Often examples provoke or assuage human feelings more than words do. Hence, after some consolation by a discourse delivered in person, I have resolved to write a letter of consolation to an absent friend concerning the very experiences of my own calamities, so that, in comparison with mine, you may recognize your own trials to be either nothing or slight, and may bear them more tolerably. I, then, born of a certain town built at the entrance to lesser Brittany — removed, I believe, some eight miles eastward from the city of Nantes, and called by its own name Le Pallet — being, like the nature of my land or of my stock, light of spirit, was likewise of quick wit and apt for the discipline of letters.
Now I had a father somewhat imbued with letters before he was girded with the military belt; whence afterward he embraced letters with so great a love that whatever sons he might have, he arranged to have them instructed in letters before arms. And so indeed it was done. Therefore he, who held me, his firstborn, the dearer, took the more diligent care that I be educated. But I, the more abundantly and easily I advanced in the study of letters, clung to them the more ardently, and was so enticed into love of them that, leaving to my brothers the pomp of military glory together with my inheritance and the prerogative of the firstborn, I utterly renounced the court of Mars, that I might be reared in the bosom of Minerva;
and since I preferred the armor of dialectical reasonings to all the teachings of philosophy, I exchanged these arms for the others, and preferred the conflicts of disputations to the trophies of wars. Accordingly, traversing various provinces in disputation, wherever I had heard that the zeal for this art flourished, I became an emulator of the Peripatetics. At length I came to Paris, where this discipline had already especially been wont to flourish, that is, to William of Champeaux, my teacher, at that time foremost in this mastership both in fact and in reputation; with whom, having lingered a little while, I was at first acceptable to him, but afterward most grievous, when I tried to refute certain of his opinions and often ventured to argue against him, and sometimes seemed the superior in disputing.
This indeed even those who were reckoned foremost among our fellow students endured with the greater indignation, inasmuch as I was held to be junior in age and in length of study. Hence began the beginnings of my calamities, which persist even to now; and the more widely my fame extended, the more was the envy of others kindled against me. At length it came about that, presuming upon my talent beyond the strength of my years, I aspired, a mere youth, to the direction of a school, and looked out for a place in which I might do this — namely, Melun, at that time a notable stronghold and a royal seat.
My aforesaid master sensed this, and, striving to remove our school as far from himself as he could, secretly contrived by what means he could that, before I withdrew from his school, he might hinder the preparation of our school and take away from me the place I had provided. But since he had there as rivals not a few among the powerful of the land, relying upon their aid I became master of my wish, and his manifest envy won for me the assent of very many. From this beginning of our school my name began to be so extended in the art of dialectic that not only the fame of my fellow students, but even that of the master himself, being curtailed, was gradually extinguished.
Hence it came about that, presuming yet more upon myself, I transferred our school with all speed to the stronghold of Corbeil, which is nearer to the city of Paris, so that from there, namely, my importunity might give more frequent assaults of disputation. But after no long interval of time, seized by sickness from immoderate affliction of study, I was compelled to return to my homeland, and for some years, removed from France, I was sought after the more ardently by those whom the doctrine of dialectic stirred. But after a few years had elapsed, when I had by now long since recovered from my sickness, that teacher of mine, William, archdeacon of Paris, having changed his former habit, betook himself to the order of the regular clergy;
with this intention, as they reported, that he might be promoted to a higher grade of prelacy the more religious he was believed to be — as soon afterward happened, he being made bishop of Châlons. Yet this habit of his conversion recalled him neither from the city of Paris nor from his accustomed study of philosophy; but in the very monastery to which he had betaken himself for religion's sake, he straightway, after his usual manner, conducted public schools. Then I returned to him in order to hear rhetoric from him, and, among the other endeavors of our disputations, by the most evident reasonings of arguments I compelled him to change, nay rather to destroy, his ancient opinion concerning universals.
Now he held this opinion concerning the community of universals: that one and the same thing in its whole essence was present at once in each of its individuals, among which indeed there was no diversity in essence but only a variety in the multitude of accidents. But then he so corrected this opinion of his that thereafter he spoke of the same thing not as identical in essence but as the same in being indifferent.
