The style of "historia calamitatum": A preliminary test of the authenticity of the correspondence attributed to Abelard and Heloise

Abstract

In 1972 at the International Colloquium on Peter Abelard and Peter the Venerable held at the abbey of Cluny, Professor Jacques Monfrin called for a study of the correspondence of Abelard and Heloise which would make use of machine-readable texts and recently developed techniques for computer-assisted tests of authenticity and the attribution of authorship. This paper is not a response to that request for a full-scale investigation of the correspondence, for it is based on conventional hand counting of only a few words and constructions. Instead, this is a modest preliminary study to test the validity of earlier statements about the style of the correspondence and its authorship, to attempt to determine whether a computer-assisted investigation would be worth the cost and effort, and to consider how such a study might best be undertaken.

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