User:Srnec/Origins of the troubadour lyric and courtly love

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The origins of the lyric poetic tradition of the troubadours and of courtly love have been debated since the sixteenth century.

[edit] Theories

Ezra Pound, who worked on troubadour translations in English and incorporated references to their work in his own, was a proponent of the Hispano-Arabic theory

[edit] (Hispano-)Arabic

The (Hispano-)Arabic (or Arabist) theory is the hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the Reconquista in Spain. It was championed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in the early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the Cinquecento and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan Andrés (died 1822). Ezra Pound, in his Canto VIII, famously declared that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and veils..." referring to the troubadour song. Meg Bogin, English translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis. Certainly "a body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism [existed] in Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards."^[1]

Bernard of Clairvaux, whose commentaries on the Song of Songs formed an extremely influential treatise intertwining themes of carnal and spiritual love

[edit] Bernardine-Marianist

According to the Bernardine-Marianist or Christian theory, it was the theology espoused by Bernard of Clairvaux and the increasingly important Mariology that most strongly influenced the development of the troubadour genre. Specifically, the emphasis on religious and spiritual love, disinterestedness, mysticism, and devotion to Mary would explain "courtly love". The emphasis of the reforming Robert of Arbrissel on "matronage" to achieve his ends can explain the troubadour attitude towards women.^[2] Chronologically, however, this hypothesis is hard to sustain (the forces believed to have given rise to the phenomenon arrived later than it). But the influence of Bernardine and Marian theology can be retained without the origins theory. This theory was advanced early by Eduard Wechssler and further by Dmitri Scheludko (who emphasises the Cluniac Reform) and Guido Errante. Mario Casella and Leo Spitzer have added "Augustinian" influence to it.

The reverence of the man-at-arms for the highborn lady, as illustrated by this illumination from a medieval songbook, may have been a survival from matriarchal iron age warrior societies

[edit] Chivalric-Matriarchal

According to the Chivalric-Matriarchal theory, the survival of pre-Christian sexual mores and warrior codes from matriarchal societes, be they Celtic, Germanic, or Pictish, among the aristocracy of Europe can account for the idea (fusion) of "courtly love". The most prominent chivalric-matriarchal theorists have been Claude-François-Xavier Millot, Thomas Warton, Karl Vossler, and Robert Briffault, but the very existence of pre-Christian matriarchy has usually been treated with scepticism as has the persistence of underlying paganism in high medieval Europe. To Warton and Vossler, chastity is a virtue imposed by women in matriarchal systems, but to Briffault sexual freedom is the norm in female-dominated societies. Briffault was given to denigrating medieval chivalry as barbarous, while Warton generally painted a more optimistic portrait. Despite these fundamental differences, all chivalric-matriarchal theorists believed that courtly love was the product of a hangover from pre-Christian matriarchy.

Roger Boase, who finds this theory the least tenable, lists three tenets of the chivalric-matriarchalist: the privileged status of pagan women, the "Gothic" spirit of chivalry (a presumed reverence for women among the Germanic warrior class), and courtly love as "subterfuge" to avoid the censure of the Church for "pagan" sexual customs.^[3] Evidence cited in support of the chivalric-matriarchal hypothesis is the rise of powerful women in twelfth-century France, namely Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marie of Champagne, and Ermengard of Narbonne, the rise of Marianism representing a resurgence of the Magna Mater of polytheism, and the Fraternity of the Penitents of Love representing perhaps a revival of the cult of Cybele. The theory that "matriarchy universally precedes patriarchy" has, however, been thoroughly discredited.^[4]

An image from the introduction to the fourth book of William Caxton's printing of Ovid's Metamorphoses, depicting the love story of Pyramus and Thisbe

[edit] Classical Latin

The Classical Latin theory emphasises parallels between Ovid, especially his Amores and Ars amatoria, and the lyric of courtly love. The aetas ovidiana that predominated in the eleventh century in and around Orléans, the quasi-Ciceronian ideology that held sway in the Imperial court, and the scraps of Plato then available to scholars have all been cited as classical influences on troubadour poetry.^[5]

Raimon Jordan, a troubadour whose wife, Gaudairença, a known trobairitz, converted to Catharism

[edit] (Crypto-)Cathar

According to the (Crypto-)Cathar thesis, troubadour poetry is a reflection of Cathar religious doctrine. While the theory is supported by the traditional and near-universal account of the decline of the troubadours coinciding with the suppression of Catharism during the Albigensian Crusade (first half of the thirteenth century), support for it has come in waves. The explicitly Catholic meaning of many early troubadour works also works against the theory.

