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Some of the Greatest Men in History Had Dark and Scandalous Secrets

Khalid Elhassan January 31, 2022 36 min

12. A Medieval Romance That Went Seriously Awry

Romeo and Juliet are probably the world’s best-known star-crossed lovers. However, they are fictional characters, conceived in the imagination of William Shakespeare and brought to life by his quill. For real-life star-crossed lovers, perhaps none are more famous than Heloise and Abelard. A pair of medieval scholars, their romance ended in a painful manner – especially for him – as it gets. Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142) was born into minor French nobility in Brittany, and from an early age, he exhibited a love of knowledge that marked him for a life of scholarship.

Abelard’s father encouraged him to study the liberal arts, and by his early twenties, he was famous for his debate skills, particularly in philosophy. Like some super smart people, however, he also gained a reputation for arrogance. By 1115 Abelard was an accomplished theologian, the master of Notre Dame, and a canon in the archdiocese that included Paris. That was when he ran into Heloise d’Argenteuil (circa 1095 – 1164). She lived in the precincts of Notre Dame under the care of her uncle, a secular canon named Fulbert.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.