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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy the Wilson and I'm Holly from today. We

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Speaker 1: have something that has been for request of listeners. It

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Speaker 1: was also something I planned to do, and that is

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Speaker 1: the story of Abelard and Heloise. So. Abelard was a poet,

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Speaker 1: of philosopher and a theologian, and he was born uh

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Speaker 1: in Brittany, which is in northwest France today, in ten

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Speaker 1: seventy nine. And in the words of the Stanford Encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of Philosophy, he was quote the pre eminent philosopher and

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Speaker 1: theologian of the twelfth century. Helloise was one of his students,

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Speaker 1: and she was born right around the turn of the

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Speaker 1: twelfth century, and she was a respected abbess of a

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Speaker 1: prominent community of nuns. So they sort of had their

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Speaker 1: own lives there. But they are best known today for

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Speaker 1: their very tragic love story. It's been commemorated in poems, songs,

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Speaker 1: novels and films. If you've ever seen Being John Malkovich,

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Speaker 1: you may even remember the Avalarde and Hiloise puppet show

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Speaker 1: that features in that film. Um, this is a tragic

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Speaker 1: love story. It's one. I described the plot of it

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Speaker 1: to the boyfriend over the weekend, and every time I

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Speaker 1: would sort of get to a turning point, he would

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Speaker 1: go and then everyone's okay with that? Right? No, um,

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Speaker 1: this is complete. That's so hopeful, you know, honey. They

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Speaker 1: were not okay with that. It's complete with lovers who

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Speaker 1: were forced to part, a secret marriage, a castration, and

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Speaker 1: repeated exhumations, which is why we're talking about it right

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Speaker 1: before Valentine's Day. What's more romantic than an exclamation? Really,

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Speaker 1: I know, Well, the exhumations actually are kind of romantic

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Speaker 1: in a way, So we will get to that towards

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Speaker 1: the end of the episode. I'm laughing that awkward silent

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Speaker 1: laugh are known always comes out. My face is just

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Speaker 1: frozen in this odd scowl. Yeah, as as is often

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Speaker 1: the case, we're talking about this story because I kind

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Speaker 1: of love it, but it is very sad and and

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Speaker 1: disturbing in many ways. So yes, so we'll kick it

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Speaker 1: off with sort of the background of the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: and we should say at the front, we don't really

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Speaker 1: know very much about Heloise's life before she met Abelard.

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Speaker 1: We do not even know the identity of her parents.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, Abelard had really made a name

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Speaker 1: for himself before Heloise was even born, and he wrote

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Speaker 1: his life story down in a letter which is known

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Speaker 1: as Historia calamitatum, or the Story of My Misfortunes. So

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Speaker 1: Pierre Abillard, also known as Peter Abelard, was the son

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Speaker 1: of a knight and his family was on the lower

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Speaker 1: wrungs of the nobility. His father was an educated man

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Speaker 1: and took pains to make sure that all of his

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Speaker 1: children were educated too, But as the eldest son, Abillard

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Speaker 1: was really meant to follow in his father's knightly footsteps,

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Speaker 1: and in doing so he would also be receiving a

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Speaker 1: sizeable inheritance. However, what Abbillard really loved was letters and learning,

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Speaker 1: and he gave up all of this potential knighthood to

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Speaker 1: become a philosopher. And as he described it, quote, I

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Speaker 1: fled utterly from the court of Mars that I might

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Speaker 1: win learning in the bosom of Minerva, which is a

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Speaker 1: lovely sentiment. This quite lovely. There are many lovely sentiments

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Speaker 1: in this story to go with the parts that are horrifying.

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Speaker 1: Um he became an inherent of Aristotle, also known as

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Speaker 1: a peripatetic, and the peripatetics purportedly got their name from

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Speaker 1: Aristotle's habit of pacing around while he was teaching, but

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Speaker 1: it also came to just generally described people who moved

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Speaker 1: around a lot, which applied to Abelard as well. By

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Speaker 1: the time he met Heloise, he'd spent years studying and

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Speaker 1: teaching Aristotelian philosophy and large logic all over what is

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Speaker 1: now France, and he had developed his own philosophy of language,

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Speaker 1: and along the way he studied in Paris under William

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Speaker 1: of Shampoo, who was another prominent theologian and logician at

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Speaker 1: the time, and it became the first of many conflicts

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Speaker 1: between Abelard and another public figure. Allard really picked apart

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Speaker 1: and debated William's teachings, and when he Abillard was judged

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Speaker 1: to be the winner, he was quite boastful about it

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Speaker 1: and unfortunately tried to shame and embarrass William. Not the

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Speaker 1: most noble behavior, uh and this simultaneously increased Abalard's reputation

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Speaker 1: and it caused him some understandable problems in the intellectual community.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of his standard way of relating to people.

