HÃ©loÃ¯se d'Argenteuil, her husband Pierre AbÃ©lard, her mother Hersende de ChampignÃ©
Heloise and Abelard Heloise & Abelard Montsoreau Hersende de ChampignÃ© fontevraud fontevrault Paraclete heloise Abelard hersende de ChampignÃ© Hersende de Champagne
Hersende, the first prioress of Fontevraud, was from the house of Champagne, in Latin Campania, originally located in northern Anjou. Although this woman left no authentic written testimony in her own hand, analysis of known sources has made it possible to trace her life and an almost complete family tree of her family. We will not go into the details of this sometimes very interesting genealogy.

View of the choir (photo Aurore Defferriere 2010, link)

Let's say it right away: Hersende de ChampignÃ© is one of the most important female figures of the early French Middle Ages, who has been incomprehensibly forgotten or misunderstood by posterity. In the few years of her life after 1100, she accomplished the incredible feat of founding and organizing Fontevraud, the largest convent of women and the greatest social project of the time. It was under her direct direction that the church of Fontevraud I and the choir of the Abbey of Fontevraud II, which earned the name "Hersende's choir", were built. This magnificent choir [opposite, Wikipedia], with its slender columns that already prefigure the Gothic style and its luminous interior, is a masterpiece of Angevin Romanesque art. It owes its magic to the pastel-colored tufa stone from the Loire region with which it was built. Today, this choir is admired by countless visitors from all over the world, without them learning anything essential about its true author in Fontevraud. In contrast to the other buildings, this choir has become the symbol in stone of the founding idea of the convent.

All the achievements mentioned for the foundation of Fontevraud were attributed by the hagiographers of the Convention exclusively to the itinerant preacher Robert d'Arbrissel, in order to increase the chances of his canonization. Hersende was not mentioned posthumously - wrongly, as the sources prove.

Hersende de ChampignÃ©, daughter of the great Angevin vassal Hubert III de ChampignÃ©, Hubertus de Campania, and Agnes de Mathefelon et Clairvaux, grew up after 1060 in the castle of Durtal. This noble residence, which was considerably enlarged later and can still be visited today in this form, is located a few kilometers north of Angers, on the banks of the Loir, a tributary of the Loire. According to L. Halphen, Mathefelon and Durtal were among the principal fiefs of the counts of Anjou, along with Briollay, Montrevault and Montreuil-Bellay. These houses were, as research has shown, all linked to the family of ChampignÃ©.

Hersende was married at an early age to a relative of Count Foulques IV of Anjou, Guillaume de Montsoreau. Montsoreau is located on a picturesque bank a few kilometers upstream from Saumur, at the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire. From his marriage with Guillaume was born a son: Etienne de Montsoreau. With the support of his mother, he first became a canon at Saint-Martin-de-Cande and later had a successful ecclesiastical career; as archdeacon of Tours, he even had contacts with the Holy See. Hersende had a warm and maternal relationship with a son-in-law from Guillaume de Montsoreau's first marriage, Gauthier de Montsoreau, who was probably almost the same age as his mother-in-law. After the death of her husband Guillaume de Montsoreau shortly before 1087/88, Hersende de ChampignÃ© chose an unusual path in life. Instead of marrying a second time, as was customary at the time, or entering a monastery in her homeland, for example at Le Ronceray in Angers, she committed herself to a very uncertain future. in a very uncertain future: around 1095, abandoning all her possessions and privileges, she joined, at the risk of her life, the wandering band of the charismatic preacher Robert d'Arbrissel. Seminiverbum Dei, such was the name of this former canon of Angers who lived anachoretically in the forests of Craon with several thousand followers of both sexes.

Robert was a colorful character: in spite of his religious fanaticism - he neglected and mortified his body in various ways - he had intolerable relationships with women in the eyes of ecclesiastical orthodoxy: his promiscuous life was already strongly reproached during his lifetime. This man chose Hersende de ChampignÃ© as his closest collaborator and deputy from among hundreds or thousands of women - fugitive nobles, unwanted pregnant women, abandoned priests' wives, wandering filles de joie and widows. It is said that scandalous conditions prevailed in this initially unregulated religious community, which seemed to Many unwanted pregnancies are attested by sources.

Pressed by the ecclesiastical authorities, Robert and Hersende first founded a convent as a place of assembly for the people mentioned and then built the monastic buildings of Fontevraud for them beginning in 1100. The site of the monastery was a few kilometers south of Cande, on the banks of the Loire, and thus in the immediate vicinity of the town and the castle of Montsoreau, the former seigniorial seat of Hersende. The foundation required large donations of land from the local feudal lords and their vassals As our research has shown for the first time, all of the founding personalities had close or distant family ties to Hersende de ChampignÃ©, both in their own families and in those of their relatives by marriage. We can therefore deduce that the whole project was not primarily due to Robert d'Arbrissel, but primarily to the idea, the power of persuasion and the organizational talent of this exceptional woman. This fact has been largely overlooked in established research on Fontevraud Abbey.

