New Discoveries and Insights (1999–2007)

Abstract

Much has happened since the publication in 1999 of my study of the Epistolae duorum amantium (EDA), a remarkable and enigmatic collection of over one hundred love letters and poems, discovered by Johannes de Vepria, a bibliophile monk of Clairvaux in the late fifteenth century.¹ New insights continue to emerge about an exchange in which the man reveals himself to be a celebrated and controversial teacher, while the young woman with whom he is infatuated presents herself as an ardent student of philosophy, with a particular interest in ethics. Sylvain Piron has produced a new translation of the entire corpus into French, that fully brings out their originality and great beauty. He brings forward fresh arguments for attributing them to Abelard and Heloise.² There have also been new translations into German and Italian, although without detailed analysis of their content.³ A popular biography by James Burge that draws on these love letters has helped generate wider interest in Heloise as a woman who challenged convention.⁴ Umberto Eco silently incorporated extracts from these letters into a historical novel, implying that they were an elaborate hoax of his twelfth-century male hero, writing to the wife of Barbarossa.⁵ While there has been positive support for the attribution from a number of scholars, others have expressed caution about accepting arguments too quickly. Could not the imagery about love in these letters be conventional medieval tropes, invented by anybody?⁶