Upload
gerardo-larghi
View
40
Download
4
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Courtly Love as Religious DissentAuthor(s): Jeffrey B. RussellReviewed work(s):Source: The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Apr., 1965), pp. 31-44Published by: Catholic University of America PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25017609 .
Accessed: 20/12/2012 07:39
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Catholic University of America Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toThe Catholic Historical Review.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
By Jeffrey B. Russell*
Towards the end of the eleventh century there appeared in southern
France a variety of literature that represented a new way of looking at
the world. This was the courtly love of the troubadours, soon adopted
by the trouv?res in northern France and the Minnes?nger in Ger?
many, an idea that has been most simply defined by Etienne Gilson as
love as conceived in the courts of the nobility of southern France.1 It
was a revolutionary world view in that it placed human love at the
center of the universe and raised the woman (or, rather, the lady) from the status of drudge and brood mare to that of a high ideal. Both
these revolutionary notions have persisted into our time, and both are
atypical of the views held in other societies and in other periods, wit? ness the role of women in modern Islam or in ancient Greece. The
question is to what extent this new way of looking at the world rep? resented a departure from religious orthodoxy in the eleventh and
early twelfth centuries.
Alexander Denomy called courtly love a heresy,2 and there is a
certain strength in this position. That there was a body of doctrine
proper to courtly love in the same way that a religion has a doctrine
is evident from the consistency of the ideas in troubadour poetry, from
the judgments of the courts of love, and from the theoretical treatise
*Mr. Russell is an assistant professor of history in the University of Cal?
ifornia at Riverside. 1 Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (London, 1940),
p. 171. 2 Alexander J. Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love (New York, 1947).
See also Denomy's "Fin'Amours," Mediaeval Studies, VII (1945) ; "Andreas
Capellanus: Discovered or Re-discovered," ibid., VIII (1946), 139-207; "The De Amore of Andreas Capellanus and the Condemnation of 1277," ibid., VIII
(1946), 107-149; "Courtly Love and Courtliness," Speculum, XXVIII (Jan? uary, 1953), 44-63. Other recent treatments of courtly love are Hans Furstner, Studien sur Wesensbestimmung der h?fischen Mimme (Groningen, 1956) ; Ilse Nolting-Hauff, Die Stellung der Liebeskasuistik im h?fischen Roman (Heidelberg, 1959) ; Aldo D. Scaglione, Nature and Love in the Late Middle
Ages (Berkeley, 1963) ; R. Bezzola, Les origines et la formation de la litt?rature courtoise en occident (500-1200) (Paris, 1944-1963).
31
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
32 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
of Andrew the Chaplain, who was almost the theologian of courtly love.3 This doctrine included the following points that Father Denomy took to be heretical: the apotheosis of human love, the conception that passion of this kind is divine, and the idea that sexual attachments
outside marriage are desirable. It is too much to make of this a
formal intellectual heresy of the nature of Berengar's or of Abelard's
but it does represent a point of view so incompatible with Christian
orthodoxy as to merit classification as a variety of medieval dissent.
If our concern is less with strict theological definitions than with
understanding medieval society and thought, this disaffection is as
significant as heresy itself.
Courtly love has been carefully and extensively studied, and I do
not purport to offer here even a cursive view of the phenomenon as
a whole. I wish to discuss only two problems relevant to the question to what extent courtly love did represent religious dissidence. These
are, first, to what degree courtly love was a perversion of Christianity and, second, what specific doctrines of courtly love may be considered
unorthodox by the criteria of the twelfth-century Church.
The first problem requires a consideration of the origins of the
doctrine of courtly love. Here a number of theories have been ad?
vanced. It is generally agreed that literature fairly described as bear?
ing the marks of courtly love begins at the end of the eleventh cen?
