Heloise wholly innocent of disastrous marriage with Abelard

Following Heloise and Abelard’s affair, her pregnancy and childbirth, and their marriage, her uncle and his male relatives broke into Abelard’s lodgings and castrated him. Only two of the perpetrators were caught. Both of the apprehended perpetrators were castrated and blinded. Reviewing Abelard’s account of these calamities, Heloise wrote to him:

Who is there who was once my enemy, whether man or woman, who is not moved now by the compassion which is my due? Wholly guilty though I am, I am, as you know, wholly innocent.

{ Quam, tunc mihi invidentem, nunc tantis private deliciis compati calamitas mea non compellat? Quem vel quam, licet hostem primitus, debita compassio mihi nunc non emolliat? Que plurimum nocens, plurimum, ut nosti, sum innocens. }[1]

In a subsequent letter, Heloise explained:

But even if my conscience is clear through innocence, and no consent of mine makes me guilty of this crime, too many earlier sins were committed to allow me to be wholly free from guilt. I yielded long before to the pleasures of carnal desires, and merited then what I weep for now.

{ Sed et si purget animum meum innocentia nec hujus reatum sceleris consensus incurrat, peccata tamen multa precesserunt que me penitus immunem ab hujus reatu sceleris esse non sinunt. Quod videlicet diu ante carnalium illecebrarum voluptatibus serviens, ipsa tunc merui quod nunc plector }[2]

In Heloise’s apparent understanding, Abelard’s castration and the castration and blinding of the other two men flowed not from Heloise and Abelard’s sexual affair, but from their disastrous marriage. That disastrous marriage led to Heloise, who did not suffer any physical violence, being deprived of her delight in Abelard’s sexuality. Heloise is worthy of compassion and wholly innocent because she strongly objected to that marriage. Throughout history, few persons have argued as forcefully and eloquently against marriage as did Heloise. Men and women everywhere should listen to Heloise.

caught in marriage net

Heloise selflessly recognized that her marriage to Abelard would oppress Abelard. She urged Abelard not to marry her. After their disastrous marriage, Abelard mournfully recalled Heloise’s sage words:

How indecent, how lamentable it would be if I, who nature created for all humanity, should bind myself to a single woman and submit to such base servitude. She most strongly rejected this marriage. It would be nothing but a disgrace and burden to me. Along with the loss to my reputation she put before me the difficulties of marriage … What harmony can there be between pupils and serving women, desks and cradles, books or tablets and distaffs, pens or quills and spindles? Who can concentrate on thoughts of Scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying, nurses soothing them with lullabies, and all the noisy crowd of men and women about the house? Who will put up with the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home?

{ quam indecens, quam lamentabile esset, ut quem omnibus natura creaverat, uni me femine dicarem et turpitudini tante subicerem. Detestabatur vehementer hoc matrimonium, quod mihi per omnia probrosum esset atque honerosum. Pretendebat infamiam mei pariter et difficultates matrimonii … Que enim conventio scolarium ad pedissequas, scriptoriorum ad cunabula, librorum sive tabularum ad colos, stilorum sive calamorum ad fusos? Quis denique sacris vel philosophicis meditationibus intentus, pueriles vagitus, nutricum que hos mittigant nenias, tumultuosam familie tam in viris quam in feminis turbam sustinere poterit? Que etiam inhonestas illas parvulorum sordes assiduas tolerare valebit? }[3]

Jerome fabricated a work of Theophrastus to persuade widows to reject marriage out of compassion for men. Like many holy women in Jerome’s own time, Heloise, even as a single woman, took to heart Jerome’s lesson. She counseled Abelard with St. Jerome’s wisdom:

St. Jerome in the first book of his Against Jovinian recalls how Theophrastus sets out in considerable detail the unbearable annoyances of marriage and its endless anxieties, in order to prove by the clearest possible arguments that a wise man should not take a wife

{ Quale illud est beati Jheronimi, in primo Contra Jovinianum, ubi scilicet commemorat Theophrastum, intolerabilibus nuptiarum molestiis assiduisque inquietudinibus ex magna parte diligenter expositis, uxorem sapienti non esse ducendam evidentissimis rationibus astruxisse }[4]

Heloise figured herself as Marcella, one of Jerome’s close female associates, and Abelard as Jerome.[5] Jerome did not marry. Heloise wanted Abelard to live like St. Jerome, with additional pleasure.

Heloise’s courageous rejection of the formal institution of marriage did not imply rejecting sexual relations. Heloise and Abelard delighted in having sex with each other. Heloise recognized that day-to-day association in the ordinary affairs of life can dull romantic ardor:

She argued that the name of lover instead of wife would be dearer to her and more honorable for me — only love freely given should keep me for her, not the constriction of a marriage ties, and if we had to be parted for a time, we should find the joy of being together all the sweeter the rarer our meetings were.

{ Addebat denique ipsa et quam periculosum mihi esset eam reducere et quam sibi carius existeret mihique honestius amicam dici quam uxorem ut me ei sola gratia conservaret, non vis aliqua vinculi nuptialis constringeret, tantoque nos ipsos ad tempus separatos gratiora de conventu nostro percipere gaudia, quanto rariora. }[6]

Heloise insisted:

The name of wife may seem holier or more valid, but sweeter for me will always be the word lover or, if you will permit me, concubine or whore.  … Your yourself on your own account did not altogether forget this in the letter of consolation I mentioned, which you wrote to a friend. There you thought fit to set out some of the reasons I gave in trying to dissuade you from binding us together in marriage and in an ill-starred bed. But you keep silent about many of my arguments for preferring love to marriage and freedom to a chain. God is my witness that if Augustus, emperor of the whole world, thought fit to honor me with marriage and conferred all the earth on me to possess forever, it would seem dearer and more honorable to be called not his empress but your prostitute.

