MILAN – The Middle Ages are far from being an austere and dark era, as it has always been told by those who, coming later, needed to declare themselves more “luminous” than the previous era.
Although concentrated in a few places, the culture flourished lively and highly cultivated, feeding on the networks that a capillary institution such as the Church could offer. Under the ecclesiastical hat not everything was dominated by ascetic and otherworldly thoughts, even the senses and passions were very much alive and present. Poems and love songs had a very wide diffusion: let’s not forget that “courtly love” must be understood in the sense of “court passions” and not of “pure-gentle love”. And it was not only the literary events of Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere that made many hearts sigh, but also the real, worldly ones of contemporary men and women.
Among these, the story of Abelard and Eloisa was certainly the love that most inflamed Europe in the Thousand, continuing to inspire authors and poets in the following centuries: from Dante’s Paolo and Francesca to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, passing through the many references by Boccaccio. THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE GIRL– Pietro Abelardo, Breton by birth, is still considered one of the most important theologians in the history of the Church. Although subject to excommunication, his theories on the “Dispute of the universals” (the most important medieval philosophical-theological disquisition) were a source of inspiration among the many of Gratian, Albertus the Great, Thomas Aquinas. In his life, Abelard was one of the most followed masters, earning fame and prestige among university students throughout France (including future philosophers, kings and popes). Handsome and talented, in a letter he is described as follows:
“Everyone rushed to see you when you appeared in public and the women followed you with their eyes turning their heads when they met you on the street […] You had two things in particular that made you dear immediately: the grace of your poetry and the charm of your songs, really rare talents for a philosopher like you were […] You were young, handsome, intelligent ”.
The author of a letter so full of love and admiration is a young girl of just sixteen, Eloisa, born around 1095 in the heart of Paris in a wealthy family and entrusted by the canonical uncle to the care of the convent of Argenteuil. Here the young woman distinguished herself from her classmates for her outstanding skills in studying, especially classical languages and Hebrew, and what at the time were called liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, geometry and astronomy). GALEOTTO WAS THE BOOK– Their meeting took place in 1116, when the young woman’s uncle decides to cultivate Eloisa’s skills by having her give lessons from the most famous teacher of the moment: Abelardo. He, almost forty years old, immediately falls in love with the girl, just over seventeen: “Eloisa had everything that seduces lovers most” the philosopher recalled in her biography, which immediately became famous, “History of my misfortunes”.
“Under the pretext of the lessons we abandoned ourselves completely to love, the study of letters offered us those secret corners that passion prefers. When the books were opened, the words busied themselves more around subjects of love than of study, kisses were more numerous than phrases “she recalled in a letter, in which she addresses him as” my lord, indeed father, to the my husband or rather brother, his servant or rather daughter, his wife or better sister … I have loved you with a boundless love … the name of friend and that of lover or prostitute has always been sweeter to me, my heart was not with me but with you “. THE ESCAPE– For the girl Abelardo composes poems which begin to be read in all cultural circles. The idyll continues until Eloisa’s uncle discovers the relationship, driving out the master. Eloisa, however, is expecting a child and for this will flee from Paris together with Abelard, taking refuge in Brittany. The child will be given the name of Astrolabe, the kidnapper of stars.
Abelard, to save the girl from her dishonor, proposes to the family to contract a secret marriage, to which Eloisa opposes, however, fearing that the marriage will put an end to the ecclesiastical career of the beloved. “How many tears would those who love philosophy shed because of (our) marriage … what do the lessons of the masters with the servants, the desks with the cradles, the books and the tablets with the ladles, the pens with the spindles have in common
How can those who meditate on sacred and philosophical texts bear the crying of children, the lullabies of the nurses, the noisy crowd of servants
The rich can bear these things because they have palaces and houses with large secluded rooms, because their wealth is not affected by expenses and she is not plagued by everyday problems “, writes Eloisa. THE SCANDAL– Convinced the young woman, the two marry but the secret does not hold for long. The news spreads through Paris, so much so that Abelard pushes Heloise to send Eloisa to the convent where she studied as a child to defend her from her slander. The girl’s relatives understand the gesture as the philosopher’s abandonment of his wife and begin to threaten him, up to attack him one evening, castrating him. The scandal broke out: the Paris court arrested and mutilated the responsible relatives, but also sanctioned Abelard for having seduced and secretly married Eloisa.
Eloisa takes her vows, becoming abbess. Abelard devoted himself completely to the intellectual life, strictly respecting the ecclesiastical rule. Here their paths diverge, but they do not forget: “The pleasure I knew was so strong that I cannot hate it” she wrote to her beloved years later.
He is adamant and tries to convince her that earthly love was a childish mistake: “My death, far more eloquent than me, will tell you what you love when you love a man”. Over the years Eloisa will prove much more firm than him in keeping love intact “Because sublimation should only be achieved by annihilating the senses and the feeling of love that one feels towards another person
“. TOGETHER FOREVER– In one of the last letters Abelard will ask the woman to arrange for her body to be buried in the hermitage which years earlier he had given to the nuns of his order. Almost twenty years later, Eloisa’s body will also be buried in the same tomb as her beloved: medieval legend has it that the body of Abelard embraced that of Eloisa at the moment of her interment.
“They found among all those horrible carcasses two skeletons, one of which was individually embracing the other. One of those skeletons, which was that of a woman, was still covered with some part of a robe of a cloth that had been white, and around her neck was visible an adrezarach necklace with a silk pouch, adorned with green beads. , which was open and empty. Those objects were of so little value that the executioner certainly hadn’t wanted them. The other, who hugged this one tightly, was the skeleton of a man. ” (V. Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris)
Centuries later, Victor Hugo was also fascinated by the story of the theologian and the girl.
