Courtly Love on Valentine's Day

VALENTINE'S DAY just wouldn't be complete for me without a trip into the medieval past to explore the chivalrous act of Courtly Love. The idea even sounds romantic doesn't it? Since I've researched many things medieval, I've found a few ideas to share on the intriguing sometimes odd but always sexy Courtly Love...

Courtly Love started in the courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne and ducal Burgundy, in the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment. A love, both illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent.

 A point of ongoing controversy about Courtly Love is to what extent it was sexual. All courtly love was erotic to some degree and not purely platonic—the troubadours speak of the physical beauty of their ladies and the feelings and desires the ladies arouse in them. However, it is unclear what a poet should do: live a life of perpetual desire channeling his energies to higher ends, or physically consummate. Scholars have seen it both ways.

The truth can be a bit unfortunate as Courtly Love typically was not between husband and wife.  Not because the poets and their audience were inherently immoral, but because it was a chivalrous idealized sort of relationship that usually could not exist within the context of "real life" medieval marriages. In the middle ages, marriages among nobility were typically based on practical and dynastic concerns rather than on love. The idea that a marriage could be based on love was a radical notion (yet not completely unheard of). The audience for romance was perfectly aware of this type of love. The adulterous aspect of Courtly Love was somewhat beside the point-- which was to explore the potential influence of love on human behavior. 

So that's the low down on Courtly Love. As an author, when I  write with a medieval slant, or any romance story for that matter, I want to express the overpowering love between the heroine and hero married or not. So I will continue to write about  the undying love we all crave to see unfold in our stories, courtly or not.


“...My lady,” he at last spoke, “I have conquered demon foe. Aye, and stood the ramparts during the fatalist of sieges, battled yet the worst of my enemies. Nay, never until this day have I loved...” 

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How about you? What do you think about undying love? Do you believe our lives mirror the  love found in our favorite romance books?

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Kaye