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They belong to the most famous love pairs of the Middle Ages. Héloïse was probably born in Paris about 1100. Admired for her love for science, she grew up with her uncle Fulbert in Paris. There she met Abelard in 1117, became pregnant and married him in secret. After the tragical end of their relationship, she withdrew to the abbey of Argenteuil at Abelard's request and changed later, together with the whole convent, to the cloister Paraclet - grounded by Abelard - which she, as abbess, made to a vital spiritual centre. There she died in 1164.

Abelard was born in Le Pallet near Nantes in Brittany in 1079 as the son of a knight. He rose to one of the most famous theological teachers of his time, adored and pursued because of his efforts for a reason orientated foundation of Belief. His affair with Héloïse was ended with his castration by violent perpetrators who were sent by her uncle Fulbert. After a few years in the abbey St. Denis, in Paraclet and in the Bretonic cloister St. Gildas de Rhuys, Abelard returned in 1135/36 to his professorship in Paris. But his work was condemned by the synods of Soisson (1121) and Sens (1140), without giving him the chance to defend himself. When the pope temporarily condemned him to silence, he flew to the abbey Cluny and died there on 21th of April, 1142.

Héloïse burried him in her cloister Paraclet where she found her last resting place herself. During the French Revolution the grave of them both was devastated. Today they lie on the Parisean graveyard Père Lachaise.

© 1997 by Astrid Ostheimer

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