The Discourse of Courtly Love in Medieval Verse Narratives

Definition

This encyclopedic entry explores the vast field of courtly love poetry, romance, and other related genres, tracing the development of this topic across medieval Europe and discussing some of the major contributors. The focus rests on the element of discourse because so many different poets have made their voices heard and debated from many different perspectives the meaning, impact, and consequence of courtly love on the individual in ethical, social, moral, religious, economic, and even political terms. Courtly love is to be understood as a literary discourse on the mostly esoteric pursuit of love as a way of life for members of the high medieval aristocracy, finding vivid expression in poetry, short verse narratives, and romances.

1. Introduction

One of the most important aspects of medieval society, at least since the high Middle Ages, was the early foundation and subsequent development of the discourse of love, a highly complex, often contradictory, multivocal, and exploratory literary phenomenon. Marriage was, of course, critically important in legal and moral terms, as the Church argued consistently, and most families of all social classes were keen on marrying off their children honorably and having legitimate heirs. But the rise of courtly culture in the Provence, southern France, in the early twelfth century, primarily promoted by the so-called troubadour poets (the female counterparts were the troubairitz), was essentially predicated on the pursuit of a love relationship outside of the bonds of marriage. There are many possible reasons for the emergence of this phenomenon, but we can be certain that there was a new sense of playfulness within courtly society that had discovered the enormous impact of emotions and hence the role of eroticism in interhuman relations. Love was, as poets consistently argued, a critical tool to motivate the people involved to improve their character, to impress the beloved, and to stand out as a person of elevated character. We can thus define courtly love as a narrative, musical, performative, and ritualistic medium within secular aristocratic society to explore the relationship between the genders in erotic terms and to make the male character a wooer who does not necessarily achieve his desires but is strongly encouraged to grow into an honorable and attractive individual, a mature member of the courtly world. The danger of rejection itself emerges hence as the motivational engine for the poet/singer/character to intensify his efforts and to explore the meaning of the erotic for himself and society at large. At times, female poets argued along the same lines, although they normally insisted more on the ideals of loyalty and personal commitment (for a concise overview, see [1]) [2]. Early troubadour poetry, such as by Count William IX (Guillaume le Neuf), however, still tended somewhat to play deftly with sexual allusions and commodified women by means of the horse metaphor, for instance. The same applied to contemporary love poetry in Latin, which often implied that men were supposed to have control over women and use them to their advantage (see the Carmina Burana, discussed below). In many ways, the practice or performance of courtly love served significantly to promote a range of fundamental concepts, such as communication, compromise, commitment, and compassion.

Older scholarship had tried hard to correlate the topic of courtly love with the emergence of feudalism and vassality (Erich Köhler), as if the admired lady was simply a metonym of the feudal lord under whom the young knight had to submit. This social–economic theory proved to be highly attractive for quite some time, but it has ultimately failed to be accepted by recent researchers [3,4], especially because it profoundly ignores the emotional dimensions that became dominant factors in courtly culture. Many other aspects have been considered concerning the emergence of courtly love, including increased religiosity, the worship of the Virgin Mary, intercultural contacts with the Islamic world (Arabic poetry in the Iberian Peninsula or in the Holy Land), or the rediscovery of ancient folk culture (see Marie de France). The impact of classical Latin poetry on secular society must also not be ignored. But, the most important external issues were the improved climatic, economic, and political conditions, which facilitated the emergence of a more leisure-oriented courtly society and hence the “rediscovery” of women as objects of desire [5]. This “rediscovery” went hand in hand with the revival of classical learning and poetry, especially by Ovid and other Roman poets. Clerics and secular aristocrats were hence deeply involved in tandem or in competition with each other in recreating the ancient discourse on love for their own erotic and ethical concerns. As much as this poetry, soon popular across medieval Europe, seemed to be nothing but a playful mode of literary expression, it actually represented a central concern for elite society at large. In the late Middle Ages, a growing number of urban poets imitated those types of songs or developed them further, which were commonly collected in large volumes.

The term “courtly love” was used only once in a poem by the troubadour poet Peire d’Alvernhe, who talked about it in one of his poems, using the expression “cortez amors.” The more common term was the Provençal “fin’amor” (“fine love”), whereas the contemporary German poets talked about “minne,” all of which cannot be simply translated into “love.” Instead, courtly love involved a highly complex system of wooing for love, the development of a specific character, making the male lover worthy for his courtly lady, and involving the practice of musical performance, dance, and writing poetry. We could thus state that courtly love brought about the transformation of traditional knighthood into chivalry as a social institution. Gaston Paris was the first to label this phenomenon “courtly love” in an article he published in 1883, and research has invested much energy and resources into the further exploration of this topic ever since. Both the historical phenomenon itself and the rich history of research have already been discussed in countless monographs, articles, and entries in encyclopedias (Lexikon des Mittelalters, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Handbook of Medieval Culture, Wikipedia, etc.). The goal here does not consist of uncovering new aspects or a better explanation for the rise of this almost revolutionary culture or to develop an exhaustive bibliography of the relevant academic literature. Instead, the purpose is to summarize the major features of courtly love, to highlight the major literary genres used then, and to explore the various issues addressed. Considering the vast number of courtly love poets and love poems from across Europe, we cannot expect to achieve comprehensive and exhaustive coverage of this topic. Here, I will prioritize medieval German literature, but I extend my reflections to as many other literary traditions as possible.

