The letters of Heloise and Abelard will remain one of the great, romantic and intellectual documents of human civilization while they, themselves, are probably second only to Romeo and Juliet in the fame accrued by tragic lovers. Here for the first time in Mart Martin McLaughlin's edition is the complete correspendence with commentary.

This new edition offers fascinating insights into one of the most celebrated love affairs of the Middle Ages. A new chapter charts the debate about the letters and offers fresh evidence to attribute them to Abelard and Heloise. The complete Latin text is reproduced with an annotated translation by Chiavaroli and Mews.

The letters of Abelard and Heloise contain a vivid account of one of the most celebrated love affairs in the western world that raised questions about love, marriage, and religious life in the Middle Ages. This much needed new edition of the Latin text contains English translation, a full introduction, extensive annotation, and detailed indexes.

These essays provide original reflections and new evidence for the lives and work of an outstanding medieval couple, Peter Abelard and Heloise. The main themes of the author's studies are the careers and the thought of Peter Abelard, his philosophy, theology and monastic teaching, his relationship in marriage and in religious life with Heloise and their correspondence. The essays, now brought together in a single volume, show how much is still to be learned from the presentation of new evidence and the opening of new enquiries about the lives and calamities of Peter Abelard and Heloise.

Heloise, the twelfth-century French abbess and reformer, emerges from this book as one of history's most extraordinary women, a thinker-writer of profound insight and skill. Her supple and learned mind attracted the most radical philosopher of her time, Peter Abelard. He became her teacher, lover, husband, and finally monastic ally. That relationship has made her fame until now. But Heloise is far more important in her own right. Seventeen experts of international standing collaborate here to reveal and analyze how Heloise's daring achievements shaped normative issues of theology, rhetoric, rational argument, gender, and emotional authenticity. At last we are able to see her for herself, in her moment of history and human awareness.