II Theories on the origin cj' Courtly Love
HISPANO-ARABIC
Lon: was either imported into the south of France from
Muslim Spain, or \\'<15 strongly influcnccd Il) the culture, podry and
philosophy of the Arabs.
(a) 	 Scholarship and ctJltU[C of the Islamic world. It was from the Arabs,
from the tenth onwards, that Christian Europe became
better acquainted with Hellenic culture. Europe, which was still
emerging from barbarism, assimilated the literary, scientific and
technological achievements of a civilisation which had already
reached its maturity. Lampillas (177 ii-SI ); Andres (1782-1822);
Boutenvek (18ol-~O); Sismondi (1813); Dawson (1935).
(b) Chilalry of the Arabs. The institution and the ideal of chivalry was
unconnected with the feudal syst,'m; it was introduced
into Europe from Moorish Spain or from the Middle East, together
with Arabian prose romances, through cultural, commercial and
•cont,lCts, and as a consequ~nce of the Crusades. Huet
( 167 I ); Sismondi (1813) ; Hammer-Piirgstall (1849) ; Ghali
(1919); Nelli (1963); Graves (1967); Burckhardt (19]2).
Music. The music to which the European troubadours set their
was Arabic in inspiration, and the instruments which they
del'ived from the Arabs. Ribera y Tarrag6 (1922); Farmer
(1<)30); Briffault (1945">.
(d) 	 RI!'ymc und poeticJorms. The Arabs were the/irst to compose rhymed
verse, and Pro\<ence learnt the art from Moorish Spain. Barbieri
Ins); Huet (1671); Sismondi (ISI3); Briffault (1945).
Certain reputedly Arabic methods of versiflcation, in
the zajal, have been traced in early Proven<;:al, Galician-Portuguese,
and Castilian poetry. Ribera y Tarrag6 (192S); Nykl (1939);
Menendez Pidal (1941); Nelli (1963).
E~vmolo8J cif'trobar'. The verb trobar, 'to compose pot~try', derives
from farab, 'music', 'song', or from the root qaraba, 'to strike'.
The Arabic ft)r minstrel or 'tl'Oubadour' was tarabi. Ribera y
Tarrago (1928); Lemay (1,:/66); Monroe (1970); Hussein (1971).
Poetic themes. Hispano-Arabic and medieval European love poetry
111<?ories on the ori8in cif Court!>, Love 63
share a Humber of themes and motifs, some of which may be
enumerate,l: the use of the pseudonym or senhal to conceal the
identity of the lady addressed; the masculine form of address,
instead of madomna; the same dramatis personae, such as the
the slanderer and the confidant; the same pathological
symptoms of love, namely insomnia, pallor, emaciation and
melancholy; a belief in the fatal consequences of this malady,
known a<~ 'isllq or Qmor hcrcos; and the use of the
Eckl'r (1934); Nykl (1939); Mefll~ndez Pidal (1941);
Peres (1947); U:vi-I'roven<;:al (1948); Nelli (1963); Dutton
(I 9bS); Hussein (197 I ).
in pactI)'. Some, ifnot all, the essential features of
l.ove can he discerned in Hispano-Arabic (and even
Middle Eastern) poetry: the insatiability of desire; the description
of love as exguisite anguish; the elevation of the lady into an
of worship; the poet's submission to her capricious tyranny; and
the emphasis on the need for secrecy. Sismondi (1813); Schack
(I ; Burda(;h (191ii); Gibb (1931); Nykl (1939); Menendez
Pidal (1941); Peres (1947); Daniel (197
(h) Thcorcrical works on the naWre cif love. There are a number of
analogies hetween Courtly Love and the Arabic theory of profane
which constitutes a distinct Arabic literary genre. The works
most frequently cited are Ibn DawGd's Kitiib al-Zahra, Ibn !::fazm's
,(awq al-l.Iallliima and Avicenna's Risiila fl'1-'Jshq. These works
formulated a Platonic ethic which might explain the origin of
jill'amon. 	 Nykl (1931); Gibb (1931); Denomy (19H); LeviPr()vel1~:al
(1948); Garcia Gomez (I ; Hussein (1971).
There are, on the whole, strong grounds for supporting this
even if sOl1le or the arguments used are false. The cultural supremacy
of tbe Islamic world in the period immediately preceding the rise of the
troubadour lyric is indisputable, and the importance of Arabic scholarship
as a medium for the transmission of Greek classical texts is widely
acknowledged. 1 More important still, poetry was an art in which the
Arabs, according to their own estimate, excelled. 2
In order to prove
that Arabic poetry exercist~d a decisive in!luence on the development
of the Romance lyriC, parallels must be established between court
poetry composed in Muslim Spain (or in the Middle East) and that
which was composed in Provence 01' elsewhere in Europe. It must then
be demol1straterl that channels or communication existed between the
Islamic world and Christian Europe, and that poets from southern
The and Meaning oj Court!J LOI'e74
between Arab and Christian poets (Schlegel, p. 67; Jeanroy, La Poesie
!Jrique, I, pp. 70-1). This argument carries little weight. Prior to the
intervention of the fanatical Almohads in the middle of the twelfth
century there was constant social intercourse between Muslims, Jews
and Christians; within the sphere of religion there was confrontation
rather than interchange, but cultural elements which did not threaten
religious identity were easily transferable; even in the fifteenth century
Henry IV of Castile was able to employ numerous Moors at court and
to adopt a Moorish style of life, much to the astonishment of some
Bohemi,m travellers who visited him in 1467.'15 Women in Muslim
Spain were comparatively free: they could meet in public and often
wore no veil; their social position was no worse than that of Provenyal
women, who were kept under the surveillance of a gardador
s;, !,...-J.f'5<... 	 counterpart to the Arabic raqib) (Menendez Pidal, Poesfa arabe,
pp. 48-9). Intermarriage and a trade in Christian ~l'!~~s resulted in alr-...3'1.5-\y-J
degree of freedom for wo 'n Muslim S ain han in other
parts of the Islamic wor : the customs of the Spanish Arabs may well
have been as much influenced by Christian infiltration, often involunas
the other way round' (Daniel, 1975, p. 101).
It has been argued that parallel themes and poetic forms might arise
;e.2!Jtaneously in diflerent places, especially in view of the fact that
Westt'rn Europe and the Islafiu~or1ds'r1ai~tb~~sji~HeflenT:c-hl~rnage-­
and a Semitic monotheistic reli~j(Be';ola, II, p. 191r).it-.has,_~
;cCi'; maintained that' Courtly Love is itself polygenetic, that is to say
its essential features are timeless and eo ra hieal bound . >
Dronkc, iIJ.:dicl'al Latin, I, p. ix hilst it is true that few urthe motifs
in the concor . and Nykl are exclusive to Arabic and
I'rovt'Il<;al poetry, the accumulation or analo ks is persuasive Most
scholars would, of course, agree t lat r lyme is po ygenetic, and occurs,
Theories on the origin <if Court!! !.ove :r5
~lJQ(;O',.t 

reward. The Arab theory of profa~ IOV9,,~S adapted t<; the needs 

of a petty nobility, and thus attal:;'Jd"a social Significance which it 

I
appears to have lacked in the more autocratic environment of Muslim
Spain.
2 CHIVALlUC-MATRIARCHAL
Courtly Love was the product of the interaction of Christianity and a 

primitive Germanic/Celtic/Pictish matriarchy, which ensured the 

survival of pre.Christian sexual mores and a veneration for women 

amongst the European aristocracy. 