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Speaker 1: He had a similar experience not long after with another

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Speaker 1: teacher and Salm of Leone, who he sought out to

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Speaker 1: learn from before later becoming his arrival. After leaving Leon,

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Speaker 1: Abillard went to Paris again and became scholar and residence

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Speaker 1: at Notre Dame. And that's when Heloise. His uncle Faubet,

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Speaker 1: sent Heloise to abb Lard for tutoring. Full Bear was

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Speaker 1: a cannon, which is a type of clergyman, so at

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Speaker 1: this point in the story, Abillard would have been about

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Speaker 1: thirty eight years old. Heloise's age is kind of subject

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Speaker 1: to debate because we don't know exactly when she was born.

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Speaker 1: It's cited as anywhere between seventeen and twenty five. And

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Speaker 1: here's how Abelard described Heloise in his Historia Calamitatum quote

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Speaker 1: of no mean beauty, she stood out above all by

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Speaker 1: reason of her abundant knowledge of letters. Now, this virtue

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Speaker 1: is rare among women, and for that very reason it

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Speaker 1: doubly graced the maiden and made her the most worthy

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Speaker 1: of renown in the entire kingdom. It was this young

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Speaker 1: girl whom I, after carefully considering all those qualities which

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Speaker 1: are wont to attract lovers, determined to unite with myself

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Speaker 1: in the bonds of love, and indeed the thing seemed

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Speaker 1: to me very easy to be done. Meanwhile, he described

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Speaker 1: himself as quote possessed of such advantages of youth and

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Speaker 1: comeliness that no matter what woman I might favor with

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Speaker 1: my love, I dreaded rejection of none. Not really uh

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Speaker 1: short on confidence. So the pair started out with a

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Speaker 1: written courtship, and eventually they wanted to have more face

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Speaker 1: to face conversations with one another. So Abillard convinced Heloise's

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Speaker 1: uncle to offer him lodgings in his house, which was

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Speaker 1: also near the school where he taught, and well, they're

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Speaker 1: basically gave Abelard free reign over Heloise's education. He wrote, quote,

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Speaker 1: the man's simplicity was nothing short of astounding to me.

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Speaker 1: I should not have been more smitten with wonder if

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Speaker 1: he had entrusted a tender lamb to the care of

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Speaker 1: a ravenous wolf. So that, to me sounds a little alarming,

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Speaker 1: but it's less romantic and more like, Yeah, he seems

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Speaker 1: a little creepy, But his description of their developing relationship

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Speaker 1: sounds a little bit less predatory because he says we

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Speaker 1: were united first in the dwelling that sheltered our love

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Speaker 1: and then in the hearts that burned with it, under

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Speaker 1: the pretext of study, we spent our hours and the

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Speaker 1: happiness of love. Heloise's point of view at the very

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Speaker 1: start of their relationship, really his, was not documented. Some

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Speaker 1: scholars argue that she was a willing participant, but others

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Speaker 1: point out passages from letters in which Abelard says that

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Speaker 1: he was sort of coercive and demanding, but in the

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Speaker 1: end she insisted that she loved him passionately and completely,

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Speaker 1: and their time together became so consuming and so extensive

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Speaker 1: that Adelarde started to shirk his other duties, both of

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Speaker 1: her education and of the school where he was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be teaching. And Heloise's uncle seemed blind to all

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Speaker 1: of this. So even as people gossiped and dropped hints

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Speaker 1: to the to him that something was up with his

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Speaker 1: niece and her teacher, uh, he didn't seem to catch on,

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Speaker 1: and when he inevitably did wise up to it after

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Speaker 1: several months, Heloise's uncle, as one would anticipate, separated them.

