Talk:Courtly love

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[edit] masochism

For links between courtly love and masochism, see

This is not an unusual association: it has been made many times by many writers. It needs to be put back, perhaps with more context to make it clear why the connection is being made.

See also this discussion on the paper first linked:

Fair enough. Thanks for adding it back with a bit of context. --Camembert

[edit] name?

What is the Occitan name, Fin'Amor? -- Error

[edit] nonsense

"Naturally courtly love was not considered to be a matter for the commoners, who were too busy trying to survive to take part in elaborate rituals. The wealthy upper classes were those with the leisure to ponder such ideals as 'true love'."

This is elitist nonsense that should be replaced by a paragraph explaining how this particular ideal was prevalent among the upper classes without the disdainful attitude toward "commoners". Everyking 00:30, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] neopaganism

"The first stirrings of neopaganism..."? Sounds like it doesn't belong in that sentence. Although this could very easily be correct, it's unsupported by any text that is succinct, credible, and sensible.

I do not urge deletion but rather support of this phrase, if it can be supported. It should be regarded in all ways as equal to the phrase, "... first stirrings of comedia del arte ..." in the same placement, as there is no other indication of neopaganism in Christian Europe at that time, unless theatrical and poetic pleas to muses and Aphrodite are considered a deliberate, monumentally covert effort to establish neopaganism. (-anonymous)

It's not neo-paganism, it's Paganism. If you've read The Allegory of Love you'll know what I mean. '...it was a sort of carnival in which the happier aspects of Paganism took part, after being baptized, and yet losing none of its jollity.' -C. S. Lewis. Cariel 00:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pc

Making this entry p.c. and "gender-neutral" strips it of sense. Courtly love had its origins in Aquitaine and Provence in the 11th century. William X, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her court, the Roman de la Rose... --Wetman 18:25, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] illustration

The new illustration is cute (German, 13th century perhaps?), but it illustrates some anti-courtly tale, such as Chaucer's Miller's Tale or some earthy stories in the Decameron. Can we get a bead on just what it is, and add a section on anti-courtly love literature: goliards, fabliaux etc? --Wetman 21:54, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] tuchman

  • The reference to Tuchman is ambiguous. Doesn't this source need to be added to the References? soverman 7:40 23 Odt 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment Yes. Done. --Malecasta 20:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] confused

This sentence is confusing:

New expressions of highly personal private piety in the 11th century were at the origins of what a modern observer would recognize as a personality, and the vocabulary of piety was also transferred to the conventions of courtly love.

Could someone clarify what is meant by the word, 'personality'? hdstubbs

[edit] neopaganism

Doesn't there seem to be a NPOV slant on this neopaganism business? The tone of the article seems to suggest that courtly love is some sort of secret underground religion... 134.186.104.253 19:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Muslim Influence

Shouldn't some mention be made of the connection (posited by several important scholars like Menocal) between the appearance of courtly love in 12th century France, and the Muslim ideas of courtly love that preceeded it? One need only look at the Andalusi Ibn Hazm's 11th century book Tawq al-Hammammah to see that notions of courtly love were well-developed in Muslim Spain, just across the Pyrenees from France. DelDav 16:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


i've reinserted my original paragraph on what Menocal refers to as the Arabist hypothesis. the paragraph it was replaced with was as follows:

"Practices similar to courtly love may be comparable to those in Al-Andalus and elsewhere in the Islamicate world, and so some historians have proposed these practices influenced the Christian Europeans. The history of this argument is outlined by Maria Rosa Menocal in The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History."

1) to say "Practices similar to courtly love may be comparable to those in Al-Andalus..." sounds redundant to me: if A is similar to B, and A is comparable to C, it's obvious that B is comparable/similar to C. it would have made more sense simply to say that A (courtly love) is similar to C (Islamicate practices), rather than introducing a needless B (practices similar to courtly love).

2) the new version omits the reference to William of Aquitane's contact with the Islamicate world, which is meant to provide tangible evidence for the hypothesis.

3) given that the paragraph is a speculation on the beginnings of courtly love, it makes sense for it to be near the beginning of the sub-article, rather than near the end as the edit had it.

