Letters of Abelard and Heloise

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise are a set of letters exchanged between the twelfth century theologian Peter Abelard and Heloise, his former student, after the end of their romantic relationship and their separate entries into monastic life, Abelard as a monk and Heloise as an abbess. The letters combine intense personal feeling with intellectual argument, discussing their earlier relationship alongside questions of religious life, and are read as primary evidence for medieval attitudes toward gender, love and monastic discipline. They have been influential in the history of European letter writing and continue to draw the attention of historians and literary scholars studying medieval intellectual and personal life.