 Within its vanguard is Peter Abelard, a man of great learning, independence of mind, and sensuality.When he enters into an affair with his equally brilliant but disastrously connected student Heloise, his more conservative enemies find just the pretext they need to discredit him and in so doing start a war of ideas.Through the joy and suffering exhibited in this love story set in the Middle Ages, Brenton explores the relationships between logic and religion, humanism and fundamentalism, and faith and power, and projects modern debates on fundamentalism, the Enlightenment and feminism back on this historical situation.