The Paraclete Conundrum

In the autumn of 1149, three women contemporaries meet in an abbey near Paris. The women are: Heloise, scholar and abbess of the Paraclete, but best known now for her tragic love affaire with Abelard; Hildegard of Bingen, known now as a mystic, musician, writer and healer; and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France, shortly to have her marriage annulled and within five years to become Queen of England. The women have learned that Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the Cistercians, inspirer of Crusades, and the most powerful man in the Church in the twelfth century has written a letter to the Pope asking him to rule that all nuns be strictly cloistered and that all women whose marriage is annulled must enter a religious order, losing all rights to children and property.
The women argue and plot and are then confronted by an unexpected visitor, Bernard. The story is of its time but also of ours. The reader is held until the denouement and resolution of the conundrum.