The System of Courtly Love

Front matter

The System

of

Studied as an introduction

Chapter 1

Studied as an Introduction to the "Vita Nuova."

It is well known that Dante employed in the "Vita Nuova" a system of love which had grown up among the poets of France and Italy during the two preceding centuries, and which continued with diminishing reality and vigor to furnish topics for the versifiers of several generations of later imitators. The purpose of the present essay is to set forth the principal articles of this code, together with some indications regarding their origin and development and the modifications wrought in them by the genius of Dante when he transfigured them into the expression of his feeling for Beatrice.

Chapter 2

The carols sung, while dancing at the festivals of May, by the peasant girls of Poitou and Limousin, seem to be the tiny spring from which the great stream of mediaeval lyric poetry flows. These festivals, originally pagan and consecrated to Venus, celebrated the joy of spring's renewal, the gayety of youth, and the glorification of love. Those who did not love, the jealous, and all who might give annoyance to lovers were excluded from the round. Young girls, escaped for the moment from the tutelage of their mothers, and young wives, freed from the authority of their husbands, hastening to the meadow, joined hands in the dance, and sang of liberty and wantonness, railing against the yoke to which they were compelled to submit. The motives of these songs, taken up, expanded, and modified by the court poets, became the themes of the conventional lyrics of the troubadours and their imitators.

Many essential traits, such as the praise of joy, youth, and spring, the abuse of marriage, the vilification of husbands, and the glorifying of love, were developed in the later art-poetry with little alteration, but the fact that these songs were the songs of women and that the art-poetry was written almost exclusively by men led to some very important changes. One of the most notable and far-reaching of these is in the relations of the lovers. These dance songs express the feminine pas- sion. Even the Alba and the Pastourelle originally represented love from the woman's side. In the early narrative poems, too, it is the woman who loves, the man who is absent or indifferent. The Bele Idoine languishes, grows sick and pale, and exclaims:

"My love, it pleases me much to recall your beauty; you are so sweet and frank, courteous and debonair, that never would you do any wrong against me. You have made me love you so much you cannot displease me, nor can my heart withdraw from love of you. Alas, what shall I do? I am in such distress: My love, your great beauty, your good sense, your prowess have stricken me with a dart of love so that it wounds my heart; if you do not cast it out, there is no one who can, for you have driven in both the head and the shaft."

Oriolans complains:

"My love, wicked and evil-speaking ones make you depart too much from me:"

And confesses:

"Asleep I dream that I embrace you."

But in the court poetry proper, although the songs may occasionally come from a lady, we find the female heart as a rule unportrayed. Composed by men, these songs represent their feelings alone. It is they who grieve and suffer, while the object of their affection, proud and untouched, is heedless of their prayers.

The poetry of the troubadours is frankly immoral, and owes its growth to a corrupt condition of society. Marriage among the higher classes was an affair of politics or business, never of the heart, and it became a doctrine that love and matrimony were incompatible. Of course, in practice matters were not so bad, but there is no mistaking the spirit of the literature. The licentious poems of Guillaume, Count of Poitiers, the oldest of the troubadours, who, as his biographer says, "anet lonc temps per le mon per enganar las domnas," were but the reflection of his licentious life, and both the biographies and the poems of Bernart de Ventadorn, Guillaume de Cabestaing, and many others leave no doubt as to the character of their passion. The love songs of the troubadours are, for the most part, addressed by court singers to married ladies of high rank, extolling their beauties, professing most passionate love and devotion, portraying the anguish caused by neglect and delay, and begging in the plainest terms for the alleviation of these sufferings. The physical is dwelt upon, emphasized, and kept in continued prominence, and only after the style had begun to wither do we reach more elevated thoughts and purer ideals; not the sanctified strength of youth, but the tardy repentance of old age.