Robert d'Arbrissel, wax fresco by Alphonse Le Henaff, Saint Peter's Cathedral, Rennes, painted between 1871 and 1876 (link). On the right, the abbey of Fontevraud and in the foreground a man kneeling before a representation of Christ on the cross. The scene represents the founding of Fontevraud according to the vision of Robert d'Arbrissel. Stained glass window from the church of Notre-Dame de Beaufort en Anjou. Stained glass window by Edouard Didron, late 19th century (link).

The Fontevraud congregation was a mixed convent with multiple structures, which took into account the different needs of its occupants. In this context, the term "double monastery" is just as misleading as the term "order": there were several convents of men and women, of different composition and organization, who lived partly under a very strict, though paramonastic, rule, but who also benefited in part from facilities. Hospices and guest houses were also created to withdraw temporarily from the world or for stays in case of illness. The latter were mainly used by women of the upper nobility. According to the sources, Robert d'Arbrissel, although responsible for the congregation on the spiritual level, played only a marginal role in the organization itself. He had no talent for the practical management of the convent, refused the title and function of abbot, and shortly thereafter continued his activity as an itinerant preacher. Hersende de ChampignÃ©, as prioress of the choir nuns, took over from Robert d'Arbrissel all the supervision and management of Fontevraud, including the direction of the work on the abbey church and other conventual buildings. To obtain funds, she undertook several diplomatic trips.

Petronille de ChemillÃ©, engraving by Michel Van Lochom 1639 (link).

She also provided instruction for the novices. The sources present her as a highly educated, but humane and modest woman, of great gentleness on the one hand and great strength on the other. In the documents of the cartulary of Fontevraud, we often find indications that Hersende, unlike her successor Petronille, knew how to win the hearts of her interlocutors by charitable and generous gestures. This did not mean that she was complacent in substance. Thanks to her exceptional qualities as a leader and negotiator, she quickly became a figure of integration and respect. Robert d'Arbrissel was of a different calibre: through his charisma and his rigor, he polarized the women who were subordinate to him. It is said that he humiliated and tortured some, but that he preferred others. In any case, he knew how to use the services of Hersende de ChampignÃ© and it is proven that he had a great esteem for her.

After Hersende's untimely death, the title of abbess should have been given to her a long time ago, but it was not. It was Petronille de ChemillÃ©, known today to all as the "first" abbess of Fontevraud and then very young, who took over the direction of the convent from the turn of the years 1115/1116. She was a distant relative of Hersende and had previously served as his aide-de-camp. As soon as she took office, the idea of a foundation degenerated and the Convention returned to the place from which it had started, i.e. to the feudal system. Whereas before, under Hersende, there had been a consistent orientation towards the ideals of primitive Christianity, the living imitation of Christ, poverty and love of neighbor, within a few years there was a shift to a reform project. This feudal monastery, rich but frozen, was only used in the following centuries by the high nobility to house their daughters who could not be placed elsewhere.

On the basis of the sources, Hersende de ChampignÃ© can be considered the true founder of Fontevraud. She is thus on an equal footing with Robert d'Arbrissel who, through his relations with various bishops and the pope, merely gave the community the necessary legitimization and approval and, through his religious impetus and power of speech, the required influx of people. There are few contemporary sources that present Hersende in such an equivalent position, but they speak for themselves:

"Domina Hersendis ecclesiae Fontis Ebraudi fundatrix": the lady Hersende, founder of the church of Fontevraud."

"Orate pro piissimo patre nostro Roberto et pro Hersende karissimea (sic) matre nostra": pray for our most pious father Robert and our most dear mother Hersende".

It is difficult to describe Hersende de ChampignÃ©'s performance more accurately!

As mentioned earlier, Hersende's proper name and the date of her death, 1 December, are found in both traditions. Even if one accepts that women named Hersende in France at the time, their number is considerably reduced if we limit ourselves to women of the if one limits oneself to the noble women or high nobility of the Loire region. In no chronicle, no genealogy has found a Hersende of high lineage whose life situation would have resembled that of HÃ©loÃ¯se's mother.

The Book of the Dead of Paraclete mentioned a maternal uncle of HÃ©lÃ¨ne named Hubert. Even if there was a confusion of person or name with Fulbert, it is noticeable that this is a man: Hersende de ChampignÃ© did indeed have a brother of that name: Hubert IV. A later editor of the Book of the Dead could therefore easily have confused the name with the person. The preeminence of the names Fulbert and Hubert in the Loire region has already been emphasized.

