Hi Sienna,
Courtly love was one of the side-themes running through my novel, in that the main character, although a knight for several years, had spent so much time as a merchant that he had not found the time to search for a lady to be the object of his courtly love. So throughout my book he reflects on his loss while also hoping to find a lady to give his love and devotion to.

And a question for you regarding courtly love being given to a married woman. What did you think of Gimli's love of Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. She was married...

God bless
Peter

Gimli showed admiration for Galadriel; I don't think it was wrong in context, the way it was shown. So if that is what courtly love was like, and wasn't actual love, but rather admiration for someone, then I think it's okay. It depends what it was like.

Dear Elanor,
Out of curiosity, I went to google and typed "Gimli Galadriel courtly love" and was not surprised to see many results pop-up. It's discussed quite frequently on forums, with convincing examples of why others also see it as courtly love. There is even a song/poem written by a 'troubadour' of his courtly love for Galadriel, which he likens to that of Gimli.

I think Gimli's interest in Galadriel goes way past admiration, he is so struck by her beauty and fairness that he loses his lust for gold, and goes so far as to ask for a token from her (a important component of courtly love), a strand of her hair; and so on.
Regards
Peter

I find your views of courtly love interesting, Peter, though I do not agree with them.

So then what is your opinion, Airi? Please do tell

That's quite a fascinating point. I can definitely see how Gimli's admiration/love of Galadriel could be taken as courtly love. Honestly, it's hard for me to know what to make of that sort of love. Even in Tolkien (who, like Lewis, was entirely human and thus fallible!), I find it hard to see any good in the "courtly love" of a married woman. I don't think it can be a biblical ideal at all. Gimli's love, for example, seems to have replaced one idol (gold) with another (Galadriel).

Hi Sienna,

The medieval culture and mind set was certainly alien to our own. Nevertheless, I must confess that although my novel's (A Knight from Dein) main character spends the entire book seeking a lady to whom he could devote his courtly love, in the sequel (a novel which will never be written...) he was to go through an emotional journey in which he would come to the conclusion that everyone was wrong - there can be love between a man and his wife, and therefore no need or justification for a courtly lover. He was going to give all of his love, including courtly love, to his wife instead.

Regards
Peter

It is interesting to read your thoughts, Peter -- they give me much to ponder over -- though, I do agree with Kaitlyn.

Now see, I could enjoy a book where the idea of courtly love is shown as good, due to the culture, but in the end, a man learns that the way God intended love is the best. *nods * That would be a great character arc and storyline.

But just showing it as a good thing is very dangerous, I think. =)

I could see how that would make a really very fascinating story. Showing the characters' transformations are, after all, what so much of writing is all about! But why do you way that the sequel is a novel which will never be written?

(As a completely random side note, your book showed up as a recommended ebook in an email list I'm subscribed to, which was quite cool. Would you characterize it as a historical or a fantasy story?)

Hi Airianna,

It would depend on how the author presents that information, I believe. If it is only shown as a positive thing through a character's perspective, thoughts and behavior, that would be quite different to the author showing it as a positive thing while describing how it works.

Food for thought.

God bless
Peter

Hi Sienna,

Great to hear my book was in an email list As to how I would characterize my book? I would have to say an epic medieval fantasy. I spent six months heavily researching European medieval history, dress, culture, technology etc, before I started writing the novel. You wouldn't believe how much information is in the 1965 set of Encyclopedia Britannica I have at home! I also bought a bunch of other books. (I did not have internet access at the time I did the research.)

The reason I don't think I'll ever write the (planned) sequel is that it took eight (nonconsecutive) years to write the first book, including the past three years, in which I did a massive rewrite and edit. If I spent eight years on a sequel, no one would remember the first, LOL. (There's also been very little 'return' on the first one, and I find it hard to motivate myself to do something unless there is a quantifiable result in the end.)

God bless
Peter

Thanks for the description! Wow, that does sound like an intense and time-consuming project. You must be extremely persevering! I can't imagine myself working for that long on a story...at least, not considering my current writing habits. But I would say not to discourage yourself even if there's little tangible return. Building any sort of interest online takes forever. I remember the first year on my blog I had 6 followers (half of which were family members) and zero comments. The day I got seven followers and my first comment were incredible! The most important thing is to keep working on what you're passionate about, and who cares about results! (Although I must admit results are very good motivations...) Anyway, let me round off this rather side-tracked post and say that it sounds like you're quite the expert on Medieval Europe; I'll definitely ask you if I need any research/book recommendations in that area!

