Around 1132–1133, the philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard composed his autobiographical letter Historia Calamitatum ('The Story of My Misfortunes'), recounting his brilliant academic career at Paris, his tragic love affair with Héloïse, his castration at the hands of her uncle's hired men, and his subsequent monastic life. The text is one of the most psychologically candid personal narratives of the entire Middle Ages. Abelard's voice — self-justifying, intellectually proud, yet genuinely anguished — marks a turning point in the history of European self-representation.

The correspondence between Abelard and Héloïse, of which Historia Calamitatum forms the opening letter, became one of the most influential erotic and philosophical letter-sequences in Western literature. It inspired later writers from Jean de Meun in the Roman de la Rose to Alexander Pope's 'Eloisa to Abelard' (1717). Abelard was also a gifted lyric poet who composed hymns and planctus (laments) in Latin — his Planctus for biblical women are among the most emotionally intense poems of the twelfth century.