No Regrets

The life of Héloïse (c. 1095–1163), raised by nuns and later tutored by her uncle Fulbert, took a dramatic turn when she met the brilliant but controversial philosopher Pierre Abélard. Their passionate love affair, documented in their famous letters, became a legendary tale of love and intellectual pursuit as well, immortalised in literature and art. Héloïse defied societal norms by asserting her preference for terms like “whore” over “wife” or “empress”, possibly drawing from New Testament accounts of Jesus’s interactions with sinners and prostitutes. Her passionate confessions, rich in expressions of submission and sacrifice, reveal a secular love that transcends religious and societal constraints, involving her entire being, inaugurating, as it were, the twelfth-century culture of love.