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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