The "courtly love" relationship is modelled on the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege lord. The knight serves his courtly lady (love service) with the same obedience and loyalty which he owes to his liege lord. She is in complete control of the love relationship, while he owes her obedience and submission. The knight's love for the lady inspires him to do great deeds, in order to be worthy of her love or to win her favor. Thus "courtly love" was originally construed as an ennobling force whether or not it was consummated, and even whether or not the lady knew about the knight's love or loved him in return. The "courtly love" relationship typically was not between husband and wife.

C. S Lewis wrote a book about this, called The Allegory of Love. Very random fact, but it would be interesting to read on this topic.

Not random--quite related, actually. *puts it on list of books to read*

I'll probably end up having it in the Arthurian series I'll write, simply because it's the legends of Arthur rather than the actual history, and the legends won't make sense without it. Oh well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

*chuckles* Ok. I know they're bad, but...reading through those rules...I chuckled at a few of them. They're so ridiculous sometimes and so cliche and so obviously clueless as to what REAL love is they're almost comical.


Anywho, re-reading this thread I realized I have the opposite of courtly love in one of my stories. Wives in court are fully expected to at least appear faithful to their husbands. But their husbands generally have open affairs with numerous girlfriends.

One of my more minor characters has a husband like this, and she is extremely cynical and bitter.

Honestly, this system is not all that much different than our own culture. We recoil from it, but people live this today.

Willow pointed me back to this (old) thread in light of my latest blog post and I realized that I'd posted on it. I have no memory of that.

Anyways, I'm poking around for some questions, since my love of knighthood and chivalry is on the line Surely courtly love wasn't the only love around during this time? Surely just as kinghts swore fealty to Christ (and abused that), they could swear fealty to a lady, and have it be just and true and good?

I'm not necessarily trying to play devil's advocate here: courtly love looks a lot like modern love, and I don't doubt it existed. What I'm asking is if there was other, nobler, and truer stuff around also

Andrew

Courtly love sounds much like idolatry

Yes. Based on my reading of the first or second chapter of C.S. Lewis's book The Allegory of Love (one of the first two dealt with the development of "courtly love" and the other with the development of allegory as a literary form, but I can never remember which came first---I highly recommend the book, by the way), it was---at least at its worst---sort of a fusion of idolatry and adultery.

Begun by Eleanor of Aquitaine, the ideal of "courtly love" was one of the defining aspects of the Arthurian legends and much of the medieval writings we have today.

Clearly, the idea of "courtly love" raises several severe theological and moral questions.

How would you portray this ideal? Have you ever written a story modeled on the medieval idea of courtly love? What are the major questions or critiques you have of this "ideal"?