Abelard leaves to become abbot of the monastery of St Gildas, far away from Paris, on the wild Atlantic coast of Brittany.

Things start to go wrong almost immediately: although he is nominally in charge of the abbey he cannot control the monks. He is a thinker from the city and they are wild Bretons.

Abelard is visited by his friend Ranaldus from Paris. He has a sad story to relate: he has lost his money and been crippled in a fight. They discuss the nature of ill-luck and Abelard promises to write down for him the story of his own misfortunes to see if, when he has read them, Ranaldus does not consider himself lucky in comparison.

Ranaldus also passes on to Abelard an invitation to the dedication of a new convent, the Paraclete in the country of Champagne. The new abbess will be none other than Heloise. Even though she only became a nun at Abelard’s request she has risen swiftly through the hierarchy.

Abelard attends the dedication ceremony held in the presence of the bishop of Troyes. Heloise and Abelard see each other for the first time since she became a nun. Although the formality of the occasion means that they cannot meet in private it is plain the Heloise is expecting some sign of recognition from Abelard. She tries to catch his eye but he remains aloof – she receives no hint of what she herself calls ‘the healing balm of friendship’. It is more hurtful than not seeing him.

Back in Brittany, Abelard finishes the autobiographical letter he promised Ranaldus. We see him read aloud his own account of ‘where Heloise is now’. He paints her as a respectable nun, a model of chastity and decorum – happy at last. He is so pleased with his work that he sends a copy of the letter to Heloise. We cut to her reaction.

 We see her pacing the room, berating an imaginary Abelard as she writes to him in reply. ‘I only appear chaste from the outside’ .. ‘don’t you remember that it was only to please you that I became a nun’ .. ‘I think about our physical love all the time. Even during the mass when our thoughts should be at their purest memories of the sensuous pleasures we shared come back to me’ .. ‘I do not want to be saved if it means giving up my love of you. Any corner of heaven will be enough if I can keep my love for you.’ She will never change her mind; her love of Abelard comes before everything else.

In his reply Abelard does his best (in a slightly staid way) to answer her by telling her to take the opportunity that God has offered her and redirect her love to Him.

But, as he dispatches the letter, the situation in his own monastery turns ugly: a monk is poisoned in mysterious circumstances. Abelard realises that he was the intended victim and that further attempts may be made on his life. He decides to flee. He returns to Paris but is not able to continue teaching there because his patron Stephen is out of favour with the king. He arrives eventually, almost an outcast, at Heloise’s convent of the Paraclete.

* * *

He stays at the Paraclete. Heloise and Abelard have their first private conversations in twelve years. They are full of acrimony and recrimination. Heloise wants to know why he has abandoned her and not given the least sign of friendship. Abelard begs her to cease ‘her old perpetual complaint against God’ and devote herself to spiritual matters. They find themselves in an emotional deadlock with no apparent hope of reconciliation. 

Quite suddenly, Heloise draws a halt to the conflict.  She will no longer discuss this matter, she says. She will do what he has been asking her to do and leave her ‘old complaint against God’. Is she saying there should be no more conversation between them?

She goes on, almost casually, to suggest that he write some hymns for the convent. He does so. He also writes a philosophy book based on questions she has asked him and an account the origins of the universe at her request. It becomes apparent from their conversations that love is at the centre of Abelard’s theology. They work together. Heloise also writes hymns, among them the Easter hymn with which the film begins. We see the partial rebuilding of the secret world that they shared in Paris.

By the time Abelard delivers the final hymn, Heloise has achieved her aim. She has managed to reconstruct not just a friendship but a working friendship, a collaboration. There is even a kind of physical closeness that promises to overcome what he considers the shame of his castration.

What might have been an idyllic final chapter to their life together is terminated abruptly when Abelard receives a copy of a letter. It is addressed to the prominent reformer, Bernard of Clairvaux, and it accuses Abelard of heresy. Heloise tries to tell him to ignore it but he is adamant that he must meet this final challenge and defend his logic against unreasoning belief. Even though he is frail, he leaves the Paraclete and travels to the town of Sens to answer the charges against him.

* * *

At Sens a full council of dignitaries has been convened. He is outmanoeuvred by the opposition who are as skilled manipulators of committees as he is inept with people. In the sessions they ridicule his ideas and make it impossible for him to put forward his arguments. Logic does not always overcome preconception and prejudice in open debate. Abelard becomes so angry that he cannot continue. He stops the hearing and announces his intention to appeal to the pope in Rome.

He walks out of the meeting and starts immediately to make his way to Rome; he is now an elderly man alone. Exhausted, he rests for a while at the abbey of Cluny. The abbot gives him shelter and is very civil but is obliged to show him the proclamation he has just received from Rome effectively putting him under arrest. His enemies at Sens have not been idle. Although he is not free to leave the monastery, the abbot allows Abelard to continue writing, teaching and discussing philosophy with the monks.

Abelard’s health begins to decline. We see him on his sickbed, tended by other monks. Even here he cannot resist an argument. One of them says something which provokes him to rehearse his (very shocking) idea that those who crucified Christ did not commit a sin. He becomes animated as he deals with the objections of the outraged monks. He dies in mid-sentence.

The abbot returns the body to Heloise at the Paraclete.  We see her keeping a vigil by the coffin. She looks at his final letter to her which has arrived with his body. She reads, “Heloise my dear sister, once dear to me in the world now dearer to me in Christ. Logic has made me hated in the world ...”  She does not read on, tears fill her eyes and she smiles. She whispers to the body the words which she has used in parting from him frequently during the film, ‘farewell my only love’.

* * *

We dissolve back to the scene with which the film began, Heloise’s deathbed. We realise that she is in the very room in which Abelard’s body was laid all those years ago. The aged Heloise is motionless. She is listening to the nun reading from her Easter hymn. It recalls the special day of a love affair: “This is the day that wakes the bridegroom! This is the day that wakes the bride! This is the day that restores all things! This is the day, lovely spring! This is the day, world’s delight! This is the day, newness of life!”

Heloise’s gaze is far away. She is feeling the joy of the soul which returns to its creator but, even more, she is feeling the joy of the lover who meets again her beloved. The priest reaches out his hand and closes her eyes.

James Burge   May, 2004