And since on this very point the chief question among dialecticians has always been that of universals—so great a question that even Porphyry, when writing of universals in his Isagoge, did not presume to define it, saying 'For this is a most lofty matter'—when he had corrected, or rather been forced to abandon, this opinion, his teaching fell into such neglect that he was scarcely admitted any longer to the rest of dialectic, as though the whole sum of this art consisted in this very doctrine of universals.
From this our school gained such strength and authority that those who before had most ardently clung to that master of ours, and who most fiercely attacked our teaching, now flocked to our schools; and the very man who had succeeded our master in the chair of the Paris see offered me his own place, so that there, where formerly his own and our master had flourished, he might submit himself with the rest to our teaching. And so, after I had directed the study of dialectic there but a few days, with what envy our master began to waste away, with what grief to seethe, is not easy to express; nor, unable long to endure the heat of the misery he had conceived, did he craftily set about to remove me even then.
And because he had no way to act openly against me, he contrived to take away my school, bringing the basest charges against the man who had granted me his chair, and putting some rival of mine in his office in his stead. Then I returned to Melun and there set up our school as before;
and the more openly his envy persecuted me, the more it added to my authority, according to that line of the poet, 'Envy seeks the heights; the winds buffet the loftiest peaks.' But not long after, when he perceived that almost all discerning men greatly doubted his sincerity in religion and were whispering vehemently about his conversion—seeing that he had by no means withdrawn from the city—he removed himself, together with the little gathering of his brethren and his school, to a certain village far from the city. And at once I returned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace from him thereafter.
But because, as I have said, he had caused my place to be occupied by my rival, I pitched the camp of our school outside the city on the Mount of Saint Genevieve, as though to lay siege to him who had seized my place. When our master heard this, returning shamelessly at once to the city, he brought back to its former monastery whatever school he could then muster and the little gathering of brethren, as though to relieve from our siege the soldier whom he had abandoned. But while he meant to help him, he greatly harmed him. For that man had before some disciples of a sort, chiefly on account of his lectures on Priscian, in which he was thought to excel; but after the master arrived, he lost them all utterly;
and so he was compelled to give up the direction of his school. And not long after, as though now despairing of worldly glory, he too turned to the monastic life. But what contests of disputation our scholars had after our master's return to the city, both with him and with his disciples, and what fortune the outcome of these wars granted to our side—indeed to me myself in them—the event itself long since taught you also. That word of Ajax I will boldly utter, to speak more temperately: 'If you ask the fortune of this fight, I was not vanquished by him.' And though I should keep silent, the very fact cries out, and the outcome of the matter itself declares it. But while these things were taking place, my dearest mother Lucia compelled me to return to my homeland;
for after the conversion of my father Berengar to the monastic profession, she was minded to do the same. When this was accomplished, I returned to France, chiefly that I might learn theology, since by then our oft-mentioned master William was flourishing in the bishopric of Châlons. In this branch of study his own master, Anselm of Laon, then held the greatest authority by reason of his antiquity. I went therefore to this old man, to whom long usage rather than talent or memory had won his name. If anyone came to him uncertain, to press him on some question, he went away more uncertain still. He was wonderful indeed in the eyes of his hearers, but nothing in the sight of those who questioned him.
He had a wonderful command of words, but their sense was contemptible and void of reason. When he kindled a fire, he filled his house with smoke, not lighting it with brightness. His tree, all in leaves, seemed conspicuous from afar to onlookers, but to those who drew near and examined it more carefully it was found to be fruitless. When therefore I had approached this tree to gather fruit from it, I found it to be that fig tree which the Lord cursed, or that ancient oak to which Lucan compares Pompey, saying, 'It stands, the shadow of a great name, like a lofty oak in a fruitful field,' and so forth. Having discovered this, then, I lay idle in its shade for not many days;
but as I now came to his lectures more and more rarely, certain men who were eminent among his disciples took it gravely, as though I were becoming a despiser of so great a master. Thereupon, secretly stirring him too against me, they made me odious to him by their wicked insinuations. Now it happened one day that, after some collation of opinions, we scholars were jesting among ourselves. There, when a certain one, in a probing spirit, had asked me what I thought of the study of the divine books—I who had as yet studied only in philosophy—I replied:
that the study of this reading was most wholesome, since in it the salvation of the soul is made known, but that I greatly marveled that, for those who are lettered, the very writings of the saints or the glosses do not suffice for understanding their expositions, so that they should need no other teacher. Many who were present, mocking me, asked whether I myself could undertake and presume to do this. I replied that I was ready, if they wished, to make the trial. Then, crying out and mocking me still more, they said: 'Certainly, and we agree. Let then an expositor of some unusual passage of Scripture be sought out and put before you, and let us test what you promise.' And they all agreed upon the most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel.
