The Art of Courtly Love
Andreas Capellanus

Capellanus wrote his book at the direction of Countess Marie de Troyes, the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The book portrays life in the Queen’s court between 1170 and 1174. His book is primarily a series of dialogues between various types of lovers, with commentaries on their responses. Although some scholars consider it satire, The Art of Courtly Love provides an insight into the dictates, customs, and processes of courtly love.

Some Rules
I. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
II. He who is not jealous cannot love.
III. No one can be bound by a double love.
IV. It is well known that love is always decreasing or increasing.
V. That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.
VI. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
VII. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
VIII. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
IX. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
X. Love is always a stranger in the house of avarice.
XI. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.
XII. A true lover does not wish to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
XIII. When made public love rarely endures.
XIV. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
XV. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
XVI. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.
XVII. A new love puts to flight an old one.
XVIII. Good character alone makes a man worthy of love.
XIX. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
XX. A man in love is always apprehensive.
XXI. Real jealousy increases the feeling of love.
XXII. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
XXIII. He whom the thought love vexes eats and sleeps very little.
XXIV. Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
XXV. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.
XXVI. Love can deny nothing to love.
XXVII. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
XXVIII. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
XXIX. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
XXX. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.
XXXI. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

Some Comments--Taken Out of Context

A Definition
“Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out love’s precepts in the other’s embrace.”

Characteristics
“From ancient times four distinct stages have been established in love: the first consists in the giving of hope, the second in granting of a kiss, the third in the enjoyment of an embrace, and the fourth culminates in the yielding of the whole person.”

“For when he thinks deeply of his beloved the sight of any other woman seems to his mind rough and rude.”

“But why love, at times, does not use fair weights.”

“The teaching of some people is said to be that there are five means by which it may be acquired: a beautiful figure, excellence of character, extreme readiness of speech, great wealth, and the readiness with which one grants that which is sought. But we hold that love may be acquired only by the first three.”

“We declare and hold as firmly established that love cannot exert its powers between two people who are married to each other. For lovers give each other everything freely, under no compulsion of necessity, but married people are in duty bound to each other’s desires and deny themselves to each other in nothing.”

“It is the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with every feeling of delight. This kind consists in the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it goes so far as the kiss and the embrace and the modest contact with the nude lover, omitting the final solace, for that is not permitted to those who wish to love purely.”

Liberation?
That political liberation from the medieval feudal system in southern Europe was accomplished by myriads of small causes crusades, commercial trade, gunpowder is an old story. Yet there is an ever-new fascination in tracing some of the forces that were strong not merely for that age but for all time. Although C. S. Lewis may have overstated the case in The Allegory of Love, the natural freedom toward which the sexual instinct urges humans is widely held as a foremost politically liberating force. That instinct, expressed through the culture of twelfth-century Provence, particularly in terms of courtly love, played a significant part in the breakup of feudalism. Indeed, one institution of courtly love, the Court or Parliament of Love, had an importance far out of proportion to its time or place. –Robert V. Graybill http://www.illinoismedieval.org/ems/VOL5/5ch7.html

Troubadours
What we find are troubadour poems. The troubadours were not really wandering minstrels but mostly rich young men, using the Provençal langue d'Oc. Circa 1071 is the birth year for the first known troubadour, William IX of Poitiers. [In the north, feudal knights preferred epic poems of chivalry like the Arthurian tales crossing the channel. But trouveres picked up the troubadour tradition, transposed into the langue d'Oil. In Germany they were called minnesingers.] -- Michael Delahoyde