4) Menocal was taken out of the "further reading" for some reason. in spite of its title, the book (The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History) is almost wholly about courtly love, so it really ought to be in there. Mohamadkhan 05:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Errors in article

NPOV dispute

The article declares that marriage was defined as sacrament in the fourth Lateran Council (1215). However, Marriage was generally believed to be a sacrament up until then, but defined in response to heresies such as various forms of Gnosticism . Marriage can be shown historically to have been believed a sacrament, or at least highly honored before then. At no time in Christianity was there ever a belief otherwise, except among the Gnostics. Marriage did not suddenly exist at the Council.

The cult of the Virgin was not instituted in the 12th century. It was, again, formally defined in response to heresies against various Marian doctrines, which though not defined, were believed by Christians.

I believe this article may have an Anti-Catholic or Anti-Christian slant and should be examined for balance. It seems to say there is some secret pagan underground religion, and has the marks of an "ancient mystery religion" theory. There is only one source, the article should be researched more.

70.41.62.198 23:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

(This anonymous editor, apparently not a reader of history, applied an "NPOV" label, which has been removed. They don't even bother to log in now.) --Wetman 01:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] incorrect stress on and erroneous inclusion of adultery in the definition

Particular standards of etiquette and custom were attached to courtly love, though these varied somewhat with region and time period. Sometimes the ideal love was chaste or Platonic admiration, with no intimation of actual affairs. In other cases, at least the intention of consummation is expressed, if only to lament the impossibility of the act. This ritual of walking the knife's edge between admiration and consummation is still seen in such Western European social practices as the seating of ladies at table next to gentlemen who are specifically not their husbands. In cultures not much influenced by the courtly love tradition, this would seem to be a scandalous, insulting invitation to disaster.

This is not bad, but it's more or less "hidden" or at least buried in the middle of the article. Chastity and unattainability were not only widely declared as goals; they were often in fact successfully maintained. I've tried to correct the introduction, but the entire article needs to be rewritten to provide a less one-sided, "modern", and historically distorted interest in the cases where physical love was enjoyed despite the very widespread vows to the contrary. The article's reference to the troubadour tradition and art form (Courtly love was perhaps most commonly expressed in the compositions of the troubadours, trouvères and poets) is completely misleading and incorrect due to its emphasis on sexual intercourse. In addition, the references from many other articles such troubadour and minnesang to here are also misleading if readers then think that those art forms are (mostly) talking about sexual love. --Espoo 09:55, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It seems what i learned in school is no longer supported by newer research findings. I was sure my school knowledge is still correct because the New Oxford Dictionary (1999) says: courtly love noun a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of Southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.

But Britannica from only a year later says: The courtly lover existed to serve his lady. His love was invariably adulterous, marriage at that time being usually the result of business interest or the seal of a power alliance. Ultimately the lover saw himself as serving the all-powerful god of love and worshipping his lady-saint. Faithlessness was the mortal sin. --Espoo 11:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that a huge amount of new evidence has been uncovered in the last ten years, or even in the last fifty. (Of course, I'm no expert and could be wildly wrong.) I think it's more a question of rival interpretations of what we do have. Medieval literature was of course loaded with allegory and symbolism. So too was medieval thought. Different interpretations are to be expected. -- 18.252.7.143 19:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neopaganism, etc.

The article does not explain clearly in what sense courtly love is neopagan.

How exactly does courtly love relate to pagan traditions? Does this article mean to say that practitioners actually believed in the existence of pagan gods? Or does purely symbolic use of the mythos and gods of the Greek or Roman pantheons count? Being neopagan in that sense would not generally have been considered "non-Christian", as seen by the example of the Divine Comedy.

In what sense was courtly love "covert neopaganism", as the article asserts? Is the idea that courtly love was obviously neopagan, but practiced covertly? Or was it secretly neopagan? (And if its neopagan nature was secret, how do we know about it now?)

The remark (made above on this talk page) that user 70.41.62.198 is "apparently not a reader of history" really doesn't help. The main goal of an encyclopedia is to provide a review of a topic for nonexperts. To do this, it needs to explain clearly what is meant! This goes double for those portions that are contrary to the popular understanding of a topic.