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Speaker 1: Abillard is quite poetic about this too. He says each

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Speaker 1: grieved most not for himself, but for the other. Each

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Speaker 1: thought to allay not his own sufferings but those of

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Speaker 1: the one he loved. The very sundering of our bodies

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Speaker 1: served but to link our souls closer together. The plenitude

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Speaker 1: of the love which was denied to us inflamed us

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Speaker 1: more than ever. Sometime after her uncle found them out,

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Speaker 1: Heloise realized she was pregnant, and she told Abelard that

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Speaker 1: she was so. One night, while her uncle was away,

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Speaker 1: Abelard spirited her out of the house and sent her

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Speaker 1: to live with his sister in Brittany until the baby

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Speaker 1: was born. Halloiss Uncle, no surprise, was outraged. Abillard went

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Speaker 1: to him and begged for forgiveness, insisting that he and

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Speaker 1: Heloise truly loved one another. He offered to marry Heloise

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Speaker 1: in secret, and Filbert agreed, but neither one of them

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Speaker 1: really wanted to get married. They both sort of looked

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Speaker 1: at marriage as this morally weak way to get away

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Speaker 1: with having physical lust. Getting married would also have been

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Speaker 1: a huge blow to Avalard's reputation, and it would have

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Speaker 1: put a cap on how far he could advance in

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Speaker 1: the church, since the highest levels of the clergy couldn't

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Speaker 1: really marry, and since church was really the only path

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Speaker 1: for somebody who had Abelard's education at that point this

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Speaker 1: was a problem. If he married her, he was going

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Speaker 1: to be stalling his career permanently. But he was willing

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Speaker 1: to do it because it seemed like the only way

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Speaker 1: to appease her uncle's fury. Abillard went back to Brittany

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Speaker 1: to retrieve Heloise and to marry her, but she actually

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Speaker 1: refused him. She said that the plan was too dangerous,

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Speaker 1: that she was not willing to sacrifice his potential in

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Speaker 1: his reputation, and that there was no way her uncle

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Speaker 1: was really going to forgive Abelard anyway, just because he

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Speaker 1: married her. According to Avlard, after going on just at

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Speaker 1: length about how damaging marriage and children were to the

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Speaker 1: study of philosophy, Eloise said this, if layman and gentiles

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Speaker 1: bound by no profession of religion lived after this fashion,

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Speaker 1: what ought you a cleric and a cannon do, in

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Speaker 1: order not to prefer base voluptuousness to your sacred duties,

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Speaker 1: to prevent this charibdis from sucking you down headlong, and

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Speaker 1: to save yourself from being plunged shamelessly and irrevocably into

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Speaker 1: such filth as this not a favorite of the idea

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Speaker 1: of marriage at all? Yeah, what a pity, She went

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Speaker 1: on to say how much sweeter and romantic it would

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Speaker 1: be for her to be his mistress rather than his wife,

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Speaker 1: because love would be a stronger bond between them than

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Speaker 1: marriage could ever be, And in doing this, Heloise was

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Speaker 1: basically saying she would sacrifice herself entirely for Avalard's sake

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Speaker 1: to allow him to have her without standing in the

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Speaker 1: way of his life and career, while she would endure

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Speaker 1: basically all the consequences. Avalard could not be convinced, though,

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Speaker 1: and she finally gave up, saying, then there is no

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Speaker 1: more left but this, that in our doom, the sorrow

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Speaker 1: yet to come, shall be no less than the love

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Speaker 1: we two have already known, which is some foreshadowing. When

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Speaker 1: the baby was born, she named it Astrolabe, and they

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Speaker 1: left him with Abalard's sister and returned to Paris to

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Speaker 1: be married in secret very early one morning, in the

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Speaker 1: presence of Heloise's uncle and some of Abillard's friends, and Heloise,

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Speaker 1: being an intelligent woman, was definitely right about her uncle.