{ Et si uxoris nomen sanctius ac validius videretur, dulcius mihi semper extitit amice vocabulum aut, si non indigneris, concubine vel scorti …. Quod et tu ipse tui gratia oblitus penitus non fuisti in ea, quam supra memini ad amicum epistola pro consolatione directa, ubi et rationes nonnullas quibus te a coniugio nostro et infaustis thalamis revocare conabar, exponere non es dedignatus, sed plerisque tacitis quibus amorem coniugio, libertatem vinculo preferebam. Deum testem invoco, si me Augustus universo presidens mundo matrimonii honore dignaretur, totumque mihi orbem confirmaret in perpetuo possidendum, karius mihi et dignius videretur tua dici meretrix quam illius imperatrix. }[7]

Heloise preferred to be Abelard’s whore than to be Abelard’s wife. She surely was wholly innocent of their disastrous marriage.

A disastrous marriage is much more likely for men today. Family law is now a whirlpool of anti-men bigotry. For example, if a wife bears a child from an extramarital affair, the law will impose a conspiracy of silence and force financial obligations upon the cuckolded husband.[8] Men should listen to Heloise. Men should not get married.

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Notes:

[1] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 2.13, Latin text and English trans. from Luscombe & Radice (2013) p. 137. In all subsequent quotes, the Latin text is from id. (with v used in place of u where appropriate, and similarly for j relative to i). I’ve made some minor changes ocassionally in the Luscombe & Radice’s translations for accuracy and ease of reading. Id. has Historia calamitatum as Letter 1.  Other collections have the subsequent letter as Letter 1.

[2] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 4.11, id. p. 169. About 1130, a writer with some sympathy for Abelard exonerated Heloise like a white knight would:

The shameful wound attached the philosopher to monks,
and took study away from you, Philosophy.
A woman destroyed Adam, Samson, and Solomon:
Peter, alas, has been added, destroyed by a like fall.
This was the public downfall of the highest men.
…(missing verse)…
Only the wife of Peter is free of guilt,
no consent made her not culpable.

{ Philosophum monachis adiuncsit plaga pudenda
Et studium dempsit, philosophia, tibi.
Adam, Samsonem, Salomonem perdidit uxor:
Additus i o Petrus – clade ruit simili,
Publica summorum cladis fuit ista virorum.
…(missing verse)…
Sola tamen Petri coniux est criminis expers,
Consensus nullus quam facit esse ream. }

Latin text and English translation (adapted slightly) from Dronke (1992) pp. 281, 263. The poem survives in MS Orléans, Bibliothèque municipale 284 (238), s. XII/XIII, p. 183. Heloise surely consented to sexually intercourse with Abelard. While Abelard apparently urged her to marry him, she must have consented in order for the marriage to be valid.

[3] Abelard to a friend, consoling him, Letter 1 (Historia calamitatum) 24-5, id. pp. 35, 37 (adapted).

[4] Id. p. 37.

[5] In her preface to Problemata Heloissae. Heloise quoted Jerome praising Marcella, as well as praising Asella. Heloise then wrote to Abelard:

What do these statements mean, I ask you, who are dear to many, but dearest of all to me? They are not mere testimonies; they are admonitions, reminding you of your debt to us, which you should not delay in paying.

{ Quorsum autem ista, dilecte multis, sed dilectissime nobis? Non sunt haec documenta, sed monita: ut ex his quid debeas recorderis, et debitum solvere non pigriteris. }

Problemat Heloissae, Latin text and English trans., from McLaughlin & Wheeler (2009) p. 213, available from Medieval Women’s Latin Letters. Here’s a complete Latin text for Problemat Heloissae. In Abelard’s rule for the nuns of the Paraclete, Abelard described Jerome as “the greatest doctor of the Church and glory of the monastic profession {Maximus ecclesie doctor et monastice professionis honor}.” He counseled the nuns:

you can at least in your love and study of sacred writings model yourselves on those blessed disciples of St. Jerome, Paula and Eustochium, for it was mainly at their request that this doctor with so many volumes lit up the Church.

{ imitamini saltem et amore et studio sanctarum litterarum beatas illas sancti Hieronymi discipulas Paulam et Eustochium, quarum precipue rogatu tot voluminibus ecclesiam predictus doctor illustravit. }

S. 123, 128, trans. Luscombe & Radice (2013) pp. 509, 517. In a letter to the nuns of the Paraclete, Abelard put forward Jerome’s advice to Laeta on the upbringing of her daughter Paula and other examples of Jerome’s guidance to women. Letter 9, trans. Ziolkowski (2008) pp. 10-33. Abelard, however, felt that Jerome sometimes went too far in his solicitude for women and his praise of women:

And sometimes the warmth of his love for women of this kind appears to be so great that he seems to go somewhat beyond the bound of truth in their praise, as if he felt in himself what he mentions elsewhere: “Love has no limit.” … in writing to the virgin Demetrias, he began his letter with such remarkable praise of her that he seems to give way to excessive adulation.

{ Unde et nonnumquam zelus caritatis ejus erga hujusmodi feminas tantus esse deprehenditur ut in earum laudibus aliquatenus veritatis tramitem excedere videatur, quasi in seipso illud expertus quod alicubi commemorans: “Caritas, inquit, mensuram non habet.” … ad Demetriadem virginem scribens, tanta ejus laude frontem ipsius insignivit epistole ut non in modicam labi videatur adulationem }

Abelard to Heloise, Letter 7.49, trans. Luscombe & Radice (2013) p. 347. Boccaccio addressed the under-appreciated historical problem of men’s excessive adulation for women through his under-appreciated creative wit in El Corbaccio.

[6] Abelard to a friend, consoling him, reporting Heloise’s advice, Letter 1 (Historia calamitatum) 26, id. p. 43.