If the people who understand these parts of the article think the text is already sufficiently clear, please at least add some direct citations to those areas. That way people like myself can use the references to try to understand what's meant. -- 18.252.7.143 19:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


A basic source here. All of this is standard history that you can find in many sources. -- Stbalbach 19:27, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. My problem was that the linked wikipedia article on neopaganism defines it as a "group of new religious movements", which seems incompatible with much of what appears here. It really wasn't clear to me whether the courtly love article intended to refer more to a collection of sensibilities and style of life, or to a new religious movement.
I am sorry if I'm more ignorant than I ought to be about these things. I do think, however, that encyclopedia articles should generally be comprehendible by people who are not already very familar with the subject. 18.252.5.157 11:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree it could be presented better. This article evolved over time with many editors making small changes. "Neopagan" is a somewhat loaded term (they never considered themselves pagan, if they had they would have been burned as heretics). But we look back and see it that way in the bigger picture. -- Stbalbach 14:57, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
That source uses pagan in the looser sense of "not subscribing to the dominant religion of a particular society" -- it absolutely does not mean neopagan, which specifically refers to a number of religions dreamed up by romantics in the 19th century and afterwards. Most of the other online sources about courtly love either don't mention paganism at all, or use it in the loose sense described above. (I'm ignoring sites by obvious wicca sympathisers and the like.) 134.58.253.113 14:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, it is fact that many authors use the term "neo-paganism" when talking about Courtly Love (both on Google and elsewhere, from what I have read). Since the term and concept of Courtly Love was first popularized by Gaston Paris in the 1880's, and was not used before then, it may not be surprising if Paris used the Romantics notion of neopaganism in describing Courtly Love and has now become an ingrained part of the historiography. Indeed, the very idea of Courtly Love some historians believe never existed and was a romantic 19th C idea layered on the past. I really need to re-write this article from a historians perspective, one day. -- Stbalbach 14:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
That's interesting, and I'd encourage you to do that. I'd like to see some reference to this disputed historicity in the article. (Indeed, it seems most academic accounts of courtly love are not from historians, but from scholars of literature. Who tend to have a less scientific view of the past.) 134.58.253.113 12:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is a difficult subject, many points of view conflicting and controversial (and multi-disciplinary). Like a lot of things we take for granted from the Middle Ages (even the term Middle Ages), it was a later invention and thus problematic, but still useful to some degree. -- Stbalbach 05:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] One-sided

This article concentrates too heavily on the views of those who supported the ideal. There was heavy opposition. Goldfritha 20:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article re-write

I've done a complete re-write of the article. I tried to keep as much as possible from the original, but due to the new organization and layout, a lot was dropped - it was difficult to keep original paragraphs and ideas integral since they discussed points now separated into different sections and often repeated new material that is better sourced. For point of reference, the original article is now located at Talk:Courtly love/temp. -- Stbalbach 18:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

See [1]; no need for temp pages for historical record. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-19 09:39Z

[edit] Does the Song of Solomon pertain?

On first casual glance, the concepts here remind me of the Song of Solomon. Did that work have any influence? --Davecampbell 01:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of Term

Sexual satisfaction, Paris said, may not have been a goal or even end result, but the love was not entirely Platonic either, as it was based on sexual attraction ...

This is not so much an error as it is misleading. Platonic love is based on sexual attraction, though that attraction is somehow used as a springboard toward appreciation/understanding of a higher beauty. The Phaedrus and The Symposium are the two primary sources. I notice that the Wikipedia article on Platonic Love corrects the common understanding of Platonic Love.

Teades 13:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)teades

[edit] Paris as originator

All the sources I have at hand agree that Paris coined and defined amour courtois in the sense in which "courtly love" is used in this article. F. X. Newman, for instance, in the introduction cited in the article's note 1 wrote, "He [Paris] not only invented the phrase amour courtois, but also gave it its original definition." I'm not sure what objection Stbalbach has to my rewording of the sentence in question, which was in part prompted by the awkwardness of "first popularized" (has the term been popularized multiple times?); perhaps he could clarify them here.