(a) 	 The privilcged status <if women in pagan Women 

position of authority amongst the peoples of northern 

because they participated in public affairs and were credited with 

divine or prophetic powers. Warton (177 5-8 I). 

(b) 	 The Gothic spirit if chival~". Women were served and revered 

amongst the Gothic tribes. A code of morals, based on the service 

of woman, was a source of moral refinement and heroic action. 

Millot (I ; Warton (1775-81); Vossler (1929). 

A sllbwjuge to avoid ecclesiasrical censorship. The European aristo­

cracy resented having an ascetic morality imposed upon it by the 

early Church. Courtly and chivalric ideals were devised as a 

subterfuge to prevent ecclesiastical interference, since 'they gave 

to customary sex relations the sanction of cultivated taste'. 

Ikiffault (1927). 

The Chivalric-Matriarchal theory clearly raises more questions than it 

can solve. Warton, Vossler and most nineteenth-century theorists took 

.;,. ~~ w
it for granted that chastity is a virtue which women universally i~'\l)Ose
I"'", upon their menfolk, wherca~ BriHault asserted that 'whe'!-©tr' indithis
does not invalidate the main lines of the argument in favour ot the vidual women enjcf)(}.": '.~~) I)osition of power, far from imposing or
Hispano-Arabic theory. observing chastity, they-avail themselves of their independence to
One point should, however, be emphasised. Muslim society was not exercise sexual liberty' (Mothers, cd. G. R. Taylor, p. 387). To the
for instance, in ancient skaldic P0t;.!Tl.and i~
troubadour love was chaste and romantic; to the latter, it was
I familiar with that aspect of feudalism wh.iCh, I..·.n..m...ed.iev.a.. ..l C..h.... r.i..S........t".'•..n.•....d....•..o...n.... l.'.
conditioned all human relations: the bOM he:t~cn a Y~l~ his 	 sensual and essentially adulterous. Britlault's description of the barbaric
__	feuda\,I0;t...Q:!!;zzola, II, p. i98). ~~dal terminoiogy;~tli~~r-r­ behaviour of medieval knights, later romanticised in Arthurian legends,
specia Ise meaning in the troubadour lyric (Sutherland. 1956), but the was more realistic than Warton's rosy picture of the Gothic barbarians.
Similarly his conviction that troubadour love was basically lascivious
} . I I SaL.:.,i...., t' d' I' h
~ feudal element in toui'tly love has perhaps been exaggerated (Dronke,
would meet Wit 1 t le assent 0 many me leva Ists at t e present
c- f:wours [01' s~I'Vi(~s"'ie~gcd, although it W<lS eust~ii'tary, from the
Medicl'al Latin, I, p. H). Love service tended to i~ly <lJl exchange of
moment. Warton, Vossler and Brillault were, however, a!'reed that
thirteenth century ollwards, for love poets to disclaim the right to any women played an active Dart in the creation of a new art of
t. r::z..l"
}p)/( 	 v"
6l{~-.\4-7
The Origin and r1 Courtly Love
76
In the alfluent aristocratic of Provence and Languedoc
women must have been called upon to act as arbiters of fashion and
literary taste. Twelfth-century France produced some outstanding
women, such as Eleanor or Aquitaine, Marie de Champagne and I
Ermengarde de Narbonne. There were instances of women who waged I!ed [)
war, owned land, ruled principalities and dubbed knights. Yer'ft"'~'
be emphasised that women as a whole never enjoyed aDcythWgother
than a secondary status in medieval society (Valency, p. 2), and it is
uncertain whether pagan Europe was genuinely matriarchal. Throughout
the Middle Ages women were Simultaneously adored and denigrated
(Petrarch, for example, wrote, 'Foemina ... est diabolus'), and
it was paradoxically during the very period when Courtly Love
flourished that this ambivalence was most evident. ~s;:.ourtly Love
counterbalanced clerical misogyny, but it could sca*ely have had a
Vo';;':'t ­ liberating influence. The most that can be said is that the coul·t!y ethic
, 	 presupposed a certain degree of freedom between the sexes, and that
it had a civilising effect on manners (Power, 19 26, p. 406 ). If, as
Briibult argued, women were under a moral obligation to reward
services perfOl'med on their behalf, then it would seem that women had
less freedom in the early days of 'chiv<llry' than they did at a latel' date.
The theory that matriarchy universally precedes patriarchy has, in any
case, been refuted by most social anthropologists.
46
It has even been
demonstrated that some primiti\'c peoples have passed from patriarchy
to matriarchy. Furthermore a period during which women are venerated
and socially predominant is not necessarily matdarchal.
must be defined in terms of actual 'mothel- rule', inheritance
the female line, 'matrilocy', and other specific factors.
\Varton was perhaps justified in believing that chastity was itself an
object of veneration in primitiv,~ times (Warton, (liss., p. 67)·
Briffault had himself suggested that Marianism represented the resurgence
of the cult of the Virgin Mother Goddess or Magna Mater
\'v hich had once prevailed in pagan ~[~J?~lhere is a
chi valrous asceticism, evident in the oaths whereby
J''l )..;. '.....(
prepared to do pel\ance until they had performed a 

