Courtly Love has long been viewed by many as the image of ideal love. Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie de Champagne were in large part responsible for the spread of their vision of refinement from the region of Southern France outward throughout Europe. Both women wrote poetry and held a deep love for music. From this love, Eleanor cultivated troubadors--minstrals who roamed far and wide with the new message of love set to poetry and song.
Sexually charged encounters between a knight, who was usually a lesser noble man, and a married woman of higher station took place in semi-private situations. The rules of courtly love denied the knight and his adored lady consummation of their desires. This did not rule out intimate touching such as mutual masturbation or oral sex; it merely excluded penetration. A few of the basic tenets of this new way of loving were: man never acquires the love of his lady; marriage was no excuse for not loving as love is a free emotion; Jealousy was integral for the growth of love; and no one should be without love. The rule of man never acquiring the love of his lady was based more on physical love; ie, physical consummation of the relationship. Indeed, the knight often did receive the love of his lady, although it may have taken a very long while and quite a few heroic feats and tests of his virtue.
Marriage and love were believed to be incompatible because marriage in medieval times generally hinged upon a woman’s economic standing—what she could bring into the marriage. It was a contract between two equals in which the woman’s main role was that of childbearer. The wife was obligated to produce an heir and to functionally support the household with her managerial skills. Otherwise, she was not to expect passionate love from her husband. Despite the common belief that a woman was seen as her husband’s property, she was more often viewed as an integral part of the household. Of course abuse occurred, much like today, but the negative idea that women were held down totally by their husbands in this period is wrong. What was often missing in marriage, and found in the symbolically adulterous unions of courtly love, was the elusive feeling of ‘grand passion.’
As a knight strove to win the affections of his chosen lady, he was reaching for the divine not only in his lover, or within himself, but also within their ‘pure’ union. Their love broke taboos and spurred them on past any moral, social, or sexual prohibitions. They were meeting in the garden and becoming a divine, yet invisible, couple. Invisible? Yes, because this union of perfect love was surrounded by mystery and had to be kept as a secret. However, to grant the love viability and some permanence, the lovers had at least one confidant whom they both could converse about the love. In this manner, there was always a witness involved...a love triangle in which the third partner was relegated to the position of being lookout and voyeur.
At the heart of courtly love, the issue of exclusion pulses deep. Each partner was to remain mentally, if not physically, faithful to one another. Their love was a binding love based on intricate law and the quality of the relationship has nuances of religion. The knight had to present himself to his chosen one as pure of heart and strong of mind and body if he ever hoped to transcend his lower social position and merge with his divine beloved. The lady was to fulfill a role of refiner and initiator of man, particularly her chosen lover. Her presence motivated men to reach for higher ideals and loftier goals. The meeting of lower male and superior female could be seen as humankind reaching for the heights of God. Courtly love aimed to attain harmony through intense, secretive ritual.
The intricate rules of love sent mixed messages. Spirituality and eroticism merged into a unique vision that placed noble women on a pedestal. However dreamy and fascinating this role of becoming a sacred being may seem in retrospect, in reality it was at times a very difficult and tenuous position for women of noble rank. Courtly love and the adoration of women split women into two categories, that of Saint and Whore. Noble women were to be the Saints—they were expected to emulate the Virgin Mary. Because noble women were held in such high regard, they had to maintain that regard. They had to look fashionable and dainty, and had to behave in a certain calm manner befitting of a goddess. To lose face and tumble from the pedestal was not only disgraceful, but also detrimental to society as noble women were to be role models for the future generations. The peasant woman had it somewhat easier in the role of whore; at least she was still considered to be human and was expected to engage in sexuality. Overall, the lower classes were largely unaffected by the codes of love.
The lofty ideals and elements of refined love that permeated the years between 1100 and 1400 still echo within us, but we must be aware that a divine union, like all grand passions, come with a price.
References:
Courtly Love: The Path of Sexual Initiation by Jean Markale
The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England by Barbara A. Hanawalt
Chivalry by Maurice Keen
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