In many ways, the classical ideals of ethical and moral mores were first adapted by the German imperial bishops in the tenth and eleventh centuries and then copied by French courtiers, who in turn deeply influenced their contemporaries in the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Flanders, and also England. In many ways, we could thus identify “courtly love” not simply as the experience of erotic attraction but as an entirely new lifestyle and culture [6,7]. Historians have also pointed out that due to the various Crusades (from 1096 to 1291), a growing number of knights were absent from Europe, either dying during their military campaigns or simply staying behind in the Latin Kingdoms in the Holy Land, where they assumed administrative, military, or political positions. This thus led to the rise of a whole generation of mighty aristocratic ladies who were then wooed by other men, which could have brought about the development of courtly love as a discourse [8]. Concomitantly, many theologians and philosophers during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries debated the fundamental question of human sinfulness pertaining to sexuality and highly problematized it in their treatises (Peter Abelard, Peter Lombard, Huggucio of Paris, Peter Damian, Anselm of Bec, Robert of Arbrissel, and Bernard of Clairvaux), which, ironically, brought these topics into the center of public discourse, directly spilling over to the secular aristocratic courts.

The Church had struggled hard since the eleventh century to implement the Gregorian Reform, which enforced celibacy for the clergy but gravely problematized people’s basic need to practice sexuality. In short, while the high medieval theologians aimed directly at suppressing the element of the erotic, members of the ruling class (aristocrats) discovered the great attractiveness of the theme of love for a noble lady [8]. It remains unclear, however, to what extent the religious perspective became a catalyst for the secular–erotic culture or vice versa [9,10,11,12,13]. For instance, we should not forget the highly erotic nature of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament, and hence the corresponding reflections on those poems by medieval intellectuals and poets.

2. Gender Relationships in the High Middle Ages in Poetic Terms

Of course, this discourse was dominated by male poets, such as Guillaume IX, Bernart de Ventadorn, Marcabru, Giraut de Bornelh, Bertran de Born, Raimon Vidal, Peirol, Raimon de Miraval, Rigaut de Berbezilh, and Uc de Penabut, but women also explored the experience of courtly love, disregarding the value of marriage and emphasizing the experience of emotional bliss free from all social constraints, although the trobairitz tended to emphasize more the ideals of loyalty, honor, and service commitment. It seems most appropriate to identify this discourse, where unrequited love was the central concern, as a form of experiment involving the entire courtly society across Europe. However, we can trace the development of this discourse from southern France to the northern part of that country where the trouvères had picked up the motif since the middle of the century and from there to southern Germany (Minnesänger) in the second half of the twelfth century, such as Der von Kürenberg, Dietmar von Aist, Friedrich von Hausen, Albrecht von Johansdorf, Heinrich von Morungen, Reinmar von Hagenau, and, above all, Walther von der Vogelweide (see below for more details). Subsequently, the concept of courtly love as expressed in courtly love poetry entered the Italian Peninsula, both in the north and the south (Sicily), with the school of poets there being called by the style employed, il dolce stil nuovo. Other cultures and languages imitated those love poems in the course of time [14]. We know the names of hundreds of courtly love poets, including a good handful of female participants from southern France, such as Alamanda de Castelnau, Azalais de Porcairagues, Maria de Ventadorn, Tibors, Castelloza, Garsenda de Proença, Gormonda de Monpeslier, and the Comtessa de Diá [15,16]. We can assume that there were also some Portuguese, Irish, Danish, or Polish women poets, whom future research will have to bring to our attention. Globally, of course, all courtly love discourse concerned the many different relationships between men and women (homosexuality was certainly present as well, but severely repressed by the authorities). In a not small number of cases, troubadour poets created poetic riddles (nonsense poetry) or hermetic compositions (trobar car, by Arnaut Daniel). And at times we also detect obscene elements (William IX), depending on modern perceptions and value system determining our interpretive strategies.

Strangely, however, specific female voices then seem to disappear until the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when we encounter a number of German female poets who composed their songs in very similar thematic terms, pursuing the topic of love through a woman’s perspective. Because most of those poems have come down to us anonymously, the final judgment regarding the poets’ gender remains somewhat open, but we know the names of the collectors, such as Kathryn von Bronchorst und Batenborch, Ottilia Fenchlerin, and Clara Hätzlerin [17].

In courtly love poetry, we normally hear of the concrete physical contact only in two genres, the dawn song (alba, tageliet) and the pastourelle. In the first, the two lovers wake up early in the morning because birds or the nightguard alert them. They have spent the night together in erotic embrace and now lament the need for him to depart so that they can keep their relationship a secret. In the pastourelle, a clerk, a knight, or another high-ranking male comes across a peasant woman (shepherdess) and tries to rape her. Sometimes he is successful, and sometimes she is strong enough to chase him away, mocking him in his personal failure [18].

