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Few medieval women have been so often studied and yet so little understood as Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete (d. 1164). Her life, known primarily through the letters that she exchanged with her former husband, the philosopher Peter Abelard (d. 1142), offers a study in contradiction: she was an educated woman at a time when women were supposedly barred from education; a nun who, though dedicated to God, battled sexual desire; a mother, whose spiritual daughters seemingly displaced her one biological son; and a wife, whose husband became her ¿brother¿ in Christ. Traditional accounts have flattened these rich and various contradictions, presenting Heloise primarily as a tragic heroine. Seduced by her much older teacher, this Heloise conceives and bears a child, seeks a love unfettered by bonds of wedlock, and ultimately accepts enclosure in the monastery as her last desperate act of obedience to her lover, Abelard. This seminar revises the traditional image of Heloise, dignifying her as a scholar, monastic reformer, and administrator¿as well as a lover, wife, mother, and friend.