Peter Abelard was once the most famous man in the world and this
book begins quoting Heloise, as the beautiful love letters between
them are how they are now most often remembered. Clanchy sets the
episodes of their lives in context - most savagely, when Abelard,
having fathered a child with Heloise, was seized by her relatives
and castrated in revenge - and tells the whole story with the
authority of a scholar totally in command of the sources. This
beautifully-written book will take you not only to the heart of
Abelard, but to the heart of the medieval era in France as well.
(Kirkus UK)
Michael Clanchy introduces the reader to medieval life through the
experience of Peter Abelard, the master of the Paris schools whose
career included seducing Heloise (his student), being castrated,
accused of treason, condemned as a heretic (twice) as well as
writing his memoirs - his "story of calamities."
Because Abelard touched so many aspects of life, this book is
structured naturally around the roles he played. The author
describes in vivid and concrete terms what it meant in the twelfth
century to be a famous scientist (the master of Latin, logic and
philosophy), then a dedicated monk and pioneer of the discipline of
theology - and yet one who was at various times a wandering
scholar, courtier and jester. The author's many new findings
include the discovery that it was Heloise who inspired many of
Abelard's most profound ideas. "She" educated "him: " up to now
historians have assumed it to be the other way round.
This, the first biography of Abelard for over 30 years, combines
the most recent international research with a re-reading of the
sources line by line.
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