To Heloise, my revered and dearest sister, handmaid of God, and
teacher and captain of the handmaids of God
From her humble brother Peter, abbot of Cluny:
The fullness of God’s salvation and of my own love in Christ.
I am certainly delighted to discover from your letter that my visit to you was no transitory thing, that not only had I come to call but in fact I never left. My stay, I see, was not like the fleeting memory of a guest who spends a single night; I did not become “a stranger and sojourner among you”1 but “a fellow-citizen of saintly women and a member of the household of God.”2 Your keen mind has held on to each detail. Everything I did or said on that whirlwind of a visit left an impression on your warm and generous heart—and I do not mean only what I said with careful consideration: not even what I might have said without giving it much thought has fallen to earth unnoticed. But you noticed it all and, with unbounded kindness, stored it away in your tenacious memory as if it were something great, something sent from heaven, something sacrosanct, like the words and deeds of Jesus Christ Himself. Possibly it struck you in this way because of what it says about guests in the monastic rule we both observe: “Let all who arrive be received like Christ.”3 Or possibly because of what is written about the holders of high positions, “He that heareth you, also heareth me,”4 even though I hold no high position over you. I can only hope that I always remain in such high favor and that you remember me as faithfully in your prayers.
But because long before I saw you, and even more now that I’ve met you, I have kept a special place of “charity unfeigned”5 for you in the deepest recesses of my mind, I will reciprocate as I can. The gift of the trental of masses which I gave you while I was present, I am sending you in my absence, as you wanted, signed and sealed. I am also sending the absolution of Master Peter in a document likewise signed and sealed, just as you ordered.6
About your Astralabe, who for your sake is now my Astralabe, I will happily try to find him a prebend in some distinguished church or other as soon as I have the chance. It is not an easy matter, though, since, as I’ve often found, bishops usually make themselves very difficult when it comes to offering prebends in their own churches. But for your sake, I will do what I can as soon as I can.7
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1 Gen. 23:4.
2 Eph. 2:19. Peter aptly feminizes the gender of the Vulgate’s masculine “saints.”
3 Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 53.
4 Luke 10:16.
5 2 Cor. 6:6.
6 The text of Peter’s absolution survives:
I, Peter abbot of Cluny, who received Peter Abelard as a monk of Cluny, and who took his body in secret and brought it to the abbess Heloise and the nuns of the Paraclete, by the authority of almighty God and all the saints, and in virtue of my office, absolve him of all his sins.
Peter also contributed (possibly to an obituary roll which circulated among religious houses) a verse epitaph for Abelard, which is among the most famous of the many composed for him:
Socrates of Gaul, great Plato of the West,
Our Aristotle, equal or superior in logic
To anyone who has ever lived,
Prince of learning, known throughout the world,
Wide-ranging in his genius, subtle and acute,
Mastering all things by reason and the art of speech—
This was Abelard. But he came to greater mastery
When, having professed himself a monk of Cluny,
He came to the true philosophy of Christ.
There he well completed the final tasks of his long life
And, on the twenty-first day of April, gave hope
Of being numbered among the good philosophers.
7 Peter’s actual efforts on behalf of Heloise’s son are not known. Astralabe did, however, become a canon of the cathedral of Nantes.