3. The Courtly Romance and Courtly Love

3.1. Hartmann von Aue and Others

Parallel to the emergence of this genre, poets turned to the courtly romance, primarily first developed by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who adopted the ideal of King Arthur and the Round Table from his Celtic sources, the chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth (De gestis Britonum or Historia Regum Britanniae) and the poet Wace (Roman de Brut). His romances, especially his Erec and Yvain, but then also his Grail romance Perceval (ca. 1160–1190), deeply influenced Dutch and then also German poets. Heinrich von Veldeke (fl. ca. 1160–1180), who originated from the Limbourg region (today Belgium), rendered the Old French Roman d'Enéas (ca. 1170) into Middle High German, his Eneit, which retells the story of the founding of Rome by the Trojan Aeneas, which had been originally composed by the Roman poet Virgil (Aeneid, ca. 29–19 B.C.E.). The conquest and settlement go hand in hand with the love relationship between Enéas and Lavinia, the daughter of the local king. Other Middle Dutch romances dealt with the King Arthur material and the historical account of Charlemagne. The Swabian Hartmann von Aue “translated” or adopted the first two of Chrétien’s romances when he created his Middle High German versions Erec and Iwein (ca. 1180 and 1190), and the Bavarian Wolfram von Eschenbach relied heavily on the latter when he composed his Parzival (ca. 1205). At the same time, the Anglo-Norman poet Marie de France wrote her famous lais, short verse narratives focusing on problematic and challenging love relationships, some of which prove to have a happy outcome (marriage), whereas others end tragically (she is also highly respected for her didactic, ethical, and moral fables). The most famous Middle English romance, the alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1381), incorporates erotic elements as well when the wife of Duke Bertilak/Bercilak unsuccessfully attempts to seduce the protagonist, but she fails because Gawain is primarily concerned with his honor and hence his task to submit to the Green Knight in a horrifying decapitation “game”.

Most famously, the Alsatian-German poet Gottfried von Strassburg, drawing from the French source of Thomas of Bretagne, created his version of Tristan (ca. 1210), which exerted a huge influence in posterity, but it also had to compete with his predecessor, Eilhart von Oberg’s Tristrant (ca. 1170/80), which later became the source for the prose version under that title, first printed in Augsburg in 1494 and 1498. That one was reprinted nine more times in the sixteenth century [19]. When we turn to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we come across a large number of other poets and their romances, some of which pursue quite different perspectives, whereas others follow more conservatively the “classical” model of the Arthurian romance. More on Gottfried below.

However, we have to differentiate even further when we consider the major examples mentioned above. The topic of love does not necessarily dominate every narrative. In the works by Chrétien, Hartmann, or Wolfram, for instance, the critical issue pertains to the protagonist’s performance in public, i.e., as a knight who has to face adventures and overcome enemies in order to triumph over outside dangers. Both Erec and Iwein, either in Old French or in Middle High German, begin with a love story, which quickly culminates in marriage. However, the real issue consists of the question of how the male protagonist can or should perform within society and how to balance his public tasks with private concerns. Erec, for instance, proves to be too uxorious, which causes the members of his court to lament and complain about their king, who has failed to pay attention to the requirements of courtly society and knighthood [20]. Indeed, he spends virtually all of his time in bed with his newlywed wife until he finally learns from Enite, who quietly expresses her concerns about her husband’s failure, not knowing that he was listening, what the other courtiers are saying about him. Erec then immediately jumps into action, arms himself, and departs secretly to resume his traditional role as a knight and defender of the weak and poor. Repeatedly, he faces severe dangers, but because his wife alerts him in time, he wins his fights against robber knights, giants, and a mighty dwarf.

Yet, he severely reprimands his wife for having transgressed his strict order to keep quiet in his presence, and he punishes her constantly and unfairly more heavily each time she warns him of imminent danger, which has disturbed many readers throughout time, and especially today. Enite demurs, yet she continues to inform him because, in his armor, he cannot see what threats they encounter. Tragically, she suffers badly, including from other knights who want to win her as their bride. One of them, who has taken her and the “corpse” of her husband to his castle, begins to beat her badly because she refuses to submit to his wishes. In her desperation, she screams so loudly that Erec wakes up from his coma, rushes to her defense, kills the count, and escapes together with her. Only then does he turn to her and inquire into what happened to him, dismissing his own order that she not speak. In fact, Erec learns and accepts that his wife has been his critical partner without whom he might not be able to survive. Out of the severe rejection of the woman (misogyny) arises the realization that the wife is the husband’s equal companion, which thus solves the fundamental conflict. Erec then faces one more major joust, and by defeating his gigantic opponent, he can free society at large from its severe decline, reconstituting the court’s joy predicated on love between the genders and a good balance of private and public values and concerns [21,22].

