Peter Abelard is a famous teacher of philosophy at the cathedral school of Notre Dame, and a champion of reason, at a time when academics are required to observe chastity. He falls in love with one of his students, Heloise (abbess), a sixteen-year-old gentlewoman raised in a convent, who has both intellectual curiosity and a rebellious view of the low status of women in 12th century Europe. When the relationship is suspected, Heloise's uncle Fulbert, who had other plans for her marriage, works with the bishop of Paris to put a stop to it.