(Belatedly returning to this thread, after having added it to my "to reply to" pile lo these many months ago ...)


Note that I said "at its worst"; there were undoubtedly people for whom it was the pure, godly sort of love the legends make it out to be. (In fiction, Gimli certainly seems to come fairly close---but whether or not his love for Galadriel borders on idolatry may depend, I think, on your opinion of the Roman Catholic view of the saints; there's also the similarly troublesome case of Dante and Beatrice.)


Mmmm ... Perhaps, with the qualifier you gave, "in its pure form." So at the opposite end of the spectrum from my "at least at worst".


Non-sexual, yes; innocent, not necessarily: that sort of "innocent infatuation" is generally instinctive, while "courtly love" was (when non-adulterous) a deliberate matter of the will.


I agree with your diagnosis of our society. But compare also how society and the church a couple of generations ago viewed dancing.


Looking at the most literal and egregious sense, yes ... but "favors" (tokens, kisses, etc.) were dispensed or withheld, and the lady thought of as a "generous" or a "cruel mistress," depending.



Lewis, I think, makes a good point to this: that "courtly love" is conceived and ordered (or at least can be, and is described in these terms in some extant poems) as a religion, with the lady as or in the place of God or a saint, the knight/lover as the worshiper, the lady's servants as priests and deacons and the like, and the lady's whims treated as divine commands ... making "courtly love" "holy," except for that one small issue (finally acknowledged in the closing stanzas of the poem Lewis is referring to) that only God ought to be worshiped and obeyed in this way.

I said that, at least at its worst, it was "sort of a fusion of idolatry and adultery." You've spoken to the latter half (which is most visible in Renaissance conceptions, like one of the early poems in Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella), but I think the idolatry is the more dangerous part of it.


Yes, this is an important piece of background for understanding the context of the custom.


Lewis attributed that attitude more to the degree to which a man's wife was seen to be vastly his social inferior, while this sort of "love" involved treating the lady as one's near-ultimate superior ... an object of "courtly love" was to receive freely given "favors" from the lady, but given the power a lord had over his wife, there could be no "freely" about it.

And also because they had the idea that one could commit the sin of "adultery in the heart" with his own wife.


Indeed. And this sort of thing is why, at its best, courtly love could be thought of as not only innocuous but virtuous or ennobling: "base" desires like greed and the lust for power could be sublimated into or replaced by a desire to earn the favor of the lady.



(As an aside ... my dad has told me several times about conversations he once had---separately---with two Lutheran seminary professors; one claimed that The Lord of the Rings was a divinely-given manual for spiritual warfare; the other said that it was inspired, just like the Bible, except that unlike the Bible it wasn't literally true.)


If it were a true love and not just infatuation/admiration/desire/etc., seeking the lady's good (and not just her "honor"), it would be .. less dubious, anyway. The real trouble on this front, as I see it, isn't that the lady was married to someone else (or specifically to the knight's lord, which was most common), but that the knight was giving a "love" closely akin to that he ought to give his own wife to someone else.


Like I said, our evaluation of Gimli's relationship to Galadriel depends on what we think of the Roman Catholic idea of adoration or veneration of the saints. But even aside from that, the "one God" of Middle Earth, Illutvar, is never mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, so it could conceivably be argued that Gimli's "conversion" in Lothlorien is essentially symbolic of the change one ought to have after an encounter with God. (That rests on the assumption of a reading of the text that's a lot more allegorical than I'm willing to grant, but it's a lot less speculative than some of the things that came up in the "Finding God in LOTR" thread on the Fantasy side ...)


I'm afraid you're not thinking quite medieval/"alien" enough there ... One of the routine promises in an oath of fealty, dating back (according to the notes in my study Bible) to patriarchal-era Mesopotamia, is for the vassal "to love" his lord.

Part of the reason "courtly love" is such a thorny issue is that without it or the code of chivalry, a knight would have seen his lord's wife as either his inferior or outside the social ladder entirely; it would therefore be very well to see her as a superior and offer her the love, honor, and obedience that the customs of the time demanded he give to anyone above him ... but it's not good to make her the top of a secondary ladder of precedence, in the place that on the main "ladder" is occupied by God, the Pope, or the king.