In Iwein, we encounter a similar situation, except it is the reverse. The protagonist defeats and kills an opponent and manages to marry the widow, Laudine. Then, however, warned by his friends, Iwein requests a year of leave from their married life to carry out knightly accomplishments. At the end, he forgets about the deadline to return to his wife, who then repels him, ending their marriage, which drives Iwein into insanity. After he has recovered, he strives hard to overcome his personal failures, helps many people in need, and can thus, with greatest difficulties, convince Laudine to accept him after all. Again, personal and public challenges are overcome after extensive struggles, and as much as this and the other courtly romance incorporate an intensive discussion of courtly love, the central concern consists of the protagonist’s efforts to learn his proper ways in society, balancing his subjective desires with social expectations. This applies to countless other medieval romances in the various European languages adapting and modifying the basic narrative model.

3.2. Wolfram von Eschenbach

We face a fairly similar and yet once again different approach in Chrétien’s Perceval and/or Wolfram’s Parzival. The plot of the latter romance would be too complex to summarize here, especially because we first learn about the protagonist’s parents and their demise and then are presented with accounts of the vast Grail family and of Arthurian society. Young Parzival is indirectly tasked with growing up and demonstrating his qualifications as the new Grail king, as the old one, Anfortas, had transgressed and suffers from a terrible wound in his groins, which serves as a symbol of the downfall of the entire world. However, Parzival, as a young man, also makes many mistakes and has to learn in the course of time to dismiss traditional courtly teachings and to learn new communicative strategies; this has motivated some scholars to identify Wolfram’s Parzival as an early “Bildungsroman.” He is fortunate enough to be happily married, but he fails tragically to ask a crucial question when he happens to reach the Grail castle, Munsalvaesche. Although he witnesses the king’s suffering, he remembers what a teacher told him, that is, to wait until he himself was asked a question by older and respectable persons before he responded. At that point, everything seems to be lost, and Parzival has to roam the world for years to come.

Parallel to him, his friend Gawan also tries to find the Grail, but he is then pursuing a very difficult love affair and has to suffer badly through many tough situations. Ultimately, he succeeds in achieving major knightly deeds, freeing hundreds of imprisoned noble ladies from their imprisonment at a sorcerer’s castle, and he meets the demands of his beloved, Orgeluse, who finally grants him her favor. At that point, Gawan and Parzival meet at King Arthur’s court, which leads to a joyous encounter. Moreover, Parzival comes across an unknown knight who seems to be superior to him for the first time in his life. The latter turns out to be his half-brother, Feirefiz, and both revel in this glorious situation that brings family members together, which also means a merging of the Eastern with the Western world (of different races and religions). Miraculously, Parzival is then invited back to the Grail, where he can finally ask the long-awaited questions, which heals the king, the Grail itself, and hence aristocratic society at large. Feirefiz is then baptized and marries the Grail maid, Repanse de Schoye, and moves back home to his Asian kingdom, where they both spread Christianity. Parzival is so fortunate that his wife, Cunneware, and their two sons come to see him, so the family is reunited, and happiness can return to the world. Marital love certainly permeates the entire romance, but the central concern pertains to the individual’s social, ethical, moral, and religious responsibilities. While Gawan can reconstitute the ideal foundations of the Arthurian world, Parzival is predestined to achieve the same for the Grail world. Both Parzival’s father and also his son easily find deeply emotional marriage partners who are firmly committed to the respective knights, but both men cannot stay within their marital bonds and search for larger social and knightly challenges.

While Parzival’s father Gahmuret ultimately failed in that quest, being killed in military service as a result of treason by an unknown, jealous person, his son triumphs for a long time, but he does not live up to his obligations at the Grail castle at first and he is, in the end, virtually defeated by his half-brother when the sword breaks as a sign from God that these two knights are not supposed to fight against each other [23]. In short, Wolfram utilized the framework of the Arthurian romance to touch on many different topics relevant to the courtly world, especially unrequited but also marital love. However, in the long run, we recognize that he really aimed at a narrative exploration of a social, ethical, and mythical utopia as an ideal concept of what courtly society really should look like.

3.3. Gottfried von Strassburg and the Tradition of the Tristan Romances

There were many poets prior to and following Gottfried who wrote their versions of the Tristan story, in which the two lovers, Tristan and Isolde, are bound together, although she is married to Tristan’s uncle, the Cornish King Mark. In fact, we find variants of the same story all over medieval and early modern Europe (see, e.g., https://sites.arizona.edu/aclassen/the-tristan-tree/, accessed on 13 December 2024). Intriguingly, Gottfried’s version, which we could identify as the best of them all, has survived only as a fragment, but this might have been the result of the poet’s own design, because there is no concrete, possible, or meaningful outcome unless we accept the rather maudlin continuations produced following his death. As Gottfried outlined in his story, the two lovers emerge as truly ideal characters who are highly educated, in command of noble hearts, and completely committed to each other. However, Isolde is married to Tristan’s uncle, and the former was actually the one who orchestrated the marriage of Mark with Isolde. He deliberately secured Isolde’s hand in marriage formally for his uncle, but during the sea voyage from Ireland to Cornwall, the two characters drink a love potion brewed by the princess’s mother, Queen Isolde, which binds them together for all of their life. We should not read this scene too literally and ought to accept the love potion as a symbol of the true love that bonds the two young people. In fact, they have no freedom any longer and must do everything in their power to reach out to each other under any circumstances, although all of this ultimately means that they are caught in flagrante by the king, which forces Tristan to leave and to find an alternative in other countries. In fact, he encounters another woman, also called Isolde, who falls in love with him, but he cannot develop the same feelings for her, which leads to a tragic conflict. Gottfried does not develop that further and forces us to reflect on the profound dilemma the two true lovers are subject to. Later poets, such as Heinrich von Freiberg and Ulrich von Türheim, offered their own conclusions, which both lead to the death of the lovers, certainly a highly sentimental and also pedestrian response to the extreme ideal of love as developed by Gottfried [24,25].

