SOURCE: Georgianna, Linda. “Any Corner of Heaven: Heloise's Critique of Monasticism.” Medieval Studies 49 (1987): 221-53.

In the following essay, Georgianna analyzes Heloise's letters to Abelard concerning her conversion to monastic life and her requests for a new form of religious rule.

In Héloïse and Abélard, Étienne Gilson wrote:

The correspondence of Héloïse and Abélard lies open in front of us. We can gloss it to our hearts' content, and search for newer and stranger hypotheses to explain its origin. A lot of this kind of thing has been done already, and no doubt the future will see a great deal more of it. But the wisest and most convincing of all hypotheses is that Héloïse is still the author of the letters of Héloïse and Abélard of those of Abélard. If there are decisive or even urgent...