Title: courtly-love-msg
Subject: Discussion on the history and concept of courtly love.
Author: Edited by Mark S. Harris
Last saved by: Mark S. Harris
Keywords: medieval, courtly love, chivalry, history, concept, literature

courtly-love-msg - 2/9/01

Information and discussion on the history and concept of courtly love.

NOTE: See also the files: courtly-love-bib, Chivalry-art, chivalry-msg, Rules-of-Love-art, beyond-favors-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: szduchai at rocky.ucdavis.edu (Luisa Duchaineau)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,alt.fairs.renaissance
Subject: Re: Courtly Love
Date: 15 Oct 1995 16:05:48 GMT
Organization: University of California, Davis

Shadowalker (roggenbk at river.it.gvsu.edu) wrote:
: I narrowed my paper down to Courtly Love...anyone got any good books or 
: FAQ's to help me out?  BTW, thanks to those who have already helped.

: -Karin A. Roggenbeck

Greetings, Karin:

Have you seen "The Book of Courtly Love: The passionate Code of the
Troubadours," yet?  Andrea Hopkins is the author and the publisher is
HarperSanFrancsico, 1994. (Note: the publisher left out the spaces in
their name, not me.  I just typed what I saw.)

Ms. Hopkins is a gratuate of Oxford, England where her thesis was on 
penitence in medieval romance.  This was later published under the title 
"Sinful Knights" (publisher unknown).  She also has a couple of other 
books out on the subject.

Luisa at UC Davis

From: madweaver at aol.com (MadWeaver)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,alt.fairs.renaissance
Subject: Re: Courtly Love
Date: 16 Oct 1995 18:41:54 -0400

Don't forget the original, _The Art of Courtly Love_ by Andreas
Capellanus. Mine is published by Columbia University Press, but I know
there are other translations. 

--Jennifer

Subject: Re: Courtly behavior (fwd)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 15:17:06 -0600 (CST)
From: clevin at ripco.com (Craig Levin)
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org (Merry Rose)

AEdric the Grene:
> While I am all for courtesy and Chivalry (which co-developed with Courtly
> Love), I am very much NOT a beliver in Courtly Love.  From what I've read
> and been taught, it comes across as something that I do not believe is part
> of the "Middle Ages As It Should Have Been".  The crux of the problem is
> that I find it anti-woman while claiming not to be.  Hardly an ideal I'd be
> at all interested in encouraging.

I've never liked the phrase "Middle Ages [aside: only English
puts the period into the plural, AFAIK. Neat, huh?] As They
Should Have Been." That aside, I'd note that amour courtois isn't
exactly a dominating influence on a great deal of the Middle
Ages, arising as it did in the 12th century, which means that the
period had, by our definition, only four centuries to go. I can
hardly imagine a Northman of the "Viking Age" taking its ideas
seriously-his outlook on the role of the sexes was different from
both our present one and that of his sixteenth century
descendants. See Lewis' Allegory of Love on this.

_However_, once amour courtois came into being, it didn't take
long for it to spread to most of western Europe (it took a bit
longer for it to get to eastern Europe, if it got there at all).
For most people's personae, amour courtois would have formed part
and parcel of their upbringing. Even the poor got to sample a bit
of it, because the cult of the Virgin and amour courtois
essentially are facets of the same gem. Some people do protest it
(for example, De La Tour Landry and De Pisan), but even they end
up giving it credit for a number of things.

> Without going into a long treatise with references to works, college class
> notes, and all, I'll try to sum up why I believe this.  Men place women as
> the objects of desire and then expect women to follow these rules.  In
> fact, what with the worship and acting as servants to them, they cage and
> bind the women into a circumscribed role that turns previous power into
> lessened influence, collapses a women's world into the sphere of love and
> breeding heirs, and generally takes away any power and authority they may
> have had previously.

Actually, I'd say that it empowered women. Poetry, before then,
was essentially epic. A man's world. Take Beowulf as a classic
example. Once amour courtois developed, women became sources of
patronage, if not authorship, in their own right (like Marie de
France and, paradoxically, Christine de Pisan). Also, if one
looks at the texts of the poems, it's the women who make the
decisions, not the men (with the exception of the poems of
Bertrand de Born and Guillaume, duc d'Aquitaine, for example).

> Thus, while I will support Chivalry (which fortunately has rules quite
> apart from Courtly Love), I will not particpate in a game that actively
> promotes (No matter how innocent or noble the intentions of those
> recreating it) inequality of women.  Of course, one can argue that women
> can not be Chivalrous (not in Period, at least), but it is not inherently
> anti-women.

Unless you're using the old classification of Painter (whose
study has been cast in doubt by the works of Barber and Keen),
it's not really all that easy to tease the two apart. Certainly,
by the fourteenth century, when Froissart was writing his
_Chroniques_, a work as unlike a love poem as anything I've ever
read, the codes of amour courtois and knighthood are inextricably
intertwined.

> certainly we should expect equal Chivalry from all to the best of each
> gentle's abilities.  If this seems improper for Period to you, then maybe
> you gain immediate insight into my argument above.

"From each according to his/her abilities, to each according to
his/her needs"? Sounds like Marxism to me...

Dom Pedro de Alcazar
Barony of Storvik, Atlantia
Drakkar Pursuivant
Argent, a tower purpure between 3 bunches of grapes proper
--
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html
clevin at ripco.com
Craig Levin

Subject: Re: Courtly behavior (fwd)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 15:54:56 -0600 (CST)
From: clevin at ripco.com (Craig Levin)
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org (Merry Rose)

AEdric the Grene:
> Ah, I think I realise we're talking at slight cross-purposes.  I agree with
> everything you say for history.  But, where I differ is in thinking that
> one need not go into doing the courtly love thing while doing the chivalry
> thing *in re-creation*.  Even not doing that it seems that at least Diana
> Listmaker as far back as AS V (in an article in _The_Known_World_Handbook_)
> was suggesting a heavily modified form of Courtly Love in the SCA where
> one's greatest love was for one's actual love.  (I may be misremembering as
> I can't currently check my copy, having loaned it to another SCA friend,
> but I seem to remember that being the upshot of it.)  One can argue whether
> or not publishing it in the general-purpose SCA resource is an endorsement
> of the concept, but it seems like most people would go with it initially
> (at least until another pushed them otherwise or they did their own
> research).  So, I guess what it comes down to is should one have to commit
> to the all-or-nothing marriage of Courtly Love and Chivalry as is
> historical?  Or, are they seperable/modifiable for re-creation?  I believe
> the latter.

I think Diana Listmaker's essay is in my new copy of the KWH.
It's not a bad concept (and, to be sure, I have no problem with
being in love in and out of the SCA with the same wonderful
woman!), on the face of it.

If anyone wants to do some research on courtly love and its
course through history and literature, I recommend The Allegory
of Love, by CS Lewis, who did a lot more than write the Narnia
books. Also, a book often quoted and cited by scholars of courtly
love, Andrew the Chaplain's On Courtly Love, is presently in
print. I think both Border's and Barnes and Noble sell copies.

As to the problem of what to do while recreating, as opposed to
researching, then I really don't know.

Pedro
--
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html
clevin at ripco.com
Craig Levin

Subject: Courtly Love: Reprise
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:40:01 -0500
From: REAMESD1 at westat.com (REAMESD1)
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org

Greetings from Caterina,
I heartily recommend to those interested (both pro and con) in the concept of
courtly love and in learning how and where it appeared in medieval life, that
you go to:

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/lifemann/love/ben-love.htm

and read the truly excellent and enjoyable essay by Larry D. Benson "Courtly
Love and Chivalry in the Later Middle Ages"

This is the clearest, best written, and most amusing overview of the development
and evolution of Courtly Love I have ever seen.

Here are some tantalizing excerpts:

"The fact that prigs like Geoffrey de la Tour Landry and scoundrels like William
Gold could so easily use the language of courtly love was one of its problems; the noble art of love talking was all too open to abuse by clever scoundrels"

"By 1400 courtly love had become for many not just a way of talking but a way of
feeling and acting. Even in the 1340s,
     Bradwardine tells us, French knights were actually laboring strenuously in
arms to earn the loves of their ladies, and Henry of Lancaster, so he confesses,
actually jousted to win the favors of those whom he seduced. A few years later,
Froissart reports, thirty English knights set off for the war in France, each
with an eye covered by a patch which he had sworn not to remove until he had
struck a blow for the love of his lady."

And, finally, the part that made me laugh out loud and read it to my coworkers:

"Henry VIII himself was trying to use the style of courtly love. Trying, but not
quite succeeding: his letter to Anne Boleyn starts out well enough, with protestations of love and service, but by the last line Henry is saying that
he wants to "kiss her duckies.""

Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 10:00:34 -0400
From: STIS Data Analyst <gonnella at stsci.edu>
To: sca-arts <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: battle of the sexes, with roses

There is an ivory carved box in the Walters with scenes on all sides,
one of which is described as the battle of the sexes. It is a battle
scene, with men standing outside a castle, loading up a trebuchet
with roses to fling over the walls. Ladies are atop the walls
hurling roses down at the men, while cupid stands besides them shooting
his arrows.

I think I've also seen an illuminated scene similar to this, but I can't
remember where. Can anyone tell me where I could find a painting or
manuscript with this scene?  I would really appreciate any references.

Bronach

Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 02:45:03 EDT
From: <EalasaidS at aol.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: battle of the sexes, with roses

gonnella at stsci.edu writes:
>  Ladies are atop the walls
>  hurling roses down at the men, while cupid stands besides them shooting
>  his arrows.
>  
>  I think I've also seen an illuminated scene similar to this, but I can't
>  remember where. Can anyone tell me where I could find a painting or
>  manuscript
>  with this scene?  I would really appreciate any references.

Bronach,

I have a book of days,  "The Medieval Woman, A Book of Days", researched and 
edited by Sally Fox, that has such an illumination in it.  The painting is a 
castle being defended by four women.  Two are firing bows (one long bow, one 
crossbow) that are firing flowers.  The other two women are throwing handfuls 
of flowers.  It does not show, however, what they are defending the castle 
against.  The notes on the illustration say: 

"Women defending castle with bow and crossbow  
Walter de Milemete, De Nobilitatibus, sapientiss, et prudentiis regum.  
MS. CH. CH. 92 f. 4r. English, 1326-7  
By kind permission of The Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford."

I've been trying to work up the nerve to turn this into a scroll.  My 
inability to draw is holding me back... <grin>

Ealasaid nic Suibhne
Kingdom of Atenveldt

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 08:02:56 -0700
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org>
Subject: Re: SC - Stefan!!!

Elaine Koogler wrote:
> What about something having to do with Eleanor of Acquitaine's Courts of Love?
> and the whole concept of "courtly love"?
> 
> Kiri

The whole 'Courtly Love' thing, while attractive, has its own drawbacks.
The academic community is far from united on whether or not the 'Courts
of Love' actually existed. They are a common literary trope, but that
does not mean that they were in actual practice any more than something
in Margaret Mitchell's imagination means that it was common to make a
ball gown out of your mother's velvet drapes...

There are two main trains of thought (based on the work I did a couple
of years ago in seminar): first, that the concepts of Courtly Love and
Courts of Love (which may or may not be a totally different
manifestation) were invented and held as an ideal in an attempt to put
some 'civilization' into the fighting class. One of the enduring
questions for that approach is what to do with the alleged courtly love
relationships- which if carried out (young man and his lord's wife)
would be immoral, illegal, and undermine the fabric of the society as it
was structured in the 12th century- still mostly built on bonds of faith
between lords and vassals.

The other approach is that it was a pleasant pasttime and largely
play-acting, something like the highly formalized courtship patterns we
see in Jane Austen's novels, or in the upper middle class in the
Victorian era. With either appraoch, the cynicism level is pretty high.
It must be noted that: while there are a handful of literary references
to Courts of Love, there is no actual historical evidence that Eleanor
was involved in one. There was, however, evidence that she was widely
believed to be, which is the long run may be roughly the same thing when
you are talking about popular concepts. Certainly the National Enquirer
of the day (writers of lais and Troubadours) thought that she was the
very center of the movement. even though she spent most of the time
concerned in close confinement...

And if you really read Andreas Capellanus' _Art of Courtly Love_, it is
pretty cynical itself. And there are elements that I don't want to see
re-created, such as the ideas that a man of a higher class has the right
to demand sexual favors of a woman of a lower class- essentially because
it is a breach of social order for her to say no. Some things are best
left in the past.

'Lainie

<the end>

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