The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France (review)

Reviews 225 Mews, Constant J., The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France, with translation by Neville Chiavaroli and Constant J. M e w s (The N e w Middle Ages), N e w York, St. Martin's Press, 1999; pp. xvii, 378; R.R.P. US$49.95 (cloth), US$18.95 (paper); ISBN 0312216041 (cloth), 0312239416 (paper). This is an exciting work, providing a significant addition to one of the mos famous correspondences of the medieval era and new perspectives on it. The tragic love affair between Heloise and Abelard is well known, thanks to Abelard's account in the Historia Calamitatum and the ensuing letters between the two participants. However, both Heloise and Abelard referred to another set of letters written in the early days oftheir relationship, Abelard in the Historia and Heloise in her letters in response to Abelard's version, which until now has remained only a subject of speculation. Mews' proposal in this text, that w e might not have lost to the depths of history that original correspondence documenting the beginnings and development of their amorous and intellectual relationship, is tantalising indeed. Although the correspondence reproduced and translated here has been available to scholars in Latin since Ewald Konsgen's 1974 publication, Mews' edition is thefirstto translate the letters into English and devote to them the comprehensive commentary they deserve. Konsgen may have made the first tentative suggestions that they might be the letters of Heloise and Abelard, but i t is Mews who offers convincing evidence that they are. Mews begins, in thefirstchapter, with an exploration of how the letters came to be transcribed by the monk Johannes de Vepria at Clairvaux in the late fifteenth century, in what appears to be the only extant copy. The text w e have available today is not a complete version of the entire original correspondence. I t seems that de Vepria was selecting from amongst the manuscripts at his disposal excerpts of texts that best demonstrated elegant Latin prose to transcribe for an anthology of letters. 113 examples of the correspondence were included, initially the unusually elaborate greetings and farewells Woman: A n equal to an equal, to a reddening rose under the spotless whiteness of lilies; whatever a lover gives a lover . . . Although it is wintertime, yet m y breast blazes with the fervor of love. What more? I would write more things to you, but a few words instruct a wise man. Farewell, m y heart and body, and m y total love, (p.201) then more detailed examples from the letters. 226 Reviews Man: To the only disciple of philosophy among all the young women of our age, the only one on w h o m fortune has completely bestowed all the gifts of the manifold virtues, the only attractive one, the only gracious one, he w h o through your gift is nourished by the upper air, he who lives only when he is sure of your favor: may you advance ever further—if she who has reached the summit can advance any further... (pp. 231,233) Tracing his transcription of other texts suggests that De Vepria was a relia translator, who consistently indicated omissions and carefully marked the gender of each of the interlocutors. The following chapter develops a context for a reading of the letters. Mews focuses on the much better known letters by Heloise and Abelard, establishing how they depict the relationship, how they were understood by contemporaries, have been studied as both history and literature and shaped the relationship as we understand it today. Chapter Three provides an important exploration of what documents other than the Historia Calamitatum may reveal about the relationship, drawing on the wider context of intellectual life in Paris, cathedral politics, Abelard's contemporaries and his association with them, and views of sexual mores and affective relationships in that context. M e w s then addresses existing traditions of dialogue between educated w o m e n and men of the elite in the fourth chapter. He considers developing notions of love in the twelfth century, examining literature on love infused by Ovidian traditions and...