tury, William IX, Count of Poitiers (1071-1127), generally being considered the first troubadour, though M?ller sensibly pointed out
that there may have been earlier lyrics that never were set to paper.4 The literature of courtly love is distinguished by being written in the
vernacular, in Proven?al, French, German, or, later, Italian. Jeanroy,5 the great upholder of the orthodox nineteenth-century interpretation, held that the literature of courtly love derived from the love literature
of classical Latin, particularly from the Ars Amatoria of Ovid. More
recently, Etienne Gilson found a profound influence in Cicero's ideas
of friendship.6 For Jeanroy the fact that civilization was becoming more settled and refined in this period, that the noblesse, increasingly freed from the necessities of constant warfare, had more leisure, and
3 Andrew the Chaplain, The Art of Courtly Love, ed. John Jay Parry (New
York, 1941). 4 Herbert M?ller, "The Meaning of Courtly Love," Journal of American
Folklore, LXXlll (I960), 39. 5 Alfred Jeanroy, La Poesie lyrique des troubadours (Toulouse, 1934). 6
Gilson, op. cit., p. 8.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 33
that the younger sons of the nobility attached themselves to the
courts of great barons where they found the baron's wife conveniently at hand to help them while away the hours, was enough to explain
why the men of the South should have taken up Latin love literature
and fashioned it to their purposes.
Though Jeanroy's explanation is insufficient in many respects? one asks, for example, why the young nobleman should have chosen
the baron's wife rather than his daughters?he held it firmly until his
death. The theory that courtly love sprang from the Latin love poetry of the Middle Ages found little favor either with Jeanroy or with
modern critics,7 and its derivation from the student songs has also
been rejected.8 The interpretation that makes Arabic poetry the source
has had considerable support, especially since the publication of the
poems of the Arab Ibn Hazm, who lived at Cordoba (994-1065) and
who wrote a kind of an Art of Love.9 After weighing the evidence
carefully, however, Belperron decided that Arabic love poetry had
less in common with courtly love than it had with Ovid, and he pointed out a fundamental difference between the Arab lovers and their
Proven?al counterparts in that Arabic love poetry was libertine in
nature while the attitude of the Proven?al was that of a loving wor?
shipper.10 Father Denomy held that "the origin of the courtly conception of
love as ennobling is to be found not in Arabian literature but, rather, in Arabian philosophy and specifically in the mystical philosophy of
Avicenna."11 Avicenna taught that as long as the appetites of the
"animal soul" are kept subject to the "rational soul" they are good in that they help the soul to approach its goal, which is beauty.
Denomy argued that the troubadour notion that, while gross love was
suitable to animals and peasants, true love was ennobling, derived
from these concepts, themselves neoplatonic in nature. To Christian
neoplatonism re-enforced by Arabian neoplatonism, then, Denomy attributed many of the concepts and much of the language of courtly
7 Pierre Beiperron, La "Joie d'Amour" (Paris, 1948), p. 57. 8
Ibid., p. 58. 9 For the Arab interpretation, see, among others, A. R. Nykl, Hispano
arabic Poetry and its Relations with the Old Proven?al Troubadours (Balti?
more, 1946) ; Gustave E. Von Grunebaum, "Avicenna's Ris?la Fi'L'Isq and
Courtly Love," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XI (1952). 10
Belperron, op. cit., pp. 98-99. 11
Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love, pp. 29-30.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
34 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
love. The semi-mystical origins of the concepts might then account
for the use by the troubadours of language appropriate to Christian
mystical union.
While the influence of Arabian thought in one way or another
is probably present, we may agree with Belperron's conclusion that
courtly love should in large measure be considered indigenous and
relatively spontaneous. The troubadours had a notion of a love differ?
ent from sensual love, and where, in a Christian environment, were
they more likely to find such ideas than in the Christian religion?
Denomy's suggestions of neoplatonic, and Gilson's of Ciceronian, in?
fluence are not incompatible with such a suggestion.
In a book that no one has yet found unexciting, Denis de Rouge mont offered another explanation. He found a connection between
the doctrine of courtly love and that, not of orthodox Christianity, but of Catharism. The prima facie evidence in favor of this theory is considerable. The south of France was the center of two great un?
conventional movements, courtly love and Catharism. Courtly love
appeared at the end of the eleventh century and Catharism at the be?
ginning of the eleventh, so the argument runs. Both doctrines must
have had enormous hold upon the people, for the evidence tells us so
directly in the case of the heretics, while in that of the courtly lovers we can infer it from the persistence of the literature and from their
remarkable uniformity in doctrine, a sign, M?ller noted, that they were saying something people wanted to hear. The Catharist heresy was influential among the nobility, while the courtly love poems were
composed especially to be sung at noble courts and castles. It is in?
conceivable, the prima facie case concludes from the external evidence, that there should have been no common ground between the two.
