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Historical Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a 12th-Century Woman ed. by Bonnie Wheeler $59.00 / Palgrave / 2000 The 14th book in St. Martin's Press' The New Middle Ages series, Listening to Heloise is a collection of 15 scholarly essays dedicated to Heloise, one of the most prominent monastic women of the 12th century. One of the problems when considering Heloise has always been her intimacy with Abelard. Their scandalous love affair, resulting in an illegitimate son, Astralabe, Abelard's subsequent castration at the hands of Heloise's uncle Fulbert, and their respective retirement to the monastic life, have always provided the context in which Heloise's life and thoughts have been evaluated. This volume attempts to remove her from that context, and to see her in terms of the larger world of 12th-century thought. For instance, one author examines the innovative monastic program she introduced as the first abbess of the Paraclete while another author analyzes Heloise's positions on motherhood and her status and practice as a mother to Astralabe. Of course, ultimately it is impossible to separate Heloise from Abelard since it is through their correspondence that we know so much about her. Yet these essays focus on the content of that thought with greater seriousness. All of the essays are marvels of scholarship, and the research and references are impressive, demonstrating Heloise's familiarity with philosophical and rhetorical traditions, and her subtle skills in using them. They show us a woman intent on reforming monastic life to accommodate the community of religious women, and they reveal, above all, a woman of strong moral conviction, hardly the anti-intellectual figure we have come to know from legend and romance. —Charles Rammelkamp

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