Gottfried’s Tristan, much further developed than any of his sources or subsequent imitations and adaptations, highlights many different themes relevant for the advancement of courtly society. The protagonist, for example, is identified from early on as a true artist and musician, as a perfect linguist (polyglot), and then even as an extraordinary knight and fighter, in many ways comparable to the biblical King David, who fought in his youth against Goliath and killed him with a stone propelled from his sling. Young Tristan kills the Irish knight Morold in their ordeal, but he is wounded and poisoned by his opponent. Only the Irish Queen Isolde can heal him because she concocted that poison to be placed on her brother Morold’s sword. Disguising himself as Tantris, the protagonist achieves his goal and recovers from his deadly sickness, and then he teaches the princess music and poetry, with whom he might develop, although the narrative does not say so, a secret love affair. At the same time, having returned home, Tristan realizes that the other courtiers have become so jealous of him that they are ready to kill him. This forces him to return to Ireland and woo for the princess’s hand on behalf of his uncle. By killing a dragon that ravaged the country, he can force the king to hand over his daughter, although she hates him for having killed her uncle, which she discovers by studying his sword and the piece of metal that had been left in Morold’s skull. Nevertheless, the love potion overcomes the negative feelings, so her hatred turns into love, and from then on the two protagonists have to struggle hard to live out their lives in a hostile courtly setting.

Skipping over many different episodes, in the end, the two lovers are expelled from the court and retire to a secret love cave, which provides them with a sort of utopian space where they can live out their love freely and without any constraints [26]. Nevertheless, after having been allowed to return to court because Tristan managed to deceive King Mark once again regarding his allegedly innocent relationship with Princess Isolde, they are caught by him in flagrante, which forces Tristan to leave for good. Isolde, a truly tragic figure, must stay behind and deeply grieves over the loss of her lover, who from then on roams the world, encounters another woman called Isolde, marries her, but never forgets his love for Isolde. It would not be wrong to identify the female protagonist as the true heroine as the one who learns how to embrace courtly love in all of its complexities, consisting of its happiness and sorrow, joy and pain.

4. Courtly Love Poetry

While the authors of courtly romances and short verse narratives combined secular, knightly adventures with the theme of love (see, for instance, the charming, almost playful chantefable, “Aucassin et Nicolette” ca. 1230–1250), the troubadours, trouvères, or Minnesänger elaborated on the theme of love in a highly complex manner, mostly outlining the consequences of unrequited love. As we have seen already above, only in two cases, the genre of the dawn song and the pastourelle, did the medieval courtly poets project either a scene of fulfilled love because the lovers spent the night together or a scene of considerable violence insofar as the male character forces himself upon a rural woman, mostly a female shepherd. In his classical study, Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (1965), A.T. Hatto demonstrated that this type of love song represents an archetypal theme that can be found in poetry across the world, reflecting a universal experience of young unmarried lovers who enjoy the happiness of their time together during the night and painfully feel the sorrow because they have to separate not to be discovered [27].

In two cases, we are, however, confronted with drastically different approaches. One is the Middle High German song “Under the linden” by Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1205), and one is its macaronic parody, “Ich was ein kint so wolgetan,” contained in the Carmina Burana (recorded in the early thirteenth century) [28]. In Walther’s case, the poet successfully projects a female voice who relates, although shamefully, of her happy meeting with her lover under a linden (lime) tree in a dale, hence not in the forest (wild nature) and not in a castle or city (human society). She appeals to the Virgin Mary to protect her and her lover and comments on the fact that people who walked by that site would recognize by their imprint on the bed of flowers and grass where the two had rested and joyfully smile upon realizing that a happy union of two lovers had taken place. Finally, she expresses her great concern that their secret could be divulged in public. She hopes that no one will find out about it and that the nightingale would remain the only witness [29]. The repeated use of the refrain, the onomatopoetic “tandaradei,” signals that she refers to the bird and indicates that it is the code word for her love affair. Of course, the secret is divulged immediately through the poetic performance, but the audience is invited to appreciate the message that true love needs to be a matter of secrecy, which makes the court itself an esoteric company of highly educated and sensitized individuals who empathize with the painful or happy feelings of love.

