Konrad Von Altstetten As Hunter and Hunted, from the Manesse Codex (Zürich, Ca. 1300).

Courtly Love

(Konrad von Altstetten as Hunter and Hunted, from the Manesse Codex (Zürich, ca. 1300).)

Origins

Although the concept of courtly love cannot be directly traced back to any one source, the Roman poet Ovid was perhaps the earliest influence to this medieval concept of love. Living during the time of the Emporer Augustus, Ovid wrote poems such as The Art of Love (Ars amatoria), The Cure for Love (Remedia amoris), and The Amours (Amores) all dealing with the subject of love. While Ovid intended the The Art of Love to serve as a parody of technical treatises of his time, it was later too often taken seriously.

While Ovid did not codify his conduct of love, many of his ideas were clearly used in systems of courtly love created in the Middle Ages. Among other concepts that were later integrated into a system of courtly love, Ovid suggested that the best partner in a love affair is another man’s wife, and acknowledged that trouble arises if the husband learns of the affair. For Ovid, this provided a good reason for keeping affairs secret, along with the pleasantness that came with a the secretive affair.

Ovid also helped build a discourse of love in terms of war. For him, love was a kind of war, and every lover was a warrior. Cupid played the generalissimo, and under him, the women who had absolute power over men.

Perhaps the most important medieval interpretation (or, perhaps, misinterpretation) of Ovid’s work on love, and almost certainly the most important text for scholars, came in the form of Andreas Capellanus’s twelfth century text De Amore (On Love) (dated 1184-1186). Commissioned by the Countess Marie of Troyes, this text codified the practice of love. Eventually this text was translated by John Jay Parry into English as The Art Of Courtly Love.

While troubadours in France began writing about and defining this code of love during the twelfth century, another basis for the code had been in practice long before the romanticized and idealized concept of love. Courtly love, with its emphasis on devotion, was largely based of the manorial system of medieval Europe. Like the fealty a vassal pledged to his lord, knights swore to commit themselves to the ladies they loved in courtly love texts. Through this idealization and romanticizing of duty, courtly love texts often reinforced the ideology of the medieval hierarchy.

Characteristics

Ovid portrayed the love affair as a mutual deception, but this idea did not carry over into the Middle Ages. Instead, Medieval courtly love required the man to seek the woman’s love with gifts, compliments, and a servile attitude, treating her with utmost courtesy while she presented a cool front. Andreas Capellanus included a list of the characteristics of courtly love in De Amore, the most influential handbook on love written in the Middle Ages, as well as a set of twelve commandments for lovers to follow.

As these lists make clear, secrecy was essential to courtly love. It was so vital that “[l]overs should not even nod to each other unless they are sure that nobody is watching them” (Capellanus 152). An affair, once discovered, became vulnerable to scurrilous rumors, and secrecy was more exciting anyway. Only trustworthy go-betweens were taken into confidence.

Another absolute requirement was that the relationship must form outside the bonds of marriage. Indeed, Capellanus claims that marriage is one of the surest ways to kill a love that already exists. He apparently felt no need to gloss over the physical aspects of extramarital romance. When looking at his lady, Capellanus says, a lover wants to “pry into the secrets of her body, and he desires to put each part of it to the fullest use” (Capellanus 29). However, love was also supposed to bring out the noble characteristics of its followers.

People could fall in love with each other for beauty, skillful speaking, and character, the last of which was considered most important. Neither wealth nor eager reciprocation were adequate reasons, the latter being considered a sign of promiscuity rather than love.

Once attained, courtly love was not an entirely blissful state. It could cause a range of physical ailments, including pallor, rapid heartbeat, insomnia, and loss of appetite. Lovers were also anxious about their own defects and extremely prone to jealously, an emotion which also receives great emphasis in the rules. Interestingly, jealousy and arguments were thought to improve the relationship, and Capellanus encourages lovers to occasionally feign anger or pretend to be interested in someone else. Love also increased when lovers rarely saw each other or if the lovers’ families disapproved. On the other hand, it was detrimental for lovers to see each other too often, or for one lover to be too demanding.