Striking analogies to Heloise's story are found in Hersende's female ancestors: A paternal great-grandmother had been a lady named Eremburge de Montmorency. [...]

In addition, there is a great-great-grandmother in this family on the maternal side with the name Heloise [already reported] [...].

Our research has provided us with information about another Heloise, who may have come from the same family. She was a local saint, mentioned in the Acta Sanctorum, where she is also called "Beata Helvisa". She was also from the high nobility and lived around 1030 near the monastery of Coulombs, in the Eure, a few miles north of Chartres, as a recluse in a cell. It is possible that she was the daughter of the lady mentioned in the point or even identical to her.

The supposed periods of birth and death of Hersende de ChampignÃ© and Heloise's mother largely correspond.

The same is true for the period of Heloise's birth. The earlier assumption that she was born around 1100 is hardly tenable in view of the sources. Heloise was probably born around 1095. Hersende de ChampignÃ© lived at that time relatively irregularly in the forests of Craon. Conception and childbirth at this period are therefore conceivable and plausible, and cannot be contradicted by any argument. Hersende, as the second wife of Guillaume de Montsoreau, was most likely much younger than he, and still of childbearing age at the time.

If the Latin Book of the Dead of the Paraclete contained a memorial date for the convent of Fontevraud, we now have a plausible explanation: it may have been established because of kinship ties. On the other hand, Heloise could not be expected to explicitly name her mother as prioress of Fontevraud, because of the compromising nature of such an inscription.

[The marriage of Philip I and Bertrade, both married, is not accepted by the Pope Urbain II. In addition Philip refuses to go on crusade. The couple is excomunicated] This excommunication is badly accepted by the people who nevertheless do not move against Philip. Added to the Interdict that the pope throws on France, King Philip chooses to give in, as he loses religious protection over his subjects, and pretends to separate from Bertrade in 1096.

But Philip, who lives maritally with Bertrade, does not admit defeat and then tries to confuse the two supporters of the pope, Yves de Chartres and Hugues de Lyon. He takes advantage of it to officially take again Bertrade, but the pope reconciles Yves and Hugues. He excommunicated Philip again, but died shortly after, on July 29, 1099. The new pope, Pascal II, although occupied by the fight against the Holy Roman Empire, maintains the excommunication [...].

At court, Bertrade opposed her son-in-law, Prince Louis, son of Philip and Berthe of Holland. She would have even tried to push him aside by trying to poison him so that one of her sons would ascend to the throne. It would be to protect him that Philip would have sent him to study at the abbey of Saint-Denis, where he became friends with Suger. But Louis VI, who seems to have neither hated nor loved the new wife of his father, count of Vexin since 1092, was crowned king and associated with the crown in 1098.

The situation becomes untenable, according to the religious chroniclers, for Philippe and Bertrade: each time they go to a city of the kingdom, the services are suspended, the churches are closed, and the royal couple is regarded as plague victims by the religious. But common people and warriors quick to revolt surprisingly respect the couple. [...]

Nothing changed until 1104, when the king and queen agreed to attend a new council, convened at Beaugency. Philip still sought to gain time by agreeing to submit and do penance in exchange for dispensations allowing marriage to Bertrade. One of the participants of the council, Robert d'Arbrissel, then pronounced a speech which, against all expectations, upset Bertrade. She asked to speak with him, and then decided to renounce her marriage and her privileges. It is then the religious outcome par excellence, the return to God of his creature and the definitive amendment. [...]

It seems, with supporting historical evidence such as that of Georges Duby in his opus Feudality, that Philip and Bertrade only parted ways when the first and oldest of them died [Philip in 1108].

Returning to Paris after her conversion by Robert d'Arbrissel, Bertrade, newly elected by God, signified to Philip that she would submit to the Church, leave the court and go to the borders of Anjou and Touraine, to a village of huts around a spring named the fountain of Evrault. This village, founded by Robert d'Arbrissel to house penitents, gained popularity with the help of his son and a daughter of her first husband, Ermengarde d'Anjou, and later became the Abbey of Fontevraud.

The sentence of excommunication was lifted on December 1, 1104. Bertrade died on February 14, 1117 after having founded the priory of Haute-BruyÃ¨re, on lands that her brother Amaury III had ceded to her in Saint-RÃ©my-l'HonorÃ©note.

In 1128, Bertrade's body was buried in the choir of the church of the priory of Haute-BruyÃ¨re (Priory fonteviste), under a red copper plaque that still existed at the time of the Revolution

Heloise's uncle, Fulbert, has not yet been identified in Anglo-Saxon documents as having a definite relationship to Hersende de ChampignÃ©. However, the search is not yet over. In any case, there is no name match with the traditional brothers of Hersende de ChampignÃ©.