This argument has several weaknesses. First of all, that there was
some common ground in the discontent of the population with normal
Christianity is undeniable ; and the Proven?al nobles who were Cathar
ists and who also welcomed troubadours to their tables could not
have failed to perceive a connection. But this by no means shows that
courtly love derived from Catharism. Since courtly love begins in the
eleventh century while dualist Catharism, contrary to Rougemont's
assumptions, does not appear in the West until the 1140's, and since,
further, there is no change in the sentiments of troubadour poets about
1140 that would indicate an influence of the new doctrines, the
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 35
chronology clearly indicates that a cause and effect relationship is
impossible.12
Rougemont's argument from internal evidence, from a comparison of troubadour and dualist attitudes, is also of interest. The trou?
badours did not emphasize libertinism or the satisfaction of physical love. Though they might take an occasional tumble with a peasant
girl or even, when circumstances required it, cohabit with their wives, in their dealings with their courtly mistresses they took more pleasure from the poignancy of unfulfilled desire than from the satisfaction of
that desire. This apparent shunning of the sexual act itself might be construed as consistent with dualism. But the peasant girls remain
solid, fleshly evidence against Catharist asceticism. Further, Jeanroy's
objection to this kind of argument is still valid : the troubadours and
courts of love were never accused of asceticism, and even though the
sexual act may not have been central in their mystique, their poetry is not the less sensual in its inspiration. It even extolled practices that a modern psychoanalysis would describe as voyeurism and fetishism.
Further, hints of more thorough sexual activity are by no means
entirely lacking. Marcabru's lady tells a little bird that all will be well
tomorrow when her lover returns, "Que sots pi/ Farem fi,/ Sots lui
mi!* Rougemont is correct in saying that the troubadours condemned
marriage, but they did so not because they disliked generation or sex
but because sex outside marriage provided the tension they sought.
It might be argued that the courtly experimentation with love short
of procreation is consistent with Catharist theory, which was primarily concerned with preventing generation. It is true that the Catharist
credentes were allowed wide leeway and that they may well have been
guilty of some of the unnatural activities of which they were often
accused. But the perfecti were puritanical far beyond a simple fear
of births, and it was they who formulated Catharist doctrines. Cathar?
ist theory enjoined not only technical celibacy but the practice in all
matters of an extreme asceticism designed to liberate the spirit from
this diabolical world of the flesh. The troubadour apotheosis of sex is
a far cry from this. To imagine that because they found tension and
longing more satisfactory than satisfaction itself means that their
12 The late date for the introduction of dualism is increasingly accepted by historians. See for example Arno Borst, Die Katharer (Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 89ff.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
36 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
concept of love was spiritual would be to fail to understand that the
refined sexuality of the courtly lovers was much more sensual than
the ordinary thing done in the ordinary way.
Rougemont considers certain motifs of courtly love poetry as re?
flecting Catharist influence, among them the themes of death and
separation. But in the first case he takes far too seriously the lover's
threat to die of chagrin, and in any case it is because of a woman
that the sufferer wishes to die, not because of a desire to free the
spirit from the flesh. In the case of the poignancy of separation, Rouge? mont must cite the aurora poems, and these lyrics in which the lovers
curse the dawn that separates them are nothing if not sensual. All
these objections may be nullified if we agree with Rougemont that
the woman in the poems symbolizes the soul of the man, but such an interpretation smacks of the old-fashioned glosses on the song of
Solomon and carries no conviction. There is no need to go beyond
sensuality to explain these sensual troubadour songs. It is inconceiv?
able that the recovery of the spirit from its fleshly bonds, for example, could be expressed in terms like Bernart Marti's "When I have de?
flowered her beneath the embroidered curtains."
