#abelard

On Education:
Fetty Wap and his Trap Queen:
 - ‘Introduced her to [Fetty’s] stove, showed her how to whip it, now she remixin’ for low.’
AbelardandHeloise:
-  Abelard was in charge of Heloise’s ‘…instruction whensoever [he] might be free from the duties of [his] school, no matter whether by day or by night…’

On Shared Goals:
FW&TQ:
- Matching Lambos
A&H: 
- Matching monastery/nunnery 

On Getting Fly With One’s Baby:
FW&TQ:
At the mall
A&H:
‘…all the garments of a nun, suitable for the life of a convent, excepting only the veil…’ (#swag)

On the chill factor:
FW&TQ:
‘[Fetty] just want to chill, got a sack for [them] to roll.’
A&H:
‘Their hearts are full and leave no vacancy for any other passion; they enjoy perpetual tranquility because they enjoy content.’

Is everybody hating?:
FW&TQ:
- Yeah, they just call them fans, though.
A&H:
- Yeah, but their ‘ persecution did nought save to make [Abelard] more famous ’.   

Watch and learn Kanye.

As much as it is important to continue the rant, Going Medieval has been very clear on one point about the Abelard/Kanye comparison: Kim Kardashian ain’t no Heloise.

This remains a guiding principle in the Abelard/Kanye discussion. Having said that, there are many things about the whole Kimye situation that are mirrored in the relationship of Abelard and Heloise.

Specifically, of course, I mean that Abelard’s career was pretty much ruined by the fact that he couldn’t help boning Heloise, and well, when was the last time you respected Kanye? I know, right?

Abelard would be the first one to tell you this.  He straight up admitted that he stopped concentrating on work the minute he got access to Heloise’s pants, because “…it became loathsome to [him] to go to the school or to linger there; the labour, moreover, was very burdensome, since [his] nights were vigils of love and my days of study.”

Kanye hasn’t exactly come out and admitted this in the same way, but all you need to do is look at his discography to see that his output and its quality is well down since we hit the Kim era.

For Abelard the whole thing was even more fraught, of course, because anyone involved in medieval universities was obliged to take holy orders.  So by getting down with Heloise he was breaking his vows, and essentially excluding himself from scholastic life.  That’s why Heloise fought so hard not to marry him. “She asked how she could ever glory in [Abelard] if she should make [him] thus inglorious, and should shame herself along with [him]. “  

I mean that, again, is pretty much the exact opposite of Kim, who knew she needed to lock Kanye down as fast as possible, for her own damn good.  However, Kanye’s weakness for Ms. K is one of the most oft-cited arguments about why Kanye is a massive tool.  It doesn’t exactly make his art totally irrelevant, but it calls it into question.

The other perfect parallel between the family lives of our two heroes is their penchant for naming their kids some crazy shit.  Witness: Abelard and Heloise named their son Astrolabe.  That’s not like “Oh medieval names are pretty funny.”  That’s they named their kid the equivalent of “Map and Compass”, but for the stars. That shit was crazy then, too.

If I need to explain to you why naming your kid after a device which helps you chart the position of stars is like naming your kid after a direction, we’re pretty much done here.

The point here is that while no one is going to try to tell you that Kim stands “out above all by reason of her abundant knowledge of letters”, she’s had a similar influence to that which Heloise did. Having said that, Heloise was bad for Abelard’s career because of the patriarchy and the structure of higher education in the medieval period, while Kim is bad for Kanye’s because she’s basic as hell.  Still, it’s worth a mention.