Through the whole story it is Heloise who shines brightly as a curiously beautiful personality, unselfish, self sacrificing, and almost virginal in her purity in spite of her fault.

One has for her only sympathy and affection whereas it is difficult to feel either for Abelard in spite of his belated efforts at rectifying his own sin and his life-long devotion to his solitary wife in her hidden cloister.
The whole story was instantly known, Abelard's assailants were punished in kind, .and he himself shortly resumed his work of lecturing on philosophy and, a little later, on theology.
Apparently his reputation did not suffer in the least, nor did hers; in fact her piety became almost a by-word and his name as a great teacher increased by leaps and bounds: neither his offence nor its punishment seemed to bring lasting discredit.

This fact, which seems strange to us, does not imply a lack of moral sense in the community but rather the prevalence of standards alien to our own.

It is only since the advent of Puritanism that sexual sins have been placed at the head of the whole category.

During the Middle Ages, as always under Christianity, the most deadly sins were pride, covetousness, slander and anger.