Courtly love

The courtly love (also called the fine' amor ) is the way regulated to allure a woman at the court, which one finds trace with the Middle Ages in poetry (courteous Poésie) and the literature (Courtly romance), these kinds coming to replace the Chanson de geste and the account epic.

Origins

The tradition of the courtly love flourishing in France starting from XIIème century thanks to the political power of Aliénor of Aquitaine, of Marie de France, was associated with the writing of Christian of Troyes.

The direction

There exist various schools as for the interpretation of the courtly love. It indicates the Amour deep and true which one finds between an applicant and his lady. With the Middle Ages, certain current characteristics were allotted to him: the man must be with the service of his lady, the mounting of his desires and remain to him inébranlable fidelity. It is a love except marriage, pure and completely not involved prude if not, but not platonic and anchored in the directions and the body as much as the spirit and the heart. In love one, devoted to its lady was, normally, of a lower social status, it is noble of first generation on the way to conquer its titles of knighthood.

The feeling of the lover is supposed to develop, its desire to however grow and remain partly unsatiated. He often addresses himself to an inaccessible, remote woman or of a social status different from that of the knight. She can pretend the indifference. One named this torment, at the same time pleasant and painful joï (not to be confused with joy).

This new concept became finally an essential virtue of the code chivalrous, often in opposition with honesty towards the Suzerain and not easily reconcilable with the courtesy within the meaning of Galanterie, and even with the valiancy which the knight was to continue to maintain. Apparently, the vision of the courtly love was essential gradually in manners and made it possible to leave a place to the love in the daily life. The courtly love precedes the marriage indeed: a married woman can thus let speak her heart if she is courted according to the precise rules of the courtly love.

The Assag, a rite allotted to the courtly love, was a test which consisted in making sure of the real love of the lover.

For Georges Duby, one should not however see in the courtly love a promotion of the woman: it is a play male, educational, where the young men, not yet married (the jovenes , young people, like Henri the Young person, not established yet), control their impulses and their feelings, as they learn how to control their body in a tournament (what does not exclude that they leave free course to their Libido with women of lower row). Moreover, the woman is a prey; that which is the target of the courtly love of the young people is often the wife of the suzerain, who gives it in stake. The lady for better liking the young people their lord seeks to allure, but also for better being different from the vulgar people, and the middle-class men, which can compete with them financially, but not culturally.

Examples of courtly love

Jaufré Rudel, prince of Blaye and Mélisande, countess of Tripoli;
Flamenca
Lancelot and Guenièvre, the example par excellence ( Lancelot or the Knight of the cart , 1178-1181);
other novels of Christian of Troyes (1135-1181);
Tristan and Iseult (1170-1190);
Song for Eloïse (2005).

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