If Fulbert was Hersende's brother, he does not seem to have spent all his youth at the castle of Durtal. In any case, it is possible to identify a few people named Fulbert in the corresponding time period and geographical space, some of whom were indeed young. "Uncle" Fulbert might come into the picture.

The most likely hypothesis seems to be that Fulbert was from a second marriage, described in documents, of Hersende's mother, Agnes of Matheflon and Clairvaux. Agnes had remarried after the death of her first husband, Hubert de ChampignÃ©, to a nobleman from southern Anjou named Rainald de MaulÃ©vrier, who was politically close to Count Foulques IV's rival, his brother Godefroy. Rainald, whose son from a first marriage had become lord of MaulÃ©vrier after him, was driven out of Durtal shortly before 1070, during the fratricidal struggle for power in Anjou. This suggests that another son, not mentioned in the documents, from this second marriage, named Fulbert for example, could have possibly competed with the sons of Hubert de ChampignÃ© for the succession to Durtal. Fulbert, therefore a half-brother of Hubert IV de ChampignÃ©, may have had to leave his homeland permanently after the change of power at Durtal.

Everything leads us to believe that Fulbert first became an altar boy - puer - at the cathedral of OrlÃ©ans. Indeed, between 1033 and 1067, relatives very close to the house of ChampignÃ© had successively occupied the episcopate there, acquired by the simoniacal practice. It was at this time that Fulbert is said to have received the bone of St. Ebrulf mentioned above [An extremely important source was found in the Historia Ecclesiastica of the Norman historian Ordericus Vitalis, 1075-1142 : "Under the reign of King Louis, there lived in Paris a canon by the name of Fulbert, who possessed an intact bone from the spine of Saint Ebrulf"]. A little later, a master of coins, lat. monetarius, by the name of Fulbert, appeared at the cathedral of Saint-Maurice in Angers, who is shown to have had some relationship with relatives of the house of ChampignÃ©. Whether he was Hersende's half-brother and Heloise's uncle must remain an open question.

This hypothesis is not excluded: in 1067, bishop Haderich of OrlÃ©ans had fallen into disgrace, then had been degraded and replaced by a successor who was a stranger to the region, bishop Rainer of Flanders. A new protection of Fulbert within the chapter of Orleans was therefore impossible. This may have been the occasion for a transfer to the cathedral of Angers, where the family had had influence for generations. The position of monetarius at the cathedral of Angers predestined him for a later career in Paris, as it was linked to a lucrative income. A canonry at the cathedral of Angers itself was not particularly attractive at that time.

According to this theory, Fulbert would have been Hersende's half-brother, and she might have been his only real reference in the Durtal house - after the death of his mother and the expulsion of his father, in the face of the hostility of his much older and competing half-brothers. Would this explain his later idolatrous love for HÃ©loÃ¯se? There are also other considerations, such as the existence of contacts with the family's VendÃ´me relative. In any case, Fulbert seems to have spent his youth in a geographical quadrilateral whose corners are Le Mans, Angers, Tours and OrlÃ©ans.

The appearance of Fulbert in the Paris acts is now interesting. Contrary to what was previously thought, the time of his admission to the chapter of Notre-Dame was not after 1107, but before 1102. This opinion is supported by two acts of the king's entourage, in which Fulbert's name appears for the first time. It can be assumed that he was Heloise's uncle, because only one other Fulbert is mentioned at that time in the acts of Paris, Fulbert of Etampes, who is not Heloise's uncle. With the date of entry into the chapter of Notre-Dame, we also know the name of the bishop who promoted Fulbert. From what we have heard so far, it is not surprising that this is another member of the house of Montfort: Guillaume de Montfort, the brother of Bertrade de Montfort, had been imposed by his sister and her royal husband as bishop of Paris in a more or less simoniac manner. His intervention in favor of Fulbert is a very important indication that the relations with the former countess of Anjou and the Montfort clan played a decisive role in the advancement of the career of Heloise's uncle. The provisions of canon law expressly authorized the appointment of foreign canons to the cathedral of Paris. [...]

The fact that Fulbert appears only once more in the acts of Notre-Dame after 1124 has led to the conclusion that he must have died shortly after that year. [...] It is in the register of the abbey's deaths that we find the answer: we find a Fulbert accompanied by a certain Herbert, canon and priest. It has not been possible to determine with certainty who this Herbert was. However, around 1140, they both appear side by side in a contract between Saint-Victor and the chapter of Notre-Dame. Since another canon named Fulbert was not known in the Paris documents at the time, it seems that he was indeed Heloise's uncle. He lived well into his 80s. Other clues have been found to support this hypothesis. [...] Fulbert died at about the same time as Abelard, around 1142. His death is noted in the obituary of Notre-Dame.