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Speaker 1: Even though their marriage was supposed to be a secret,

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Speaker 1: Fulbert told other people that they had gotten married, so

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Speaker 1: Heloise publicly insisted that her uncle was lying, which infuriated him,

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Speaker 1: and fearing for her safety, Abillard sent her to the

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Speaker 1: convent where she had been educated when she was younger,

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Speaker 1: a place outside of Paris called Argentoya. They continued to

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Speaker 1: see one another. There's a passage in one of Heloise's

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Speaker 1: letters and which she talks about making love in a

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Speaker 1: corner of the convent itself. But Helloy's his uncle, interpreted

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Speaker 1: her entry into the convent as a ploy by Abillard

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Speaker 1: to get rid of her. So he bribed the servants

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Speaker 1: in the house where Abelard was staying so they could

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Speaker 1: get access to his rooms, and he sent his own

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Speaker 1: servants to break into Abelard's room in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the night, where they actually castrated him. So, according to Abelard,

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Speaker 1: the next morning there was an enormous crowd who came out.

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Speaker 1: It reads as though he's saying that they were mourning

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Speaker 1: the loss of his man parts. Probably it was, this

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Speaker 1: is the mark of the translation, that it was really

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Speaker 1: that people were extremely upset at the uh the physical

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Speaker 1: disfigurement he had undergone. And it's not so much just

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Speaker 1: the loss of physical sexual prowess. Right, So he says,

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Speaker 1: it is difficult, nay impossible for words of mine to

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Speaker 1: describe the amazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered,

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Speaker 1: the uproar with which they harassed me, or the grief

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Speaker 1: with which they increased my own suffering. He simultaneously bemoaned

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Speaker 1: his fate and saw it as a fitting punishment, since

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Speaker 1: it had removed from him the part of his body

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Speaker 1: with which he had sinned. Abelard retreated to the monastery

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Speaker 1: at sun Denis. At first, this was more to hide

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Speaker 1: from what had happened to him than out of any

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Speaker 1: newfound religious devotion. He became a monk, and Heloise, who

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Speaker 1: at this point was already sheltering at a convent, took

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Speaker 1: vows and became a Benedictine nun. While at Sandoni, Abillard

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Speaker 1: tried to continue with his life of study and teaching,

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Speaker 1: but to turn his attention to faith instead of philosophy.

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Speaker 1: But the monastery at Sandony was, in Abalard's were words

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Speaker 1: quote utterly worldly, and its abbot was corrupt. Abalard became

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Speaker 1: popular as a teacher, even as he criticized the monastery

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Speaker 1: and tried very hard to reform it. His constant and

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Speaker 1: criticism na trually drew the ire of the other teachers

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Speaker 1: and monks at the monastery who all rallied against him

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Speaker 1: and complained about him to bishops, archbishops, and any other

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Speaker 1: church official who would listen. He also, while he was there,

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Speaker 1: wrote books that were deemed to be heretical, and his

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Speaker 1: previous feuds with other philosophical and religious thinkers, which we

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Speaker 1: referenced at the beginning of the podcast, kind of came

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Speaker 1: back to haunt him. Abillard fled to Champagne and became

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Speaker 1: a hermit. Students of philosophy continued to seek him out

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Speaker 1: to try to get him to return to teaching, but

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Speaker 1: he did, but he was constantly criticized and scrutinized for

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Speaker 1: applying logic to matters of faith, and that was a

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Speaker 1: practice that was viewed as very threatening to the medieval church.

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Speaker 1: After a while, he and his students created this community

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Speaker 1: of teaching and learning that they called law Paraclete. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: he handed law Paraclete over to Helloise and the nuns

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Speaker 1: from the convent where she'd been staying because their convent

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Speaker 1: had been disbanded after some internal church feuding. She became

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Speaker 1: the abbess at La Periclet, and Heloise became highly respected

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Speaker 1: in her own right. At this point. Being an abbess

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Speaker 1: required skill in both administrative and religious work, and she

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Speaker 1: drew praise from Peter the Venerable and other prominent religious figures.

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Speaker 1: She was also fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and

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Speaker 1: she taught these languages to the other nuns as well.

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Speaker 1: Avelarne continued to teach and to serve as an abbot,

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Speaker 1: although his skeptical manner of approaching religious thought continued to

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Speaker 1: draw fire. Eventually he wound up because of this, being

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Speaker 1: accused of heresy, and he was condemned at a council

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Speaker 1: at Fants in eleven forty. His sentence was lifted only

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Speaker 1: after Peter the Venerable intervened. Avelard's health started to really fail,

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Speaker 1: and he died in eleven forty two. Peter the Venerable

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Speaker 1: built a tomb for him in Saint Marcel, but Heloise

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Speaker 1: had him moved and reburied at La Periclete so that

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Speaker 1: she could watch over him. She lived another twenty years

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Speaker 1: before dying sometime in eleven sixty three or eleven sixty four.

