16 Facts About Courtly love

Courtly love was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry.

Courtly love began in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the eleventh century.

In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment, "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent".

Courtly love argues that many of the texts that scholars claim to be courtly include "uncourtly" texts, and argues that there is no clear way to determine "where courtliness ends and uncourtliness starts" because readers would enjoy texts which were supposed to be entirely courtly without realizing they were enjoying texts which were uncourtly.

Practice of courtly love developed in the castle life of four regions: Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne and ducal Burgundy, from around the time of the First Crusade .

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Courtly love found expression in the lyric poems written by troubadours, such as William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, one of the first troubadour poets.

Since at the time some marriages among nobility had little to do with modern perspectives of what constitutes love, courtly love was a way for nobles to express the love not found in their marriage.

However, other scholars note that courtly love was certainly tied to the Church's effort to civilize the crude Germanic feudal codes in the late 11th century.

Literary convention of courtly love can be found in most of the major authors of the Middle Ages such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Dante, Marie de France, Chretien de Troyes, Gottfried von Strassburg and Thomas Malory.

Courtly love was born in the lyric, first appearing with Provencal poets in the 11th century, including itinerant and courtly minstrels such as the French troubadours and trouveres, as well as the writers of lays.

Courtly love musicians played the vielle and the harp, as well as different types of viols and flutes.

Allegorical treatment of courtly love is found in the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun.

All courtly love was erotic to some degree, and not purely platonic—the troubadours speak of the physical beauty of their ladies and the feelings and desires the ladies arouse in them.

Rougemont said that courtly love subscribed to the code of chivalry, and therefore a knight's loyalty was always to his King before his mistress.

That is called mixed Courtly love which gets its effect from every delight of the flesh and culminates in the final act of Venus.

Courtly love probably found expression in the real world in customs such as the crowning of Queens of Love and Beauty at tournaments.