Courtly Love
...known as "courtly love" emerged in medieval Europe. Andreas Capellanus, chaplain to Marie de France and author of the classic The Art of Courtly Love, defined Love as ". . . a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love's precepts in the other's embrace." Lauded by nobility and idolized by troubadours, the ideal of "pure" love (which included strongly self-deprecating behavior and servitude by a man for a distant, unattainable woman) was a driving force throughout the high period of medieval love literature. From 1100 to 1300 (most intensely in the quarter-centuries before and after 1200), the language of lady love prevailed in the courts of England and Europe.
Courtly love was viewed as an art with rules, which rules were articulated in great detail in Andreas Capellanus' work The Art of Courtly Love. Whether this work is satirical or sincere, is debatable, but its popularity (evidenced by the number of translations into vernacular and surviving manuscripts -- 12 -- more than twice as many as those of another much-loved tale of that time, Knight of the Cart, or Lancelot, by Cretien of Troyes) is nevertheless testament to the popularity of this ethos.
Scholars differ as to the origins of courtly love. Some claim this ideal arose out of Moorish influence, as the Arab poets brought their lyrics of lady love to Europe, in the wake of knights returning from conquests in the Holy Land and increasing European trade with the East. Others claim that courtly love was European in origin, citing the influence of Celts, Cathars, and Neo-Platonists. No matter how well they have documented the free intermingling of Christian and Moslem cultures in that time of world trade and literary...
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