Excerpts from Andreas Capellanus' De Amore:

Chaucer and ''The Canterbury Tales''

Lo heere this Arcite and this Palamoun,

That quitly weren out of my prisoun,

And myghte han lyved in Thebes roially,

And witen I am hir mortal enemy,

And that hir deth lith in my myght also,

And yet hath love, maugree hir eyen two,

Broght hem hyder bothe for to dye.

Now looketh, is nat that an heigh folye?

Who may been a fool but if he love?

(Knight's Tale 1791-1799)

In "Chaucer's Courtly Love," Edmund Reiss claims that Chaucer "presents love in detail and with apparent seriousness only three times - in Book of the Duchess, Troilus and Criseyde, and the Knight's Tale" and that "in these three instances he is concerned with courtly love" (Reiss 100). However, according to Reiss, the Knight's Tale "seems only superficially concerned with love" (Reiss 103). In the Knight's Tale, the love of Palamon and Arcite for Emily is opposed to "the medieval ideal of love as a creative and unifying force: it destroys their friendship, negates their blood brotherhood, and results in the death of one of the lovers" (Reiss 105). In other moments in The Canterbury Tales, such as the Miller's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale, Chaucer parodies the ideal of courtly love. Thus, in The Canterbury Tales, though Chaucer demonstrates the good and bad of the ideal of courtly love, it remains exactly that, an unattainable ideal, or as Reiss concludes his argument, "his narratives also bring out the ultimate destructiveness and folly of this love" (Reiss 111).

(Ellesmere MS, c. 1410, Portrait of Chaucer)

Class and the Courtly Audience

In “The Comic Rejection of Courtly Love,” Saul N. Brody describes the world of the early lyric poets as having an aristocratic audience who established themselves as clearly separate from and superior to the other ranks and lower classes. The courtly poet had a courtly audience: “Being aristocrats, they could sympathize with his call to ideality and perfection, and they could laugh at his posture without being threatened by the laughter; they were, after all, participants in an elaborate and refined game played by elaborate and refined people” (Brody 254). Brody argues that Chaucer’s position in the world of courtly love was dependent on the changing audience and class system that occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The ambiguity that we as readers perceive in Chaucer’s attitude towards courtly love in The Canterbury Tales is a result of the tension that existed between the courtly ideal and reality: “He asks us to see two sides to courtly love as he does whenever he deals with it, and to recognize the great value of courtly love as an abstract conception, as well as to recognize that humanity is not as perfect as the ideal it holds” (Brody 254). In other words, the poetry of Chaucer reflects the changes in class and the audience: “He has the sophisticated perspective of the early poets, but for all that he is not the same as they are, for where those poets defend the courtly ideal, Chaucer must finally reject it. He rejects it not because it is in itself unworthy but because it has no place in the world he knows” (Brody 254).

Bibliography:

Andreas Capellanus. The Art of Courtly Love. Trans. J.J. Parry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.

Reiss, Edmund. "Chaucer's Courtly Love." The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Edited by Larry D. Benson. Harvard English Studies, 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.

Brody, Saul N. "The Comic Rejection of Courtly Love." In Pursuit of Perfection: Courtly Love in Medieval Literature. Edited by Joan M. Ferrante and George D. Economou. National University Publications Series in Literary Criticism. New York: Kennikat Press, 1975. Pages 221-261.

Camille, Michael. The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire. New York: Harry M. Abrams, 1998. 95-96 [source of illustration].

Chivalry and Courtly Love. David L. Simpson, DePaul University.

The Code of Chivalry and Courtly Love. James Marshall. (31 characteristics and 12 commandments taken from here, although checked with the book.)

Dodd, William George. Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower. Boston, MA: Ginn and Company, 1913.