In the Carmina Burana [30], a large collection of Latin and Middle High German poems (including some plays) recorded in the first half of the thirteenth century but drawn from earlier texts by university professors, students, and poets (goliards), we come across the highly problematic poem “Ich was ein chint so wolgetan” (CB no. 185) [31,32]. It belongs both to the genre of the pastourelle and “woman’s song” insofar as the male lover seduces a country girl or simply a young woman (which is not quite obvious), resorting to violence in that process, and because the poem is presented through the woman’s voice. She describes in moving and rather unsettling terms what happened to her, how he forced her to come along with him to the linden tree, and how he undressed and then slept with her. The woman does not reveal anything about her social status, but she is alone and unprotected, so she can only lament her suffering and curse the linden tree where she was raped. Even though modern vocal groups tend to choose this song and present it in its sentimental, mournful modality, the man’s brutality and sexual abuse are very obvious and ought to have unsettled already contemporary audiences. However, there are other examples in the Carmina Burana that seem rather to suggest that rape was to be condoned (e.g., CB 72). There, the lover rages over her resistance and finally turns to violence to break her opposition, singing delightfully about his triumph.

Scholars have discussed this collection of love songs already for a long time because they regularly demonstrate a high level of poetic skills, whereas the content often proves to be transgressive and violent against women. Moreover, in many poems, we also observe vehement criticism of the role of money, the abuse of power by the Church and the worldly authorities, and also strong encouragements to drink and enjoy life hedonistically. In general, the Carmina Burana constitutes the poetic contributions to the discourse on love from the learned, academic perspective, often drawing from classical mythology and various medieval literary genres, at times combining Latin and Middle High German, and appealing to a highly learned audience even at the risk of resorting to rather problematic, critical, or violent themes and topics.

In the vernacular literature, such as in Middle High German Minnesang or Italian poems in the dolce stil nuovo (e.g., Pier della Vigna, Iacopone da Todi, Guittone d’Arezzo, Guido Cavalcanti, Folgore di San Gimignano, and also the famous Dante Alighieri), the poets dominantly formulated much more woeful images and depicted their protagonists as miserable wooers who could not gain their lady’s love. Late medieval poets, such as Guiraut Riquier de Narbona (ca. 1230–1292), an anthologist of his own works who was considered one of the last troubadour poets), the South-Tyrolean Oswald von Wolkenstein (ca. 1376/1377–1445) or the English poet John Gower (ca. 1330–1408), adapted the traditional genres quite creatively, injecting at times a sense of good humor. Women, however, do not seem to have participated in that poetic discourse since the middle of the twelfth century, or their poems were simply not recorded by male scribes. It is not possible in the current context to discuss individual poets or poems, but we can be certain that this form of love poetry was highly enjoyed, particularly among aristocratic audiences across medieval Europe, including among Jews (Yehudah Halevi, Moshe Ibn Ezra, et al.) and Muslims (Ibn Ḥazm, Ibn Ḥamdīs, etc.), at least in the south and the southwest of Europe.

Many of the poets were minstrels and roamed the lands seeking out the various courts, often influencing each other and competing against each other to secure a prince’s favors and hence monetary rewards. In the world of Galician and Portuguese courtly society, we come across such major poets as King Sancho I of Portugal and King Denis I of Portugal and Nuno Fernández Torneol. In Castile, King Alfonso X el Sabio (the Wise) was famous for his Marian (Cantigas de Santa Maria) and courtly love songs. Other highly reputed poets were Airas Nunes, Joan Zorro, Martin Codax, and Pero Meogo. When we turn to Britain, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, we come across a solid body of relevant love songs, often anonymous and multilingual, but those then often tended to be more balladic and did not quite conform with the models prevalent at Continental courts. In particular, we can refer here to the famous collection of Anglo-Norman poetry in the manuscript Harley 2253 created around 1340. To what extent Arabic lyrics and Mozarabic kharjas influenced the early troubadour poetry (William IX, Jaufre Rudel, Bertran de Born, Marcabru, Folquet de Marselha, and Raimbaut de Vaqueiras) cannot be answered at the current stage. There are numerous thematic and motif similarities, but the linguistic, political, and religious barriers to Arabic and then also Hebrew were rather significant [33].

5. The Learned and Dialectical Approach: Andreas Capellanus and His Treatise on Courtly Love

Since antiquity (Ovid), attempts have been made to reflect on courtly love in theoretical terms. This was also the case in the Middle Ages when the Parisian cleric Andreas Capellanus composed his learned, very complex, and at times even ambivalent or contradictory treatise, De amore (ca. 1180/1190, in Latin), which might be more influenced by satire than we might assume at first sight [34,35]. The author begins very seriously to define love itself, between whom love can flourish, the etymology of the name of “love,” and what persons are qualified to pursue love. Curiously, however, in what becomes an ever stronger tone of voice, Andreas seems to waver, withholds his own final judgment, questions what he has just said, and warns his correspondent, his friend and student Walter, about the intricacies, dialectics, uncertainties, and problems associated with love.

The next section, the bulk of Book One, presents many different dialogues between a man and a woman, each time taking into consideration the individual’s social class and hence the question of what erotic lovers would fit together. But, we notice clearly that the women are not really willing to accept the lover’s wooing and resort to a high level of eloquence to refute him in an intelligent manner. Then, we hear about the opportunities for members of the clergy and for nuns (for both groups, strictly forbidden), about women who demand rich gifts in return for love (to be avoided), the love of peasants, and even prostitutes (pointless and condemnable), which diversifies the perspectives pursued here enormously, leaving the reader rather puzzled about the true intention of the author. As to peasant women, for instance, the narrator has no hesitation to encourage his male readers to ravish a country woman in case her appearance might strike them as attractive. The use of violence could do much good to overcome any resistance, which we would, of course, identify today as toxic masculinity.