Violet Paget, who was the first to suggest, in 1884, that the social conditions of feudal Europe were largely responsible for the rise of the courtly love lyric

[edit] Feudal-social

The Feudal-social or -sociological theory or set of related theories has gained ground in the twentieth century. It is more a methodological approach to the question than a theory; it asks not from where the content or form of the lyric came but rather in what situation/circumstances did it arise.^[6] It includes the prevailing Marxist theory. Under Marxist influence, Erich Köhler, Marc Bloch, and Georges Duby have suggested that the "essential hegemony" in the castle of the lord's wife during his absence was a driving force. The use of feudal terminology in troubadour poems is seen as evidence. This theory has been developed away from sociological towards psychological explanation.

May Day celebration, with Maypole and, presumable, a May Queen, all of which form part of a pre-Christian folk ritual surrounding the beginning of spring and present in numerous European cultures down to the present day

[edit] Folklore

The theory that troubadour poetry grew out of pre-Christian folk practices is called the Folklore or Spring Folk Ritual theory. According to María Rosa Menocal, Alfred Jeanroy first suggested that folklore and oral tradition gave rise to troubadour poetry in 1883. According to F. M. Warren, it was Gaston Paris, Jeanroy's reviewer, in 1891 who first located troubadour origins in the festive dances of women hearkening the spring in the Loire Valley. This theory has since been widely discredited, but the discovery of the jarchas raises the question of the extent of literature (oral or written) in the eleventh century and earlier.^[6]

Illustration, music, and lyrics, from an eleventh-century Saint-Martial tonary

[edit] Liturgical

According to the Liturgical theory, the troubadour lyric may be a development of the Christian liturgy and hymnody. The influence of the Song of Songs has even been suggested. There is no preceding Latin poetry resembling that of the troubadours. On those grounds, no theory of the latter's origins in classical or post-classical Latin can be constructed, but that has not deterred some, who believe that a pre-existing Latin corpus must merely be lost to us.^[7] That many troubadours received their grammatical training in Latin through the Church (from clerici, clerics) and that many were trained musically by the Church is well-attested. The musical school of Saint Martial's at Limoges has been singled out in this regard.^[8] "Para-liturgical" tropes were in use there in the era preceding the troubadours' appearance.

Illustration from the Carmina Burana codex, which contains the greatest single collection of Goliardic poems, some of them, like "O Fortuna", still popular today, due to the orchestrations of Carl Orff

[edit] Medieval Latin

The Medieval Latin or Mediolatin (Goliardic) theory regards the troubadours' courtly love lyric as a vulgarisation of contemporary Latin themes and rhymes. Hans Spanke analysed the intertextual connexion between vernacular and medieval Latin (such as Goliardic) songs. This theory is supported by Reto Bezzola, Peter Dronke, and musicologist J. Chailley. According to them, trobar means "inventing a trope", the trope being a poem where the words are used with a meaning different from their common signification, i.e. metaphor and metonymy. This poem was originally inserted in a serial of modulations ending a liturgic song. Then the trope became an autonomous piece organized in stanza form.^[9] The influence of late eleventh-century poets of the "Loire school", such as Marbod of Rennes and Hildebert of Lavardin, is stressed in this connexion by Brinkmann.^[10]

Plotinus, the father of neoplatonism, whose philosophy was immensely influential to Latin Christianity, has possibly left his marks on vernacular poetry also

[edit] Neoplatonic

The Neoplatonic theory is one of the more intellectualising. The metaphysics of neoplatonism—the soul as substance, divine in origin, desires to be freed from creation (matter) and reunited with the First Principle—have certain parallels in the love lyric of the troubadours. It is viewed either as a strenth or weakness that this theory requires a second theory about how neoplatonism was transmitted to the troubadours. It may be possible to couple it with one of the other origins stories. Käte Axhausen has "exploited" this theory and Alexander J. Denomy has linked it with the Arabist (through Avicenna) and the Cathar (through John Scotus Eriugena).^[11] Moshé Lazar was another who supported this thesis.

According to Boase, the major points raised by neoplatonic theorists are that (i) neoplatonic influence was deep in twelfth-century philosophy, (ii) the structure of ideas in the troubadours mirror that of concepts in neoplatonism, (iii) courtly love derived its moral standards from outside of Christianity, (iv) the interplay of Eros and desire in neoplatonism and the movement from "frustration to sublimation" has a direct counterpart in the courtly love lyric, and (v) the "ennobling effects of love".^[12]

Medieval neoplatonism derived largely from Augustine of Hippo and from two books misattributed to Aristotle: the Liber de causis, which was a set of extracts from the Institutio theologica of Proclus, and the Theologia aristotelica, which was a set of extracts from the Enneads of Plotinus, neoplatonism's founder.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Notes