{"id":11100,"date":"2018-01-20T02:32:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-20T02:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11100"},"modified":"2018-01-21T02:36:04","modified_gmt":"2018-01-21T02:36:04","slug":"what-a-medieval-love-saga-says-about-modern-day-sexual-harassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-a-medieval-love-saga-says-about-modern-day-sexual-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"What a medieval love saga says about modern-day sexual harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lisa Bitel<\/a>, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Suddenly, popular media is saturated with stories of powerful men outed<\/a> by women for behavior in the workplace. These alleged harassers seem to assume that power in the workplace grants them sexual access to anyone. <\/p>\n

In medieval Europe, most people assumed the same thing, although they didn\u2019t call it \u201charassment.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

As a historian of gender<\/a> in the European Middle Ages, I am all too familiar with well-documented cases of sexual harassment, abuse and rape. Such behavior was not considered unlawful or wrong in the medieval period unless one powerful man harassed a woman who belonged to another powerful man. <\/p>\n

One famous 12th-century saga involved a young philosopher, Abelard, and his teenage student H\u00e9loise. The story has many similarities with news of modern-day aggressors, with one major exception: None of today\u2019s harassers has suffered medieval punishment. <\/p>\n

The case of Abelard and H\u00e9loise<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"
\n Abelard and his pupil H\u00e9loise.<\/span>
\n Edmund Leighton, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1115, Abelard was the star of the budding university scene in medieval Paris. Famous for his quick mind and infallible memory, Abelard supposedly never lost an argument. One day he encountered H\u00e9loise, who also studied classics and philosophy (rare for a medieval girl). Abelard later wrote of that first glance, \u201cIn looks she did not rank lowest while in the extent of her learning she stood supreme<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing himself to be handsome and brilliant, Abelard stalked the girl and persuaded her uncle, Fulbert, a church official and H\u00e9loise\u2019s guardian, to hire him as her personal tutor. Fulbert was delighted to employ the famous Abelard. Fulbert gave Abelard room and board, so that he might tutor H\u00e9loise day and night.<\/p>\n

Abelard taught H\u00e9loise more than philosophy. \u201cMy hands strayed oftener to her bosom than to the pages,\u201d he admitted. \u201cTo avert suspicion I sometimes struck her.\u201d Eventually, as he wrote, their \u201cdesires left no stage of lovemaking untried, and if love devised something new, we welcomed it<\/a>.\u201d
\nThe affair became the subject of student ballads sung in the streets of Paris. <\/p>\n

The wages of sin<\/h2>\n

Abelard was alarmed at the gossip and sent H\u00e9loise off to her old convent school outside of town. Their affair remained torrid, though, and he visited when he could. They once had sex in a corner of the refectory where nuns took their meals. <\/p>\n

Their troubles became worse when H\u00e9loise became pregnant. Abelard sent her away \u2013 this time to his sister in Brittany<\/a>, where H\u00e9loise gave birth to their son Astrolabe, whom she left behind when returning to Paris.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n <\/span>
\n ‘Les Amours d’H\u00e9lo\u00efse et d’Abeilard’ (1819), by Jean Vignaud via Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Uncle Fulbert learned of Astrolabe\u2019s birth he \u201cwent almost out of his mind,\u201d as Abelard put it, even though Abelard reminded him that \u201csince the beginning of the human race women had brought the noblest men to ruin.\u201d Eventually, to appease Fulbert, Abelard agreed to marry H\u00e9loise, but only if Fulbert would keep it secret. H\u00e9loise objected but submitted.<\/p>\n

As things were, the stalking and beating of H\u00e9loise posed no danger to Abelard\u2019s reputation nor did fathering an illegitimate son. News of a marriage, though, would ruin him \u2013 for only celibate churchmen could find permanent employment as teachers. <\/p>\n

Fulbert, however, spread word of the marriage. H\u00e9loise and her uncle argued fiercely until Abelard once more hid H\u00e9loise in a convent. Against her wishes, he made her wear nun\u2019s clothing.<\/p>\n

Uncle Fulbert believed that Abelard had abandoned H\u00e9loise. One terrible night, Abelard awoke to find himself under attack by a gang of ruffians who took shocking vengeance for Fulbert. As Abelard put it starkly, \u201cThey cut off the parts of my body whereby I had committed the wrong of which they complained.\u201d <\/p>\n

A eunuch, like a married man, was barred from high church offices and teaching positions. Ab\u00e9lard became a monk and H\u00e9loise an unwilling nun.<\/p>\n

Whose calamity?<\/h2>\n

We know this sad story from Abelard\u2019s \u201cHistory of My Troubles\u201d (\u201cHistoria Calamitatum\u201d)<\/a> written about 15 years after his marriage to H\u00e9loise. By then, she had become an abbess in charge of a small community of nuns at The Paraclete \u2013 a monastery founded by Abelard and named after one of his famous philosophical arguments. The two began to exchange letters<\/a> in the 1130s. H\u00e9loise had never been happy in the convent. She wrote to her husband:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe pleasures of lovers which we have shared have been too sweet \u2026 wherever I turn they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not even let me sleep.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Abelard suggested that she give all her love to Christ instead. He sent her handy tips for running a monastery. He refused to visit, though. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMy agony is less for the mutilation of my body<\/a> than for the damage to my reputation.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His career was paramount; her grief, less so. \u201cHis\u201d reputation, \u201chis\u201d calamity. What about \u201chers\u201d? <\/p>\n

Bad love<\/h2>\n

Something about the history of Abelard and H\u00e9loise endured the centuries until 18th- and 19th-century intellectuals embraced the tale of these star-crossed lovers. Several poets<\/a> and artists<\/a> depicted H\u00e9loise unhappily entering the convent or dreaming of lost love. Parisians erected an ornate monument to the couple in the cemetery of P\u00e8re-Lachaise<\/a>, where today\u2019s lovers still leave fresh roses. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n <\/span>
\n Angelica Kauffman, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, despite the discovery of more letters<\/a> exchanged between Abelard and H\u00e9loise, today\u2019s medievalist scholars tend to accept Abelard\u2019s version<\/a> of the relationship \u2013 that H\u00e9loise was complicit. <\/p>\n

Abelard said H\u00e9loise loved him. But did the teenage girl actually consent to sex with the teacher who beat her? Did she agree to have the child? Did she prefer \u201clove to wedlock and freedom to chains,\u201d<\/a> as Abelard claimed? <\/p>\n

We know from her letters<\/a> to him that she resisted the convent.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf all the wretched women, I am the most wretched,\u201d H\u00e9loise complained, long after the affair. <\/p>\n

Romancing harassment<\/h2>\n

No one has labeled Abelard a rapist, the seducer of a minor or a sexual harasser. His philosophical works remain crucial to the history of Christian theology and philosophy<\/a>. H\u00e9loise is celebrated mostly for being a female intellectual<\/a> in a period when there were few. <\/p>\n

Such historical \u201cromances\u201d still play out in gender relations today, particularly in the university. A recent survey of graduate students and professors, for example, revealed the extent to which male professors prey on young minds and bodies<\/a> under their guidance. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n Participants march against sexual assault and harassment at the #MeToo march.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Damian Dovarganes<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, like H\u00e9loise, many such victims still find it hard to voice resistance<\/a>, although they no longer cower in the cloister. Instead of writing letters to their harassers or singing ballads in the streets, they reveal their secrets in digital media \u2013 too often anonymously. <\/p>\n

\"The\u201cPlus \u00e7a change,\u201d or \u201cthe more it changes, the more it\u2019s the same thing,\u201d as Abelard might say. One thing we have learned since the Middle Ages is that sexual harassment is a destructive crime, no matter how romantic the backstory.<\/p>\n

Lisa Bitel<\/a>, Professor of History & Religion, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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