The next chapter reflects on the various ways to retain love once it has been granted, but Andreas includes numerous examples that shed rather negative light on this entire phenomenon. However, Andreas then proceeds with a short Arthurian tale that explains how the rules of love came to this world. Those are then listed in detail, emphasizing, for instance, that marriage is no excuse for not loving, that no one can love two persons at the same time, that love requires the age of maturity, that everyone (who?) should be entitled to experience love, that a good character leads to love, that love cannot deny anything to love, and that excessive passion can lead to the end of love. In an earlier section, the Countess of Champagne, having been asked as an authority in matters of love, formulated in a letter 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 duty bound to give in to each other’s desires and deny themselves to each other in nothing” (106–07; end of the seventh dialogue, Knapp, ed., 236, n. 29). And, even long before that, at the end of the fifth dialogue, the God of Love had formulated clear instructions, if not laws, regarding love addressing ethical ideals, such as “Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest” (81) and “In practicing the solaces of love, though shalt not exceed the desires of thy lover” (82).

Yet, when we then turn to the third book, Andreas takes a very negative view of courtly love, condemns love outside of the bonds of marriage, and casts a truly misogynist picture of women at large who cannot be trusted in any way, neither materially nor spiritually. As he states unequivocally, whether he truly means it or not, “God hates, and in both testaments commands the punishment of, those whom he sees engaged in the works of Venus outside the bonds of wedlock or caught in the toils of any sort of passion” (187). Pursuing love would hurt one’s neighbors, undermine friendships, and soil both body and spirit. The experience of love would completely enslave the wooer, who would not be able to think of anything else but his beloved and would follow any command uttered by her. Lovers would lose their wisdom, their health, their ethics, and their social standing, and all of this when women are “miser[s]” (201), wicked, gluttonous, greedy, envious, slanderers, fickle, deceptive, etc. Andreas simply delights in maligning women at large, and he concludes with the clear warning to his student to stay away from the “mandates of love” (212) and to turn his mind to God.

Nevertheless, when we consider Andreas’s prologue, he appears to be rather ambivalent in his intentions, trying to give Walter his best advice on how to proceed in this matter of love. After all, as he admits: “For I know, having learned from experience, that it does not do the man who owes obedience to Venus’s service any good to give careful thought to anything except how he may always be doing something that will entangle him more firmly in his chains” (27). There are many unequivocal indications both here and in the entire first two sections that Andreas approaches his topic very seriously, illustrating where the problems might rest for the unsuccessful lover and pointing out how to improve his chances, how to speak more convincingly, and how to utilize love as a medium for the improvement of one’s character. Scholarship has puzzled a long time over the contradictory nature of this famous treatise, at times having abandoned all hope to disentangle the various messages both in favor and opposed to courtly love (outside of the bonds of marriage).

According to the latest arguments, we can take De amore neither as a direct manual for how to gain love nor as a specific narrative strategy to condemn it outright. Instead, according to our best critical estimation, this treatise serves as a literary medium (a palinode) to explore the dialectics of human love, pitting love relationships outside of marriage against marriage itself, and asking the reader to grasp the discursive nature of this topic with no real end in sight because the values proclaimed by the Church did not coincide with the growth of new concepts of emotions and innovative perspectives toward relationships between genders since the early twelfth century [36].

Yet, both Andreas’s treatise and those by some of his followers, such as the Spaniard Juan Ruiz’s El libro del buen amor (1330 and 1340), explicitly emphasize that the experience of love remains highly evanescent and contradictory, a matter of debate and feelings, a clash of ideals and values, that is, altogether, a phenomenon of much disturbing potential without clear and rational guidance [37].

6. The Allegorizing of Courtly Love

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun

When we turn our attention to the love discourse in the late Middle Ages, we are entering a tangled web of narrative relations, literary strategies, religious, ethical, and moral conflicts, and a growing tension between public and private. Since the mid-thirteenth century, the idea of love as a dream or allegory increasingly appealed to poets and their audiences. Around 1230/1240, the French poet Guillaume de Lorris created one of the most successful allegorical narratives from the entire Middle Ages, his Roman de la rose. The future lover falls asleep and then sees himself wandering through a garden until he reaches a wall circling around a secret space. He faces serious problems trying to enter the eroticized location where his rose is waiting for him, especially because allegorical figures in the wall scare him off. Those symbolize the various human shortcomings and failures, but because the protagonist has fallen in love with the rose, he struggles for long until he finally finds a way into the garden, but the text then breaks off.

