The Abelard-Heloise correspondence is full of inversions of accepted topoi and
norms; these are not casual inversions but deliberate and sometimes extreme.
The one most commented on is Heloise's reluctance to cease to be Abelard's
mistress and become his wife, but there are numerous others, e.g. Abelard
saying that nuns should eat meat. There's an interesting article by Deborah
Fraioli exploring all of these in vol. 4 of the MGH's Faelschungen im
Mittelalter (Hanover 1988+).
Weren't drunken old women a commonplace in classical literature? That's
probably how they got into the Ab/Hel correspondence, which is stuffed with
allusions to classical writings. Certainly there was a vogue in classical times
for sculptures depicting drunken old women behaving badly (they were
meant to be humorous and filled the same niche in the art market as mooning
garden gnomes do today).
Julia Barrow
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