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Speaker 1: La Periclet also became a highly respected convent under under

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Speaker 1: her leadership, with six daughter houses as well, and there's

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Speaker 1: a story that she was actually buried in Abalard's grave,

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Speaker 1: but there's no substantiation of that in the record. She

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Speaker 1: was buried next to him, and their burial place was

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Speaker 1: moved to a drier location in four In sixteen sixteen,

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Speaker 1: the letters that she and Abelard had exchanged between each

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Speaker 1: other were published for the first time, and in sixteen

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Speaker 1: twenty one the nuns at La Periclet moved their bodies

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Speaker 1: to a new and more impressive tomb to satisfy curious visitors.

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Speaker 1: They repeated this whole exhumation and reburial a few more

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Speaker 1: times in conjunction, most of the time with new translations

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Speaker 1: of the letters coming out and sort of influx of

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Speaker 1: Abelard and Heloise letter tourists to constantly u upgrade the

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Speaker 1: setting for the addition crowds. I presume yes. In the

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Speaker 1: early nineteenth century, Avalard and Helloy's removed to the cemetery

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Speaker 1: Pearl Chase in Paris, where they are today. They lie

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Speaker 1: together in a stone sarcophagus carved with both of their resemblances,

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Speaker 1: and it's under a roof supported by pillars and arches.

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Speaker 1: The tomb in pear Le Chaise was designed by Alexandra

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Speaker 1: Marie Lenoire, who was the director of the Muse de

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Speaker 1: monument Francaise between seventeen ninety and eighteen sixteen. Lenoir actually

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Speaker 1: obtained their remains from La Paraclete in eighteen hundred and

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Speaker 1: then created this tomb that had sort of a faux

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Speaker 1: medieval look and feel, and he incorporated some pieces from

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Speaker 1: what was reported to be some of the earlier tombs

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Speaker 1: that had existed at La Peraclet. The tomb itself is

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Speaker 1: more about being evocative of their lives and their love

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Speaker 1: story than authentic to the art and architecture of the

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Speaker 1: period in which they lived. We believe that the real

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Speaker 1: remains are probably buried there becaus they were measured and

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Speaker 1: authenticated when Ludwar acquired them. So anytime bodies get moved

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Speaker 1: that many times there's always a question markup. Is that

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Speaker 1: really who we think it is? They were verified, especially

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Speaker 1: since the remains started out in the twelfth century. UM.

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Speaker 1: Before we talk about these letters that they exchanged with

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Speaker 1: each other and their other writings, let's take another moment

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Speaker 1: and talk about our sponsor. Fantastic Lenda dot com offers

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Speaker 1: y n d A dot com. And now to return

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Speaker 1: to Abelard and Heloise. They both wrote extensively. Heloise's writings

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Speaker 1: primarily included letters to abial Ard and to other religious figures,

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Speaker 1: and then Abelard's writings also include works on theology, metaphysics, logic,

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Speaker 1: the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. He

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Speaker 1: also wrote poetry and songs, and some of these were

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Speaker 1: about Heloise. He never explicitly credited her, but modern scholars

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Speaker 1: contend that Heloise really was quite influential when it came

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Speaker 1: to Abalard's thoughts in the area of ethics. This is

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Speaker 1: a reversal of older scholarship which claimed that Heloise's thoughts

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Speaker 1: were borrowed in their entirety from abial Art. Yeah has

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Speaker 1: to do with how focused she was on the idea

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Speaker 1: of hypocrisy and how the life you're living outwardly should

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Speaker 1: match up with the life that you're living inwardly, which

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Speaker 1: she herself was very distressed by that idea, given the

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Speaker 1: fact that she had got into a convent for reasons

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Speaker 1: other than a spiritual devotion. So they're in addition to

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Speaker 1: all this. They are the letters that Abilard and Heloise

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Speaker 1: wrote to each other after their relationship had ended. The

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Speaker 1: first one was to Abillard from Heloise after she had

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Speaker 1: read his Historia Calamitatum. He wrote this about fifteen years

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Speaker 1: after their relationship had ended, and when Heloise got it

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Speaker 1: and read it, she was deeply distressed and very worried

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Speaker 1: by what she read there about his mental state and

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Speaker 1: how they had depicted their relationship, and like she was

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Speaker 1: also quite angry that in twelve years he had not

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Speaker 1: once expressed concern or gratitude for her joining the convent,

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Speaker 1: which she had not really wanted to do. And she

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Speaker 1: had done entirely as like a sacrifice for his sake.