As evidenced by his correspondence with Heloise, Abbot Peter the Venerable of Cluny had excellent detailed knowledge of Helene's background in Argenteuil and Paris from his youth. However, until his election as abbot of Cluny in 1122, Pierre de Montboissier - he would only later receive the nickname Venerabilis - had only spent time far from the domain of the crown: in his native region of Sauxillanges in the CÃ©vennes, then in monastic surroundings at Cluny and VÃ©zelay in Burgundy and at DomÃ¨ne in the western Alps. In his younger years, he had thus followed over great distances the path of a well-known young girl near Paris. Nearly a quarter of a century later, he still remembered her when he wrote: "I had not yet fully passed the age of adulthood, I had not yet rushed into adolescence, when your reputation had certainly not yet made me understand the notion of your life.

He did not hide his personal affection for Heloise: "For indeed, it is not only now that I am beginning to love you, you whom I have loved - as far as I can remember - for some time now." And : "Well before seeing you [...] I was already keeping you in the most intimate corner of my heart a place of true and unfeigned love". The abbot even seemed to have reflected on the circumstances of Heloise's birth when he recited the epistle to the Galatians "As he was pleased to call you by his grace from your mother's womb, so you have turned your studies and your learning to far better things." Heloise had indeed been taken from her mother's womb! Of course, the abbot of Cluny may have learned about Heloise from the Cluniacs of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, near Paris. But did this explain how fond he was of her? The abbot's unusually affectionate attention to Heloise points to another fact: Pierre de Montboissier seems to have had very personal, even intimate, information from his earliest youth. This incredible phenomenon has not yet been explained in a plausible way. In this context, the following information acts as a spark :

Pierre's mother, Raingarde de SÃ©mur married Montboissier, had personal contacts with Robert d'Arbrissel and probably also with Hersende de ChampignÃ©. For a time she even wanted to enter Fontevraud. Peter the Venerable wrote on the occasion of the death of his mother, whom he loved very much all his life: "Finally, the famous Robert d'Arbrissel came to see her and stayed with her for some time. She then urged him to make her a nun, even without her husband's knowledge, so that she could, after his death or with his permission, go to Fontevraud" [...]. Robert must have advised against a premature separation, for Raingarde remained in the CÃ©vennes. After her husband's death, she did not enter Fontevraud in 1117 either, since Robert d'Arbrissel and Hersende had already died.

Instead, Raingarde chose the Cluniac town of Marcigny, on the banks of the Loire, as her last place of residence, on the advice of her son who had meanwhile become prior of the order. She spent nearly twenty years there and led a holy life before passing away in 1135, at the time of the Council of Pisa.

If Raingarde therefore had personal contact with Robert d'Arbrissel, she may have been fully informed by him in a confidential conversation about Hersende and her daughter named Heloise. It is more likely that Hersende herself was the informant. It does not matter that she personally accompanied Robert on his pastoral journey to the south, which J. de La Mainferme dates with uncertain arguments to the year 1114. For Raingarde had previously visited many convents in France, among them certainly Fontevraud. Why else would she have wanted to enter? During a visit to Fontevraud, she must have personally met Hersende de ChampignÃ©. Peter the Venerable later followed Heloise's progress from afar and learned of her affair with Abelard and her conversion. After Abelard's death, Venerable Peter confessed that he had wanted Heloise to join the convent at Marcigny. He would probably have been happy to introduce her to his mother or to have her under his protection. [...]

If we admit that there were close personal links, even a true friendship, between Raingarde de SÃ©mur - Montboissier, Robert d'Arbrissel and Hersende de ChampignÃ©, one understands better the disinterested commitment of the abbot in favor of Pierre AbÃ©lard. It is possible that HÃ©loÃ¯se actively used the previous contacts of their two mothers and asked for help for Pierre AbÃ©lard!

Except for Andecy, which lies beyond SÃ©zanne, there is no women's monastery to absorb those who are not married or widows, nor to educate young noble girls: do not the Paraclete and its priories come to answer this function, in a region not deserted, but in full development and essartage, under the effect, among others, of the monastery of men which was founded in 1127, at the same date as the Paraclete, and supported by the same families as it, namely the abbaye de Vauluisant ? It would take too long to list all the names of the donors, vassals of Anseau de Trainel, Milon de Nogent and Odon de Villemaur, the three lords who supported the project of AbbÃ© Artaud, the first abbot of Preuilly, to create Vauluisant, but the list would be exactly the same as that of the donors of Paraclet. [...]