The conditions just alluded to moulded the primitive elements of the lyric poetry into certain shapes which were fixed by the genius of individual singers. Others imitated and added, until the mode of love became hardened into a set of formal principles, and these were reduced to a code, an art of love, which every courtly lover must learn and practice. Of course, this was a gradual development. At first, we have merely successive troubadours imitating one another until certain ideas became conventionalized, ready made for all new-comers. Under the influence of a group of noble ladies, these conventions grew more fine-spun, and passing to the north of France, they were taken up by Chrétien de Troies, the most original poet of his age, as a basis for endless subtleties and psychological studies of passion. At about the same time, in imitation of Ovid and under the influence of Scholastic methods, the laws of love were systematized and codified, and this code was set forth in many books, the most important of which is the "Roman de la Rose," "où l'art d'amour est tout enclose."

Chapter 3

The general traits of the Provençal love poetry have been adequately set forth in the works of Raynouard, Diez, and Fauriel, but for the purpose of the present investigation, it will be necessary to enter into a more detailed consideration of some points. At the beginning, we shall confine our attention almost exclusively to Bernart de Ventadorn.

From the popular lyrics this poetry retains, among other motives, the everlasting descriptions of spring, the gardens, the flowers, the birds, the joyousness of the season, sometimes in harmony with the happiness of the poet, oftener in contrast with his grief. There is also a sense of the all-absorbing importance of love, as the highest good.

"Truly is every man of mean life who has not his state in joy and who does not direct his heart and his desire toward love."—Bernart de Ventadorn, MW. i. p. 31: Ben es totz hom.

"A man without love-making can be worth no more than an ear of corn without the grain."—Peire d'Alvernhe, id. i. 94: Om ses domneis.

"He is indeed dead who does not feel in his heart some sweet taste of love and what is the use of living without love, except to be an annoyance to the people."—Bernart de Ventadorn, MW. i. 36: Ben es mortz qui.

Such points are characteristic. In fact, there is hardly one of these love-poems which does not exemplify them; but passing them by with this brief mention, our attention must be directed chiefly to the way in which love is represented, its causes, its progress, and its results.

As has already been pointed out, this poetry is the expression of the feelings of men; for although a lady sometimes sends her chanson as a messenger to tame the pride of the most valiant one, or to tell him how she spends the weary nights in sighs and tears, wounded so that no physician can cure her, yet these are lost in the general current, and the poetry of the troubadours portrays only the feelings of the lover, while the loved one remains an adored object, without definite shape or personality, one who receives or rejects the proffered homage, and grants or withholds her love as she might grant or withhold a flower or a jewel.

One of the first points to be noted is the personification of Love, as a being of irresistible power against which it is useless to contend though it seem to drive the victim to hopeless destruction.

At first Love is invariably feminine:

"On account of Love I shall be in contention, for I can no longer keep from it, since she has fixed my affection in a place from which I can never hope for joy; rather she would readily make me hang myself, for by myself I have neither heart nor desire: but I have no power at all that can defend me against love."—Bernart de Ventadorn, MW. i. 38: Ab amor m'er.

"Believe not that I shall withdraw from joy nor leave Love for the injury I am accustomed to have from her, for I have not power thus to take myself away; for Love assails me so that she masters me and makes me love and wish for whomsoever she pleases; and if I love one who ought not to favor me, the force of Love makes me perform vassalage."—B. de V. MW. i. 44: Ja no creaats.

"If I do not sin, I must love her, for Love, who has me in her power, wills it: against her will I do not wish to defend myself, nor contend against her in anything rather must I say that I consider myself rewarded since I do all her will."—Rambaut d'Orange, id. 68: Amar la dei.

Love binds the poet so that he cannot escape:

"And for all that I cannot depart an inch, so Love, which fetters me, holds me captive."—B. de V. Bartsch, Chres. 59, 15.

"Even when I think to free myself, I cannot, for Love holds me."—B. de V. MW. i. 37: Ans quant ieu.

"And what else can I do since Love takes me? And the prison in which she has put me, no key can open but pity, and of pity I find there none at all."—B. de V. MW. i.36: E qu'eu pues als.

He will be his lady's vassal and servant, and do everything, for her honor and benefit:

"I shall always desire her honor and her welfare, and I shall be to her vassal, friend and servant."—B. de V. MW. i. 20: Tos temps volrai.

