have been lost. Her family background is largely unknown. She was the ward of her maternal uncle (avunculus) Canon Fulbert of Notre Dame and the daughter of a woman named Hersinde, who is sometimes speculated to have been Hersint of Champagne (Lady of Montsoreau and founder of the Fontevraud Abbey) or possibly a lesser known nun called Hersinde at the convent of St. Eloi (from which the name "Heloise" would have been taken). In her letters she implies she is of a lower social standing than Peter Abélard, who was originally from the lower nobility, though he had rejected knighthood to be a philosopher. Speculation that her mother was Hersinde of Champagne/Fontrevaud and her father Gilbert Garlande contests with Heloise's depiction of herself as lower class than Abelard. Hersinde of Champagne was of lower nobility, and the Garlandes were from a higher social echelon than Abelard and served as his patrons. The Hersinde of Champagne theory is further complicated by the fact that Hersinde of Champagne died in 1114 between the ages of 54 and 80, implying that she would have had to have given birth to Heloise between the ages of 35 and 50. What is known for sure is that her Uncle Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame collected her to Notre Dame from her childhood home in Argentuil. By her mid teens to early twenties, she was renowned throughout France for her scholarship. While her birth year is disputed, she is traditionally held to be about 15 to 17 when meeting Abelard. By the time she became his student, she was already of high repute herself. As a poetic and highly literate prodigy of female sex familiar with multiple languages, she attracted much attention, including the notice of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, who notes that he became aware of her acclaim when he and she were both young. She soon attracted the romantic interest of celebrity scholar Peter Abelard. Heloise is said to have gained knowledge in medicine or folk medicine from either Abelard or his kinswoman Denise and gained reputation as a physician in her role as abbess of Paraclete. Meeting Abelard In his autobiographical piece and public letter Historia Calamitatum (c. 1132?), Abélard tells the story of his relationship with Héloïse, whom he met in 1115, when he taught in the Paris schools of Notre Dame. Abelard describes their relationship as beginning with a