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Speaker 1: Her personal letters are very passionate and very pained. She

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Speaker 1: wrote of how upset she is that, as we referenced

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Speaker 1: a moment ago, she took thous and because she loved Abalard,

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Speaker 1: not because she loved God. She also wrote of how

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Speaker 1: much she loved Ablard, saying things like my heart was

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Speaker 1: not in me but with you, and now even more,

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Speaker 1: if it is not with you, it is nowhere. Truly

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Speaker 1: without you, it cannot exist. She also wrote of her

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Speaker 1: sexual frustration, quote, even during the celebration of Mass, when

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Speaker 1: our prayers should be purer, lewed, visions of these pleasures

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Speaker 1: take such a hold upon my unhappy soul that my

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Speaker 1: thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on our prayers.

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Speaker 1: I should be groaning over the sins I have committed,

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Speaker 1: but I can only sigh for what I have lost.

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Speaker 1: At one point in her letters, she accused Abillard of

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Speaker 1: feeling only lust for her and not love, and in

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Speaker 1: a reply he agreed with her, that's not what you

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Speaker 1: want to hear back. Abilard's letters are reserved, they're a

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Speaker 1: bit luxury, and they're really lacking in romance. So some

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Speaker 1: people framed this as Abalard being rational while Heloise is emotional.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of Abalard's writing really is quite emotional too,

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Speaker 1: It's just that all of his emotion is directed toward

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Speaker 1: religious matters and his sort of personal torment uh and

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Speaker 1: what his life has become, while Heloise's emotion is all

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Speaker 1: directed at Abalarde. And they also exchange letters of direction

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Speaker 1: about how to establish a rule for her community of nuns,

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Speaker 1: and they discussed matters of faith in scripture, So not

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Speaker 1: all of their correspondence was just I loved you, I

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Speaker 1: loved you, I loved you so much, and you kind

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Speaker 1: of dropped the ball and him. Most of the time,

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Speaker 1: when you find collections of them, they're they're divided into

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Speaker 1: like the more personal letters and the more spiritual letters,

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Speaker 1: where they address questions about scriptures and how laperic Let

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Speaker 1: should operate and that kind of thing. There is some

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Speaker 1: debate about the authenticity of these letters. You know, their

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Speaker 1: relationship happened during the eleven eleven hundreds, but the oldest

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Speaker 1: copies of these letters are from the thirteen hundreds, so

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Speaker 1: naturally this has led to speculation about whether they each

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Speaker 1: really wrote everything that was attributed to them, and the

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Speaker 1: three schools of thoughts are that they're exactly what they're

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Speaker 1: said to be that and then there's another that is

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Speaker 1: that Abelard in fact wrote all of the letters, and

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Speaker 1: then there's another that some other unrelated person wrote them

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Speaker 1: later on as a bit of medieval fanfic. Uh. The

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00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: overall but you know, definitely not a hundred percent unanimous

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Speaker 1: consensus is that they are what they say they are,

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Speaker 1: that their letters from Abillard to Helloween's and vice versa.

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Speaker 1: Because they are so old, you can read many of

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Speaker 1: them on the internet for free, should you be so inclined. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Happy Valentine found they castration And we don't really or

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Speaker 1: at least I couldn't find what happened to baby Asterlabe,

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00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 1: like we know that. Yeah, I don't remember ever hearing

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Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, baby aster Labe stayed in Brittany with

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Speaker 1: Abelard's sister. But otherwise, like, don't really have any sense

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Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, and it's interesting to me that they

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Speaker 1: have been uh buried many times together when it seems like,

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00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: at least from romantic point of view, things had kind

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00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 1: of fizzled out. Yeah, well they were the time they

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00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: were both deceased. Yeah, they're there. I think they're there.

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Speaker 1: Romantic relationship with one another seems to have come to

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00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 1: a complete halt, uh from the time that he was castrated.

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Speaker 1: I think had he not been castrated, they probably would

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00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 1: have continued to have some kind of in secret relationship

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00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,199
Speaker 1: with one another. But that then, once that happened, it

408
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: wasn't just because he did not have the physical parts anymore,

409
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 1: but because that was such a hugely devastating experience for him.

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00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: He felt completely shamed by the whole thing. He had

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00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: sort of become this public figure who had been literally

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Speaker 1: disfigured because of this whole thing. Like he was like, no,

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Speaker 1: now I'm going to devote my whole life to this

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00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: other thing. I think Hellois, though, continued to for the

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00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: rest of her life, even after their correspondent stopped being

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00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 1: about how much she missed him and how much she

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00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,199
Speaker 1: loved him. I think she really cared that for It

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00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: certainly seems that way. Do you have some listener mail

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00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: for us? I do, and it is not about this.

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00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: This is actually so sometimes I go through the inbox

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Speaker 1: for some reason and I find something that I meant

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Speaker 1: to read a long time ago that then I forgot

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Speaker 1: about all flag things and then go, oh, I forgot

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Speaker 1: to read the Yeah, this was in my flag for

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Speaker 1: follow up file, and I went, oh, yeah, I meant

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Speaker 1: to read this. Uh. And this is from Alicia, and

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00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: Alicia's is writing to us about our say shan agone

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00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: episode from a while back. She said, I wanted to

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00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,160
Speaker 1: write in response to say Shangon in the hay On Court.

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00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: This is a topic I'm well acquainted with, given that

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00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: I'm majored in East Asian studies in college. Not only

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00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 1: have I read the Pillow Book for class, including having

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00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: written a list in the style of Stay Show, and

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00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: mine was a list of fish and included shark week,

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00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: but I've also read a variety of other hay On

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00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: and uh Kamakura era diaries. I just had a couple

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00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: of notes. You mentioned the clothing, but an important aspect

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00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: that you only hinted at was how much clothing served

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00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: as a status symbol. Like many courts, the kind of clothing,

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00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 1: as well as colors one could wear, was directly related

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00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: to one's status. This is especially true and the hay

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00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: On era court. So many of these diaries include elaborate

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00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: descriptions of clothing because it tells a lot about the

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00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: person in question. I also wanted to give out to

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00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: my favorite lady in Japanese court, Lady Niju. Unlike Shikibu

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00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: or showed a Gon, she is basically unknown, despite the

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00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: fact that she's a very impressive woman who, unlike the

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00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: other two, seems to have demonstrated serious political savvy. It

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00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 1: is speculated that had her father not passed away, she

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00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: could have been empress and said she was a consort

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00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 1: to the Emperor go Fuka Usa. Her diary, known in

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00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: English as Confessions of Lady Niju or tew Asu Gatari.

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00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 1: I hope I have done that correctly, which literally translates

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00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: to an unasked for tale, is one of my favorite books.

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00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: It includes a lot of the same slice of court

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00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: life details, including a several year long bondside competition, and

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00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: a very long and complicated incident involving the gruel stick

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00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: ceremony you mentioned. If you enjoyed the Pillow Book, I

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00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. Thank you so much, Alicia. Indeed, I'm

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00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: sorry that I did not read this before now, because

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00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 1: that is from back at the beginning of December that

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00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: she wrote this. Well, yes, it does unless you are

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00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: Abalard and Heloise, at which point time makes it exactly

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00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: the same, except with a new final resting place that

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00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: maybe moved later. So if you would like to write

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00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: to us, you can. We're at History Podcast at Discovery

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00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also on Twitter at miss in History

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00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash missed in History.

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00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: Our tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com,

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00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: and now we are on Pinterest at pinterest dot com

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00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: slash missed in History. If you would like to learn

472
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: a little more about what we've talked about today, you

473
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: can come to our website and put the words Atalard

474
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: and Heloise in the search bar, and you will find

475
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: our article ten of History's most torrid love Affairs. We

476
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: can do all of that and a whole lot more

477
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: at our website, which is how stepworks dot com for

478
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Because at

479
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. This episode of stuff you

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00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: Missed in History classes brought to you by Linda dot com.

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00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: You can learn it at Linda dot com, an online

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