Another compelling objection to Rougemont's theory is that the
Church never accused the troubadours, as a group, of Catharism. In
a period when the Church was engaging in a fierce and active struggle
against dualist heresy it is inconceivable that orthodox writers and
polemicists should have neglected to condemn the troubadours if they were substantially infected with this sort of error. It is likely of
course that certain poets, once dualism had arrived in the West, fell
under its influence. Raimbaut of Orange, for example, may have
had an attitude toward the opposite sex that was suspiciously strict :
he condemned all sensual love and said that he wished to treat all
women as his sisters. But to derive courtly love from Catharist dual?
ism or even to posit an essential connection between them is unjus? tified. The final bit of argument that the adherents of the Catharist
interpretation throw upon the scales is that the Albigensian Crusade
marked not only the suppression of Catharism but also the end of
courtly love. Schl?sser answered this with the observation that by the time of the crusade courtly literature had become so stylized and
formal that it would soon have perished in any case. Further, no one
would deny that the crusade in its disruption of Proven?al society
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 37
would have done violence to the arts whether heretically inspired or
not.13
If the courtly lovers were dissenters it was not because they were, as a whole, Catharists.
Another, and meritorious, interpretation of the origins of courtly love is that it could arise naturally in certain psychological and social
circumstances. Setting aside overenthusiastic interpretations such as
that which makes courtly love a gigantic manifestation of mother
fixation,14 it is likely that many of the attitudes of courtly love could
arise naturally. There are ancient Egyptian love songs whose flavor
is not unlike that of medieval love poetry.15 Ernest van den Haag
recently pointed out that there is a built-in conflict between marriage and passion, and both marriage and passion are natural things. The
longing for the ideal, the pure, and the beautiful is something that
most have felt in one way or another, and sexual satisfaction can
easily remove the notion that these ideas are incarnate in one's partner. Van den Haag quotes Yeats to this effect : "Desire dies, because every touch consumes the myth." Thus marriage and sex may at bottom
both be incompatible with romantic love, and though many societies
prefer that romantic love should die in order to indulge sexual desire
the better, it is not altogether strange that some societies might choose to exalt the pleasures of romantic love over those of sex.16
Another explanation is the crypto-Marxist theory that women em?
ployed the doctrines of courtly love as well as of heresy as weapons
against their male oppressors.17 Whatever its individual applications,
13 Felix Schl?sser, Andreas Capellanus: seine Minnelehre und das christliche
Weltbild um 1200 (Bonn, 1960), pp. 248-249. The leading proponents of the Catharist interpretation have been Denis de Rougemont, L1 Amour et VOccident
(Paris, 1956), and Otto Rahn, Der Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (Freiburg, 1933). P. Breillet, Recherches albigeoises (Albi, 1948), offers a refutation of the
Rahn thesis. 14 The incest taboo forms part of the explanation of the amusing Morton M.
Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York, 1959). See also Herbert
M?ller, "The Social Causation of the Courtly Love Complex," Comparative Studies in Society and History: An International Quarterly, I (1959).
15 James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old
Testament (2d ed.; Princeton, 1955), pp. 468-469. !? Ernest van den Haag, "Love or Marriage," Harper's CCXXIV (1962),
#1344. 17 See Gottfried Koch, Frauenfrage und Ketzer turn im Mittelalter (Berlin,
1962).
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
38 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
it is doubtful that this theory can go very far in illuminating the
origins of any of these medieval movements.
On the other hand, it is clear that the social institutions of feudalism
entered into the formation of courtly love. C. S. Lewis observed that
the feudal relationship between lord and vassal was, in its ideal form,
very similar to the relationship between the lord and his lady. Lewis
points out that the phrase used by the troubadours in addressing their
lights of love, "mi dons'" originally meant, not my lady, but my lord.18 In Doon de Mayence the vassal speaks of his lord in the following devoted terms :
If my lord is slain, I wish to die too.
Hanged ? Hang me with him. Delivered to the flames ? I want to be burned.
And, if he is drowned, throw me in with him.
Besides this personal relationship between lord and man, the insti? tution of feudalism created conditions in which an attitude of courtly love might arise. Feudalism began as the very serious business of
protecting society from its military enemies, and the men who par?
ticipated in the system as lords or vassals were noted less for a quick finger on the lute than for a quick hand on the sword. As society grew more stable and manners less rude, the old warrior class lost some of its brutality, but it also lost much of its raison d'?tre. By the
beginning of the twelfth century feudalism had generally become
hereditary, and women and children could stand as vassals. With this and other means of avoiding actual military service, the military rationale of the feudal caste was gradually lost, and feudalism needed another ideal to replace that of brute force. The Church attempted to impose its ideals upon knighthood and caused young candidates to fast and to keep vigil in chapel before their dubbing. The knight was
to swear to protect widows and orphans and to see that justice was
done; more than a mere miles, he was to be a miles Christi. It is
problematical how much the ecclesiastical idea of chivalry penetrated the thought, let alone the actions, of the warrior class, but if the
Church's alternative to brute force were not accepted, what other
possibility was there?