"Lady, your vassal am I, and I shall be ready in your service: your vassal am I, sworn and engaged, and I shall be yours forever."—B. de V. id. 20: Domna vostr'om sui.

All that Love commands he will do:

"O Love, and whoever is true to you! Do you find a greater fool than I? You will that I shall be a lover and that I shall never find favor: whatever you command me to do, I shall do, for so it is fitting, but you do not well always to make me suffer."—B. de V. id. 37: Amors e que us es veiayre.

But sometimes Love forgets the lover:

"I alas! whom Love forgets, for I am out of the right path, I should have my portion of joy."—B. de V. id. 21: Ieu las! cui Amors.

The poet even abuses the goddess:

"Love, I indeed pray to you to my injury, for I can have no benefit from it; I will never flatter nor fear you, for then I should lose you; truly he is a fool who trusts you: for with your lovely mien you have drawn me without challenge."—B. de V. MW. i. 30: Amors, be us prec.

But the lover is invariably penitent for his revolt, submits to all suffering, and acknowledges that the ills of love are better than all other good things:

"Of such sweet semblance is the ill, that my ill is worth more than any other good thing; since the ill seems so good to me, good will be the weal after the pain."—B. de V. id. 37: Tan es lo mals.

The cause of love is the beauty of the lady, together often, with her good sense, courtesy, and kindness:

"I do not wonder that love of her holds me prisoner, for a more tender body I do not believe is to be seen in the world; beautiful is she, and white and fresh and gay and soft, and in every way just as I wish and desire; I cannot speak ill of her, for there is none."—B. de V. id. 20: Nom meravilh.

"Beautiful lady, your refined person and your beautiful eyes have conquered me, and your sweet glance and your clear complexion and your beautiful smiling mouth: and when I consider well, I do not find your equal in beauty: you are the most refined that one can choose in the world, or I do not see clearly with the eyes with which I look on you."—B. de V. MW. 17: Belha dompna.

"Never did any man bear such fearful anguish as I for her; but light is the burden when I consider her gentle blessed person, and the refined speech with which she sweetly attracted me, and her beautiful eyes, and her fresh color; very delicately did beauty seat itself in her; the more I regard her, the more beautiful I see her grow: God save me, for I never loved anything so much."—B. de V. id. 39: Anc mais nulhs hom.

Entering the eyes, this beauty penetrates to the heart and dwells there, a continual incentive to renewed desire. Chrétien de Troies, from such hints as are contained in the illustrations that follow, developed a formal doctrine on this subject, which became an essential element in the later philosophy of love. In the early poets we find the materials for the doctrine, not the doctrine itself:

"So sweet and tender to me is the sight of her and the joy which is seated in my heart, that the good hope which I have now puts forth buds, wherefore I am enriched."—P. d'Alvernhe, id. p. 94: Tan m'es dos.

"Through the mouth you put into my heart a sweet kiss of fine heartfelt love, which puts joy there and casts out mortal anguish."—B. de V. id. 20: Per la boca.

"This love struck me so tenderly to the heart with sweetness, a hundred times a day I die with pain, and with joy revive another hundred."—B. de V. id. 37: Aquest amors.

Sometimes the passion is conceived as a flame:

"Never a word of it did I know until within me was the flame which burns me more strongly than fire in a furnace."—B. de V. id. 20: Anc no saup mot.

The effects of love are at first suffering, sickness, almost death:

"For you are whiter than ivory, wherefore no other do I adore: if shortly I have not aid, so that my good lady should love me, by the head of Saint Gregory, I shall die, if she does not kiss me in her room or under the branches."—G. de Poitiers, id. 2: Que plus etz blanca.

"For you all my body aches and I cannot find medicine for it."—J. Rudel; id. 63: Monaci, p. 14: Per vos totz lo cors.

"Indeed the sighs would have killed me."—B. de V. id. 38: Be m'agran mort.

"For I know well that for love I shall die."—B. de V. id. 41: Quar ieu sai ben.