[7] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 2.10, id. p. 133. Luscombe & Radice translate meretrix as “mistress” rather than “prostitute.” I’ve used “prostitute” above because meretrix is a relatively informal Latin word that carries a strong connotation of being paid for sex. With the rhyme across meretrix and imperatrix, Heloise emphasized her sentiment. She earlier expressed her preference to be Abelard’s whore {scortum} rather than his wife.

In a letter to Aeneas, Dido expressed a similar sentiment:

If you shame to have me as you wife, not bride, but hostess let me be called;
So to be yours, Dido will endure what you will.

{ si pudet uxoris, non nupta, sed hospita dicar;
dum tua sit, Dido quidlibet esse feret. }

Ovid, Heroides 7.167-8, Latin text of Ehwald (1907), my English translation.

[8] Of course, current times are also difficult for unmarried men. Instead of thuggish relatives, the state now deploys vast resources to punish unmarried men for consensual sexual intercourse that produces a child.

[image] Sunset over Lake Erie through fishing net, Erie, Pennsylvania, September 5, 2004. Thanks to Sensor and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Dronke, Peter. 1992. Intellectuals and poets in Medieval Europe. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura. Ch. 9 (pp. 247-294) reprints Dronke, Peter. 1976. Abelard and Heloise in Medieval testimonies: the twenty-six W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow 29th October, 1976. Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press.

Luscombe, David, and Betty Radice, ed. and trans. 2013. The letter collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

McLaughlin, Mary Martin, and Bonnie Wheeler, trans. 2009. The Letters of Heloise and Abelard. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ziolkowski, Jan. M., ed. and trans. 2008. Letters of Peter Abelard, beyond the personal. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

friendship: weeping & laughing in the medieval Arabic tale of Attaf

Perspectives: Chiharu Shiota at Sackler Gallery

The Tale of Attaf the Syrian (The Power of Destiny) begins with Caliph Harun al-Rashid restless and uneasy. The Caliph, the Commander of the Faithful, opened a book. Reading it, he both wept and laughed profusely. His companion, his vizier Ja’far ibn Yahya, exclaimed:

O King of the Age, how is it I see you reading and weeping and laughing at one and the same moment when no one does that except madmen and maniacs? [1]

Ja’far’s sensible question infuriated the Caliph. The Caliph immediately expelled his vizier:

Get away from me and address me not again nor sit as vizier until you answer your own question and you tell me what is written and decreed in that book I was reading and you learn why I wept and why I laughed at one and the same hour. Out and away with you, and don’t face me again except with the answer, or else will I slay you in the most brutal way.

Ja’far ibn Yahya was a member of the Barmakids family. The Barmakids, thought to have Indian origins, were closely associated with al-Rashid. They served him as favored advisers and ministers.  However, in 803, al-Rashid turned upon the Barmakids, confiscated their wealth, imprisoned leading members, and executed Ja’far. In the Tale of Attaf the Syrian, al-Rashid’s strange rejection of Ja’far prompted Ja’far to leave Baghdad and journey to Damascus. The close relationship between the Caliph and his vizier became distant.

Influential ancient literature presents ideal friendship as persons being willing to lay down their lives for their friends. The story of Damon and Pythias, known in fourth-century Greek culture, told of Damon’s willingness to lay down his life for his friend Pythias. Damon and Pythias were followers of the philosopher Pythagoras. While both were in Syracuse, Pythias was sentenced to death for allegedly plotting against the tyrant of Syracuse. Pythias begged for leave to travel home to settle his affairs and say farewell to his family before he was executed. Damon pledged to remain in Syracuse and be executed in the place of Pythias if Pythias didn’t return. The tyrant accepted that ancient form of bail and allowed Pythias to travel. Unfortunately, his return was delayed. Just before Damon was to be executed, Pythias returned. He recounted his extraordinary efforts overcoming obstacles that had hindered his return. Impressed with Damon and Pythias’ dedication to each other in friendship, the tyrant pardoned both from death.

The friendship of Damon and Pythias doesn’t just concern that story. A renegade Jew living in the eastern Mediterranean area instructed his followers similarly about friendship. Foreshadowing his brutal execution in love for his friends, he told his followers:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. [2]

Friendship among men has been central to the formation of large-scale human societies. The men who have created and led such societies throughout history have needed trusted, loyal men. The personal safety of the ruler, sound administration of the realm, and defense against external enemies has depended on friendship among men. Across Eurasia, in organizations of warrior men like the comitatus, men pledged to lay down their lives for each other and for their ruler. Fear and material interests haven’t been and probably cannot be a sufficient basis for long-lasting, large-scale human societies.[3]

Laying down one’s life for a friend was culturally elaborated into laying down one’s wife for a friend.  Consider a story about the pre-Islamic Christian Arab Hatim Tai. He was renowned for his generosity. Abu Said of the Banu Hilal tribe sought to test Hatim Tai’s generosity. Disguised as a dervish, Abu Said went to the tents of the Tayy (Tai) tribe. Hatim Tai, who was his tribe’s chief, invited all to come to this table. Abu Said declared that he would have a meal with Hatim Tai only if he received Hatim Tai’s wife. Hatim Tai, with his wife’s acquiescence, agreed to give her to Abu Said. Early the next day, Abu Said departed with Hatim Tai’s wife.