which probably antedates Christianity. Tacitus, 

of olle of the Germanic tribes, writes, 'The l:.ravest among them wear 

also an iron ring (a mark of ignominy in that nation) as a kind of chain, 

(,-i-1'" l' t 	 j-(;c.: LU!..
till they have releasen t lemselves by the slaughter of a foe .. '. They
have no house, land or domestic cares: they are maintained by whomsoever
they visit' (Germania, XXXI, 130hn's Classical Library, p. 3 22 ).
This type of asceticism is illustrated bv the activities of a lav institution
Theories on the cd'Courtly Love 77
called the Fraternity of the Penitents of Love, mentioned by Warton,
and described by the Chevalier de la Tour Landry in a book of admonition
to his daughters (Huizinga, Waning, p. 87). This institution was
possibly a late survival of the pagan cult of Cybele. 47 The desire to incur
danger as a proof of love was an essential ingredient of Courtly
which was very far from a cover for promiscuity,
There is perhaps a case for distinguishing, as Rene Nelli has done,
between chivalrous and courtly love. The former, which waS devoid
of the morbid sensibility and the lively sense of status which informs
the latter, would approximate to the matriarchal mores about which
Brilfault speaks. Yet it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast distinction
between these two species of love, or to argue that there was a definite
evolution from the former to the latter. The troubadour revival in the
late Middle Ages was, after all, inseparable from the revival of chival ry
which occurred durin!! this same period. Chivalric gallantry was not,
'a gigantic of bigamy, in which every
was expectea to have both a husband and a paramour'. ~K Rather it
was, to use Huizinga's phrase, 'a dream of heroism and love'. This
dream or ideal does not enable us to infer that m"dieval society was
ruled by women. Women ruled the imaginations of men and motivated
their conduct. but it is doubtful whether the position of women in
was greatly altered Courtly Love.
3 	 CRYPTO-CATHAR
Courtly Love grew out of the Cathar or Albigensian heresy, either as
an actual vehicle for Catharist doctrines or as an indirect exnression of
Cathar sentiments.
Coincidence in time and place. The Cathar heresy flourished in the
south of france in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; troubadour
poetry reached its apogee between I I ~o and 12 t;0 in this same
region, at a time when the Cathars were increasingly the victims
of religious perseclltion.
(b) 	 Coincidence r1 anti-papalist sentiments. The Cathars and the troubadours
were 'protestant' or anti-papalist sectarians, who sought to
return to toe simplicity and the purity of the primitive Church.
The troubadours were, in short, harbingers of the Reformation.
Rossetti (1832); Aroux (18H); Meray (1860); Peladan (1906).
(c) 	 Coincidence cd' attiwdes to lovc and marriagc. The Cathars recommended
sexual continence; marriage was condemned bv the
78 The Origin and Meaning ifCourt!! Lo~e
Perfect as an attempt to vindicate the procreative function of
sexuality, which, in their eyes, was responsible for perpetuating
the work of the evil del11iurge. Courtly Love, being chaste and
adulterous, corresponded more closely to the morality of the
Cathars than to that of orthodox Christianity. De Rougemont
(1939); Nelli (196 3).
(d) 	 Obscurity ifpoetic diction. The deliberately enigmatic style of trobar
clus lends itself to interpretation on several levels. The emphasis
on secrecy, service, surrcring and death indicate that Courtly Love
was a vehicle for Catharist doctrines. Rossetti (I 832); Aroux
(18)4-); de Rougemont (1939).
(e) 	 The ecstatic impulse if Eros. Courtly Love and the Cathar heresy
were both inspired by Eros: the soul's nostalgic and insatiable
desire to dissolve itself in the Unity whence it sprang. Death is the
ultimate obstacle to which passion irrevocably leads. De Rougemont
(1939).
The main argument in favour of the Crypto-Cathar thesis is that the
environment in which the early troubadours were writing was predominantly
Cathar. There is no primaJacle evidence that they were not
Cathar sympathisers. The enigmatic trobar ellIS (or closed style) and the
occurrence of the love-death equation, extolling death as a form of
liberation, obviously leave room for conjecture. The Cathar condemnation
of marriage provided the troubadours with an excellent moral
pretext for celebrating extra-conjugal love, and it is possible, as Rene
Nelli suggests, that some of them simulated chastity, either as a
respectful tribute to the morality of the Perfect or as a necessary
expedient in poetry addressed to castle ladies who were very often
Cathar believers 'whose bad consciences had to be pacified by song'
(quoted in de Rougemont, Passion, p. 114-). This hypothesis is not
improbable, because, according to Steven Runciman, an authority on
the Manichees, 'one of the most spectacular aspects-of'-the Cath3r
movement in southern France was the enthusiasm with which it was
supported by the great ladies of the country'. 49 Women no doubt
imagined that Catharism protected thei! interests. There is, for
example, the case, reported by Runciman, of a girl who was accused
of being a Cathar because she resisted the advances of the canon,
Gervase of Tilbury. 'Good young man,' she protested, 'God doesn't
wish me to be your lover or that of any man, since if I should lose my
virginity and my flesh should once be corrupted, without doubt I
should fall irredeemably into eternal damnation.' 50 She was found
Theories on the origin ?f Court!! Love 79
guilty of heresy and burnt at the stake. By exalting the preservation of
the human species as the noblest function of love Jean de Meun directed
a double-edged assault against Courtly Love and the Cathar heresy:
'Pansez de mener bone vie, !aut chascuns anbracier s'amie, / et son
ami chascune anbrace / et bese et festoie et solace.' 51 The courtly lover
and the Albigensian heretic were both liab~t; to be charged with Forced
Abstinence. 	 r"\M--(/~
The 	recurrent troubadour theme of 'la mort-par-l'amour' may be
taken as supporting the Crypto-Cathar thesis. Nelli believed that this
theme was Arabic and mystical in origin, but he noted that it was
employed in two contradictory senses. The lover longs for death, either
because he knows that his love could never be fulfilled by the pleasures
of this world or because these same pleasures have been denied him:
Tantot, c'est I'exces meme de son desir-Ie JOi-qui est cense faire mourir
i'amant, la mort etant souhaitee par lui comme realisant i'amour. (Et il Y a
bien lit une sorte de transposition de la theorie arabe selon laquelle I'amour pur,
insatisfait par essence, ne peut s'exprimer en ce bas monde que sous forme d'aspiration
it la mort.) Tantot, ce qui amene, au contraire, la mort de i'amant, c'est
tout simplement I' insatisfaction sur Ie plan terrestre: la dame Ie desespere par
