lisanicholas: Like Andreas Capellanus's Art of Courtly Love, Chretien's romance satirizes the 12th century literary fad of stories glorifying adulterous love.
It's pretty shocking I haven't read this already, since I've done so many modules on King Arthur, modules that otherwise involve "courtly love", etc. It's a highly stylised account of love, including a brief Arthurian romance, and shouldn't probably be taken too seriously as a historical document. Still, it is useful to reflect on for the literature and thought of the period, and as one of the influences on later courtly love romances, and the introduction with this edition is pretty useful too.
The Art of Courtly Love(or The Treatise of Love) was written between 1184- 86 and takes the form of an instructional manual to a young courtier. According to C S Lewis courtly love was based on four basic premise: humility, courtesy, adultery and the religion of love. It went hand in hand with the concept of chivalry. Knights with their codes of honour were expected to follow the tenets of courtly love in the Romances at least and probably in some societies in real courtly life if this manual is anything to go by.
It has been accredited to Andreas Capellanus; a chaplain at the court of the Countess Marie de Champagne. This was the same Countess who had instructed Chretien de Troyes to write his "Knight of the Cart (Lancelot)" one of the earliest of the Arthurian Romances. Chretien and Andreas were contemporaries and friends at court, but it would appear that Chretien might not have been wholly comfortable with the idea of adulterous love, as he did not complete his tale of Lancelot; that most famous of adulterers. Andreas treatise was written in Latin as would be appropriate for educated men and women at court, Chretien's Romances were in the vernacular and so would have been aimed at a wider audience. Andreas Treatise did become extremely popular; there are many surviving manuscripts and it was soon translated into the vernacular. Subsequent authors of the Arthurian Romances would have been familiar with the Treatise and there is evidence of this from their use of its basic concepts.
Andreas Capellanus was not the inventor of courtly love, he was more of a chronicler. The ideas of adulterous love was taken from the poems of Ovid, which were very popular in the 12th century. These ideas were enhanced by lyrics from the troubadours and further influenced by Arabic manuscripts coming from Moslem Spain. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine condoned these new ideas in her court at Poitiers and her descendants Countess Marie at Troyes and Thibault the great king of Navarre enthusiastically carried the torch. It was Countess Marie who instructed her chaplain Andreas to write these rules of engagement. Little is known of Andreas but it is evident that spiritual concerns were not his first consideration: look at what he says in a short chapter on "The Love of Nuns"
"And although we consider ourselves very expert in the art of love and well instructed in its cure, we were barely able to avoid her (a nun) pestilential snares and escape without contamination of the flesh"
"And if you should by some chance fall in love with some of their women, be careful to pump them up with lots of praise and when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to take what you need and embrace them by force"
"..... since everybody knows that love can have no place between husband and wife. They may be bound to each other by a great and moderate affection, but their feelings cannot take the place of love, because it cannot fit under the true definition of love. For what is love but an inordinate desire to receive passionate a furtive and hidden embrace. But what embrace between husband and wife can be furtive"
Book one says almost as much about people's rank in society as it does about courtly love and so is fascinating reading.
Book 2 is entitled "How love might be retained" and reads like a more advanced course in love for the apprentice Walter. There are sections headed "If one of the lovers is unfaithful", How love may come to an end", "How love once consummated can be increased" There then follows a series of lovers questions on the more tricky aspects of courtly love and these are answered by experts such as Queen Eleanore or the Countess Marie. The book ends with a short tale about King Arthur and the knights of the round table in which the centre piece is a parchment containing the 31 rules for courtly lovers.
Book 3 the shortest of the books; "The Rejection of Love" is a typical medieval retraction on all that has gone before. It can of course be read ironically but its main purpose would have been for Andreas to appease his ecclesiastical superiors. It serves as a warning to Young Walter not to be tempted by courtly love and soon turns into a prolonged attack on the evils of women. The misogyny of book 3 is unpleasant reading, but modern readers should be aware that this is a medieval text and would have been perfectly acceptable to its audience.
Had I known this was abridged, I would never have bought it.