The answer is seen in a comparison of the attitudes of Chr?tien de
Troyes with those of the author of Roland: the epic yielded to ro
is C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (Oxford, 1936), p. 2.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 39
manee and the war-horn to the lute. The mystique of the noble lady became the center of the chivalric code. It may be futile to seek far
afield the reasons why a class that enjoyed increasing leisure should
choose ladies as the center of the cult, the attachment of gentlemen to ladies not requiring elaborate explanation. But the peculiar romantic
nature of the attachment rather than simple libertinism may be ex?
plained in terms of Christian influence. The Church had failed, except in unusual cases like that of the Templars, to make knighthood into
a religious institution, but knighthood in a Christian society could
not help but share deeply in Christian attitudes. Chivalry and courtly love are unimaginable removed from the Christian background. The
straightforward pagan attitude toward sex produced no conflict,
though it might occasionally produce exhaustion, but Christianity, with its ambivalence toward the world, its uncertainty whether the
flesh were good or evil, brought with it an inherent tension. That
tension in turn made passion?passion in its root sense of suffering? in love possible, and it was this suffering for love that the troubadours
found so sweet. The moral obstacles that Christianity put in the
path of sexual fulfillment also helped to create tension. Romantic
love cannot flourish where sexual fulfillment is easily obtainable, but only where obstructions are placed in its way. Beyond this, the
elevation of women, the physically weaker of the sexes (at least so
it used to be thought) in the esteem of men, may itself stem in part from the Christian glorification of the meek.
This returns to the first point : that courtly love is dissent in that
it took Christian ideas and distorted them to fit its own purpose.
Though many doubtless adopted the attitudes of courtly love merely as a game, others took them seriously enough. Nor does the fact that
the courtly lovers were not usually in open defiance of the Church make their disaffection from basic Christian principles less real.
Max Weber noted the similarity between religious and sexual
ecstasy as well as that between the feudal and the erotic relationship.19
Though C. S. Lewis warned that the language of religion applied to
the love of ladies may often be a parody, it is clear that it is an ir?
reverent parody at best, and Lewis admitted that it can become a
serious "extension of religion, an escape from religion, a rival re?
ligion."20 Further, while much of the literature of courtly love is
19 From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edd. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, London, 1946), pp. 343-346. 20
Lewis, op. cit., p. 21.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
40 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
purely conventional, much again is not, and even the conventional
verse raises the questions of the conventions it uses. That Aucassin
and Nicolete and Andrew the Chaplain reveal attitudes deeply at
variance with Christianity is not to be denied. We do not have to take
the Council of Remiremont, in which nuns debate whether clergymen or laymen are better lovers, or Andrew's pseudo-theological debates, at all seriously to realize that this kind of parody indicates a lack of
piety bordering upon religious disaffection.21 The student songs that
flourished from the latter half of the twelfth century represent the
same sort of irreverence, however genial, for that wThich society con?
sidered sacred.
The relationship between courtly love and various Christian atti?
tudes has been observed by a number of critics. The cult of the
Blessed Virgin, inspired in part by the unusual religious enthusiasm
of the day, grew rapidly in the twelfth century and was not without
its reflection in the cult of the courtly lady. The apparent similarity between the language of courtly love and that of Christian mysticism has not gone unnoticed. Etienne Gilson's refutation of the claims that
courtly love and mysticism are related is convincing if the terms are
taken in their strict sense, but there is a shadowland where such a
relationship is likely. Granted that the two are intellectually dis?
