Love story of the century, taken from Time magazine, 1999.
Pierre Abelard was the theological provocateur of the age, confounding Roman Catholic tenets with reason, yet political enough to merit advancement in the church. But he loved - and was married to - the erudite Heloise at a time when married men could no longer be priests. After a melodrama that shifted from bedroom to birthing chamber to convent, Abelard was set upon by enemies in 1119 and castrated. He became a monk; she a nun. But they continued to correspond. "Sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine or whore," reads one of her purported letters. "What queen or powerful lady did not envy me my joys and my bed?"