Abu Said’s request for Hatim Tai’s wife was a test for friendship. While traveling home, Abu Said placed his sword between himself and the woman when they slept. When he arrived home, he gave the woman her own tent and did not bring her into his tent. Abu Said then invited Hatim Tai to visit. Abu Said hosted Hatim Tai with great hospitality. Abu Said also offered his sister to Hatim Tai. He accepted. He took the woman home. There, uncovering her, he discovered that she was his own wife.[4]

Laying down one’s wife for a friend occurs with literary, religious, and cultural sophistication. In the story of Abu Said and Hatim Tai, Abu Said placing his sword between himself and the women represents his repressed penis.[5] Zayd ibn Harithah, a companion (close friend) of Muhammad, divorced his wife Zaynab bint Jahsh so that Muhammad could marry her.[6] The European Latin poem of Lantfrid and Cobbo, probably from the tenth century, tells of Lantfrid giving up his wife to his dear friend Cobbo. Like in the story of Abu Said and Hatim Tai, Cobbo left with Lantfrid’s wife. Cobbo, however, soon returned with the woman. He gave her, untouched, back to Lantfrid.[7] Historically and right up to the present, men’s lives have been socially less valued than women’s lives. For a man, laying down one’s wife for a friend indicates a more socially sophisticated friendship sacrifice than laying down one’s life for a friend.

In the even more culturally sophisticated Tale of Attaf, Attaf gave up intercourse with his wives to offer hospitality to Ja’far. Attaf, a handsome, noble young man with a godly smile, noticed the traveler Ja’far just outside of Damascus. Attaf invited Ja’far to join his banquet. Attaf and Jafar quickly became close friends. After the banquet, the time came for sleep:

eunuchs came in and spread for Ja’far delicately crafted bedding at the head of the hall in its place of honor. The eunuchs placed other bedding alongside. Seeing this, Ja’far the vizier said to himself, “Perhaps my host is a bachelor, and so they would spread his bed to my side; however, I will venture the question.” Accordingly he addressed his host saying, “O Attaf, are you single or married?” “I am married, O my lord,” said Attaf. Ja’far followed up, “Why then do you not go within and lie with your wives?”  “O my lord,” replied Attaf, “my wives are not about to take flight, and it would be nothing but disgraceful to me were I to leave a visitor like you, a man whom all revere, to sleep alone while I pass the night with my wives and rise early to enter the baths. I would consider such action to be uncourteous and failure to honor a luminary like your Honor.  In very truth, O my lord, so long as your presence deigns to favor this house, I will not sleep with my wives until I say goodbye to your Worship and you depart in peace and safety to your own place.”  “This is amazing,” said Ja’afar to himself, “and perhaps further events will be more so for me.”  So they lay together that night. When morning came they arose and went to the baths. Attaf had sent there for the use of his guest a suit of magnificent clothes. He had Ja’afar put the suit on before leaving the baths.

This account of sleeping together decorously suggests same-sex eroticism. Subsequently, by day, Attaf took Ja’far around Damascus to see the various places and sights. At night, they returned home to sleep together as they did on the first night. These activities continued for four months.

Ja’far apparently tired of his affair with Attaf. Ja’far suggested that he would like to wander about Damascus by himself. Attaf graciously offered Ja’far a carriage. Ja’far declined. Attaf then gave Ja’far some money. A Victorian archaic-English translation of the Tale of Attaf poignantly has at this point:

Ja’far took from Attaf a purse of three hundred dinars and left the house gladly as one who issueth from durance vile

Wandering about Damascus, Ja’far’s eyes found a beautiful young lady:

a model of comeliness and loveliness and fair figure and symmetrical grace, whose charms would animate all who gaze upon her

Ja’far fell desperately in love with her at first sight.[8] That beautiful young lady turned out to be one of Attaf’s wives. When he found out the cause of his friend’s dangerous lovesickness, Attaf arranged to divorce that wife and have her marry Ja’far.

Courtly and clerical thinking about idealized friendship contributed to the development of the horrors of courtly love in medieval Europe. That thinking, heavily influenced by Cicero’s De amicitia, privileged relational abstractions of friendship. Friendship was a voluntary association of autonomous equals. Friends were self-aware and self-controlled. The perfect friend was another self. Those lifeless ideals of friendship prompted men to believe that they must woo and win that one woman who is their other self, perfectly matching them except that women are exalted and men must serve them.[9] Weeping and laughing in the Tale of Attaf, Caliph Harun al-Rashid reveals better understanding of friendship and love.

Differences among men and between men and women are ineluctable reality that does not necessarily make friendship impossible. Cicero observed that “in the whole range of {Greco-Roman} history only three or four pairs of friends are mentioned.”[10] That literary history is a poor guide to actual human relationships. Friendships depend on faith, hope, and generous care. Friendships encounter faults and risk despair and forsakenness. Large-scale societies need many such friendships, especially among men.

Back in Baghdad, Ja’far told Caliph al-Rashid the story of Attaf. Doing so reconciled him to the Caliph. Ja’far returned Attaf’s wife to him untouched. Attaf had suffered impoverishment, imprisonment, and near execution after his generosity to Ja’far. Ja’far made Attaf ten times as wealthy as he was before he had met Ja’far. At Attaf’s request, the Caliph pardoned Attaf’s persecutor. With this happy ending, the bloody historical ending of the relationship between Caliph al-Rashid and his vizier Ja’far could almost be forgotten.

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Notes:

[1] Tale of Attaf the Syrian, from Arabic trans. Burton (1886) vol. 6.  A longer title for that tale is The Power of Destiny, or, Story of the Journey of Giafar {Ja’far} to Damascus comprehending the Adventures of Chebib (Habíb) and his family. Chebib (Habíb) seems to have been an alternate name for Attaf. Burton used the Arabic text of Dom Denis Chavis (Dionysius Shawish), transcribed about 1790. Chavis was a Syrian monk who had studied in Constantinople and come to Paris. Mahdi (1995) pp. 51-61. Since the Chavis manuscript refers to cannon fire, it’s probably from later than the fourteenth century. Burton’s text also includes a second English translation of another manuscript of the Tale of Attaf. The translator of that text was Alexander J. Cotheal, Consul-General for Nicaragua in New York. Cotheal acquired his manuscript from the estate of “a deceased American missionary who had brought it from Syria.” The manuscript was written in 1685. Burton describes the text in the Supp. Vol. 6 (Vol. 16 overall) in his translator’s forward. Burton’s description of the Cotheal manuscripts and Cotheal’s English translation is placed immediately after Burton’s translation of the Chavis manuscript. Another version of the Tale of Attaf was brought back to England by Dr. Patrick Russell, “the historian of Aleppo,” in 1771. Mahdi (1995) p. 56. I have modernized and clarified Burton’s translation, which itself was a quite loose translation from the Arabic.  All subsequent quotations from the Tale of Attaf are from Burton’s translation of the Chavis manuscript. Cotheal’s manuscript seems to be a latter version of the tale.  It explicitly indicates that it is the text of a reciter (rawi).