"I bear such pain of love that to Tristan, the lover, there did not come so much suffering, for Iseut the blond."—B. de V. it'. 24: Tan trac pena.

"Great pain, suffering and injury I have had and still have from it."—B. de V. id. 13: Pena, dolor e dan.

"To live is grievous to me, nor does death please me."—Rambaut d'Orange, id. 68: Viure m'es greu.

"Indeed, in such wise have I been wounded by this love which now refreshes me, that no physician of Provence could make or give me healing, nor medicine that should make me joyous; nor shall there ever be a man who may describe the grievous ill that I hide within my heart."—Rambaut d'Orange, id. 80: Be m'a nafrat.

Weeping is good for lovers:

"If it is not agonizing, one good fit of weeping is of more weight in love than forty smiles. When on my knees I beg favor of my lady, she finds fault and throws objections in the way: and the water runs down my face, and she gives me a loving glance, and I kiss her mouth and both her eyes, then it seems to me a joy of Paradise."—B. de V. id. 18: Mais val d'amor.

Lovers cannot rest:

"All night I twist and toss from side to side of the bed."—B. de V. id. 24: Tota nuit me vir.

"Alas! my body neither sleeps, nor rests, nor can remain in one place, nor can I endure it, if the pain is not alleviated."—B. de V. id. 38: Las! mos cors no dorm.

"Alas! how I die of desire, so that I cannot sleep morning or evening, for at night, when I go to repose, the nightingale sings and cries: and I, who used to sing, die with envy and heaviness when I see joy or happiness."—B. de V. id. 29: Ailas! cum muer.

"Well do I know at night, when I undress for bed, that I shall not sleep a wink; I lose sleep, for I take it from myself, lady, when I recall you. For wherever one has his treasure, there does he wish to keep his heart."—B. de V. id. 19: Ben sai la nueg.

In absence, her image is always present, and the heart or spirit is often sent to commune with her at a distance:

"Lady, if my eyes see you not, you may truly know that my heart sees you."—B. de V. id. 19: Domna, si no us vezon.

"When sleeping under the coverlet, my spirit is there with her."—J. Rudel, Monaci, p. 16: Et en dormen.

"Those who think that I am here do not know how my spirit is private and at home in her, even if the body is distant: know, the best messenger that I have from her is my thought, which recalls to me her beautiful appearance."—B. de V. MW. i. 22: Sels qui cuion.

His passion plunges the lover into endless contradictions, foolishness, and even madness:

"Little loves he that does not grow foolish."—B. de V. id. 18: E pauc ama.

"She who takes from me sense and knowledge."—B. de V. id. 45: Silh que me tolc.

"My heart is so full of joy that all nature is turned about. The frost seems to me white, red, and blue flowers. … In my heart I have so much love, joy, and sweetness that winter seems to me blossoming and the snow verdure."—B. de V. id. 35: Tant ai mon cor.

The force of the lady's influence extends even to others:

"Through her joy can the sick grow well, and through her anger the healthy die, and the wise man grow foolish, and the handsome man change his beauty, and the most courteous grow ill-bred, and the roughest become courtly."—G. de Poitiers, id. 1: Per son joy.

In the presence of the lady the lover trembles, grows pale, and loses control over himself:

"When I see her, it seems to me that in my eyes, my face, my color, all together, I tremble with fear, as does a leaf in the wind: I have not sense enough for a child, I am so overcome by love: and to a man who is thus conquered might a lady have great charity."—B. de. V. MW. i. 36; Quant icu la vey.

Fear keeps him from showing his love and asking for hers:

"I wonder how I can endure that I should not show her my longing: when I see my lady and gaze upon her, her beautiful eyes so well befit her, I scarcely restrain myself from rushing toward her: I should do so, if it were not for fear."—B. de V. id. 12: Meravilh me cum puesc.

"I love my lady so much and hold her so dear, and I so fear her and adore her, that I dare not pray to her for myself, nor say anything to her nor demand of her anything."—B. de V. id. 12: Tant am mi dons.

