The Art of Courtly Love

It’s St. Valentine’s Day, and what am I doing at zero-dark-thirty this morning instead of waking my beloved from his slumber with a passionate something-or-other? Reviewing my students’ responses to their online discussion threads. It’s not that I’m behind on grading. Well, I am behind on grading, but that’s not the reason. I am five hours away by truck from him. He has work. I have class today: Science, Technology and Postmodernism – the only history of ideas course I thought I could get through this semester.

So, I wake depressed. Valentine’s Day alone with coursework plus grading – how bloody romantic. But, there is a bright spot. I remembered well in advance this year and sent him a bouquet of tulips in a red heart vase – to his school. I’d be depressed, but at least he would be blushing all day.

I started to put grading off until after class today, but I’m glad I didn’t. One of the discussions threads my students were responding to was over Andreas Capellanus’ The Art of Courtly Love. Kinda fitting, this being Valentine’s Day and all, but as I began reading their responses, I was so very disappointed. Here’s part of my comment:

First, I think many of you are replacing the word “love” with “intercourse” or, as Clinton would put it, “sexual relations.” Nowhere in his “list of rules” does Capellanus reference sex directly, [except maybe number five]. I’m sure there was just as much sexual relating going on back then as now, but it would not have been discussed in this type of text. Second, and probably more important than what I started with, you must remember the context of the text. By that, I mean the time period and the culture in which it was created. There was no such thing as an “equal” marriage. Women were property.

Consider that for a moment – women were property. They were the property of their fathers until they were the property of their husbands.

Now, look at Rule I: “Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.” Kind of puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? Review Capellanus’ rules. Remove “sexual relations” from your thought process and think of loving someone, which does not have to be sexual. Once you look at it this way, I think you will find that Capellanus’ list holds up, even today.

Re-reading this list somehow made the day a bit better for me. I would rather be home in the arms of the man I love, but I look at today as suggested in Capellanus’ number fourteen.

The Rules of Love:

I. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.

II. He who is not jealous cannot love.

III. No one can be bound by a double love.

IV. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.

V. That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.

VI. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.

VII. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.

VIII. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.

IX. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.

X. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.

XI. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.

XII. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.

XIII. When made public love rarely endures.

XIV. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.

XV. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.

XVI. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.

XVII. A new love puts to flight an old one.

XVIII. Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.

XIX. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.

XX. A man in love is always apprehensive.

XXI. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.

XXII. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.

XXIII. He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little.

XXIV. Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.

XXV. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.

XXVI. Love can deny nothing to love.

XXVII. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.

XXVIII. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.

XXIX. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.

XXX. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.

XXXI. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

Which one is your favorite? Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Quote for the day: …Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, / That looks on tempests and is never shaken… William Shakespeare