What is Courtly Love?
Courtly love was a phenomenon that began as a literary concept and evolved into social and cultural practices of the aristocracy in the twelfth century. It originated in southern France and was heavily influenced by the culture of Occitania and it quickly spread to northern France and the rest of Europe. The earliest known user of this literary concept is the Duke of Aquitaine, William IX, and his works of poetry in the vernacular language of Occitan. Later on in history, his granddaughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his great-granddaughter, Marie de Champagne, had a large influence on courtly love.
Courtly love celebrated a glamorized form of sexual passion that was tied to an aristocratic code of behavior. This type of romantic love was a new idea to the people in the Middle Ages. Its novelty was not the only appealing aspect, the fact that a relationship between aristocratic men and women could be based on the mutual experience of desirable passion that could lead to the highest form of happiness or complete and utter misery that could even be fatal was even more appealing.
Andreas Capellanus wrote and codified this behavior in his Latin treatise “De Amore” or “The Art of Courtly Love” in the second half of the twelfth century. Capellanus was a chaplain and was connected to the courts of Marie de Champagne, and likely knew her well. The treatise was composed of three books and was written as a guide about women and love to his mentee, Walter. Capellanus listed thirty-one rules about love that show what people at this time believed were important to courtly love. Some of the core rules within the second book are:
Rule 1: That state of marriage does not properly excuse anyone from loving.
Rule 2: He who does not feel jealousy is not capable of loving.
Rule 3: No one can love two people at the same time.
Rule 4: It is well known that love is always either growing or declining.
Rule 12: A true lover does not desire the passionate embraces of anyone else but his beloved.
Rule 14: Love easily obtained is of little value; difficulty in obtaining it makes it precious.
Rule 15: Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
Rule 16: On suddenly catching sight of his beloved, the heart begins to palpitate.
Rule 18: A good character alone makes someone worthy of love.
Rule 23: A man tormented by the thought of love eats and sleeps very little.
The most central idea of the code of love was that love is suffering. That to be in love means to suffer, to be tormented, to live in anguish. However, these feelings were welcomed and the lover would rather endure the pain than give their love up. The lover may suffer from frustration or fear. Frustration was the physical symptom, such as turning pale when the beloved was near or having heart palpitations just at the sight of them. Fear was the mental anguish the lover had to endure, usually from worrying their love was unrequited. The fear of rejection for being poor, from being ugly, or even being rich.
These relationships were usually between two people, and one of the two was usually married. Capellanus wrote that true love is only possible outside of marriage. At this time, marriages were not always formed from love but were arranged for political reasons.
There were four main steps the lover had to go through to achieve happiness with their beloved.
1. Falling in Love
The first step is to fall in love with a woman. There was a belief that someone could fall in love at first sight, but for the relationship to go anywhere, it must be built on more than just appearances.
2. Declare their affection to the lady
The second step is for the lover to confess his love for the woman. This is where the fear of rejection is strongly felt. On some occasions, the lover is too overcome by shyness to do it himself, or sometimes he cannot get close enough to her to speak with her. In this case, the lover can have a troubadour or trobairitz to be the confessor for him. The final part of this step is the woman has to indicate she is interested. If she is, the lover moves to the third step, if not, he could potentially die or endure the suffering of his love not being reciprocated.
3. Prove himself worthy of her love
The third step is for the lover to prove his worthiness. The lovers were typically knights and to prove their worthiness they could participate in tournaments and joust. They knew they were being watched by their beloved, so this incentivized them to be successful. If they succeeded or even won the joust, it could bring them fame and riches, and increase their worth to be successful in love. Knights were worthy if they were generous, courteous, witty, clever, kind, and were never rude or aggressive. To be completely worthy of his beloved, the lover needed to submit to the woman’s will. Within courtly love, women were placed in a position to hold dominance over their lovers. However, this does not mean women were empowered by this phenomenon.
4. Surrender to the happiness of the private world between lovers
The final step is to enjoy the relationship. One of the rules in the “Art of Courtly Love” describes love as either increasing or decreasing. Capellanus insists that it is important to keep the happiness in their union from fading. It was important to not become bored within the relationship from seeing each other too often. Medieval people had a positive outlook on jealousy because they viewed it as a symptom of love. There cannot be passion without jealousy.
In the first part of the thirteenth century, the Church caught on to the poetry the troubadours and trobairitz were composing. The Church found the themes of sex, love, passion, and suffering to be offensive. However, they were too late because the phenomenon of this type of romantic love had spread outside of France.