"I am desirous of such a lady that I dare not tell her my longing, but when I gaze upon her beauty I am entirely lost; and shall I ever have so much boldness as to dare ask her to keep me for her own, when I dare not ask her for pity?"—Rudel, Monaci, p. 18: De tal dompna.

To this fear of the loved one is added the fear of detection by others. The lady is always addressed by an assumed name (Bels Vezers, Tort n'Avetz, etc.). There is a continual abuse of tale-bearers (lausengiers) and a strong desire for secrecy:

"O God! how good would be the love of two lovers, if it could be that never should one of those envious ones know of their affection."—B. de V. MW. i. 28: Ai dieus!

"To the hard, cruel, tormenting tale-bearers, envious, low-bred, evil-speakers, I shall recite a poem that I have thought."—Rambaut d'Orange, id. 75: Als durs, crus, cozens.

"But if it should please her that she should do me some benefit, I should swear to her, by herself and by my faith, that the benefit which she might do me would not be disclosed by me."—B. de V. id. 15: Mas s'a lieys plazia.

There is a curious blending of gallantry and religion, which to many would now seem blasphemous:

"My lady smiles upon me so sweetly that it seems to me the beautiful smile of God: and her smile makes me more joyous than if four hundred angels who wished to make me happy should smile on me."—Ramb. d'Orange, id. 67: Mi dons ri.

Often, indeed, the poet worships the object of his love:

"Hands joined, head bowed, I give and commend myself to you."—B. de V. id. 41: Mas juntas, ab cap cle.

"Lady, towards your love I join hands and adore."— B. de V. id. 25: Domna vas vostre amor.

There is constantly recurring expression of entire devotion to the lady, perfect submission to her will, and absolute faithfulness:

"Nothing else do I love or fear, nor shall anything ever be a grief to me, if only it may please my lady."—B. de V. id. 34: Re mais non am.

"Body and heart and knowledge and sense and force and power have I put in this: the rein draws me so toward love that in no other direction do I attend."—B. de V. id. 36: Cors e cor e saber.

"In her pleasure may it be, for I am at her mercy: if it please her to kill me, I do not complain of it at all."—B. de V. id. 15: En son plazer.

"I never saw any lover who loved better without deception."—B. de V. id. 13: Anc no vi.

"Since we were both children, I have loved her, and I praise her, and my love continues to double every day of the year: and if she does not show me love and favor before, when she shall be old I shall ask her to have good will to me."—B. de V. id. 13: Pus forn amdui.

"And if one dies of well loving, I shall die of it, for in my heart I bear her a love so fine and complete, that all the most loyal lovers are false in comparison with me."—B. de V. id. 19: E si hom per ben.

"Good lady, I demand nothing more of you than that you should take me for a servant, for I will serve you as one serves a good master, whatever be my reward: behold me at your command, frank, humble in heart, gay and courteous. Bear or lion you are not that you should kill me if I give myself to you."—B. de V. id. 37: Bona domna.

"And you are my first joy, and you will be the last, however long my life shall endure."—B. de V. id. 21: E vos etu.

Nothing is of value in comparison with this love:

"All the gold in the world and all the silver, I would have given if I had it, only that my lady might know how tenderly I love her."—B. de V. id. 37: Tot l'aur del mon.

"And it pleases ine more to live despairing than that I should be loved by another."—Ramb. d'Orange, id. 68: E platz mi mais.

This devotion ennobles him who pays it. The lover becomes courteous, generous, brave, possessed of all virtues. If a warrior, he fights with greater courage; if a singer, his songs surpass all others:

"My lady would fulfil all my desires if she only granted me one kiss; for it I would make war on my neighbors, and I would be generous in giving, and I would make myself thanked and feared, and I would hold my own and adorn it."—Cercalmont, Bartsch Chres. 49, 1.

"Good love has one quality in common with good gold when it is fine, for whoever serves nobly becomes purified in goodness."—Peire d'Alvernhe, id. 79, 27.

"Singing can be of no worth if the song does not come from the heart, and song cannot move from the heart if fine, heartfelt love is not there; for this reason is my singing the best; for in joy of love I have and keep my mouth and eyes and heart and mind."—B. de V. MW. i. 33: Chantars no pot.

