medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Werner,
I have slides of both a grotto and a "tomb" or burial
site. It sounds as though the burial site may have
been at least at one time the burial place of the
couple? Do we know where the original burial place
was if not the so-called tomb?
MG
--- Werner Robl <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
> religion and culture
>
> > We must be reading different tourist blurbs, as I
> thought that Abelard and
> > Heloise were posthumously reunited in Paris's Pere
> Lachaise cemetery, near
> > to Jim Morrison -- and I have visited it/them.
>
> I suspect that both kind of tourist blurbs are
> misleading somehow. Abelard
> himself, during his life, wished to be buried at the
> Paraclete: "cadaver,
> obsecro, nostrum ubicunque vel sepultum vel
> expositum jacuerit, ad
> coemeterium vestrum deferri faciatis... 1st letter
> to H). Nevertheless, H &
> A "went upon a dreadful journey", after their death:
> The body of A. was
> exhumed or transferred nine times, the body of H.
> eight times, A's coffin
> was changed five times, H's coffin four times (via
> Chalon-sur-Saone >
> Paraclet > Nogent-sur-Seine > Paris).
>
> Due to the marshy ground of the first burial site at
> the Paraclete, the
> decay of the bodies was enormous: "fecit
> transportari ossa corporum seu
> cadaverum ... a quodam loco humido et aquoso,
> scilicet in quadam capella in
> dicto monasterio ...que vulgariter appellatur le
> petit moustier..." (1497,
> protocol of exhumation). At last, after some
> transfers and just before the
> French revolution, the remains were united in a
> little leaden coffin-box. In
> the early 19th c. Alexandre Lenoir, having
> transported the remains to Paris,
> admitted (or practised?) a lucrative trade of the -
> sparse - bones or teeth
> of H & A. Famous artists, like Dominique Denon or
> George Sand acquired some
> of them (George Sands "tooth" of H. remained in
> Nohant until 1980, but then
> was sold at an auction. It seems to be in private
> possession, now).
> Therefore, the new "tomb" in PereLachaise probably
> didn't contain any
> authentic bones of the couple in 1817, and it
> doesn't contain any bones at
> all, nowadays. The so-called "tomb of H & A" at the
> Paraclete, demonstrated
> to visitors by the proprietary of the areal, is part
> of the former crypt of
> the abbey church, This is NOT the first or last
> burial site of the couple.
>
> The only burial monument, worth to be considered as
> original and somehow
> authorized by H & A themselves, is the crypt of the
> "petit moustier", the
> first oratory, mentioned above, founded and built up
> by Abelard and his
> disciples. By the way, this oratory was dedicated to
> Saint-Denis, but not
> primarily to the Holy Spirit. The building was
> situated next to the
> cemetery, in the east-northeast of the abbey. It was
> destroyed during the
> Hundred-Years-War, rebuilt and destroyed again - as
> well as most of the
> abbey - during the French revolution. Nevertheless
> the (empty) stony crypt
> seems to be intact, as the marshy ground of the site
> near the rivulet
> Ardusson was elevated in the early 19th c. There is
> a park, nowadays. So the
> grave of H & A, symbol for the first recorded FREE
> UNIVERSITY in Europe (not
> connected to a cathedral, church or monastery) still
> waits for an
> excavation...
>
> Kind regards
>
> W. Robl
>
>
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