HMR Project: History of Music & Modern Recording

All for Love of Heloise

Peter Abelard Becomes an Involuntary Eunuch

Peter Abelard & Heloise

By the time the first big love story in classical music occurred, being that of Peter and Heloise, classical music had had a good five centuries to develop under the umbrella of the Western Roman Church since the arrival of the Gregorian chant. Notation that had been textual for centuries via neumes had only recently begun to see the development of the staff (stave in UK) which would require a couple more centuries to develop into its standard five lines. Concepts such as polyphony, solmization (do re mi...) and counterpoint had received considerable study. Organum (adding voice to voice in plainchant harmony) had arrived, and it was during Abelard's lifetime that the first known troubadour plied his craft singing secular love songs, albeit Guillaume IX d'Aquitaine, Duke also of Gascony, did his singing in court rather than from window to window. Guillaume became Count of Tuscany by marriage. As a devout Roman Catholic, he mortgaged his Tuscany property to fund his contribution to the Crusades, specifically the minor campaign of 1101 in which he lost battle after battle until only he and six in his army survived. Guillaume is thought to have written songs during his retreat back to Europe which were possibly the first to address the Crusades. Albeit excommunicated from the Church a couple of times over taxes and romance, Guillaume had also participated in the Reconquista in Spain to counter Muslim encroachment before his death on 10 February 1127. Love and war, the two main forces that are the story of humankind.

Guillaume's contemporary, Peter Abelard (Petrus Abaelardus), fought other kinds of battles, also writing love songs, though more secretly than his liturgical works for the Church. Abelard was born circa 1079 in Le Pallet, France, to become a scholar, philosopher, theologian, logician and scientist, for the composing of music had long been considered a science alongside math and astronomy by the time Abelard arrived. Numerous volumes had addressed music theory since Beothius' 'De Institutione Musica' in early 6th century Byzantium, whence the classical music of ancient Greece gets picked up again after the fall of Rome. The music of Greece, being the system that Romans used, is a major volume in itself in the history of classical music, for it would be variously addressed again and again throughout the next fifteen hundred years. Though as a philosopher Abelard owned considerable interest in the Greeks, he also wrote liturgical works for the Roman Church, including Gregorian chants, plainchant of the Western Church, which had been customary for a few centuries by Abelard's time. Poems, hymns and philosophical texts by Abelard yet survive.

Abelard's father was a knight named Berengar who encouraged his early study of liberal arts and academics. About 1100 Abelard went to Paris to study realism under William of Champeaux. The two would part due to disagreements as Abelard developed his conceptualist procedure via nominalism. Abelard quickly began to found his own schools, teaching dialectic to compete with his former master. He had developed a following of thousands as a philosopher and theologian by the time he met Héloïse d'Argenteuil around 1116 [Wikipedia), she becoming a private pupil of his.

Among the chapters in classical music are the castrati who assumed the female role in music due to the banning of women from choirs and stage. But that wouldn't begin to be practiced, despite official condemnation of the Catholic Church, until the 16th century, several beyond Abelard who was possibly in his early twenties at the beginning of the 12th. Nor did the loss of his genitalia have anything to do with music. Its convoluting story can be summarized as an inimical situation between him and Heloise's uncle, Canon Fulbert, to whom Abelard had been paying board, thereat meeting Heloise toward a secret betrothal. Add Abelard's mistaken intentions when he returned Heloise to the convent at Argenteuil where she'd gone to school until perhaps age sixteen when she met Abelard. Some sources have her meeting Abelard even younger, possibly in 1115. Other sources have Heloise in her twenties by this time. I'm estimating from Heloise's birthdate given as 18 October 1101 by Kit and Morgan Benson at Find a Grave. There is some fluctuation amongst sources in the difficult dating of events in the lives of Abelard and Heloise. He was, anyway, at least twenty years her senior, and Fulbert likely believed ABelard's to be a hit-and-run procedure.

Just how such violent sentiments developed must be left to imagination, but Fulbert, in the interest of a niece he thought abused, came to hiring some friendly sorts to break into Abelard's room one night to castrate him. How Abelard survived the physical and psychological damage of that attack might also be better left to a later date, sufficing for now to perceive our famous couple dealing with no small shattering of realities. Events now aligning with Fulbert's good wish, Abelard and Heloise were now parted in more ways than one, she to live in her convent in Argenteui, Abelard to become a monk at the Abbey of Saint-Denis.

The bulk of Abelard's theological and philosophical works were written between 1120 and 1140, researching such as logic, dialectics, ethics and theology, Aristotle and St. Augustine of Hippo among his discussions. Sometime 1122 or onward Abelard abandoned the monastic way of life to became a hermit. Living a rudimentary life in the wilderness, he was nevertheless quickly discovered and ended up with a load of disciples who pitched camp with him. Which is how he came to found the monastery, the Oratory of the Paraclete, which he then swiftly abandoned to more invisibly run the abbey of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys for the next ten years.

In the meantime, Abelard and Heloise met again in 1129, which saw Heloise leaving Argenteuil to establish a convent at the aforesaid Paraclete. The early thirties saw Abelard and Heloise corresponding about religion and writing love letters to one another. Abelard also wrote love songs for Heloise which are since lost. Sometime after 1130 he composed a hymnal for Heloise's Paraclete convent. He also composed six Biblical planctus (laments). Five of those were notated via neumes and are difficult to faithfully interpret. Fortunately, neumes were in transition to square notation on a staff of four lines during Abelard's period. 'Planctus David Super Saul et Jonathan', sixth and last, was transcribed in square notation, making it easier to figure. While texts credited to Abelard are largely certain, music is not. 'Augustine' and 'Gildas' are among melodies possibly by himself.

'Mater Salvatoris' Liturgical office w text by Peter Abelard Music unknown

Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge w the Winchester Cathedral Choristers

Directed by Mary Berry at Winchester Cathedral 1993

'Planctus David Super Saul et Jonathan' Text & music by Peter Abelard

Composed 1130 >

Augsburg Early Music Ensemble

'O Quanta Qualia' Liturgical office w text by Peter Abelard Music possibly by Abelard

Composed 1130 > for the Paraclete Convent of Heloise

Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge w the Winchester Cathedral Choristers

Directed by Mary Berry at Winchester Cathedral 1993

Among rewards received by Abelard for his tomes in the exercise of reason during the medieval period were several charges of heresy. He faced excommunication in 1140 by plaint of (Saint) Bernard of the Cistercian order at Clairvaux that Abelard's logic was illogical for being applied to such as to which logic didn't apply. Abelard, however, found an intercessor in Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, at which abbey he came to reside. He died on 21 April 1142 of scurvy at the priory of St. Marcel. For all the work Abelard invested in the best means to interpret this life, in the end, "I don't know" are said to have been his final words. Heloise outlived Abelard by about twenty some years, passing onward on 11 May 1164 to be buried in Paris.

Sources & References: Peter Abelard:

New World Encyclopedia

University of Toronto

VF History (notes)

Wikipedia

Authorship:

Compositions: All Music Hymnary