Century 1692 (GaigniÃ¨res collection, Louis Boudan, link).

Vauluisant Abbey, the entrance portal in 2015 (link).

The double foundation of Le Paraclet by Abelard and of Vauluisant by Artaud does not appear to us simply as a coincidence, and we would rather see it as a political will. Could it be a project of Thibaut relayed by his most important vassals? Without wishing to call into question the expulsion of the nuns of Argenteuil by Saint-Denis, did Abelard take advantage of the fact that he knew the count to plan this foundation?

There is no doubt that the two abbeys, contrary to what one might think, were not in conï¬it, assuming that there was rivalry between Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux. The two abbeys delineated with some rigor the lands that had been given to them without precision, made exchanges so as to group their possessions together, and thus mutually recognized their respective areas of expansion within which they forbid each other to compete in the future.

The political intelligence of Heloise, who developed her abbey, and its two nearby dependencies, and then endeavored to expand her order, is not sufficient, by itself, to explain the success of her enterprise. The relationship of the Paraclete with Vauluisant suggests other reasons. Doesn't the success of the Paraclete come from the fact that it is included in a global policy, that of Thibaut de Champagne?

[The construction of Le Paraclet, of its priories and of Vauluisant, is part of a global project that brought a partially populated place, provided it with modern production forces, and made it accessible by roads that made the region more secure. The general impression of the contemporaries must have been the same as that described by AbÃ©lard and HÃ©loÃ¯se: the passage from a deserted and uncultivated place to a prosperous region that took advantage of Thibaut's political project.

Milon de Nogent, perhaps independent of the Montlhery-Bray-Trainel family, was undoubtedly the fulcrum of this policy, and if he was the builder of the bridge, the mills, the ï¬orissant market that we see in 1186, then we understand why he was called not only dominus, but also vir illuster in a charter of 1127. In contemporary documents, we have found only one such qualification, and it concerned Count Thibaut: it could therefore only be It could only be an important person, but we don't know if he was famous for his personal activity or for his family.

The real knot which connects all these characters is perhaps the count of Champagne Thibaut II himself. Cousin of Milon II, put in relation with Abelard by his friend Etienne de Garlande, he undoubtedly possesses an attractive political and religious personality. Doesn't he represent what the most adventurous men of his time are looking for? As different are they, Abelard, Etienne de Garlande, Bernard de Clairvaux, Suger, all bound friendship with him. Is Heloise not his counterpart? Do we not find some of her qualities in the portraits that are made of her?

The coming to Nogent could be explained like this. The region of Provence is at this time the birthplace of a new culture, of the new culture, the possibility of trying out new ideas. Isn't this what Abelard and Bernard were looking for: to break with old religious, intellectual and certainly behavioral forms? Didn't they themselves feel that they were living in a period of rebirth? The region had everything going for it. Even if the local lords and the court of Thibaut did not have the literary requirements of the following generation, they did not fail to appreciate the culture. Ponce I of Trainel already had a school in his castle in 1102, and his ï¬ls Anseau, a scholar, ï¬xed canons there. Thibaut himself had his son Henri the Liberal educated by Etienne, who was perhaps a disciple of Abelard. Henri is able to quote Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Apuleius. Mathilde and Thibaut corresponded with Suger and Bernard. In 1145, John of Salisbury opened a school in Provins and Henry the Liberal asked him about Virgil and the Bible. Not to mention the bishop Hatton, in epistolary relation with Peter the Venerable or Peter Comestor among the most known today.

If Heloise "alongside Scripture, the Holy Fathers and plainchant" "practiced that of medicine and surgery", if the nuns of the Paraclete "learned not only Latin" but also "Greek and Hebrew that in any case knew Heloise", she was not the only intellectual in that region, was not isolated in a desert. She found a population suitable for a "wise" woman, that is, learned, and capable of instructing their daughters. Even if she was not from a great family, her reputation had preceded her, as Peter the Venerable said. Everyone knew the gifts of the young woman. And at that time, apparently enthusiastic for philosophy and letters (how quickly Abelard's students flocked to the Paraclete, Thibaut's good roads not explaining everything!), Heloise indeed received the welcome her husband describes.

HÃ©loÃ¯se, political woman? The qualiï¬cative is perhaps a little anachronistic. It is not, however, if we understand by it one of the effects of a capital virtue, that of knowing how to lead one's life according to virtue. But what else does Heloise do in private and in public? We have tried to understand how a woman in the midst of her century, possessing all the qualities to grasp its movement and to link up with those who are transforming the world, embodies the new ideas in achievements achievements. The continuation of the eulogy pronounced by AbÃ©lard makes it possible to understand "and all also admired his piety, his prudence and her incomparable sweetness of patience". Prudent is better than wise. [...]