sa rigueur, et comllle elle ne lui accorde rien de ce qu'il desire, il souffre au
point d'en mourir. (L'Erotiquc, p. 73)
The identification of love and death may be found in Arabic love
poetry, in the Cathar consolamentum, in the mars osculi of the Cabbala,
and in the hieros gamos of the Hellenistic mysteries. It is also, of course,
present in the Christian biblical tradition, and is expressed in the idea
of the seed that must die to be reborn. 52
The theory that the Cathar heresy was a formative influence on the
troubadour ideal of fin' amors accords with the Hispano-Arabic thesis,
since, according to Jean-Claude Vadet, there were definite links
between Manichacism and early Arabic love poetry (Vadet, 1968,
pp. 171-8; 4-36-7). The eighth-century Iraqi poet Bashshar b. Burd
(d. 783) was condemned to death as a zindiq or crypto-Manichee,
because he identified the lady to whom he addressed his poetry with
the Spirit or riil), an intermediary between man and God. The mu'tazalite
sect to which Bashshar belonged developed the theory of 'ishq, which
sought to reconcile the materialism of Persian and Ionian physics with
the belief in a single Divinity. In the ninth century the cosmic principle
of 'ishq was modified by the influence of Plato's Timaeus and the ~mposillm.
It is Significant that the zindiq practised ?aif or courtliness, which
means that he was generally from the upper strata of society. The
80 The Ori8in and Meanin8 <1CourtlY Love
expression 'more elegant than a Manichee' is proverbial in the Middle
East. 'Par la predominance qu'il donne it la vic intt~rieure l'esprit
courtois parait tres enclin au dualisme si ce dcrnier cst ... un refus
delibere du monde exterieur' (Vadet, p. 43 The chaste and suicidal
love codified by Ibn Dawiid and Ibn l:iazm was probably inl1uenced by
Manichaean habits of mind. It is thus possible that the Provenyal
troubadours were well disposed to the Cathars partly as a result of the
Arabic theory of 'ishq (or vice versa).
During the twelfth centUl'y the Church had little power to intervene
in the daily lives of those who lived in the principalities of southern
France. The clergy had acquired a reputation for greed and debauchery;
many of the troubadours were in consequence violently anti-clerical,
and some became anlent supporters or the Ghibelline cause. Anticlericalism
should not, however, be confused with Catharism, nor
should the Cathars be confused with Ghibellines, Lollards and franciscan
'Spirituals', as though they were all members of one vast conspiracy.
Furthe.rmore the coexistence of Catharism and Court!y Love
does not in itself prove that they were genetically linked.
little is actually known about the Cathars, because few documents
have survived. According to the Abbe Foncaude, the Cathars 'differed
from the Church of Rome merely in denying the sovereignty of the
Pope, the powers of the priesthood, the efficacy of prayers for the
dead, and the existence of purgatory' (Sismondi, I, p. 216). If this is
true an analogy could be drawn betwt~en the Cathars and the Protestants
of the Reformation. Whether or not the Cathars were genuine Manichees,
the Church never accused the troubadours, as a group, of
Catharism (Russell, 1965-66, p. 36), nor can it be proved that Cathars
were more tolerant to fin' amors than orthodox Christians. Moreover
the Cathars were not persecuted hefore 1210, so there was no need
for elaborate concealment (Jackson, The Literature, p. 141). The worst
charge against Crypto-Cathar theodsts is that they systematically ignore
the literal meaning of a text: 'Le sophisme fondamental est celui de
tous les maniaques de I'esoterisme; on prend un texte, on en refuse Ie
sens obvie, on y infuse un sens secret et on se redresse triomphant:
"Prouvez-moi qu'il est impossible'" (Davensoll, Les Troubadours,
pp. 142-4). The attractiveness of the theory is also considerably
diminished if, as many critics now agree, Courtly Love was not
essentially extra-conjugal nor necessarily chaste.
Denis de Rougemont's thesis lays itself open to criticism. The
observation that passion thrives Oil obstacles scarcely justiti.es postulating
the existence of a self-destructive impulse; still less can such an
Theories on the ony'" ":J
impulse be defined by the term Eros, Freud's life principle. In proposing
that this impulse was historically determined, de Rougemont
mixed bad history ,:"ith bad l~sycholog.&r'{~.\i;,failed to cli.ffe:elltiate
carefully betweenfin amon, wlllch was b!sed on a pledge 0/ faith, and
the fatal passion of Tristan and Iseult, which was initiated by a love
potion, an extraneous device precluding freedom of choice. Nor was
it ever adequately explained how the myth of Tristan could have been
affiliated with Catharist doctrines. The matiere de Rrew.qne was certainly
known to the troubadours, but it was only of marginal importance, and
was not Manichaean. The tension between mind and matter or soul and
body is probably at the root of all love poetry, and the germ of dualism
is latent within all religions that stress the transcendence of the
Deity.5.1 The most that can be said in favour of the Crypto-Cathar
thesis is that the early troubadours may have attempted to make their
songs conform, at least superficially, to the morality of the Cathars.
The cult of 'la mort-par-I'amour' and the image of the belle dame sans
merci may owe something to the CathaI' environment, but both can be
accounted for in other ways.
4 NEOPLATONIC
Courtly Love was fostered by Neoplatonism, which conceived of the
soul as a substance, divine in origin, yearning to be liberated from the
prison of created matter in order to ascend to the First Principle, the
source of beauty and goodness.
(a) 	 Contact with Neoplatonism. The currents of thought which reached
the south of france between the late tenth and the early twelfth
centuries were primarily Neoplatonic, which means that the
troubadours must have been exposed to such inlluences. Denomy
(1944),
The tho1l8ht pattern of CourtlY Lote. The basic thought pattern
underlying the poetry of the troubadours, namely the supremacy
of the love object, the upward surge of the lover and the insatiaof
desire, is Neoplatonic. Denomy (1944).
The amoral;~r f!fthe courtlY ethic. Although Courtly Love developed
in a Christian milieu (twelfth-century Languedoc), it was amoral
in the sense that its moral standards were not those of Christianity.
Dawson (193)); Denomy (1944); Lazar (1964).
(d) 	The ascent f!I Era.,. Plotinus reinterpreted the Platonic Eros as a
compound of need and abundance, which participates in matter
82 The OriBin and McaninB if Love
and yet desires the Good from the moment of its birth;
Love was similarly intended to pass through frustration to sublimation.
Dc Rougemont (J939); lk-nomy (1944); D'Arcy (194S-).
(e) 	 i1lC cnnoblinB ej}ccts <?l Jorc and beaut)'. According to Neoplatonism,
created beauty acts as an incentive to the Godhead;
the courtly lover improves his conduct and his character by contemplating
