Abelard and Heloise

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was the most celebrated philosopher and logician of twelfth-century Paris, whose lectures drew thousands of students from all over Europe. In his thirties he became tutor to Heloise (c. 1100–1164), the brilliant niece of a canon of Notre-Dame; they fell passionately in love, had a son and married in secret. When her uncle learned of it, he sent men to attack Abelard by night and castrate him. Abelard then entered a monastery, and Heloise became a nun and later abbess of the Paraclete. More than ten years after their separation they began to write to each other. After their deaths they were buried together; their tomb now lies in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.