similar, this dissimilarity does not always extend to their emotional
attitudes, and emotions are often more important to people than the
intellect. The tension of courtly love, the anguish of separation, the
idolization of the beloved, all are too similar to mystical feeling, if not
to mystical thought, to be dismissed. Gilson points out certain deep differences, such as that which separates the mystic's desire for union
from the courtly lover's diffidence in regard to consummation. The
courtly love of women is certainly different from Christian charitas, as Gilson says, but mysticism, too, sometimes becomes more emotional
than pure charitas. Gilson is speaking of high mystical theory; the
practice was doubtless not always that elevated. Evelyn Underhill, while observing that the mystic cannot be identified with the ecstatic,
points out many similarities between divine and profane love. "Like
his type, the 'devout lover' of romance," she observes, ". . . the mystic
serves without hope of reward." The dictum of Kempis that "to
21 Council of Remiremont in G. Waitz, "Das Liebesconcil," Zeitschrift f?r deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, VII (1948) ; Andrew the Chaplain,
op. cit., pp. 138-141.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 41
rejoice in tribulation is no difficult thing for the lover" would apply to either a courtly or a mystical lover. The language of exile and
pilgrimage are common to mystical and secular love, and the poem of
the Moslem mystic Jalalu'd Din makes use of more than one image that would become dear to human lovers :
With Thy Sweet Soul, this soul of mine Hath mixed as Water doth with Wine.
Who can the Wine and Water part,
Or me and Thee when we combine ? ...
Thy Love has pierced me through and through Its thrill with Bone and Nerve entwine.
I rest a Flute laid on Thy lips ; A lute, I on Thy breast recline.
Breathe deep in me that I may sigh ; Yet strike my strings, and tears shall shine.22
Finally, I am not sure that Gilson is right in saying that it is pos? sible to experience the ecstasy of love without having heard a descrip? tion of Christian mystical ecstasy, if the "ecstasy of love" is under?
stood in a sense that would have been meaningful to the troubadours.
It would certainly be too much to derive courtly love from Christian
mysticism, particularly the systematic mysticism of someone like Saint
Bernard, but it is also too much to rule out the penetration of attitudes
deriving loosely from mysticism.23 Graham Greene said : "The words
of human love have been used by the saints to describe their vision
of God ; and so, I suppose, we might use the terms of prayer, medita?
tion, and contemplation to explain the intensity of the love we feel
for a woman."24
Wechssler25 did most to show similarities between Christianity and
the cult of love. The ambivalence of Christianity as to whether it
rejects or affirms the world is reflected in the ambivalence of the
troubadours as to whether or not they desired consummation of their
physical desires. The doctrine of love that held that a lover should
22 Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism (New York, 1961), pp. 19, 92, 426. 23 Gil son, op. cit., Appendix IV. E. Anichkov, loachim de Flore et les milieux
courtois (Paris, 1931), had affirmed the theory. See also R. J. Schoeck, "Andreas Capellamis and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: The Twelve Rules of
Love and the Twelve Steps of Humility," Modern Language Notes, LXVI
(1951). 24 The End of the Affair (New York, 1951), p. 55. 25 E. Wechssler, Das Kulturproblem des Minnesangs (Halle, 1909).
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
42 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
be true to his one beloved (although the beloved, it is true, could
not be his wife) may be a reflection of the Christian teaching of
monogamy, though it may also derive from the feudal relationship. The longing, the Sehnsucht of the Christian for the unattainable Deity is reflected in the Sehnsucht of the troubadour for the unattainable
lady. The cult of the lady is comparable to that of the Virgin and
the saints: the lover approaches his lady as a penitent; he begs her
forgiveness ; he asks her grace ; he seeks salvation at her feet.
The origins of courtly love will continue to be debated, and it is
clear that its roots tap many soils. Wechssler's position is probably overstated: courtly love is not simply a distorted image of Chris?
tianity. Yet it is clear that the particular form it took was possible
only within the context of Christian society. In this sense it was, as
a perversion of Christian ideas, a form of religious dissidence. It can?
not be dismissed as an idle pastime, for the commitment of the
courtly lovers to their ideas was more than that. If ultimate concern
is the mark of a religious attitude, as Tillich maintains, then the
courtly lovers were religious, and their religion was not Christianity, even though many of them may have attended Mass. Tillich would
call their concern an idolatrous faith in that it elevated the finite
quality of human love to the level of the infinite.
