Courtly Love

The term courtly love was first used in 1883 by Gaston Paris. His critical designation referred to one of the more well-known courtly romances from 12th-century France, Chrétien de Troyes's Le Conte de la Charrette (“The Knight of the Cart,” or Lancelot). Some scholars argue that Paris invented the term himself, and others argue that though the term might not have been widely used (the more commonly used term was fin'amors, or “fine love”), the expectations and intricacies of the practice of courtly love were both known and perhaps debated in Western Europe through the 15th century. Modern scholars still debate as to whether courtly love was restricted to the realm of literary fiction or embraced as a “real-life” practice amongst the aristocracy in France, Italy, Germany, and England. Regardless, the language of courtly love—its ideals, its values, and its contradictions— has come to define (and restrict) much of the Western world's understanding of heterosexual love.

Courtly love was the province of the aristocracy. It was first articulated in the courts of Southern France in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Texts from the period that express courtly love conventions include the troubadour poetry of the Provençal poets, the romances of Chrétien de Troyes (texts that negotiate courtly poetics and the mythos of King Arthur), and the influential text by Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love. Capellanus's text situates the debate over the proper enactment of Courtly Love in the courts of Eleanor of Aquitaine (married to Henry II) and her daughter, Marie of Champagne. Though in Capellanus's text, Eleanor and Marie are called upon to arbitrate in cases of questionable courtly behavior, the general attitude of courtly literature toward the female lover is one of idealistic distance—a dehumanization [Page 168]seen by many feminist critics as objectifying in the extreme. Many contemporary critics point out that the lady in courtly love texts is either present only as an addressee or object to be worshipped or she exists as a stern and capricious mistress—demanding that her lover perform superhuman feats in order to win as little as a glance from her eyes.

Courtly love is characterized in remarkably similar ways across texts and cultures in the Middle Ages. Most notable is the male lover's physical suffering in response to his love for his lady. Though many of the descriptions of such somatic longing have become clichés today (images of burning hearts, being pierced by the arrows of love, withering away when love is denied), many of the texts from the 12th through the 15th centuries depict male lovers whose suffering quite literally showed on their bodies. Paradoxically, the courtly lady is both the cause of such suffering (the piercing arrows are often described as coming from her eyes) and the healing balm for her constricted admirers. Capellanus outlines many of the “rules” of proper courtly love in his text: To be counted as true courtly love, the love must remain secret; exist outside of marriage; inspire the male lover to act more nobly, valorously, and bravely; cause both lovers to become jealous (jealously increases love); and never be consummated. The interdiction against sex helps us to realize the presence of idealized values in courtly love texts. In fact, it is a prohibition that is not followed in many romance texts from the period. However, even in those texts in which the lovers do enjoy a physical relationship, the woman continues to occupy her elevated or spiritualized position.

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