Circa 1100-1164
Wife, Abbess

A Famous Love Affair. Heloise was no more than sixteen years old when she began her studies with the cleric Peter Abelard, the best-known philosopher of his day. She so excelled at her studies in Paris that Peter of Cluny later described her as having "surpassed all women and nearly all men." Yet, Heloise is mostly remembered for her love of Abelard, who—as lover, husband, and correspondent— became the focus of Heloise's life.

Heloise and Abelard. As a child, Heloise was educated at the convent school of Argenteuil in France, and then went to Paris to live with her uncle, the canon Fulbert. In 1116 her uncle accepted the thirty-seven-year-old Abelard into his house to serve as Heloise's tutor. In his autobiographical Historia Calamitatum (Account of My Troubles), Abelard admitted that in lodging with Fulbert his intention had been not to...