Medieval Courtly Love , YEAH!

To avoid turning this into Renaissance Art and More, I've decided to tell you a little bit about my thesis. (The amount of Ren stuff is because I'm currently taking a class on High Renaissance and couldn't fit anything medieval into my schedule. Your just lucky I'm not blathering on about aesthetics. Ick!)

My thesis is on courtly love Ivories, but, before I tell you about that, I have to talk about courtly love.

Courtly love was one of those things Eleanor did. She was, I suppose the first romanticist, but she wasn't very romantic. What happened was, there were lots of troubadours, or sing-y story tellers who came from Spain. And they told all these amazing wonderful stories about love and all that from the courts down there, where they read Ovid and stuff. (And don't forget there were Harems in Muslim Spain. WOO).

Anyway, Eleanor was really intrigued, and she and all her friends got together and wrote down the rules of Courtly Love, as told by Andreas Capellanus:

1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
2. He who is not jealous cannot love.
3. No one can be bound by a double love.
4. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
5. That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.
6. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
7. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
8. No one should be deprived of love without the very best reasons.
9. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
10. love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.

And there are more, 31 to be exact, but to summerize, love is something that happens between too people who are usually not married, they can be, but thats odd. Love is also about terrible pain, awfulness, jealousy, etc. And you can only love one person.

Courtly love is one of those things that happens in secret too, and is usually between two nobles, but Andreas draws the lines particularly in all cases, telling you when you can love a prostitute and why, and why you shouldn't. Mostly because you should never love someone you wouldn't marry if you had the chance, which has to do with social standing.

Anyway, this goes on, and people abide by these rules more or less all over the place, women have lovers, they play chess, etc, etc.

And they have things like this made:

And your first thought should be: "Whoa! What the hell? Is she choking him???"

Yes, well, in courtly love it is required that a lover give whatever their lover wants, including life, freedom, etc. If she wants you to walk on all fours with her riding on your back, you do it.
Ie: Aristotle and Phylis.

Though this refers to a more satirical story about women twisting smart men around their fingers, you get the point. Men have to do whatever women want. And, thats awesome. THAT is chivalric values, wahhhh....

Anyway, back to the casket. There is a lovely troubadour singing while playing an instrament, and a beautiful woman dancing, and EEK a guy with a sword! In my oppinion, this has to do with jealousy. Some people think its about opening the keys to a woman's heart, but I think he is jealous of the fellow who is getting strangled. Fellow with the sword wants the chick, and will prove that he loves her more by defending her or something.

Its all very strange, especially since this casket is the first thing EVER to have stuff like this. At least that we know of. A lot of stuff hasn't survived. People kinda liked copper and gold for other things like money and weapons, more useful than a casket with a couple on it.

Also, secular objects have always been subject to fads, and if they went out of style, people were like BLEH why am I keeping this one thing around, i'll have it redone! It happens.


The rest of the stuff we have from what I call the enamel period of courtly love art, is a bunch of little button type things, some of which have troubadours, dancing ladies, etc.

Or these two embracing. They are really cute, and you might be thinking they are both men, but they aren't. One is a chick.

Though, it is plausible to have a lover of the same sex in a courtly love relationship, because the relationship is never consummated. This is important. The relationship is a purely intellectual and spiritual one. You give each other gifts, write each other poetry, all that jazz, just no sex. NONE. BAD. The repercussions of doing such are as you imagine them. Illegitimate children, divorce, the church doesn't like you anymore, your shunned by society, etc.

One of the puzzlements of Courtly love is how much this was followed. It is hard to say. In stories like Tristan and Isolt, they consummated their relationship, and definitely had a few flings together (before dying without seeing each other of course). But we don't really know what people really did concerning courtly love, there is lots of literature, but nothing concrete. Eleanor never wrote a sex diary. Though if she did, i'm sure it was jucey.

And so, thats courtly love in a nut shell... A very quick and dirty nut shell. (ha ha)