[2] Jesus of Nazareth, in John 15:12-13.

[3] Valerius Maximus, who flourished 14 to 37 GC, declared:

It {friendship} deserves almost the same veneration that we pay to the rites of the immortal gods. The survival of our state depends on those rites, but our survival as private people depends on the power of friendship. And if the temples are the sacred homes of the gods, then the loyal hearts of humans are like temples filled with the sacred spirit of friendship.

Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium, Bk. 4, 7.1ext, from Latin trans. Walker (2004) p.  152. Friendship wasn’t just a matter of “our survival as private people.” In a letter to Charlemagne in 798, Alcuin declared his desire to help his friend Charlemagne in any way that he could. Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne:

And if this is to be observed diligently in a friend and coequal, that the integrity of his {the friend’s} mind should remain inviolate, how much more in a lord and in such a person who loves to exalt and govern his subjects in all honor?

From Latin trans. Jaeger (2012) p. S107. Alcuin, a scholar and adviser to Charlemagne, described his friendship-dedication to Charlemagne like that of a warrior of the comitatus. Advisers to leaders in the Islamic world similarly presented themselves as loving, subordinate friends to the ruler. Waqid ‘Amr ibn-Tamini’s account of Babak and the Khurrami revolt in the early nineth century in central Mesopotamia includes a reference to a chief’s comitatus.

[4] Crane (1921) pp. 202-3, from German of Prym & Socin (1881) vol. ii, p. 24. Prym & Socin’s source was a manuscript they received from a Jacobite Christian in Damascus about 1870.  Since the text is in Neo-Aramaic, it may convey a quite ancient story.

[5] In Béroul’s twelfth-century romance of Tristan and Iseut, Tristan similarly placed his sword between Iseut and him in bed when he was too tired to have sex with her.

[6] Qur’an 33:37. Ibn Hisham, who died about 830 GC, edited one of the earliest surviving versions of ibn Ishaq’s biography of Muhammed, the Prophet of Islam. Ibn Hisham’s text states that Zayd ibn Harithah divorced Zaynab bint Jahsh so that Muhammad could marry her.

[7] “Lantfrid and Cobbo,” Cambridge Songs, Song 6, from Latin trans. Ziolkowski (1994) pp. 22-7.

[8] On the influence of Cicero’s De amicitia and the connection between ancient ideals of friendship and the development of courtly love in twelfth-century Europe, Ziolkowski (1995). On men serving women, see, e.g. the United Nations’ current HeForShe campaign.

[9] Ja’far fell dangerously lovesick. His ever solicitous friend Attaf called for a doctor. The doctor diagnosed Ja’far’s lovesickness from his pulse. That was a popular story that goes back at least to Valerius Maximus’s account of Antiochus’s lovesickness. Antiochus fell in love with the wife of his father, King Seleucus. To save his son, Seleucus gave him his wife. Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings, Bk. 5, 7.ext 1. trans. Walker (2004) pp. 190-1.

[10] Cicero, De amicitia, sec. 15. An editorial note explains:

The three pairs are Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades; the fourth, probably in Cicero’s mind (Cic. Off. III.45; Fin. II.79), was Damon and Phintias (vulg. Pythias).

Cicero praised above all the “friendship of faultless men.” Id. sec. 22, 100. Such men are very rare.

[image] Perspectives: Chiharu Shiota, at Sackler Gallery through June 7, 2015. My photograph.

References:

Burton, Richard Francis. 1886. Supplemental nights to the book of The thousand nights and a night. Vol. 6. Benares: Printed by the Kamashastra Society for private subscribers only.

Crane, Thomas Frederick. 1921.  “The Sources of Boccaccio’s Novella of Mitridanes and Natan (Decameron X, 3).”  The Romanic Review 12(3): 193-215.

Falconer, W.A. ed. and trans. 1923. Cicero. De amicitia (On Friendship). Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, vol. XX

Jaeger C. Stephen. 2012. “Alcuin and the music of friendship.” MLN – Modern Language Notes. 127 (SUPPL. 5): S105-S125.

Mahdi, Muhsin. 1995. The thousand and one nights. Leiden: Brill.

Prym, Eugen, and Albert Socin. 1881. Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr ‘Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Walker, Henry J., trans. 2004. Valerius Maximus. Memorable deeds and sayings: one thousand tales from ancient Rome. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.

Ziolkowski, Jan M. 1994. The Cambridge songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia). New York: Garland Pub.

Ziolkowski, Jan. M. 1995. “Twelfth-Century Understandings and Adaptations of Ancient Friendship.” Pp. 59-81 in Welkenhuysen, Andries, Herman Braet, and Werner Verbeke, eds. Mediaeval antiquity. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.

sex differences in birds and their songs

male Northern Cardinal

Sex differences aren’t created merely through socialization. Both male and female Northern cardinals sing.  However, across cardinal chicks raised individually in an acoustically controlled environment, young males take about three times as long to learn songs as do young females. Males, however, are later more versatile singers as adults.[1] Among free-living cardinals, song control brain regions in adult males are 1.5-2.0 times larger than those in adult females.[2] Bird song is produced through complex interactions across sexes. Those communication systems encompass characteristic differences between females and males.

