Emily Auerbach: Was this relationship with its blows and all kinds of things going on, was this an obsessive relationship?

Prof. Schulenburg: It seems that way from the History of My Calamities, this last selection that he talks about neglecting his scholarly duties, writing poems to Heloise and forgetting about Aristotle. His whole life seems to have focused on his love affair.

Actually, this was the first time apparently for both of them so it was a very passionate love affair. Abelard, again, is in his later 30s and he had this very great reputation up to this point. I think it is important to underscore this uninhibited lovemaking and, again, "no stages of love escaped their desires," which he describes is very consuming and obsessive.

Emily Auerbach: And at this time as a teacher and as someone connected to the church, would he have been expected to be celibate?

Prof. Schulenburg: This is kind of a complicated aspect of his life. He actually belonged to the Chapter of Notre Dame so he was a canon. This was not a monk so he did not have to be celibate. As a canon he could be involved in a relationship and so forth, but if he wanted to have a higher office in the church he needed to have a great reputation and celibacy would lead to that. He couldn't be married to two mistresses, and so it was important to channel all of your energies into philosophy.
Emily: Instead he is neglecting his philosophy.

Prof. Schulenburg: Exactly.

Emily Auerbach:: With this relationship, what about Uncle Fulbert in the background, the one that is labeled as simpleton for not recognizing he has let a wolf into his house?

Prof. Schulenburg: Abelard says in the History of My Calamities that they took greater and greater risks. They ignored the gossip and the rumors. He says specifically, "Those closest are last to know." Fulbert disregarded these rumors and finally, apparently, he figured out what was happening under his own roof.

Emily Auerbach: Was that when Heloise started to show signs of pregnancy or...?

Prof. Schulenburg: Oh, I think this was before this. He tried to end it, but I think the final episode was when he found Abelard and Heloise together in bed.

Emily Auerbach: A little hard to ignore.

Prof. Schulenburg: Right. And it is soon after this that Heloise discovered that she was pregnant. According to the sources, she was very happy about it. It is at this point that Abelard then removes her from Uncle Fulbert's house, and he sends her to his sister's house in Brittany. Here then is born their little child, Astrolabe.

Emily Auerbach: Named after the scientific instrument?

Prof. Schulenburg: This symbolic term, I guess, "falling from the sky."

Emily Auerbach: Uncle Fulbert, what was his reaction then in terms of the consequences for Abelard, this man he has hired as his tutor?

Prof. Schulenburg: Well, needless to say, Fulbert was furious when he learned that Heloise was pregnant. Abelard then returns to Paris, and he takes up his teaching again. He attempts to make amends to Uncle Fulbert. He promises Uncle Fulbert that a secret marriage will take place, and this was to be secret, again, so that Abelard's reputation as a scholar, as a teacher, as a celibate would not suffer.

Emily Auerbach: You mean he would pretend not to be married?

Prof. Schulenburg: Right. It was going to be a marriage that would take place, but then he would pretend that no marriage had taken place.

Emily Auerbach: What good is that for Heloise?

Prof. Schulenburg: Well, Heloise will argue against this. It really does not satisfy what Abelard thought it would, but Fulbert agreed. Fulbert thought this was a fine idea, and at this point then Abelard returns to Brittany to get Heloise. It is at this point then that Heloise reveals her strong convictions and her strong personality against the secret marriage.

Emily Auerbach: Why did Heloise argue against marriage? Was it just that it was going to be hidden, or did she have objections to marriage itself?

Prof. Schulenburg: She could see things, I think, that Abelard was blind to at that moment because she saw that the marriage would not solve the problem. A secret marriage wouldn't solve the problem because it would not appease Fulbert. It would not form public reparation. It would also, she thought, pose a risk to Abelard, and most important it would be a disgrace for them both. This would be in the mindset of the time of the twelfth-century Renaissance, the ideas of Abelard and Heloise in this tradition of the classics that philosophers were celibate. If you were going to be a great philosopher marriage would be very detrimental.

In Abelard's History of My Calamities, he describes Heloise's arguments against marriage. And she argues from the classical viewpoints against the marriage relationship.

Norman Gilliland: This is Abelard quoting Heloise: "But apart from the hindrances to such philosophic study, consider, "she said, "the true conditions for a dignified way of life. What harmony can there between pupils and nursemaids, desks and cradles, books or tablets and distaffs, pen or stylists and spindles?

"Who can on concentrate of thoughts of scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying, nurses soothing them with lullabies, and all the noisy coming and going of men and women about the house? Will he put up with the constant muddle and squalor, which small children bring into the house?"

Emily Auerbach: If I follow that right, Heloise is making the argument that she should not marry Abelard, because if she does so and they have this house together with children, he won't be able to do his work.

Prof. Schulenburg: That's right. And she is arguing from the celibate, monastic standpoint that this will impede his scholarship.

[Continued on Page Three]

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