his lady's moral and physical excellence. Denomy
( I
The Platonism of the Middle Ages was largely Neoplatonic and
Augustinian. Neoplatonism reached the Latin Middle Ages from a
variety of sources. Arab philosophy, including the works of Avicenna,
was imbued with Neoplatonic thought, largely owing to the misapprehension
that Aristotle was the authur of two works, the Liber de
causis and the Thea/aBia aristatelica, which in fact comprised extracts
from the institutio theolaBica of Prod us and the Enneads of Plotinus
respectively. Neoplatonism was present in Boethius, in Macrobius, in
the Christian adaptations of Dionysius the Areopagite and Scotus
Eriugena, and was fused in the theology of St Augustine and St Thomas
Aquinas. The Cathars, whose doctrines were Gnostic in origin, shared
Plotinus' view that human existence represents a descent of the soul
into matter: 'By its presence, matter is the cause of the soul's exerting
its generative powers, and being led thus to sulfering.' 51 It should,
however, be emphasised that, for Plotinus, matter is created by the
Soul and has no independent existence. The naturalistic current in
which was prominent in Arab philosophy, conceived of
the cosmos as a series of emanations from the First Principle, which
could be studied through mathematics and tlte natural sciences. The
mystical current, exemplified in pseudo-Dionysius, in St Augustine and
in the works of the ~uns, stressed the inwardness of religious experience
and hence the independence of the individual from external authority.
Augustinian and Avicennist schools of thought were replaced by
Aristotdianism in the thirteenth century, but the Neoplatonic tradition
was never eradicat,'d. Ilowever, until Marsilio Ficino began to translate
the works of plato in 14b 3, and to write his ThealaBica Plafonica. there
was no such thing as a Single cohel'em
Neoplatonism, which was, alter all, a 'religion of Eros', might
explain how a IO\-e which for Christians was sinful could have been
exalted as pure ami ennobling. In modem theological terms, Courtly
Love could be defined as a lo\e or I-ms I'ather than a love of
bee,lUse the lover was prompted .1n ecstatic to submit him­
83I Theories on the oriBin cif Love
f-.t)~v-r1.n-t
self to the sovereignty of a lady, who, as a consequence of her beauty,
virtue, rank and, very often, married status, was unapproachable or
sexually unattainable. The lover's growlh in worth was considered, in
th~~ory, to be a sufficient compensation for the pains of love service.
Thus in many ways the ideology of the troubadours reflects a Neoplatonic
mentality: 'L' ideal d'amour que les troubadours introduisent
dans une societe christianisee depuis des sieeles, a ete forme et developpe
par loute une tradition neo-platonicienne' (Lazar, 1964,
p. 13). Neoplatonism is especially evident in Matfre Ermengaud's Lo
bre"iari d' amor 55 and, of course, in Dante's Divina Commedia. The
condemnation of jealousy by the early troubadours is, for example,
consistent with Platonism: 'Que gelosia es fols ressos / don totz 10 mons
brai e crida'. 56
the general intellectual background of the troubadour lyric
could be described as Neoplatonic, Courtly Love was not mystical:
there was no movement from individual to universal beauty, nor was
as in Dante's works, any ascent from the human to the divine.
There are also chronological reasons for doubting whether the early
troubadours could have had access to Arab Neoplatonism before about
1130, unless they were able to read or speak Arabic, which is not
(Denomy, 19n). Theodore Silverstein noted that certain
aspects otjin'amors are absent fl'om Avicenna's doctrine of 'pure' love:
there is no mention of what Andreas calls zelotypia (a fear lest love
should not be reciprocated and an anxiety for the beloved's wellbeing),
nor is there any reference to the state of exultation called joy
in Provenc,:al. The Provenc,:al idea of joy was, however, accurately
ddined by the Neoplatonist ?ufi Ibn Arabi:
If union \\ illl the I>clon:d is not personal union, and the beloved is a sllperior
being who imposes oi,lig.ltions on Ihe lovcr, then Ihe fulfilmcnt of these
oblig<ltions sometimes t<lkcs the place of personal union, producin!1 in him a
which obliter,llcs the a\\<ln~ncss of sorrow from his SOld. 31
The spiritual aspirations of ?iifI and Christian mysticism were
more important than the highly intellectual philosophical works which
would not have been available at Erst hand.
5 BERNARDINF-MARIAN[ST
The mysticism of St Hemanl and the cult of the Virgin Mary influenced
the ideas and sentiments of troubadour poetry, ami COlltributed to the
birth of Courtly Love.
84 The Ori8in and hfeanin8 ifCourt!J Love
(a) 	 NostalBia. The courtly lover and the Christian mystic share the
same yearning for a distant ideal: an amor de lonh. Spitzer (194-4-),
(b) 	 Spiritllal aspirafion. Courtly Love was an dFort, in n:sponse to
Cistercian mysticism, to bring the physical appetites into harmony
with the spirit. Wechssler (1909); Lot-Borodine (19 28 ); Foster
(196 3).
DiSinterestedness. Profane love service was modelled on service to
God; the troubadour, like the mystic, proved his love through
and disclaimed any right to favours. Wechssler (1909);
Lot-Borodine (1928).
The courtly lover, like the Christian mystic, seeks to
merge himself in the object of his love; he falls into a trance at the
of his beloved, or loses himself in the contemplation of her
Wechssler (1909).
The romantic glorification of agony, a trope rooted
in Christianity, was a central feature of the medieval love
Wilhelm (1965).
Redemption. The courtly lover begs his lady to offer him a
of recognition, a sa/ute, because his fate rests in her hands. If
accords him this bleSSing he is transformed byJOJ' into a 'new man'.
Russell (1965-66).
(g) J1arianism. Courtly Love was a profane aristocratic counterpart
to the cult of the Virgin Mary. Symonds (1883); Adams (19 13);
Power (1926); Ahsmann (1933); Wilhelm (19 65).
(h) 	 Appropriarion if rcliaious terms. The use of religious terms, concepts
and metaphors implies a transfer of religious emotion.
Lot-Borodine (1928); Russell (1965-66 ).
It should be stated at th~'gut;c~~t, although Marianism and Bernardine
mysticism are related phenomena, St Bernard himself did not~pf8Vf9
of the nevv' cult of Mary. When a Feast of the Immaculate Conception of
Our Lady was celebrated at Lyons in 114-0 he against 'this new
feast of which the custom of the Church knows nothing, which reason
does not approve, and that tradition docs not authorize' (de Rougemont,
PaSSion, p. III). Since, however, the Order of St Bernard placed its
churches under the special protection of the Virgin Mary, there is a
case for conflating the f\~~'\heories. The knights of St Bernard were,
after all, 'knights of' Mary'. 58 Furthermore Bemardine mysticism was
closer to the popular devotion of the than other contemporary
/ intellectual devdopments. 