In 1141, our Count of Champagne Thibaud II the Great was at war with the King of France. Louis VII the Younger did not forgive him for having refused his help in an expedition against Toulouse. He reproached him moreover for having given asylum to Pierre Le ChÃ¢tre whom he had just driven out of the archbishopric of Bourges and for having made excommunicate his cousin Raoul de Vermandois by a legate of the pope.

At the head of a powerful army the king invaded Champagne and burned Vitry. The fire reached the main church where most of the inhabitants had taken refuge. There were 1,300 men, women and children. All perished in the flames.

From the top of the hill where he had pitched his tent, the young king saw the church burning and heard the cries of the victims.

Shocked by this medieval Oradour, he remains several days without speaking, without taking food, prostrate under the weight of the sacrilegious crime, with which he has charged his conscience. In his fright, the Count of Champagne promised, perhaps a little lightly, to have the sentence of excommunication launched against Raoul lifted.

It was not easy to make the papacy reconsider its decision, but Saint Bernard was there. Thibaud had met Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, who, since the departure of Count Hugh, no longer intended to reserve his words for the monks of his monastery alone, but was increasingly involved in world affairs. Bernard became Thibaud's friend, a friend attentive to leading him on the path of wisdom and mercy. In him resounded the voice of the Abbot of Clairvaux: "What strange blindness, what fury to spend so much money and trouble in waging a war, the fruit of which can only be death or sin!"

But above all Thibaud wants to preserve the roads and towns of Champagne from the miseries of war. He knows that they would deal a fatal blow to the commercial movement of which his county is becoming the foundation. [...]

Eleanor confides to Bernard her despair at not having been able to give the king, after more than 6 years of marriage, the child he is expecting from her and Bernard promises her that if she brings the king back to the path of peace and justice, the Virgin will answer her prayer. Eleanor, the indomitable Eleanor bows. The king authorizes Pierre de la ChÃ¢tre to occupy his seat in Bourges. Pope Lucius II solemnly lifts the excommunication and the ban. Peace was restored between our count Thibaud and the king, who gave him back the county of Vitry. In 1145, less than a year after her meeting with Saint Bernard, Eleanor gave the king a daughter, who received the name of Mary in honor of the Virgin. She will one day be countess of Champagne.

Abelard and Heloise play a pioneering role in the birth of individua1ism, which Aaron Gourevitch, in his famous 1997 book Gourevitch, in his famous 1997 book "La Naissance de l'indididu dans l'Europe mÃ©diÃ©vale" (The Birth of Indidualism in Medieval Europe), places it around the 12th and 13th centuries. For this historian, "does not Abelard's own personality, his irrepressible tendency to act in an original way, to behave in an unusual and unconventional way, his egocentrism and his will to assert his self, speak in favor of a discovery of individuality ?" "The story of my misfortunes" is one of the first autobiographical works [...] One can only think of Montaigne "Reader, I am myself the subject of my book". His whole work reveals an obsessive egocentrism his pride as an overconfident intellectual, his sense of persecution, which also makes him a precursor of Rousseau, his casualness towards Heloise, whose distress he does not understand while he pities himself on his own misfortunes, his way of giving lessons to everyone and comparing himself to the greatest saints, when it is not to Jesus himself. [...]

Abelard's individualism is the individualism of reason, which separates, isolates, distinguishes. His ambition was to rationalize the faith, but he His ambition was to rationalize faith, but he came up against the incomprehension of the defenders of a traditional religion, whose resistance he did not understand. The reason being universal, it should realize the unanimity. This naivety of the thinker, as well as his arrogance, was noted as early as the twelfth century by Otto of Freising, who described him as "tout a fait sot". Alone against all, misunderstood, Abelard finally submits and keeps silent.

Aside from the individualism of reason, the individualism of passion. HÃ©loÃ¯se also reaches this feeling of solitude, by another way: the solitude in love. On the one hand, she discovers that fusion with the beloved is impossible; he is always beyond, inaccessible, like the reflection of oneself that blurs when one touches him. On the other hand, his letters, at least those attributed to him, show a remarkable introspective lucidity. They are moving with sincerity, overflowing with raw eroticism and a sensual love without limits which goes until the blasphemy and the acceptance of the damnation. HÃ©loÃ¯se, it is the despair of the forsaken lover and the sinner without hope of remission. Obsessed at the same time by a feeling of guilt and injustice towards AbÃ©lard as well as towards God, she submits and rebels at the same time. To her two husbands, AbÃ©lard and God, she asks: why did you abandon me?