"It is no wonder if I sing better than any other singer; for my heart is more drawn toward love and I am more completely at her command."—B. de V. id. 36: Non es meravelha.

The lady's influence benefits all who approach her:

"My Bels Vezers, by you God does such wonders that one does not see you without becoming heir to the agreeable things you know how to say and do."—B. de V. id. 21: Mos Bels Vezers, per vos.

Notwithstanding all these fine thoughts, these poets do not long merely for the ideal. They beg for pity, call the lady proud and merciless, and waste their spirits in complaining:

"My lady who does not deign to hear me, and holds my heart so that I cannot attend elsewhere."—Ramb. d'Orange, id. 68: Ma domna que no.

"Lady, what do you think to do to me who love you so? Why do you make me suffer so and die of desire?"—B. de V. id. 22: Dona, que cuidatz.

"Mercy is truly lost, and I never knew it, for she who ought most to have it, has none at all; where then shall I seek it?"—B. de V. id. 33: Merces es perduda.

"Great trouble it is, and great annoyance always to cry for mercy; but Love, which is fastened within me, cannot cover or conceal herself."—B. de V. id. 38: Grans enueitz es.

This passion has its end in the full, though secret and unlawful, gratification of every desire, and this the poets beg for in the most outspoken and unambiguous terms, which contrast strangely with the artificial exaggeration of the other conceits:

"She should not have toward me a cruel or savage heart, nor believe against me evil counsel, for I am her liegeman, wherever I am, so that from the best of me I pledge her my faith; with hands joined I come to her will; and I will never move from her feet till she in mercy places me where she undresses."—B. de V. MW. 1, 45: Ja no m'aia. See also Monaci's Rudel, p. 14.

It will be observed that most of these citations are from Bernart de Ventadorn, he being the most prolific and influential of the early troubadours. Written before the crust of convention had hardened over the lyric art of Provence, his songs in spite of the traditional elements they contain, are the expression of natural passion. There is nothing in them that a lover might not feel. The power of love ruling over life, the pains, the complaints, the dreams of his lady's beauty, the fear of her displeasure, the submission to her will, the magnifying of her worth, the ennobling influence of her personality,—these ideas have an enduring basis in the human heart. The exaltation of his lady and the humiliation of himself would naturally be exaggerated by the circumstance that he, a poor singer, was addressing Eleanore, Countess of Aquitaine and Queen first of France and then of England. But from this time forward, the poems of the troubadours grew more artificial. Always imitating the songs of his predecessors, each lover was obliged to pass through the same emotional experience. Good form forbade the omission of a single element. The same ideas recur in the same order All the songs grow alike. Each new one is but a wearisome repetition of those which have gone before, and the originality of the singers is spent upon the invention of increasingly exaggerated conceits to express the intensity of their passion and the completeness of their devotion—an intensity and a completeness which can hardly be thought to hold the mirror up to nature.

This exaggeration makes its first notable appearance in the songs of Peire Rogier. The refinement of manners, the respect paid to woman, the theory of the ennobling power of love, and the expansion of this love into a science and a code, developed under the influence of a group of high-born ladies, quoted by André le Chapelain as judges in the Courts of Love, among whom the most influential seem to have been Eleanore of Poitiers, her daughter Marie de Champagne, and Ermengarde de Narbonne. Eleanore was the patroness of Bernart de Ventadorn and the inspiration of his songs; Marie moulded the spirit of Chrétien de Troies, and at the court of Ermengarde, Peire Rogier spent the most active years of his literary career. This high-minded countess, who presided over her own courts of law and led her army to battle, willingly received the homage of the poet, but kept him at a distance and never allowed him to overstep the limits of propriety. His songs, therefore, breathe respectful devotion, rather than earnest passion, and his profession of love, based upon earlier models and following the development already marked out, becomes artificial and intellectual, a play of fancy, an exaggeration of dimly felt sentiments, an exercise of courtly compliment.