~ It could be arlJued that the Cistercian movement, which began in 

Theories on the oriain ifCourt!! Love 85
1098, coincided, and was therefore linked, with the birth of Courtly
Love. St Bernard, having joined the Order in 1I 12, founded the Abbey
of Clairvaux in III S. The activity of St Bernard and Hugh of St Victor
began towards 1120-30; the first great poets whose poetry displays
mystical elements appeared towards the middle of the century: Jaufre
Rudel, Bernart de Ventadorn and Pierre Rogier. Between 1170 and
1270 the French built eighty cathedrals and nearly 500 churches of the
cathedral class, most of which were dedicated to the Virgin Mary
(Adams, p. 92). It would indeed be surprising if certain general
analogies could not be found between religious and literary movements
this period. There is a sense in which, both for the mystic and
for the courtly lover, desire interposes a distance, in time
between the lover and the object of his love: 'I'eloignprr",n
consubstantiel avec Ie desir de l'union'
p. 21). In the words of Abbot Gilbert de
continuation of St Bernard's Sermones super Cantica: 'Ubi viget amor, ibi
viget languor, si absit quod amatur' (Lot-Borodine, 1928, p. 232;
p. 15). This stress on absence lent troubadour poetry a metaphYSical
slant: 'C'est Ie lointain qui donne a la tenue morale un
rayonnement metaphysique et un sens a I'amour' (Spitzer, p. I
Absence or non-attainment allowed the poet to concentrate on an inner
vision of beauty; it was the means whereby the poet, in love with love
and unwilling to risk disillusion, guaranteed the integrity of his ideal,
in accordance with St Augustine's injunction 'Noli foras ire: in
interiore animae habitat veritas' (Spitw~. 38). The lover regarded s:e
himself as a martyr subject to the whims of the person whom he
'adored'. She was the sole arbiter of his destiny, endowed with the
power to kill or to save. This religion of profane love demanded
patience, humility, abnegation, obedience and fidelity, and was a
source of elegance and social refinement, but it was also self-consciously
fictitious (Singleton, in Newman, p. 4-7).
Etienne Gilson has convincingly demonstrated that Bernardine
mysticism could not have contributed to the birth of Courtly Love,
because the activity of St Bernard coincided with the most flourishing
period of troubadour poetry, in the middle of the twelfth century, not
with its beginnings (Gilsol1, The The%aY, p. 170). Scarcely any poetry
was dedicated to the Virgin Mary before 1150 (Ahsmann, 1929,
p. I 10), and it was only after 1230 that Marianism reached its height
(Jeanroy, La l'oesie !yrique, II, p. 130).59 The troubadours were under
increasing pressure, when the Albigensian Crusade ended in 1229, to
make their poetry conlonn to ecclesiastical requirements. It is there­
86 The and .Meaninn Love Theories on the orinin cif Court!! Love
U"j
L.
cfore
more probable that Courtly Love contributed to the rise of
Marianism than the reverse: 'The worship of the Virgin responded to
a vital necessity for the Church while under threat and pressure'
(de Rougemont, PaSSion, p. 11 I). As with countless cults and customs,
'the Church adopted what she could not suppress' (Hriffault, The
p. 154)·
Gilson has also proved, by means of selected passages, as Hriffault
and Lazar have done, that Courtly Love was far from being disinterested
or Platonic in the vulgar Sc'llse. Even jf it could be shown that it was a
sensual interpretation of the mystical love of St Hernard the thesis
he insisted, remain a sophism, because the two loves are
mutually exclusive (Gilson, p. 179), The parallel between the amor
pllrUS of Andreas and the pure love of the is entirely speciOUS,k:{",""h~
because the 'purity of courtly love keeps lovers apart, while that
of mystical love unites them' (p. 193). Amor mixtus is, in some respects,
more acceptable to a Christian theologian than amor purus, which
permits everything short of the sexual act. As C. S. Lewis says,
(c)
tion, usually in the opening stanza, of trees in blossom, singing
and a fountain of cool water. This picture of the rebirth of
nature is appropriate to a lyrical tradition which originated in
hymns to the goddess of Nature. Paris (1891-92); Anglade (1908 );
Chaytor (1912); C. H. Lewis (1934); Wilhelm (196 5).
faster: season cifjoy and rcneneration. Just as the May festival marks
the rehirth of nature after the winter, so Easter, which occurs in
late March or in April, commemorates Christ's resurrection. The
terms jo,'ws and joy arc used repeatedly by the troubadours, It was
in Holy Week that Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ausias March and
many others met the lady with whom they fell in love.
Adaltel)' or free love. It was the convention in May Day songs and
in chansons de mal-mariee to scalf at the odious bonds of matrimony,
and to treat the husband as an easily outwitted enemy, The
goddess, whose festival was at the vernal equinox, on 25 March,
did not recognise marriage, but required free love from all her
votaries. Courtly Love was extra-conjugal, and generally adulterous.
'medieval theory', by which he means Church theory, 'finds room for
innocent sexuality: what it does not find room for is passion' (Lewis,
1936, pr. 16-1 Andreas wrote, 'reddit hominem castitatis quaSi
virtute decoratum'. Special emphasis should be given to the word quaSi
Paris (1891-92); C. B. Lewis (1934)'
Lack of illdividuali~. There is little difference between the lady
of one poet and that of another. Cybele or Maia was the prototype
of the Virgin Mary and of the lady addressed by the troubadours.
(Gilson, p. 196). An even more important distinction between love
directed to God and love direclfd towards a human being is that the
former can never be unr~Wecr~~).he latter is never sure of
The courtly lover is thus a prey fa fears and anxieties which
arc completely foreign to the mystic. 'Caritas mittit foras timorem'
(e)
C. H. Lewis (1934).
Humble adoration. The courtly lover was the 'servant' of a
damna, a lady of high rank, who represented an ideal of womankind.
The worshipper of Cybcle likewise declared himself a 'servant' of
a goddess, who alone deserved the title of Domina. C. B. Lewis
was a maxim, taken from the Gospel of 5t John, on which St Bernard ( 19
frequently meditated (Gilson, p. liD). If Gilson is correct, one must
conclude that those analogies which exist between Courtly Love and
Sccrco/' The practice of using a scnhal or pseudonym originated
in the worship of Cybcle, whose name could only be pronounced
Bernardine mysticism are eitber of such a general nature that they prove in her innermost sanctuary. C. H. Lewis (1934)·
nothing, or formulas which have acquired a totally ditferent meaning (g) Growth in virtue. 'I have fled the bad, I have found the better' was
in their new context. a ritual formula used in the ceremonies of the Phrygian cult of
C),bele, and one which occurs in the poetry of the troubadours.
C. ll. Lewis (1930).
6 SPRING FOLK RITUAL /l/)
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries courtly and popular genres were
Courtly Love evolved out of the folk traditions and ritual dance songs not as clearly differentiated as they were later to become. There must
of Europe, particularly those associated with the rites of spring, or it therefore have been a constant process of cross-fertilisation, as regards
was an actual survival or the pagan cult of Cybele or Maia, the Great both form and content (Bee, .MClanBes Lcjeune, II, pp. 1310-15). The
Mother of the Gods. region of Poitou, from which the first known troubadour, Guilhem IX,
(a) Sprinn nature prelude. Many troubadour lyrics contain a rl,><r't'i,,_
originated, is particularly rich in popular verse, and his poetry and that
Love88 The and
of his contemporaries contains frequent allusions to the season of
Love, spring, Christ's passion, and spiritual regeneration create a web
of associations which were exploited by many medieval poets, including
Dante in the Vito nuova. Holy Week was traditionally connected with
the genesis of love, and an analogy was sometimes drawn between the
