By McKenna McKrell
True love in the medieval world was not found in the faith-abiding companionship of marriage, but in secret, adulterous, and rule-breaking lust.
Heloise d’Argenteuil tells us so herself in a 12th century letter where between the paragraphs detailing her unending concern and passionate love for her tutor-turned-lover Peter Abelard, she declares she would rather be called his whore than his wife.
For a modern audience, the claim begs a moment of consideration.
The cultural monolith of the medieval world, and thus our expectations for interpersonal realities, is marked by the immense role of religion. These religions — notably Christianity in the West — continue to be widely practiced today and place heavy value on the love that manifests in monogamous marriage. In a medieval culture where Christian values are taught to have been so prevalent, it is quite surprising that the picture of love to a young French woman like Heloise is not marriage, but adultery — the very thing that subverts it.
Medieval marriage was not always characterized by monogamous love between two individuals, but rather the specific responsibilities the pair took on in relation to each other. Though religion played a role in marriages, they were not entirely defined by it (Manning). The Sacrament of Marriage, for example, was not formally established by the Catholic church until the 16th century, allowing for broader societal expectations to shape gendered roles for medieval husbands and wives (Thomas).
Furthermore, marriages were not dependent on love between individuals, simply mutual consent. As Pope Nicholas I explains in a letter to the Bulgars from the ninth century, “if this consent alone is perchance lacking in the wedding, all the rest, even if it is consummated with intercourse itself, is in vain ” (North) He later parrots another teacher, John Chrysostom: “not intercourse but will makes marriage” (North). Pope Nicholas deemphasizes the relationship between physical intimacy and marriage, clearly presenting the possibility for one to be present without the other.
The relationship between Abelard and Heloise — a scholar and the “most learned young woman in France” (Levitan xi), respectively — was highly controversial and reflects the tension between a passionate relationship and a marriage. After having a secret affair, Heloise becomes pregnant, the two are secretly married, and later Abelard is castrated and both enter religious orders (Levitan). The foundation of their intimacy is secret passion and physical love, and in letters sent between them during their monastic years, Heloise reflects on the nature of their relationship.
Heloise writes to Abelard: “The name of wife may have advantages of sanctity and safety, but to me the sweeter name will always be lover or, if your dignity can bear it, concubine or whore” (Levitan 55). For Heloise, being called Abelard’s wife does not reflect her passionate and lustful feelings for him, but rather that she is the woman who bore his child and cares for his household — her gendered role as a medieval “wife.” The title plays a practical role: publicly recognizing or sanctifying their relationship and solidifying his duty to provide for her. But, “marriage” did not accurately capture what Heloise cared most about: the true and utter nature of her love for him.
One 14th century tale from The Decameron, a collection of fictional stories, supports this distinction between marriage and passionate love in the medieval world. The story centers on a woman named Madonna Filippa, who challenges an adultery charge in court. Filippa, who is described as “truly in love” (Rebhorn 495), defends her affair with a man named Lazzarino de’Guazzagliotri, claiming that her husband is always satisfied and her duties as a wife are fulfilled, so she sees no reason to end the adulterous relationship or be punished for it. The court agrees: Filippa is not punished, remains married, and continues the affair.
Though the latter example is satirical, both episodes reveal the importance of a medieval intimacy that subverts our expectations, yet at its core is quite intuitive: someone to emotionally and physically love. Not just a spouse, but a lover.
Themes of love that are adulterous, break rules, or must be kept secret are pervasive in Arthurian and other Court Romances of the Western medieval world. These themes solidify that love — outside of the context of marriage — was either a fixture in this later medieval period, or that there was at least a cultural fascination with the idea.
Female perspectives like Heloise and characters like Filippa offer unique depictions of women as agents in their own love stories: not just consenting of a marriage, but desirous of a physical and emotional relationship. Even if these real and fictional women may be deemed outliers, their love stories allow us to more broadly recognize the bounds of marriage, and the surprising value of unsanctioned intimacies.
For Further Reading
Abelard & Heloise: The Letters and Other Writings. Translated by William Levitan. Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.
Giovanni Bocaccaio’s The Decameron, “Day 6, Story 7.” Translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn. W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
What is the History of Marriage? Kathleen Manning. U.S. Catholic, 2012. <https://uscatholic.org/articles/201210/what-is-the-history-of-marriage/>
Christian Marriage: The New Challenge, David M. Thomas. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN. 2007. Relevant excerpt, <https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/145520.pdf>
“The Response of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars.” Translated by W.L. North. From the edition of Ernest Perels in MGH Epistolae VI. Berlin. 1925.
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