But also, as a woman of her century, she internalizes the prejudices of her time on the weakness and the inferiority of the female sex, while as a woman of high culture, she aspires to a full freedom of judgment. She is at the same time the repentant Madeleine and the demanding feminist. She submits to the orders of AbÃ©lard and to the exhortations of Bernard, but deep inside she feels alone, abandoned and dishonored. [...] "The lover does not resign herself to her debasement, she aspires to it, she delights in it," writes Etienne Gilson. She feels unloved by AbÃ©lard, and she does not understand the divine injustice: in this, she is desperately alone.

You have sent a letter overflowing with criticism against me, fetid with the filth it contains, and you depict my person covered with the stains of infamy like the discolored spots of leprosy. [...] You have spent a lot of time on the false account of my defamation, you have painted it yourself out of ignorance, like a drunken man who prolongs the delights of a feast as long as he can. Since you have satiated yourself like a pig in the filth and shit of my defamation, I, in my turn, not biting with the tooth of hatred, nor striking with the stick of revenge, but smiling at the barking of your letter, will discuss the unheard-of novelties of your life and demonstrate to what ignominy you have been lowered because of your impurity. Really, it is not necessary to imagine facts to outrage you, according to your way of acting, it is enough to repeat what is well known from Dan to Bersheba. Your decay is so manifest that, even if my tongue were to hold it, it would speak for itself.

A Parisian cleric by the name of Fulbert received you as a guest in his house; he did you the honor of welcoming you at his table as a friend or a member of his family; he entrusted you with the instruction of his niece, a very wise and remarkably gifted young lady. But you have forgotten, what shall I say, you have despised the favors and the honor that this noble Parisian clerk, your host and your lord, has shown you. You did not spare the virgin that he had entrusted to you. You were supposed to protect and instruct her as a pupil; driven by an unbridled spirit of lust, you did not teach her reasoning but fornication. In your conduct you have combined several crimes: you are accused of treason and fornication; you are filthy for having violated the modesty of a virgin. But the God of vengeance, the Lord God of vengeance has acted with frankness: he has deprived you of the part by which you had sinned.

Tortured by the pain of your shameful wound and by the fear of imminent death, driven by the awful ugliness of your past life, you have, as it were, become a monk. But listen, however, to what St. Gregory says, speaking of those who take refuge out of fear in the religious life: "He who does good out of fear, does not altogether depart from evil..."

We have just seen the reasons and circumstances of your entry into the orders. In the monastery of Saint-Denis, you could not stay: yet everything is ordered there according to the faculties of each one, not by a severe rule, but by the mercy of the abbot. You then accepted from your brothers a priory which you could serve as you wished. Then you thought that this occupation could not suffice for your exuberance and your desires and you obtained from the abbot with the general consent of the brothers the possibility of resuming your courses. Let us leave aside everything else: there, in the presence of a barbaric crowd from all sides, you have, through vanity and ignorance, transformed the truth into nonsense.

You do not stop teaching what you should not teach and the money acquired for the price of your lies you bring to your daughter of joy to reward her. What you used to give her, when you were normal, as a price for the expected pleasure, you only give as a reward. But you sin more seriously in paying for your past debauchery than in buying the one to come. Before, you were exhausted in pleasures, today you are still exhausted in desires, but, by the grace of God, you can no longer avail yourself of the need. Listen, then, to the formula of St. Augustine: "You wanted to do something, but you could not; but God noticed it, in his eyes it is as if you had done what you wanted to do. I speak with God and the angels as witnesses: I have heard the stories of the monks your brothers; when you return late at night to the monastery, you run to bring to a courtesan the wages of your teaching and your lies. Without any shame you pay for your past debauchery.

You have taken the habit and usurped the office of doctor by teaching lies. You have ceased to be a monk, for St. Jerome, himself a monk, defines a monk thus: "The monk is not to be a doctor, but a weeper, a man who weeps for the world and, in the fear of God, waits." The abjection of your habit proves that you are not a cleric, but you are even less a layman: the sight of your tonsure reveals this sufficiently. If you are neither a cleric nor a layman, I don't know by what name to call you. But perhaps, out of habit, you will lie and say that I can call you Peter. But I am sure that a name of the masculine gender can no longer keep its usual meaning, if it has become separated from its gender. Proper nouns lose their meaning, if they happen to stray from their perfection. A house that has lost its roof or its walls is called an imperfect house. The part that makes a man has been taken away from you: you can no longer be called Peter, but imperfect Peter. The dishonor of being imperfect has even earned you the seal with which you seal your fetid letters: it represents a being that bears two heads, one a man, the other a woman. I had decided to say again against you many outrageous things, but true and manifest things; since I have to do with an imperfect man, the work that I had begun I will leave it imperfect.