Peter Abelard
(1079 - 1142)
In 1113 Peter Abelard entered the Paris home of a canon named Fulbert in order to instruct the man’s niece, Héloïse. Teacher and student soon fell in love and secretly married. Héloïse’s uncle, a clergyman in Paris, ordered Abelard to be castrated, after which the theologian and philosopher retired to the abbey of Saint-Denis to become a monk and persuaded Héloïse to become a nun at Argenteuil. Their son Astralabe, conceived in secret, later became an abbot at a Cistercian house in Switzerland.