During the historical period known as the Low Age Average , which comprises a temporal extension that goes from the 10th to the 14th century, there was the settlement of medieval social spheres. Among these spheres was the aristocracy warrior , expressed, above all, by the formation of the cavalry . From chivalry, courteous behavior was derived. The courts that formed around medieval kings and lords instituted their own rules of social conduct related to the ideals of chivalry. This is the case, for example, of love courteous.
In the medieval courts, the practice of fin' amor developed , or amour fine (that is, “fine love”, noble and pure love), which consisted of the procession practiced by young knights to ladies already married to lords, or nobles, of high social prestige. The lady was idealized by young knights, who wanted a pattern, a model to be followed, which, in turn, was more directly associated with the figure of the lord than with the desire to possess the lady, as the French historian, an expert in Medieval History, Georges Duby:
“Crouched in the lord's court [the young knights] expected his lady to distinguish them with sincere and disinterested love. The ideal of courtly love, made common to great lords and the nouveau riche, thus constituted a means of alleviating the tension between the different strata of the feudal nobility. (...) Pure love (fin'amor) celebrated abstinence, while maintaining a carnal coloring and, therefore, was pleasing to the high nobility. The exaltation, at the same time joyful and chaste, of the desire aroused by the beloved woman took on an almost mystical tone and easily satiated the phantoms of the most modest.” [1]
Therefore, courtly love had the peculiar characteristic of stimulating or suggesting the desire to possess the noble woman, in a love game played between the feudal lord and the young knights. This type of behavior, some historians point out, developed in Occitania, southeastern France, around the twelfth century, but soon spread to other regions, reaching Brittany (today, the United Kingdom).
This type of courtly practice was also related to two conceptions about the union between man and woman that were observed in the Late Middle Ages:on the one hand, there was the utilitarian and pragmatic character of marriage, that it was "negotiated" by the maiden's family; on the other hand, there was the Catholic theological conception of marriage, which speculated both on the sacredness of the union between man and woman and on the sinfulness (or not) of the sexual act. This clash ended up generating several theories about love and also several literary works (stories, legends, poems).
Much of what has been written about love in this period has as its main source the work of the Roman poet Ovid:Ars Amatoria. This is the case, for example, of three authors:Andreas Capellanus, with his book “De Arte Honeste Amandi ”; Chrétien de Troyes, with the famous work “Lancelot ”, and, specifically in the ecclesiastical sphere, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, considered by many the “master of divine love”, with his volumes:De diligendo Deo and Sermons Super Song Conticorum , both with the objective of understanding the extension of the loving feelings between man and woman and, also, of both with God, or in God. These authors are among the main exponents of courtly love.
The literature of Chrétien de Troyes, in particular, is emblematic of courtly love. It was from works such as Lancelot that the main vision we have of this medieval social practice emerged. Lancelot's idealization of Guinevere, turning her into a practically ethereal and divine paradigm of worship, expresses, in summary, the ideal of courtly love:
“The submission that Lancelot shows in his actions is accompanied, on the subjective side, by a feeling that deliberately imitates religious devotion. Although his love is by no means suprasensory and is, in practice, carnally rewarded in this very poem, he is represented as treating Guinevere with the honors of a saint, if not divinity. When he comes close to the bed she is lying on, he kneels down and worships her. Chrétien explicitly admits that there is no sacrosanct in whom he devoted the most faith. When he leaves her room, he makes a genoflex, as if he is standing before a shrine.” [2]
Another equally emblematic work on this subject is the Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose), by Guillaume de Lorris, 13th century.
NOTES:
[1] DUBY, Georges (Introduction ) et al., Love and Sexuality in the West, trans. port. de A. P. Faria, Lisbon, Terramar, s.d. pp. 108-109.
[2] LEWIS, C. S. Allegory of Love:A Study of Medieval Tradition . São Paulo:É Realizações, 2012. p.41.