~ 	 suffering of love and the passion of Christ. It was also on May Day, soon
after Holy Week, that the poetic academies of Toytous~ and Barcelona
celebrated their annual Floral Games. The c5\Yet~a~prize on these
.occasions was the golden replica of a violet, a flower which is said to
have sprung from the blood of Attis,60 when he was killed by a wild
c.<,; boar and transformed into a pine tree. The name of Attis was linked
with that of Cybele, the great Asiatic goddess of fertility. The worship
of Cybe1e had been adopted by the Romans in 204 B.t. and spread
throughout the Roman Empire-along the northern coast of Africa and
throughout southern Gaul. In Europe it survived in the May Day
festival, when a tree, usually a pine tree, was cut down to serve as a
maypole, which was wrapped in purple bands and decorated with
violets. The mysterious apostrophe to the 'flowers of the pine tree' in
the famous song by King Dinis of Portugal, 'Ai flores, ai flores do verde
pino',61 is therefore possibly associat~d with the sacred drama of
Cybele and Attis. In the twelfth century there existed in Languedoc an
institution called the Fraternity of the Penitents of Love, whose
members were known as Galois or Galoises. The term Galli was
to the castrated priests of Attis who scourged themselves to the
accompaniment of drums, pipes and deafening cries. 62 It is therefore
not impossible that vestigial traces of the cult of Cybele can be discovered
in troubadour poetry. It is significant that Cybele was served
by singers, crowned in laurel, and that at Rome they were trained at a
Scho/a cantorum (C. B. Lewis, 1934, p. 26). It is doubtful, however,
whether this theory could account for any of the essential features of
Courtly Love.
Day theorists tend to belong to that class of which
Denis de Rougemont and Jessie Weston, whom Silverstein has
described as 'literary peelers' (Newman, 1968, p. 85"): it is argued that
by stripping a poem of its individual traits and courtly accretions one
may infer the existence of a Single primal sub-genre, from which, it is
deduced, all European vernacular poetry is descended. This regressive
and inductive method of reasoning was criticised by Joseph Beclier in a
review article on Gaston Paris' theories (Bedier, 1896). In fact popular
genres, such as pastourcllcs and revcrdies, were artificially adapted to a
courtly environment, and are, for that reason, quite distinct in tone
Theories on the LoY/~<1 89
from court love songs. C. B. Lewis must be charged with sophistry of
a difrerent kind; he can be classed, once again with de Rougemont,
among 'les maniaques de I't:soterisme' (Davenson, Les Troubadours,
p. 144) because he expects every poem to fit an obscure hypothesis.
This does not mean that the theory is totally invalid, but merely that
no theory can claim a monopoly of the truth.
A more serious objection to the Folk Ritual thesis is that it cannot
explain one of the most important features of Courtly Love, namely
the belief in love's ennobling power (Bedier, 1 p. 172). C. B.
Lewis countered this objection by quoting the Roman historian
Diodorus SiClllllS, who wrote, with reference to the cult of Cybele,
that 'those who took part in the mysteries of the goddess were looked
upon as having become more devout, more just and better in all
respects'.63 These scntiments are scarcely applicable to the May
festivities in medieval Europe. The anti-matrimonial character of May
Day has little bearing on Courtly Love, because if a poet addressed his
verses to a married woman (which was by no means always the case),
he never proclaimed the right to rebel against the institution of
marriage; he merely pretended to be unaware of the existence of social
constraints. Courtly Love did not liberate women from their
and husbands, nor did it promote sexual licence. The Folk Ritual theory
may explain certain extraneous aspects of Courtly Love, but as a theory
of origin it is unconvincing.
7 FEUDAL-SOCIOLOGICAL
Courtly Love may be explained hy certain sociological factors operating
within the feudal cmironment of twelfth-century chief of /
which was the npid promotion of new men into the ranks of the
'J
The practice <!f arranged marriaacs. In a society where marriages
wcre arranged hy the parents of the bride and bridegroom, in
accordance with political and mercenary interests, it was inevitable
that love and marriage should have been considered mutually
exclusive. Courtly Love was, as a consequence, an extra-conjugal
altair. Paget (1884); Lewis (1936).
(b) 	 Thefeudal contract. Love service or domnci was constituted on the
analogy of the feudal relationship between a vassal and his overlord:
the lover swore an oath of allegiance to his lady, and made
a pledge to obey her and to abide by certain rules, such as secrecy,
90 The Origin and Meanin8 I!f Court!! fme
patience and moderation. Fauriel (1846); Wechssler (190 9);
Chaytor (1912); Lewis (1936); Jackson (1960).
(c) 	 The absence l' men on crusades. A woman of noble birth whose
husband or brother was absent on a crusade or a military expedition
might be called upon to act, in his stead, as a feudal suzerain,
thus facilitating the transference of feudal to love.
Chaytor (r 912); Jackson (1960).
(d) 	 Social mobili9' and the decline l' feudalism. The troubadours
generally belonged to the lower nobility, a class comprising
ministeriales and court officials who had recently been promoted.
Lacking the prestige of inherited wealth and noble birth, they
argued that nobility was a potential virtue which had to be earned
by courtesy, valour and personal merit. The courtly ethic was
thus sponsored by the very classes whose basis it undermined.
Valency (19)8); Kohler ~ I 96~
(e) 	 A hi8h sex ratio. A shor¥~ of females in the upper strata of
society, which was a consequence of upward social mobility, made
it difficult for knights to marry. In those regions where this
phenomenon occurred women were idealised and love poetry
prospered. Moller (19)8-59). Males were predominant within
the confines of the medieval castle because it was a place of
training for novice knights, and few men could afford the luxury
of a wife. Paget (1884).
71ie dream I!f h)'per8am)'. It was es~ential that a knight should not
'7 -'L demean himself by marrying ben~ati his sra'l'r~;i'. In the south of1
L, .'1. France, where the daughters of noblemen had the right to inherit
property and where the nobility, in the twelfth century, remained
an open class, hypergamy was particularly tantalising. whilst
women, in such circumstances, could aHord to be haughty ayd
t, . I cI ' C', ' .!tA.l
" " '-<. capricious. Moller (1958-59l)/J(j... b. ./) '""'7" ,
(g) 	 Social anxieties. The flui:iit}' of class barr~/s created a sense of
T".~ f 0,,1'
insecurity, both for the social upstaft and for the nobleman of
pewA ~-- ancient lineage. The troubadour of humb~ le)~~ regarded his
lady as a figure of at;~~lJ,yacapable of all~ing hts social anxieties
and his fear of dltractors, whilst the aristocrat was obliged to
pm~:e that he was worthy of his status. Moller (1958-59).
(h) 	 The aristocratic 'juvenes' . The courtly and chivalric literature of
twelfth-century France (and of Europe as a whole in succeeding
centuries) was conditioned by the tastes and ideals of a large group
of young men, recently dubbed or aspiring to knighthood, who
were without children or material commitments, and who were,
Theories on the meanin8 l'Court!! I.ove 91
in many cases, deprived by the principle of primogeniture from the
prospect of inheritance. Heer (1962); Duby (1964).
Even if Courtly Love were a mere literary fantasy, divorced fror the
realities of everyday life, it would still be important to as~kiia\h what
social factors caused poets to turn their backs on life. Courtly and
chivalric ideals were not in fact confined to literature, but informed the
manners and conduct of the aristocracy. The courtly lyric was moreover
the symptom of a social activity practised at court (Jackson, 19S8 ;
Stevens, 1961), which was fashioned, to some extent, by feudal concepts.
No theory that putp~ to explain the origin of Courtly Love
can afford to ignore so~cio!ogy.JThe analysis of quantifiable changes in
the structure of mediev~f s~-dety in relation to social institutions and
cultural ideals is a subject which is still in its infancy. Earlier theorists
such as Faurie1, Wechssler and C. S. Lewis concentrated on feudalism
as a static institution, and exaggerated the feudal overtones of Courtly
Love. 6~ Most social theorists would now agree that the new ideology
was formulated by a recently ennobled class, and that social mobility
was therefore important_as a background to the courtly mentality. The
theory that a prepolJ'ef.rn~~f males in the upper classes or, more
specifically, in the court environment contributed to the birth of
Courtly Love is one which deserves more serious consideration.
Moller's research into the sex composition of different European
populations in the twelfth century was inevitably based on unreliable
data, but his findings were at least partially anticipated by Violet Paget
in 1884. It might be worth studying whether a similar correlation
r<:0uld be established between social mobility and the revival of trouba~ur
poetry in late medieval Spain and elsewhere.
It is important to remember that changes in the sex or class composition
of different social groups are mostly the consequence of socioeconomic
factors. An increment in the wealth of the ruling classes in p. _ / I
the south of France during the twelfth century permitted an influx of' /\./1/....
persons into the service of princes and barons. At the same time this
wealth, derived from the development of manufacturing industries,
increasing trade links with the Orient and the illtro.duction of new agri- " I
cultural methods,65 crea~erful bourgeo·· which threatened-/> /lo\} 0.....to
undermine the feudal basi;Drt lC aristocracy. The establishment of
a more stable currency made it gradually possible to replace or
ment payments and services in kind by an exchange of money, thereby
loosening personal ties of dependence and permitting the individual
more freedom of movement. Furthermore the inhabitant of a burgh
9392 The and Meanina Court!! Love
township enjoyed rights, as a member of a community, which were
denied to the feudal vassal, who was bound to render onerous services
in return for protection. A 'feudalisation of love' thus occurred when
feudalism was beginning to decline. The principle of primogeniture,
which was adopted by the aristocracy of the twelfth century as a means
of avoiding the constant subdivision of fiefs, was another socio-economic
factor which indirectly influenced the cultural ideals of the
since it increased the number of unattached landless knights, wl10 were
debarred by prescriptiv(~ custom from stooping to productive labour.
In an age when the feudal contract ceased to exercise the same sense of
moral compulsion over lords and vassals, and when rapid changes in
the structure of society resulted in friction and insecurity, Courtly
_ Love, itself a patron-dient relationship, may have acted to some extent
S'b u ~1..~Ya cohesive force between the ruling elite and those who were
affiliated tn them. The courtly lov,er was, to adapt Veblen's phrase,
'con~u'<%sly subservient', whV~ women of noble birth, having been
endowed with that 'prero{at~e ~Ieisure which is the mark of
gentility', reqUired entertainment.66 It was in the interests of the
princes and magnates to promote the new ideology because it guaranteed
fidelity from their noble subjects and prevented them from stirring
up trouble on their rural estates. Moreover it may, as Kohler suggested,
have served to neutralise the conflict at court between the old hereditary
nobility and the petty nobility of recent origin. These are all
factors which might be studied more carefully. Huizinga noted that
however delusory, are no less important to the cultural historian
than the real but hidden socio-economic force.s which are known in
retrospect to have shaped the course of history. However, like most
theorists of Courtly Love, he underestimated the influence of the latter
upon the former.
The materialistic and utilitarian character of medieval marriage is
one of the few socio-economic factors which has been considered
relevant. 'Any idealization of sexual love, in a society where marriage
is purely utilitarian, must,' according to C. S. Lewis, :_~~eing
an idealizati<:n of adultery' (Lewis, 1936, p. 13). This argume0
__ obvio_ll~lall~ If love was not normally connecte(fWith marriage,
'-~;~--inust conclude that love was extra-conjugal, which is not to say
that it was necessarily adulterous. There is, in any case, a more fundamental
reason for this situation: in the words of Andreas, 'the easy
attainment oflove makes it little prized' (Andreas, trans. Parry, p. 184-).
It may also be observed that conjugal love was not immune from amatory
ideals. There were no doubt some husbands in the Middle Ages
Theories on the rtf Court!! Love
who sought to follow the example of the Franklin in The Frankeh!J'nS
Talc, and shared his opinion that 'Love wol nat been constreyned
maistry' .67 Since, however, the fin amant did not, at least ostensibly,
woo his lady with a view to marriage, it is doubtful whether any
significance can be attached to the practice of hypergamy_
The chief objection to a purely sociological approach is that society
is not the only context within which poetry should be judged; it is
also the product of all intellectual environment, shaped by philosophical
and religious ideas and by literary traditions and influences. The
sociologist tends to be concerned with poetry only in as much as it
reflects certain aspects of society. This theory would nevertheless
appear to be one of the most important theories of origin.
NOTES
For a ~umlll<ll')' of the preSt'lll St.ltt' or scholarship consult Vv'.ltt, Tile IIUlucncc (if Islam.
See also The 1"'80CY oj 1,lom, 2nd ,,<in., ed. Schacht and Bosworth (Oxford, 1974);
Aldobralldino Malwzzi, l.'i.,lomismo I' I" cuiwra europea (Florence, 19,6); Jean Paul
Roux, L'lslam ,'n Occident (Paris: Payot, 19,')); Ynuakinl Moubarac-, Pentaiogie
Is/aroo-Chretiennc (<; \'ols, Beirut: Editions du C<'nacie Ub"n"i., 19 ]1-]3).
2:	 Vicente CanlJdno, Arabic Poetics in the Golden ABC. Selection oj rCHS, accompanied ~1" 0
prcliminacy SIt/c[Y (Ldden: E. J. Fl,·ill. 1975).
, 	 The oldest ext.",1 rajal, date from th" lalt' cic:\'('nth and twelfth centurics. Whether
they weft' dissenlinat('d from Andalusia or whether they occurred spontaneously in
the popular lyric of different countries is uncertain. ~i. Hartmann argued thdt the
mUlloshshai; and zajal originated in cl'rtain metrical forms of Eastern Arabic po('(ry
sur]. as the musamma{ which o<,cur in pre-Islamic and Ahba.il! poetry (Dos Arabischc
Suophcl1acdicl'tc, I, Do;; /Ulm'a~<ab fW'eiJnar, 1897]). St{'rn has demonstrated that these
poetic f()rms \vert? alnlOst certainly inspired by poetry \'vhich \-vas indigenous to
Guido En.nte discovl'red all l'ighth'l'entury inscription in Lat in with the
scheme aaab:
Te
T,' mode~tum
Tu tribulantium
Sis consolat io v('ra
(E''I'"nte, 1948, P' 73.), This poem l,(,ljuires a prelude or refrain to form the rhyme
see Stel'll (1974), PI'. 208-'4·
of the qlljl,· (lines ending in a ('OTlI!llOII I-hyn'le) of the mWI ashsha~l;
it is a unit ... The lin(" of the kharja are in the mouth of. character
other th" pod. In most cases it reprouuced words of women (probablv of
singing girls), of young men. of drunkards, or even of doves cooing in
(Ibn Sana'al.Mulk, in Stern, 1974, p. 126).
, 	 lbn Oawlll! al-I,!ahani al-~ahiri (86&-909), K;,tib al-Zahra, MS Cairo, IV, 160,
analy~ed in Louis Mas.~ignon) La Passion d' al-JlosaIn~jbn-jWan.fOlir al-Hallii}t mar~rr
my'tlque de I'/,Iam (Paris: P. Genthn('r, 1922), I, Pl" 170-9; Nyk!, IJi<pano-J!rabic
Poetry:, 1'.123; Vadet (19(,8). Pl'. 264-316. Massignon translates the litl.. <lS Book ~f
VenuI, which Gihb accepts, wh...-l'a. Nykl, who edit~d the work in 19J2, translates
it as Book oJthe Flower, Ihn Dawud describes his intentions inhis 'J'y ai place