Abelard by Tanya Bentham

In Inspirations magazine issues #130 and #131, master embroiderer Tanya Bentham has created two extraordinary needlework pieces - a pair of figures in Opus Anglicanum, the ancient English embroidery tradition of silk and gold, that together tell one of history's greatest love stories.

Heloise and Abelard.

You met her in All Stitched Up! issue 525. Now it's his turn.

It begins in Paris. Early 12th century. A brilliant and famously arrogant philosopher named Peter Abelard is hired to tutor the niece of a powerful official at Notre-Dame. Heloise, significantly younger than him, is by every account that survives, his intellectual equal.

They fall in love. Deeply, completely, and - given that he is her tutor living under her uncle's roof - foolishly.

When Heloise falls pregnant, Abelard secretly marries her, partly to do right by her and partly to appease her uncle Fulbert, who has by now discovered the affair and is most displeased.

Here is where the romance abruptly ends. Fulbert, concluding that Abelard has ruined his niece and that a secret marriage is insufficient recompense, arranges for a group of men to break into Abelard's room at night and castrate him.

We did warn you earlier that this story doesn’t end well!

Abelard, humiliated and broken, retreats into monastic life and effectively orders Heloise - who by all accounts would have preferred to simply live with him, married or not - to become a nun. She does and becomes, in time, a remarkably accomplished abbess.

In turn Abelard becomes a theologian of considerable reputation, though never quite recovers his former standing.

They write to each other for years. His letters are measured, theological, a little distant. Hers are devastating - raw, honest, and utterly unrepentant about the love that upended both their lives.

Those letters have survived 900 years and they will still make you catch your breath.

Whilst alive they were destined to live apart, in death they were buried together. And now, thanks to Tanya, their famous story is being retold once again, this time in glorious stitch.

As mentioned earlier the project Heloise was featured in Inspirations magazine issue #130 and today we’re excited to bring you Abelard from the newly released issue #131.

In this piece, Abelard is depicted wearing his feathered blue hat - a style known as a byecocket - holding a flower for Heloise.

Worked in split stitch and underside couching in silk and metal threads on fine ramie, it is then mounted as a slip on rust red cotton velvet.

Tanya has done a remarkable job of reuniting these two famous romantics in thread and gold on crimson velvet, gazing quietly at each other across a 12th-century distance.

The two pieces are designed to hang together, and at just 12.5cm (5") square each, they are small enough to sit on a bedside table with a story large enough to fill a room.

Speaking of a story… this week we’re excited to announce a new podcast partnership.

Inspirations has partnered with Fiber Talk to bring you fascinating interviews with designers sharing further insights into their projects featured in Inspirations magazine issue #131.

This week you can join Gary & Beth as they catch up with Tanya Bentham who shares some of the history around the Opus Anglicanum technique and explains how Abelard was designed.

Tanya also details how she would approach stitching the piece for maximum success, especially for people trying Opus Anglicanum for the first time.

If the story of Heloise and Abelard has captured your heart, Ready-to-Stitch kits for both projects are now available using the links below.