While Guillaume addressed an aristocratic audience, his successor, Jean de Meun (fl. ca. 1260–1280), appears to have been of urban origin and also wrote his continuation for an urban readership. The goal remains the same, to achieve love, but Jean includes much satire and reflects on countless subject matters relevant at that time. In the end, the lover intensifies his efforts, which the poet then casts in the imagery of a siege of a castle. With only little effort, we can recognize behind the masks set up in the foreground rather pornographic aspects, especially because the lover can finally conquer the rose and sleep with her, that is, committing yet another rape. Courtly love in all its esoteric qualities was on its way out by the late Middle Ages, as much as poets continued to create songs throughout Europe imitating the earlier models. The same genres enjoyed continuous popularity, but the traditional images were simply copied, and a new discourse focusing much more on the ideal of a happy marriage supplanted the concept of courtly love in the sixteenth century [38]. But, the crowning achievement of courtly love poetry can still be found in that era, when Dante Alighieri completed his world-famous Divina Commedia (ca. 1320), where the pilgrim reaches Paradiso with the help of his beloved, Beatrice.

7. French, Italian, English, Dutch, and Spanish/Portuguese Romances and Poetry

To do justice to our topic, we would have to cover, of course, the wide spectrum of relevant courtly romances in the other major European languages. The lais by Marie de France, composed in Anglo-Norman England, for instance, are today considered to be some of the best examples of short verse narratives. I have mentioned Chrétien de Troyes already, and then we would have to consider the major contributions by a variety of poets in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in English, Italian, etc. The theme of love increasingly gained in sentimentality, as best reflected by the pan-European Floris et Blanscheflour, extant in German, Norwegian, English, Spanish, etc. [39]. To do full justice, we would also have to pay close attention to the poetry written by the early Renaissance poet Petrarch (1304–1374), but all of this would lead us to ever-widening perspectives. For this entry, it suffices to recognize the ongoing discourse of love throughout social, political, economic, and religious contexts that have changed over the course of time.

8. The Waning of the Discourse on Courtly Love

Of course, the annals of late medieval and early modern literature are filled with accounts of various love relationships. We would do a terrible disservice to the great poets, such as Geoffrey Chaucer (d. ca. 1400), Heinrich Kaufringer (fl. ca. 1400), Christine de Pizan (1364–1431), Fernando de Rojas (ca. 1465/73–1541), Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), and even William Shakespeare (1564–1616), if we disregarded the great role love, sexuality, and marriage play in their works. However, their discourse was no longer focused on the strictly courtly dimension and considered much more than before the new social constraints of the urban and the courtly class, involving reflections on violence, cunning, trickery, deception, religious components, and ethical and moral criteria. Erotic poetry either became more formalistic and almost trivial, or it turned to the topic of marital love (Hugo von Montfort, 1357–1423), at times tinged in pornographic images (Oswald von Wolkenstein, 1376/1377–1445). Nevertheless, famous poets such as Charles d' Orléans (1394–1465), who was highly influential both in Middle English and Old French, successfully revived the traditional discourse on courtly love by adding a highly melancholic sentiment.

On the other hand, we observe the strong tendency by late medieval mystical poets, such as Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1207–ca. 1282/1294), Marguerite de Porète (1250–1310), or Hadewijch (late thirteenth century), to employ imagery, motifs, themes, and topics from courtly love poetry to express their religious vision. However, late medieval society underwent dramatic transformations, witnessing the rise of urban centers all over Europe, while the lower aristocracy suffered from economic depression, often being forced to find employment at the courts of the territorial princes or the kings. Naturally, the traditional ideal of courtly love experienced a profound transformation, being increasingly adapted to more urban values, as perhaps best reflected in the verse narratives in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and in the mæren by the Swabian-German poet Heinrich Kaufringer (fl. ca. 1400). The idea of courtly love became, we might say, a matter of leisurely entertainment, a manifestation of literary education and qualification, whereas the critical issues focused increasingly on marital issues, that is, conflicts, tensions, fears, and also delight [40].

All of this does not mean at all that the interest in the topic of love faded away. On the contrary, it has been and will always be one of the central concerns in literature throughout the world and time, although constantly viewed from different lenses and in light of different cultural norms, values, ideals, and ideologies. However, the specific manifestation of courtly love as it emerged in the early twelfth century eventually lost some of its appeal and underwent profound transformations if we think of such literary giants as Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe, who often added specifically joyful or tragic elements. Modern scholarship has been deeply engaged with this topic, viewing it from many different perspectives [41] and emphasizing, for instance, the critical role of ethical ideals supporting the concept of courtly love [42].

Modern readers (students) might not care so much for this huge body of literary texts from the high to the late Middle Ages because it is deeply determined by a highly sophisticated language and artistry (musical performance). But a careful approach, pedagogically well developed, can easily confirm that this poetic discourse on love continues to have a great impact on us today because the issues of interpersonal relationships, communication, and love, i.e., the erotic community or partnership) are with us until the very present and play a central role in our existence all over the word. The challenges of love have not been overcome; each generation needs to come to terms with them anew, and the literary platform makes it possible, particularly when it is determined by its historical framework, to explore this topic like in a laboratory and to learn deeply from the conflicts, desires, needs, and tensions between genders (or between people of the same gender). In this regard, medieval courtly society indeed set the stage for the current Western value system, ethics, and morality, all of them underscoring the notion of love [43,44].