Lust, revenge and the religious right in 12th century Paris

The steamy, violent saga of medieval lovers Abelard and Heloise -- and their kinky letters -- uncannily anticipate today's battles over sex and religion.

By Priya Jain

Dec 18, 2004 | Since the morning of Nov. 3, that old saying about being doomed to repeat history has never felt so urgent. Nary a whisper about the past can float by without those of us still reeling over the "moral values" vote wondering what earlier times have to tell us about our own. Some draw parallels to the profound societal divisions of the Vietnam era; others audaciously compare our age to the Third Reich. A flurry of new books about the Founding Fathers argue that the rise of George W. Bush and his army of conservative Christians was foretold by the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But none of those go back far enough. If we really want to know the history we've been doomed to repeat, we have to return 900 years, to medieval Paris.

As James Burge eloquently argues in his new biography of the Middle Ages' most famous couple, "Heloise and Abelard," the 12th century was the beginning of the modern age. The term "Middle Ages" is something of a misnomer; this period was "the beginning of something, not the middle." The word "modern," in fact, came into use at this time. Humanism, the corporation and even the Electoral College have their roots in medieval Europe. Scholarship and philosophy were becoming popular, long before the Renaissance. Amid a population boom and a major cultural shift, the 12th century ancestors of today's conservatives and liberals were sparring over politics, religion and sex.

Of course, medieval society wasn't quite the same as contemporary Western culture; for one thing, it was profoundly religious, and the "liberals" of the day weren't interested in secularism so much as a more tolerant theocracy. Although church and state were separate, the 12th century Christian church (not yet divided into Catholic and Protestant) was itself a government, in some ways more powerful than the king, and it was for the leadership of religious society and the future of Christianity that these conservatives and liberals were fighting.

While the era's worldview was dramatically different from our own, its political battles were strikingly similar. The reform movement, which you might call the religious right of its day, believed that not only sex but also sexual fantasies were inherently evil, and enforced chastity was high on its agenda. It saw the prostitution, fornication and even the women's fashion of pointy shoes as evidence of a corrupt society. Burge, a documentary filmmaker for the BBC and Discovery Channel, puts the controversial love story of Abelard and Heloise squarely in the middle of this movement, and the result is a riveting study of faith and sex, set against a conservative uprising so familiar it will make you gasp with recognition.

The impetus for Burge's biography wasn't the "moral values" vote, however; it was a discovery made in 1980 by a scholar in New Zealand with the marvelous name of Constant Mews. In the midst of a 15th century style book on letter writing, Mews discovered 113 never-before-seen letters between Abelard and Heloise. The bulk of our knowledge of the couple previously rested on just eight letters they wrote to each other after they had been separated; the new letters were written during the affair. With the slow creep of time that marks scholarly advancement, the impact of the new letters is just starting to be felt, and Burge's is the first biography to draw upon them. Though they supply fresh texture and detail to the couple's daily life -- the two of them argue, woo each other, make up -- the letters don't change the basic story. Burge's greater contribution is the cultural context he gives to the affair, and the meld of philosophy and history he employs to explain their actions.

Next Page: A famous philosopher impregnates a religious leader's niece -- and faces gory reprisal

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