The Geoffrey Chaucer Website

Lewis, C.S. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. London: Oxford University Press, 1953.

commandments

Thou shalt avoid avarice like the deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its opposite.
Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest.
Thou shalt not knowingly strive to break up a correct love affair that someone else is engaged in.
Thou shalt not chose for thy love anyone whom a natural sense of shame forbids thee to marry.
Be mindful completely to avoid falsehood.
Thou shalt not have many who know of thy love affair.
Being obedient in all things to the commands of ladies, thou shalt ever strive to ally thyself to the service of Love.
In giving and receiving love's solaces let modesty be ever present.
Thou shalt speak no evil.
Thou shalt not be a revealer of love affairs.
Thou shalt be in all things polite and courteous.
In practising the solaces of love thou shalt not exceed the desires of thy lover.

last edited 2006-02-19 18:51:02 by ip165-82-108-154

The Rules of Love

Marriage is no excuse for not loving.
He who is not jealous can not love.
No one can be bound by two loves.
Love is always growing or diminishing.
It is not good for one lover to take anything against the will of the other.
A male cannot love until he has fully reached puberty.
Two years of mourning for a dead lover are prescribed for surviving lovers.
No one should be deprived of love without a valid reason.
No one can love who is not driven to do so by the power of love.
Love always departs from the dwelling place of avarice.
It is not proper to love one whom one would be ashamed to marry.
The true lover never desires the embraces of any save his lover.
Love rarely lasts when it is revealed.
An easy attainment makes love contemptible; a difficult one makes it more dear.
Every lover turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
When a lover suddenly has sight of his beloved, his heart beats wildly.
A new love expells an old one.
Moral integrity alone makes one worthy of love.
If love diminishes, it quickly leaves and rarely revives.
A lover is always fearful.
True jealousy always increases the effects of love.
If a lover suspects another, jealousy and the efects of love increase.
He who is vexed by the thoughts of love eats little and seldom sleeps.
Every action of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
The true lover believes only that which he thinks will please his beloved.
Love can deny nothing to love.
A lover can never have enough of the embraces of his beloved.
The slightest suspicion incites the lover to suspect the worse of his beloved.
He who suffers from an excess of passion is not suited to love.
The true lover is continuously obsessed with the image of his beloved.
Nothing prevents a woman from being loved by two men, or a man from being loved by two women.

last edited 2006-02-19 18:45:44 by ip165-82-108-154

The Rules of Love

Marriage is no excuse for not loving.
He who is not jealous can not love.
No one can be bound by two loves.
Love is always growing or diminishing.
It is not good for one lover to take anything against the will of the other.
A male cannot love until he has fully reached puberty.
Two years of mourning for a dead lover are prescribed for surviving lovers.
No one should be deprived of love without a valid reason.
No one can love who is not driven to do so by the power of love.
Love always departs from the dwelling place of avarice.
It is not proper to love one whom one would be ashamed to marry.
The true lover never desires the embraces of any save his lover.
Love rarely lasts when it is revealed.
An easy attainment makes love contemptible; a difficult one makes it more dear.
Every lover turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
When a lover suddenly has sight of his beloved, his heart beats wildly.
A new love expells an old one.
Moral integrity alone makes one worthy of love.
If love diminishes, it quickly leaves and rarely revives.
A lover is always fearful.
True jealousy always increases the effects of love.
If a lover suspects another, jealousy and the efects of love increase.
He who is vexed by the thoughts of love eats little and seldom sleeps.
Every action of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
The true lover believes only that which he thinks will please his beloved.
Love can deny nothing to love.
A lover can never have enough of the embraces of his beloved.
The slightest suspicion incites the lover to suspect the worse of his beloved.
He who suffers from an excess of passion is not suited to love.
The true lover is continuously obsessed with the image of his beloved.
Nothing prevents a woman from being loved by two men, or a man from being loved by two women.

last edited 2006-02-19 18:45:44 by ip165-82-108-154