Historia Calamitatum
Peter Abelard c. 1132 CE
A medieval teacher tells the story of his troubled life in a letter to a friend. Abelard describes his secret marriage to Héloïse and the violent revenge arranged by her uncle.
99 pages 1h 55m reading time
- One of the first personal life stories written in the Middle Ages, often called an early ancestor of the modern autobiography.
- Argues that a person's own pride and desire can bring about their downfall, as Abelard looks back on his fame and his love affair as the roots of his suffering.
- Shows a thinker insisting that faith should be tested by reason and questions, an idea that got him into trouble with church leaders of his day.
- Led directly to the famous letters between Abelard and Héloïse, which made the two of them one of the best known pairs of lovers in Western history.
- Has inspired centuries of poems, novels, and plays, including Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard" and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel "Julie, or the New Heloise."
Written amid murder attempts
Abelard wrote it as head of a remote monastery whose monks were trying to poison him.
A letter to a friend
It takes the form of a comforting letter to a friend, who may never have existed.
Long doubted as genuine
Some scholars once argued it was a later forgery, but most now accept that Abelard wrote it.
Kept alive by a poet
The French poet Jean de Meun translated it and retold its story in his famous poem "The Romance of the Rose."
Translated from Latin by Henry Adams Bellows