From Petrarch to Heloise: Impossible Lovers in Medieval Writing

Medieval people were pining and sighing over each other long before the invention of the bodice-ripper and the chick flick.

There is a tendency today of both women and men to create unrealistic love objects out of characters they see in films, movies, books and magazines. Culprits range from relatively benign romance novels to not-so-benign pornographic movies and magazines. Real lovers just can't compete.

But medieval people of both genders got on the pedestal long before we did.

Petrarch, subject of this week's article, conceived a lifelong passion for a woman he barely knew. But like other medieval men, this did not stop him from fathering children with other women out of wedlock. He loved his children, but by his own admission, did not treat their mothers very well. His older contemporary, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), also held a lifelong, unrequited passion for the beautiful but distant Beatrice, who married another and died young. Dante even made her his guide to Heaven in the Divine Comedy.

Some women also conceived passions for men that they could not have. The most famous one, of course, was the 12th century nun Heloise (1101-1164). She fell in love with her tutor, a clerk and famous writer named Abelard (1079-1142). They secretly married and had a son, Astrolabe. Unfortunately, her male relatives found out and castrated Abelard. He retired to a monastery, ordering her to a nunnery. She rose to abbess, but did not cease from writing him passionate, erudite letters (to which he sometimes replied in a more subdued tone) for the rest of his life.

Medieval women were both more and less fortunate than men in that they also had one safe dream lover. This was, of course, Jesus Christ. Female mystics did not need to go through contortions of describing themselves as female, like their male counterparts, to justify a lifelong mystical marriage to Christ. These relationships with God could take very strange forms. 12th century abbess saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), for example, threw mystical hissy fits every time she didn't get her way, while writing passionate songs to God. 14th century saint Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380) engaged in dangerous fasts that ultimately killed her and once had a vision in which she married Jesus. The wedding ring was his circumcised foreskin.

But not all female mystics were religious Bridezillas. Eighth century Muslim Sufi saint Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya of Basra (c.717-801) was born in what is now Iraq and sold into slavery by her parents as a child. She freed herself from a brutal owner through her strong faith in Allah (God), then serenely and steadfastly refused all marriage proposals in later life. God was good enough for her and no mere man could compete. She is now remembered as one of the greatest Sufis, woman or man, in Islam.