The Art of Courtly Love, by Andreas Capellanus

I mentioned earlier that I'd bought the book. It's been coming up recently in Chaucer class, so I decided to read it in full.

It's one of those landmark works that anyone writing on love for three hundred years were influenced by it in some way. Nearly every romance that comes after can be read in its general terms. It's a 12th century text, written in Latin for a French court audience that was in the midst of a culture of love. Capellanus describes different features of love at length, nearly always from the perspective of the male lover. Thus far it's interesting.

This text has been brought up in every medieval literature class I have ever taken. Nearly all of them gave out a handout of the same page from the book, one summarizing the laws that Capellanus treats at length. I'll post them here, to give some idea of what "courtly love" could mean.

1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
2. He who is not jealous can not love.
3. No one can be bound by a double love.
4. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
5. That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.
6. Boys do not love until they have reached the age of maturity.
7. When a lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
8. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
9. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
10. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
11. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.
12. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
13. When made public love rarely endures.
14. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
15. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
16. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved, his heart palpitates.
17. A new love puts to flight an old one.
18. Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.
19. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
20. A man in love is always apprehensive.
21. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
22. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
23. He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little.
24. Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
25. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.
26. Love can deny nothing to love.
27. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
28. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
29. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
30. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.
31. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

You can see why it got used in so many love-plots and stories. The rules privilege jealousy, honor secrecy, demand sole adherence, encourage flights of passion (excepting 29), and imply from the start extra-marital affairs. They're different rules for a time where marriage was done for concerns that had nothing to do with love, and love could be sentimentalized without it seeming soft or effeminate.