And so, having taken up an expositor, I at once on the morrow invited them to the lecture. They, giving me counsel against my will, said that one ought not to hasten to so great a matter, but that I, being inexperienced, ought to keep longer watch in searching out and securing the exposition. But, indignant, I replied that it was not my custom to advance by practice but by talent; and I added that either I would utterly cease, or else they should not delay to come to the lecture at my pleasure. And at our first lecture indeed few then were present, since it seemed ridiculous to all that I, still as it were wholly inexperienced in sacred reading, should undertake this so hastily.
Yet to all who were present that lecture proved so pleasing that they extolled it with singular praise, and compelled me, according to this manner of our reading, to set about glossing. When this was heard, those who had not been present began to vie in flocking to the second and third lecture, and all alike were most eager to transcribe, at their very outset, the glosses which I had begun on the first day. Hence the aforesaid old man, stirred by vehement envy and already spurred against me by the persuasions of certain men (as I have mentioned above), began to persecute me in sacred reading no less than our William had before done in philosophy.
Now there were then in this old man's school two who seemed to surpass the rest, namely Alberic of Reims and Lotulf the Lombard; and the more they presumed great things of themselves, the more they were inflamed against me. Chiefly therefore at their instigation, as was afterward discovered, that old man, perturbed, shamelessly forbade me to carry on any further in the place of his teaching the work of glossing which I had begun, alleging this reason: lest, if perchance I should write something erroneous in that work—being as yet untrained in this study—it should be imputed to him. When this had come to the ears of the scholars, they were stirred with the utmost indignation at so manifest a slander of envy, such as had never before befallen anyone.
And the more manifest this was, the more honorable it proved to me, and by persecuting me it made me more glorious. After a few days, therefore, returning to Paris, I held in peace for some years the school long since destined and offered to me, from which I had at first been expelled; and there, at the very outset of the school, I straightway set myself to complete those glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These proved so acceptable to readers that they now believed I had attained no less favor in sacred reading than they had seen in philosophical. Whence, our school being vehemently multiplied by the pursuit of both branches of study, what gains of money and what glory from fame these won for me could not be hidden even from you.
But since prosperity always puffs up fools, and worldly tranquility enervates the vigor of the mind and easily dissolves it through the enticements of the flesh, when I now reckoned myself to be the only philosopher remaining in the world, and feared no further disquiet, I began to loosen the reins of lust—I who before had lived most continently. And the more I had advanced in philosophy or sacred reading, the more, by the uncleanness of my life, I withdrew from the philosophers and divines. For it is well known that philosophers, and still more divines—that is, those intent on the exhortations of sacred reading—shone above all in the grace of continence. Since therefore I was wholly laboring under pride and lust, divine grace, though I was unwilling, conferred upon me the remedy for both maladies.
And first the remedy for lust, then for pride: for lust indeed by depriving me of those things by which I practiced it; for pride, which was born to me chiefly from my knowledge of letters, by humbling me through the burning of that book in which I most gloried, according to that saying of the Apostle, 'Knowledge puffs up.' I wish you now to know both stories of this matter more truly from the thing itself than from hearsay, in the very order in which they came to pass.
