The History of My Calamities
Peter Abelardc. 1132
Abelard’s account of his own life, written as a letter of consolation to a friend: his studies and rivalries in the schools of Paris, his love for Heloise and its consequences, and the condemnation of his book at Soissons.
The Historia calamitatum is an autobiography in the form of a letter. It is Peter Abelard’s own account of his life and of the masters and students of northern France in the first decades of the twelfth century.
It is also a self-defence. Abelard presents his teachers and rivals as moved by envy and himself as the victim of his own fame, and what he says of William of Champeaux, Anselm of Laon and the council of Soissons is his side of each quarrel.
Cited in
- about 1150 to 1215, estimated date