If there is the flavor of religious dissent in the origins of the cult
of love, there are certain portions of its doctrine that are clearly un?
orthodox. It is true and significant that the Church never condemned
courtly love as a heresy, nor is mention made of its tenets in confes?
sional guides for priests, so that it would again be going too far to
claim that the troubadours and their admirers were formal heretics.
Denomy's belief that the theorists of courtly love, Andrew the Chap? lain in particular, were Averroists in holding a doctrine of the two
truths is intellectualizing that which is not intellectual. But it would
not be going far enough if it is not recognized that the doctrines of
the cult of love, if taken at all seriously, do represent a confrontation
with Christian teaching.
The exaltation of a finite creature, a living woman, above the
highest altar of one's devotion is the most evident example of such
confrontation. Then there is the transference of Christian terms like
passion" and "devotion." For example, the term "adoration" had
such a strict theological meaning as to occasion a grave crisis in the
Western Church at the time of the Iconoclastic controversy. Yet it
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 43
was readily transferred from God to the lady. The phrase "I adore
her" (cf. Bernart de Ventadour's "Lady, for your love, I clasp my hands and adore you"), if taken at all seriously, is a blasphemy.
The doctrine that the object of love must be another man's wife
clearly vitiates the meaning of the sacrament of marriage, and the
idea that devotion to another man's wife positively represents a higher
morality is an evident departure from orthodoxy. Further, the ap?
proval of sensual love of any variety is a radical departure from Chris?
tian tradition. Love for the lady went so far as to replace faith as the
guide of life ; devotion to the lady was supposed to protect one from
harm. Grace was replaced by the courtly "joy" in bestowing upon the
lover a "liberating feeling of confidence and inner triumph."26 The
lady, rather than God, became the ultimate judge of conduct, and
one behaved according to what pleased her rather than according to
what pleased the Almighty. Keep chaste, not for the sake of the Lord, but "for the sake of her whom thou lovest," urges Andrew the Chap? lain. The knight obeys his lady's every whim without question in the
manner of the pious Christian who says, "Thy will be done." He is
utterly humble in her presence and hardly dares touch her; he
trembles in her presence like a worshipper before Yahweh.
The lover's passion not only keeps him from harm but enables him
to perform astounding feats of derring-do, in precisely the fashion that
in the popular hagiographies the faith of the saints enabled them to
perform miracles. The "joy" of the knight transforms him into a
"new man," just as baptism changes and renews. As the rich young man was urged to abandon all for Christ's sake, so the courtly lover
is urged to sacrifice material possessions, home, family, and duty to
follow his lady love. The knight takes up his cross of passion as the
Christian takes up the cross of a different passion. The knight serves
in love's army, a miles amoris rather than a miles Christi. The Chris?
tian monk spurns the world in order to concentrate his attention upon
God, but the courtly lover rejects it ("All that I see is displeasing to
me")27 when his lady is absent or unkind. The young man preparing himself for love must possess the qualities of a religious novice : "Love, do you think I have any hope of being happy ? Yes, my friend, through
patience and submission (Aimeric de P?gulhan)." Patience and sub?
mission, yes, but to another God than Jehovah.
26 Moller, op. cit., p. 47.
27 Andr? Berry, Floril?ge des troubadours (Paris, 1930), #6.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
44 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT
Nor is that all. The dawn poems that paint the poignancy of sep? aration and the impermanence of the things of this world reflect the
orthodox theme of the vanity of vanities. More blatant was the overt
attack of the courtly lovers upon the orthodox view of the clergy. Andrew the Chaplain and others readily permitted clerks to indulge in love affairs.28 William of Poitou, indeed, was accused of desiring to found an abbey of love on the model of a cloistered monastery.29
The clergy is consistently portrayed with cynicism, disdain, or open
mockery.
Courtly love, though peripheral, is important to the study of medie?
val dissent. Not a heresy in the formal sense, it did represent devia?
tion from Christian principles, perversion of Christian ideals, and
hostility to the Christian clergy and at least implicitly to the Christian
Church. Like the widespread existence of superstition and magic, the currency in France and Germany in this period of the attitudes of
courtly love indicates that disaffection from Christianity in medieval
Europe could take various forms and was by no means unusual.
28 Andrew the Chaplain, op. cit., pp. 141-142. 29
Berry, op. cit., p. 33.
This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:39:15 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions