Héloïse d’Argenteuil

Héloïse was a French scholar, writer and abbess of the twelfth century, best known for her letters with Peter Abelard, the leading logician and theologian of his day, with whom she had a love affair and later a secret marriage. She is regarded as one of the first women of letters in the West whose name has survived, and her writings are studied both for their literary quality and for their reflections on love, moral intention and marriage.

Born around 1101, she was probably the illegitimate daughter of a noble family. Tradition places her childhood at the convent of Argenteuil, where she received an unusually rigorous education that included Latin, Greek and some Hebrew. Around 1113 she moved to Paris under the guardianship of her uncle Fulbert, a canon of Notre-Dame, who engaged Abelard to tutor her. The relationship became a love affair and a child, Astrolabe, was born. After a violent episode against Abelard, she was sent to a convent, and eventually became abbess of the Paraclete near Troyes.

Her thought survives chiefly in the letters she exchanged with Abelard. Héloïse argued that what matters morally is the intention behind an act rather than the act alone, and she reflected on love as a free and voluntary bond, distinct from friendship and from marriage made for convenience, which she likened to a form of prostitution. She also wrote on women's religious life, calling for rules shaped by women's needs.

Her influence has lasted. Her letters are considered a foundation of epistolary literature and of the courtly love tradition, and later writers such as Rousseau, Laclos and Madame de La Fayette drew on that correspondence. Today she is also celebrated as an early voice in debates about women and learning.