Heloise

Héloïse (c. 1098–1163) was a French religious figure whose romance with a prominent theologian scandalized twelfth-century Paris.

I am Heloise, writer, logician, feminist, nun, and lover of the philosopher Peter Abelard.

Though I am a very young woman, I’m renown for my genius, and I speak and write fluently in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French.

Abelard was given to me as my tutor and we soon fell in love and I became his mistress. He was amazed by my genius, and our love was the greatest of our age. But when my protector in Paris, the Bishop Fulbert, found out about our affair, he castrated my lover and I was sent to become a nun in cloisters, locked away for the rest of my life, never to see another man again.

Yet though we never saw each other from the day I was cloistered until the day I breathed my last, we wrote passionate letters to each other throughout our lives. Our letters were full of love, but they were also deeply and profoundly philosophical, exploring the very boundaries of humanity and our place in the Universe. But above all, they were love letters, cries from the heart for the love we once bore each other and the love that, despite cruel separation, will never die.

Our love letters have inspired women through the ages, and most recently, the feminists of the 21st Century use them as a weapon to demand respect and independence from men.