Since therefore I always abhorred the uncleanness of harlots, and was kept by the constant assiduity of scholarly study from the approach and frequenting of noble women, and had little knowledge of the conversation of laywomen, a perverse fortune—flattering me, as the saying goes—found a more convenient occasion by which more easily to cast me down from the summit of this loftiness; or rather, by which divine pity might claim for itself, brought low, one most proud and unmindful of the grace he had received. For there was in that very city of Paris a certain young girl named Heloise, the niece of a certain canon called Fulbert, who, the more dearly he loved her, the more diligently had taken pains to have her advanced in every learning of letters that he could.
And though in face she was not the lowest, in abundance of letters she was supreme. For inasmuch as this good of literary knowledge is rarer in women, by so much the more did it commend the girl and had made her the most renowned in the whole realm. Her therefore, having considered all the things that are wont to allure lovers, I judged the more convenient to join to myself in love, and I believed I could do this most easily. For I was then of such great name, and so excelled in the grace of youth and form, that I feared no refusal from whatever woman I might deign to honor with my love. So much the more easily, moreover, did I believe this girl would consent to me, the more I knew her both to have and to love knowledge of letters;
and even in our absence we might present ourselves to each other by written messengers, and write many things more boldly than we could speak, and thus always be engaged in pleasant exchanges. Wholly inflamed therefore with love of this young girl, I sought an occasion by which I might make her familiar with me through domestic and daily intercourse, and more easily draw her to consent.
That this might come to pass, I dealt with the aforesaid uncle of the girl, certain of his friends interceding, that he should receive me into his house, which was very near our school, for whatever price of maintenance he pleased; alleging this reason, namely, that the domestic care of our household greatly hindered our study, and that the excessive expense burdened me too heavily. Now he was a man exceedingly covetous, and toward his niece exceedingly zealous, that she might ever advance further in literary instruction. By these two things I easily obtained his assent and gained what I desired, since he both gaped wholly after money and believed that his niece would derive some benefit from our instruction.
Earnestly entreating me on this matter, he came to meet my wishes beyond what I would have presumed to hope, and furthered my love: namely, by committing her wholly to my teaching, so that, as often as I should be free on returning from school, I should give my labor to teaching her both by day and by night, and should sharply chastise her if I found her negligent. In this matter indeed, marveling vehemently at how great his simplicity was, I was no less astonished within myself than if he had committed a tender lamb to a famished wolf.
For in handing her over to me not only to be taught but even to be sharply chastised, what else was he doing but granting full license to my wishes, and offering an occasion—even if we had been unwilling—so that her whom I could not bend by blandishments I might more easily bend by threats and blows? But two things chiefly recalled him from base suspicion: namely, his love for his niece, and the past reputation of my continence. What more? First we are joined in one house, afterward in heart. Under the pretext of discipline, therefore, we gave ourselves wholly over to love, and the study of reading offered those secret retreats which love desired. With our books open, then, more words of love than of the lesson pressed themselves forward; there were more kisses than sentences;
more often our hands returned to her bosom than to the books, and love turned our eyes upon each other more frequently than reading directed them to the text. And so that we might have less suspicion, love sometimes gave blows—not fury; affection, not anger—blows that surpassed the sweetness of all ointments. What more? No degree of love was left untried by us in our eagerness, and if love could devise anything unwonted, it was added; and the less we had experienced these joys, the more ardently we pressed upon them, and the less did they turn to weariness. And the more this pleasure had occupied me, the less could I give myself to philosophy and devote my labor to the school. It was exceedingly tedious to me to go forth to the school or to linger in it;
and likewise burdensome, since I was keeping nocturnal vigils for love and diurnal ones for study. And reading found me then so negligent and lukewarm that now I produced nothing from talent but all from habit, and was now no more than a reciter of former discoveries; and if I was permitted to discover anything, it was love songs, not the secrets of philosophy. Many of these songs, indeed, are still frequented and sung in many regions, as you yourself know, chiefly by those whom a like life delights. But what sadness, what groans, what laments our scholars took up over this, when they perceived this occupation—nay, perturbation—of my mind, is not easy even to conceive.
