A re-telling of the true 12th century love story of Heloise and Abelard. Abelard is a great philosopher and theologian who has taken, like many academics of the time, a vow of celibacy. When he is hired as a tutor for the brilliant and beautiful Hel...
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For many years, I ran my group of the Paraclete under the radar of the clergy; that is until, eventually, the reputation of the nuns of Argenteuil had grown to that of a scandal. We were known for being lax and lazy in our discipline, for sexual impropriety, and for the breaking of many Benedictine laws. Rumours of scandalous affairs abounded, but I paid no mind to them. Our convent was tight-knit, and each of its nuns was steeped in her devotion, although that devotion was not necessarily turned toward rigour and discipline as the church would have had it.
The nuns of Argenteuil were eventually disbanded. The Abbey of St. Denis, where Abelard was living out his days, would seize the building and use its location to expand its monastery. St. Dennis was somewhat of a sibling to Argenteuil, both under Benedictine orders, and both under the jurisdiction of the same Bishop who, then, decreed that St. Dennis had the right to move its monks into Argenteuil. We nuns would be displaced for our misbehaviour, left to find sanctuary in any convent that would graciously take us.
I, having honoured up until then the silence Abelard wished from me, set to writing him a desperate letter. It was, after all, his own Brothers who would be moving into our beloved convent. It was his own Brothers who would soon displace all these nuns, this community, that we had grown to love as our own family. It broke my heart to be parted from my sisters. As prioress, I knew I could easily find sanctuary in another convent, but my concerns were little of myself.
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Please, do something to stop this, I wrote to him urgently. I pleaded. I told him, unfiltered, of the group of the Paraclete, and what it meant to me. I told him of the good deeds we had done, and the scholarship the women under my care had come to enjoy. I told him of the debates we had in the gardens and along the alleys of flying buttresses - the debates that reminded me so much of ours, although of course they paled in comparison to the sharpness of our matched intellect. I told him of the joy this Paraclete brought to me, and that if he did not help me it would be to drain the very light from my eyes. Please. I entreat you not as your wife, but as your Sister. Please think of your fellow Sisters. Your spiritual equals - if only we are given the opportunity to prove ourselves as such. Use your power, use your reputation and your fame... find a way we Sisters can stay together.
