The heart-rending love story of Abelard and Heloise was one of the most talked about relationships in the Middle Ages, and is one of the greatest love stories of all time. Peter Abelard was arguably the greatest poet, philosopher, and religious teacher in all of twelfth-century Europe. In an age when women were rarely educated, Heloise was his most gifted young student. As master of the cathedral school at Notre Dame in Paris, Abelard was expected to be celibate; his career would be destroyed by marrying. In spite of this, Abelard and Heloise's private tutoring sessions inevitably turned to passionate romance, and their moments apart were spent writing love letters.

When Heloise became pregnant, her possessive guardian and uncle, Fulbert, angrily insisted that they marry. The ceremony was held in secret, but the rumor spread through Paris. Enemies confronted Heloise, who publicly denied the marriage in order to protect Abelard's career. Fearing for her safety, Abelard slipped Heloise out of the city and sent her to a convent. Robbed of his niece and his family's honor, Fulbert took revenge by having Abelard brutally castrated. Abelard retreated to a monastery, and the famous lovers now lived separate lives behind cloistered walls — but their love, and their letters, continued.

For a long time, the only letters known to have survived dated from the later period of their separation. Then, astoundingly, a few years ago a young scholar identified 113 new letters between the pair. Lost for almost nine hundred years, these fresh missives provide an intriguing snapshot of the couple's clandestine passion that is erotic, poignant, and at times even funny.

James Burge is the first biographer to combine these astonishing new discoveries with the latest scholarship, resulting in a more complete biography; one that paints a fuller picture of Heloise as a woman who tested the cultural constraints of her time. Burge also addresses Abelard's theological disputes with other teachers, including Bernard of Clairvaux, which led to Abelard's eventual trial for heresy. But Heloise & Abelard is much more than a biography. It opens a window onto the enormous and exciting changes that took place in medieval Europe, even as it presents us with the richest telling yet of one ofhistory's greatest love stories.

"The romance of Hlose and Abelard remains one of the greatest love stories of all time — one of forbidden love; the eventual lifelong separation of the lovers, cloistered in a monastery and convent; and the vengeful castration of Abelard by Hlose's uncle. More tantalizingly, we know of the affair only from eight surviving letters between the couple. But British Sunday Independent columnist Burge draws on 113 recently translated letters that have been attributed to the lovers. Based on all of these letters, Burge analyzes the feelings and states of mind of the correspondents, and he can be a bit pedantic at times. But who can fail to be moved by the passion expressed in the letters? 'Even during the celebration of the Mass,' Hlose famously wrote, 'when our prayers should be purest, lewd visions of the pleasures we shared take... a hold on my unhappy soul....' Burge relates Abelard's theological struggles with the medieval Church, especially with the powerful Cistercian leader Bernard of Clairvaux. Unlike in previous biographies, Hlose emerges as a leader, too, in her role as abbess of the Paraclete, which she developed into a substantial institution. A complex woman, she sought a unified sense of self that would incorporate both her sexuality and her religious faith. Readers new to this medieval drama will be drawn to this vivid account. B&w illus., maps. Agent, Sheila Ableman." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"If ever scholarship could be called delectable, it is here in James Burge?s sympathetic and thorough account." Susan Vreeland, author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue

"A meticulous but always engaging explication of each lover?s innermost desires . . . an impressively researched account." BookPage

Newly discovered letters from Heloise to Abelard shed fresh light onto one of the most famous romances in history in this compelling biography of these passionate, unfortunate lovers.

British author James Burge is a producer and director of documentariesfor the BBC and the Discovery Channel. His fascination with the Middle Ages, which dates from his study of medieval philosophy as a university student,led him to make Strange Landscape, the BBC series about medieval culture,and to create a dramatization of the writings of the eccentric thirteenth-century English friar, Roger Bacon. He also writes periodically for the Independent on Sunday.