For now so manifest a thing could deceive few, and no one, I believe, except the one to whose disgrace it chiefly pertained—namely the girl's uncle himself. To him indeed, when this was sometimes suggested by some, he could not believe it, both, as I mentioned above, on account of the immoderate affection for his niece, and also on account of the known continence of my past life. For we do not easily suspect baseness in those whom we love most, nor can the stain of base suspicion be present in vehement affection. Whence comes also that saying of blessed Jerome in his epistle to Castricianus:
'We are wont to be the last to know the evils of our own house, and to be ignorant of the vices of our children and our spouses, while the neighbors sing of them.' But what is known last does at some time come to be known, and what all perceive is not easily hidden from one; and so, after several months had passed, it befell us also. O how great was the uncle's grief in coming to know this! How great the grief of the lovers themselves at being parted! With what shame was I confounded! With what contrition was I afflicted over the girl's affliction! What surges of sorrow did she sustain over my disgrace! Neither bewailed what had happened to himself, but what had happened to the other; neither lamented his own misfortunes, but the other's.
But this separation of bodies was the greatest joining of souls, and the denied opportunity of each other inflamed love the more, and the now passed suffering of shame made us more shameless; and by so much was the suffering of shame the less, by how much the action seemed the more fitting. There came to pass in us, therefore, what the poetic fable relates of Mars and Venus caught together. Not long after, the girl found that she had conceived, and with the utmost exultation wrote to me at once about this, asking what I myself should resolve to do about it. And so on a certain night, her uncle being absent, as we had agreed, I stealthily carried her off from her uncle's house and sent her without delay to my own homeland;
where she dwelt with my sister so long until she bore a son, whom she named Astrolabe. But her uncle, after her departure, as though turned to madness, with how great grief he seethed, with how great shame he was affected, no one could know save by experiencing it. What, however, he might do against me, what snares he might lay for me, he knew not. If he should slay me, or in any way maim my body, he feared this above all: lest his most beloved niece should be punished for it in my homeland. To seize me and confine me anywhere against my will he was by no means able, especially since I greatly guarded myself in this regard, because I did not doubt that I would the sooner attack him, if he were able or dared.
At length, greatly pitying his immoderate anxiety, and vehemently accusing myself for the deceit which love had wrought, as for a supreme betrayal, I went to the man, entreating and promising whatever amends he himself should appoint for this; asserting that it would seem no marvel to anyone who had ever experienced the force of love, and who held in memory with how great a ruin women have cast down even the greatest men, from the very beginning of the human race. And that I might appease him further than he could hope, I offered to give him satisfaction: namely, by joining to myself in marriage her whom I had corrupted, provided only that it be done in secret, lest I should incur detriment to my reputation.
He assented, and both by his own faith and by that of his kinsmen, and with kisses, he entered into the concord I sought with me—the more easily to betray me. At once I returned to my homeland and brought back my beloved, that I might make her my wife; she, however, by no means approving of this, but utterly dissuading me from it on two accounts: namely, both for the danger and for the disgrace to me. She swore that he could never by any satisfaction be appeased over this matter, as was afterward known. She also asked what glory she would have from me, when she should render me inglorious and humble both herself and me alike; what penalties the world would justly exact from her, if she took from it so great a lamp;
what curses, what losses to the Church, what tears of philosophers this marriage would entail. How unseemly, how lamentable it would be that I, whom nature had created for all, should dedicate myself to one woman and subject myself to so great a baseness. She vehemently detested this marriage, which would be in every way shameful and burdensome to me. She set forth my infamy alike and the difficulties of marriage, to avoid which the Apostle, exhorting us, says: 'Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But if thou take a wife, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation of the flesh. But I spare you,' and so forth. Likewise:
'I would have you without solicitude,' and so forth. But if I would accept neither the Apostle's counsel nor the exhortations of the saints concerning so great a yoke of marriage, then at least, she said, I should consult the philosophers, and heed what has been written on this matter by them or about them; which indeed even the saints often do diligently, to our reproof. Such is that passage of blessed Jerome in his first book Against Jovinian, where namely he records Theophrastus, who—the intolerable annoyances of marriage and its constant disquiets having for the most part been diligently set forth—had concluded, by most evident reasons, that a wife is not to be taken by a wise man; where Jerome himself concludes those reasons of philosophical exhortation with this ending: