courtly love

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courtly love philosophy of love and code of lovemaking that flourished in France and England during the Middle Ages. Although its origins are obscure, it probably derived from the works of Ovid, various Middle Eastern ideas popular at the time, and the songs of the troubadours. According to the code, a man falls passionately in love with a married woman of equal or higher rank. Before his love can be declared, he must suffer long months of silence; before it can be consummated, he must prove his devotion by noble service and daring exploits. The lovers eventually pledge themselves to secrecy and to remain faithful despite all obstacles. In reality, courtly love was little more than a set of rules for committing adultery. It was more important as a literary invention, expressed in such works as Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot (12th cent.), Guillaume de Lorris's Roman de la Rose (13th cent.), and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (14th cent.). In these works it was the subjective presentation of the lovers' passion for each other and their consideration for other people that transformed the code of courtly love into one of the most important literary influences in Western culture. See chivalry .

Bibliography: See J. M. Ferrante and G. D. Economou, ed., In Pursuit of Perfection: Courtly Love in Medieval Literature (1975); N. B. Smith and J. T. Snow, ed., The Expansion and Transformation of Courtly Literature (1980).

courtly love. The term ‘amour courtois’ was coined by Gaston Paris in 1883 in the course of an essay on the Lancelot of Chrétien de Troyes, to describe the conception of love developed by the Provençal troubadours in the 12th cent. Its relation of lover to adored lady is modelled on the dependence of feudal follower on his lord; the love itself was a religious passion, ennobling and ever increasing and unfulfilled, which meant that the love was usually pre-marital or extra-marital. A code of practice for courtly lovers, De Arte Honeste Amandi (c.1185) was written by Andreas Capellanus. From its beginnings in Provence the writing of this kind of poetry had spread to northern France and to the German Minnesingers and epic by 1200; the most influential works in the 13th cent. were the Roman de la rose (Guillaume de Lorris, c.1230, and Jean de Meun, c.1275), and the lyric poems of the dolce stil nuovo in Italy at the end of the century such as those in Dante's Vita Nuova. Though the elements of courtly love are found in many places in medieval and Renaissance English literature, it is never the central theme of medieval English poetry, probably because it only reached England in the period of its decadence, after the mid-13th cent. and mostly as presented through the sceptical satire of writers such as Jean de Meun.

courtly love a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of Southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.