Courtly Love

"Courtly love" is a term coined by the scholar Gaston Paris in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Paris was attempting to characterize the conventionalized behavior of the amorous speaker in Old Provencal and Old French love poetry. He called it "amour courtois," which was translated to provide the term we use.

 The term became problematical when C. S. Lewis, in The Allegory of Love, led to the impression among scholars that the conventions found in the poetry, and in the notorious "Rules" of courtly love written by Andreas Capellanus presumably for his patron Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Acquitaine,  were in some way reflective of actual societal practice. Since one of the conventional gestures was adulterous love, this seems unlikely given the severe punishments that could be inflicted both legally, if the case reached adjudication, or extra-legally, by the offended spouse. Scholars today tend to see the conventions as precisely that, and feminist scholarship is questioning the extent to which female privilege is actually present in the rituals.

THE RULES OF COURTLY LOVE

Andreas Capellanus

Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love's precepts in the other's embrace.

 The Rules

 I. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.

 II. He who is not jealous cannot love.

 III. No one can be bound by a double love.

 IV. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.

 V. That whlch a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish .

 VI. Boys do not love until they arrive at the kge of maturity.

 VII. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.

 VIII. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.

 IX. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.

 X. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.

 XI. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.

 XII. A true lover does not deslre to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.

 XIII. When made public love rarely endures.

 XIV. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.

 XV. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.

 XVI. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.

 XVII. A new love puts to flight an old one.

 XVIII. Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.

 XIX. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.

 XX. A man in love is always apprehensive.

 XXI. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love. 

XXII. Jealousy, aud therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.

 XXIII. He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little.

 XXIV. Every sct of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.

 XXV. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.

 XXVI. Love can deny nothing to love.

 XXVII. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.

 XXVIII. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect hls beloved.

 XXIX. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.

 XXX. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.

 XXXI. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

 (From The Art of Courtly Love, ed. J. J. Parry, 1941).