Sex differences depend on social circumstances. Among cowbirds, juvenile males housed without adult male cowbirds develop different singing characteristics than juveniles housed with adult males.[3] Unlike humans, cowbirds themselves lack oppressive and discriminatory institutions that separate juvenile males from adult males.  Cowbirds are unlikely to be capable of developing such institutions.  Thus cowbird song is strongly fixed in cowbird social nature.

Whether communicative behavior is determined genetically or socially has little significance if social structure responds to environmental changes at a timescale similar to that of changes in genetically coded behavior. Chickadees naturally experience significantly different social structures.  Chickadees living alone or in a pair make less complex calls than chickadees living in larger groups.  That change in call type occurs in weeks following a change in the chickadees’ social group.[4]  However, most birds’ pattern of social living changes little through a bird’s lifetime. The social structure of most bird species is an emergent property of their particular nature. To a significant extent, social structure changes in a reproductively fruitful way only with changes in the nature of the bird.

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Read more:

Notes:

[1] Yamaguchi (2001). Social factors also affect cardinals’ singing.  Vondrasek (2006).

[2] Jawor & MacDougall-Shackleton (2008).

[3] White, King & West (2002).

[4] Freeberg (2006).

[image] Male Northern Cardinal in Columbus, Ohio, USA, 2011. Thanks to Stephen Wolfe and Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Freeberg, Todd M. 2006. “Social Complexity Can Drive Vocal Complexity: Group Size Influences Vocal Information in Carolina Chickadees.” Psychological Science. 17 (7): 557-561.

Jawor, Jodie M., and Scott A. MacDougall-Shackleton. 2008. “Seasonal and sex-related variation in song control nuclei in a species with near-monomorphic song, the northern cardinal.” Neuroscience Letters. 443 (3): 169-173.

Vondrasek, Joanna R. 2006. “Social factors affect the singing rates of female northern cardinals Cardinalis cardinalis.” Journal of Avian Biology. 37 (1): 52-57.

White, David J., Andrew P. King, and Meredith J. West. 2002. “Facultative development of courtship and communication in juvenile male cowbirds (Molothrus ater).” Behavioral Ecology. 13 (4): 487

Yamaguchi Ayako. 2001. “Sex differences in vocal learning in birds.” Nature. 411 (6835): 257-8.

Heloise taught Abelard boldness and courage

Joan of Arc followed Heloise

Heloise of the Paraclete, a leading figure in twelfth-century Europe, described women and men as by nature created unequal. She described women as the weaker sex, and men, the stronger sex.[1] These epithets, of course, are merely conventional, misleading descriptions of physical sex differences. Nonetheless, Heloise noted that St. Gregory the Pope had written gender inequality into his Pastoral Rule of 591:

men are to be admonished in one way, women in another; for heavy burdens may be laid on men and great matters exercise them, but lighter burdens on women, who should be gently converted by less exacting means.

{ Aliter igitur ammonendi sunt viri atque aliter femine, quia illis gravia, istis vero sunt injungenda leviora; et illos magna excerceant, istas vero levia demulcendo convertant. } [2]

Heloise sought to lessen women’s burdens. But she didn’t believe that women are generally inferior to men. She argued that women should be allowed any sort of food and drink, because women are less prone to gluttony and intoxication than are men.[3] Abelard, a leading scholar of logic, should have been able to figure that out.

Abelard’s reason functioned in a different direction. A leading scholar of Abelard’s work observed:

we can see in his religious writings an exceptional theological exaltation of womankind. He is to my knowledge the first theologian to suggest that “the creation of woman surpasses that of man by a certain dignity, since she was created within paradise, but man outside it”; he argues that “inasmuch as woman is physically the weaker sex, to that extent her virtue is more acceptable to God and more worthy of honor”; Christ asks the Samaritan woman at the well for a drink of water “to indicate plainly that women’s virtue is the more pleasing to him in that they are weaker in person”; the saints who are virgin martyrs have achieved “a perfection of virtue that we know to be rare in men but frequent in women”. [4]

Abelard also declared that male bodies are not as beautiful as female bodies: “maidenly beauty is naturally considered more refined and softer than the male figure {naturaliter puellaris forma elegantior et delicatior virili compositione censetur}.”[5] Abelard has been an influential figure in Europe’s historical development of reason. His influence can be recognized in present-day elite scholarship.

Heloise, who delighted in Abelard’s body as well as his mind, teased Abelard for his attempt to recognize that she was not his inferior. She began a letter to him with a courtly admonishment:

I am surprised, my only love, that contrary to custom in letter-writing and, indeed, to the natural order of things, you have thought fit to put my name before yours in the greeting which heads your letter, so that we have woman before man, wife before husband, handmaid before lord, nun before monk and priest, and deaconess before abbot. Surely the right and proper order is for those who write to their superiors or equals to put their names before their own, but in letters to inferiors, precedence in order of address follows precedence in rank.

{ Miror, unice meus, quod preter consuetudinem epistolarum, immo contra ipsum ordinem naturalem rerum, in ipsa fronte salutationis epistolaris me tibi preponere presumpsisti, feminam videlicet viro, uxorem marito, ancillam domino, monialem monacho et sacerdoti, diaconissam abbati. Rectus quippe ordo est et honestus ut qui ad superiores vel ad pares scribunt, eorum quibus scribunt nomina suis anteponant; sin autem ad inferiores, precedunt scriptionis ordine qui precedunt rerum dignitate. } [6]

Abelard responded at length to explain that Heloise wasn’t his inferior. He sought to avoid Heloise’s blame and reproach.

Heloise taught Abelard boldness and courage. She had argued strongly to him against marriage when their sexual affair was discovered. Abelard, more reluctant to stand up to oppressive laws, insisted that they must marry. After much reasoned protest and tears, Heloise agreed to marry only so as not to offend Abelard.[7] Subsequent terrible events made clear to Heloise her mistake. Heloise became more bold and courageous. She wrote letters with honesty and truth, without concern for offending anyone. Heloise taught Abelard to write like she did.