Also, block quotations should not be enclosed in quotation marks—see the Manual of Style, as well as the article Block quotation. Deor 00:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Well first you wrote "was introduced" which is not correct, since the phrase amour courtois is not a neologism created by Paris but a real term from the period, Paris didn't make it up. Now its been re-worded to "given its original definition" which is kind of accurate, although still problematic. The term amour courtois, and the term "courtly love", are two separate things - one is a term from the middle ages which only exists in one or two extant sources and so we assume was not used much at the time, so its not accurate to say Paris gave its "original" definition since the term existed before Paris was around; the term "courtly love" is an English translation encompassing a larger framework that takes into account many phrases from the period that were used to describe "love of a courtly nature" (amour courtois being just one such phrase, there are others) - Paris happened to choose amour courtois as the namesake for his concept. So the term its self is not new, but the modern definition is. I'm not sure it makes sense to try and talk about them as one and the same thing, rather the modern concept of courtly love was named by Paris from the medieval term amour courtois, but which also encompasses other terms as well.
Re: blockquotes, why use manual HTML coding when we have templates that are cleaner and have more features?
This:
{{quote|text..}}
Produces the same output as this:
<blockquote>text..</blockquote>
One is just easier to read in the source text, fewer characters, easier to maintain.

-- Stbalbach 23:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

(moved from my talk page)

The simple facts that Paris coined the term amour courtois (the single occurence of cortez amors in a medieval Provençal poem [not "one or two extant sources"], of which Paris may well have been unaware, doesn't negate this) and that all English usages of the term "courtly love" descend from Paris's coinage suggest that you're stretching a bit to state that "the term existed before Paris was around." I'm not sure what you're trying to claim, but there's no evidence that the concept of "courtly love" (so named, and with the characteristics defined by Paris) existed before Paris set them forth in his essay. Deor 01:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Paris didn't coin the term amour courtois. But he did create a concept of courtly love that is new/original. The reason this is important is because many critics of courtly love have said it did not exist and was a 19th century neologism, which is not accurate, as our article makes clear: "Even though Paris used a term with little support in the contemporaneous literature, it was not a neologism and does usefully describe a particular conception of love and focuses on the courtliness that was at its essence." -- Stbalbach 21:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Courtly literature

This article already has a sub-section on "courtly literature" that is larger and more developed than the Courtly literature article. Not to say a Courtly literature article could not exist on Wikipedia, but right now, wouldn't it make more sense to focus editors attention into expanding this article, and when the literature section gets large enough, split it off into a separate article with a summary here? - the alternative is to have a content fork, with two different streams of development that will one day have to be merged with a lot more difficulty. Also, all of the professional encyclopedia articles I have seen cover courtly love and courtly literature in the same article - for good reason since courtly literature is really at the "heart" of courtly love, it's where it originated and how it most well know by and most studied. This article could use a considerably larger courtly literature section. -- Stbalbach 12:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to merging courtly literature into this article. The only reason I created the article on courtly literature is that Ovid was linked to a then non-existent article on literature courtoise, and there was an equivalent article on French Wikipédia. --Kyoko 22:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
OK. Yeah the French are right, a separate article could be in the future, it's a big topic. Most encyclopedias discuss love and literature in the same article so it seemed best to start off that way since they are so closely connected. Thanks. -- Stbalbach 13:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV and wrong?

Look at this sentence: "it is not a coincidence that the cult of the Virgin Mary began in the 12th century as a counter to the secular, courtly and lustful views of women"

Um, the "cult of the Virgin" (not cult in the sense of extremist group, but in the sense of cult (religion)) began about as soon as Christianity. The Council of Ephesus (431 AD) announced Mary as Theotokos. The Gospel of James, while noncanonical, showed deep devotion to Mary. This is not only NPOV slanted toward discrediting Catholics, but ust plain wrong. Also, I think the views described for the ecclesiastics are not quite accurate - they weren't this puritanical. That's largely a modern (last 200 years or so) myth. I'm not sure how to fix this, tohugh. Vultur 18:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

No doubt better historical thinking concerning the role played by Bernard of Clairvaux and the vocabulary of courtly love applied to the BVM, in the intensification of the cult of Mary exemplified by Bernard's writing, would certainly improve this article— if it were to come from an editor with a basic grasp of the history of ideas.--Wetman 20:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that I do not have a "basic grasp" of the concept? Vultur 17:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)