Heloise taught Abelard words of men’s sexed protests. As a woman religious, Heloise did not believe that men are a demonic species. She recognized sacred scripture encompasses even literature of men’s sexed protests. In a letter to Abelard, Heloise drew upon that literature in counseling him:

Again and again women utterly destroy the very greatest of men!  Hence the warning about women in Proverbs: “But now, my son, listen to me, attend to what I say: do not let your heart entice you into her ways, do not stray down her paths; she has wounded and laid low so many, and the strongest have all been her victims. Her house is the way to hell, and leads down to the halls of death.” And in Ecclesiastes: “I put all to the test … I find woman more bitter than death; she is a snare, her heart a net, her arms are chains. He who is pleasing to God eludes her, but the sinner is her captive.”

It was the first woman in the beginning who lured men from Paradise, and she who had been created by the Lord as his helpmate became the instrument of his total downfall. And that mighty man of the Lord, the Nazirite whose conception was announced by an angel, Delilah alone overcame; betrayed to his enemies and robbed of his sight, he was driven at last by sorrow to destroy himself along with the fall of his enemies. Only the woman he had slept with could make a fool of Solomon, the wisest of all men; she drove him to such a pitch of madness that although he was the man whom the Lord had chosen to build the temple in preference to his father David, who was a righteous man, she plunged him into idolatry until the end of his life, so that he abandoned the worship of God which he had preached and taught in word and writing. Job, the holiest of men, fought his last and hardest battle against his wife, who urged him to curse God. The cunning arch-tempter well knew from repeated experience that men are most easily brought to ruin through their wives, and so he directed his usual malice against us too, and tempted you through marriage when he could not destroy you through fornication.

{ O summam in viros summos et consuetam feminarum perniciem! Hinc de muliere cavenda scriptum est in Proverbiis: “Nunc ergo, fili, audi me, et attende verbis oris mei. Ne abstrahatur in viis illius mens tua, neque decipiaris semitis ejus; multos enim vulneratos dejecit, et fortissimi quique interfecti sunt ab ea. Vie inferi domus ejus penetrantes in inferiora mortis.” Et in Ecclesiaste: “Lustravi universa animo meo, et inveni amariorem morte mulierem, que laqueus venatorum est, et sagena cor ejus. Vincula enim sunt manus ejus. Qui placet Deo effugiet eam; qui autem peccator est capietur ab illa.”

Prima statim mulier de paradiso virum captivavit, et quae ei a Domino creata fuerat in auxilium, in summum ei conversa est exitium. Fortissimum illum Nazareum Domini et angelo nuntiante conceptum Dalila sola superavit, et eum inimicis proditum et oculis privatum ad hoc tandem dolor compulit ut se pariter cum ruina hostium opprimeret. Sapientissimum omnium Salomonem sola quam sibi copulaverat mulier infatuavit, et in tantam compulit insaniam ut eum quem ad aedificandum sibi Dominus templum elegerat, patre ejus David, qui justus fuerat, in hoc reprobato, ad idololatriam ipsa usque in finem vite dejiceret, ipso quem tam verbis quam scriptis predicabat atque docebat divino cultu derelicio. Job sanctissimus in uxore novissimam atque gravissimam sustinuit pugnam, quae eum ad maledicendum Deo stimulabat. Et callidissimus temptator hoc optime noverat, quod sepius expertus fuerat, virorum videlicet ruinam in uxoribus esse facillimam. Qui denique etiam usque ad nos consuetam extendens maliciam, quem de fornicatione sternere non potuit de conjugio temptavi } [8]

Abelard, like many scholars since, probably was horrified that Heloise wrote those words. But words of men’s anguished sexed protests deserve to heard. To make such words heard requires boldness and courage. Heloise taught Abelard boldness and courage.

Heloise deserves equal credit for the Samson planctus ascribed to Abelard. Insightful scholarship has recognized the relation of the Samson planctus to Heloise’s writing, but misunderstood that relationship.[9] Abelard learned from Heloise. With that learning, he wrote poetic words of men’s sexed protest:

Oh, ever of the mighty
supreme destruction,
to such catastrophe
was created — woman!

She brought the father of all
down with due speed,
and the cup of death
she hands to everyone.

Holier than David,
wiser than Solomon,
who could be thought?
Or again, more impious —
through women’s fault — or more
fatuous,
who could be found?
Who among the strong
was like the strongest Samson
weakened?

{ O semper fortium
ruinam maximam,
et in exicium
creatam feminam!

Hec patrem omnium,
dejecit protinus,
et mortis poculum,
propinat omnibus.

David sanctior,
Salomone prudentior
quis putetur?
Aut quis impius
magis per hanc fatuus
repperitur?
Quis ex fortibus
sicut Sanson fortissimus
enervatur? }

The poem builds to a shocking concluding stanza:

Bare your breast to the asp —
bare it to fire sooner,
wise one, whoever you are,
than entrust yourself
to women’s wiles —
unless you should prefer
towards that catastrophe
to run inexorably
with those already named!

{ Sinum aspidi
vel igni pectus aperi,
quisquis sapis,
Quam femineis
te committas illecebris,
nisi malis
ad exitium
properare certissimum
cum predictis. }[10]

Adam, Solomon, and Sampson were commonly recognized to have been asinine in relation to women, with disastrous results. At the same time, in Christian understanding, they were major figures in salvation history. Boldness and courage imply recognizing danger and moving forward. With the help of Heloise, Abelard not only appreciated the literature of men’s sexed protest, but also greatly heightened its poetic form.[11] Heloise taught Abelard to move forward in Christian understanding with her.

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Read more:

Notes:

[1] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 6.3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 27, Latin text and English trans. Luscombe & Radice (2013).  All subsequent quotes are similarly sourced, unless otherwise notes. Id. has Historia calamitatum as Letter 1.  Other collections have the subsequent letter as Letter 1.

[2] Letter 6.9, id. pp. 225, 227.

[3] Letter 6.14, id. p. 233.

[4] Dronke (1970) p. 137.

[5] Abelard to Heloise, Letter 8.3, from Latin trans. Luscombe & Radice (2013) p. 353 (modified slightly for accuracy).

[6] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 4.1. id. p. 159. Heloise’s implicit dominance is also evident in her sophisticated issuing of demands to Abelard:

we handmaids of Christ, who are your daughters in Christ, come as suppliants to demand of your paternal care two things

{ Omnes itaque nos Christi ancille et in Christo filie tue duo nunc a tua paternitate supplices postulamus }

Letter 6.3, id. p. 219.

[7] Letter 1.27 (Historia calamitatum), id. p. 43.

[8] Heloise to Abelard, Letter 4.9-10, id. pp. 167, 169.  The Jealous Husband in the Romance of the Rose noted of Heloise: “she knew  the feminine ways, for she had them all in herself.” See ll. ll. 8759-8832 , from French trans. Dahlberg (1995).

[9] Dronke (1970) pp. 116-7, 137-40.

[10] Samson Planctus,2a-3a, 3c, Latin text from Ruys (2014) pp. 252-3, English trans. Dronke (1970) pp. 123-4.  Based on the critical commentary of Orlandi (2001) p. 339, I’ve amended “for such a catastrophe / was created — woman” to “to such a catastrophe / was created — woman” (“in exitium / creatam feminam”) and “Who among the mighty / is not, like mightiest Samson, / unmanned?” to “Who among the strong /was like the strongest Samson / weakened?” (“Quis ex fortibus / sicut Sanson fortissimus / everuatur?”) The second amendment includes a better reading of the Latin text. Regarding Abelard’s planctus depicting Dina weeping for the killing of Sichem, id. p.  341 observed:

we are living in 2000, when, luckily, no judge in any civilized country would forgive the rapist Sichem’s offence.

In the U.S., the leading U.S. government public health institution has categorized men being raped as not real rape. It has obscured the fact that about as many men are raped as women are raped. Today, women who commit rape are much less likely to face punishment than men who commit that offense.

[11] Abelard’s achievement shouldn’t be exaggerated. He blamed only himself for his castration and demeaned his own male sexuality. He lacked the self-regard and social consciousness to recognize that his experience was part of a broader social pattern of violence against men. In Letter 1.69, Abelard cited a line from Juvenal’s Satire 6. Nonetheless, other than in his Samson planctus, Abelard did not show outstanding boldness and courage in thinking and writing about men’s social position.

Relative to some current medieval scholarship, Heloise and Abelard appear to be towering figures of Enlightenment thought. A recent doctoral dissertation on Heloise features as an epigram to its introduction a gyno-solipsistic absurdity:

What would happen if one woman told the story of her life? The world
would split open. — Muriel Rukeyser

Posa (2009) p. 1. Newman (2014) breathlessly reported that Heloise quoted:

St Jerome’s distasteful image of family life with just one significant revision: ‘What man, bent on sacred or philosophical thoughts, could endure the crying of children, the nursery rhymes of nannies trying to calm them, the bustling throng of male and female servants in the household? And what woman will be able to bear the constant filth and squalor of babies?’ Jerome twice wrote ‘what man’ (‘quis … quis?’), whereas Heloise quietly changed the second ‘quis’ to a ‘que’: ‘What woman?’ In short, we hear an educated woman asking disdainfully, in the early 12th century, how she could be expected to bear the filth and squalor of babies. This boggles even 20th and 21st-century minds.

That boggles the mind only of persons ignorant of important medieval literature. Boccaccio counseled men in relation to women:

Even if they have the grace to want children (which is not often the case), it is not necessary to be their slaves.

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Downfall of Illustrious Men (De Casibus Virorum Illustrium), Bk. 1, penultimate section, “The tricks women use to capture the reason of men are many and varied.”  From Latin trans. Hall (1965) p. 45. Even earlier, Juvenal in Satire 6 offered bracing words about women’s lack of love for children. Today persons who apparently have received advanced medieval education proudly post on the web “academic” writing that uncannily embodies popular stereotypes of medieval thought. See Ongley (n.d).

[image] Joan of Arc, painting, oil on parchment, c. 1485. Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Dahlberg, Charles, trans. 1995.  Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. The Romance of the Rose. 3rd ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Dronke, Peter. 1970. Poetic individuality in the Middle Ages: new departures in poetry, 1000-1150. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hall, Louis Brewer, trans. 1965. Giovanni Boccaccio. The fates of illustrious men. New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co.

Luscombe, David, and Betty Radice, ed. and trans. 2013. The letter collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

Newman, Barbara. 2014. “Astonishing Heloise.” Review of The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise edited by David Luscombe. London Review of Books. 36:2: 23 Jan.

Ongley, Shannon. n.d. “Gender Roles in ‘Abelard and Heloise.'” Pidgin Scratch, under “Writing Samples,” “Academic,” with headline image indicating “pen for hire.”

Orlandi, Giovanni. 2001. “On the text and interpretation of Abelard’s Planctus.” Pp. 327-42 in John Marenbon and Peter Dronke,eds. Poetry and philosophy in the Middle Ages: a festschrift for Peter Dronke. Leiden.

Posa, Carmel M. 2009. The Theology and Spirituality of the Body in the Writings of Heloise of the Paraclete. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Divinity (Melbourne).

Ruys, Juanita Feros. 2014. The Repentant Abelard: family, gender and ethics in Peter Abelard’s Carmen ad Astralabium and Planctus. New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmsillan.