courtly love as religious dissent

Courtly Love as Religious DissentAuthor(s): Jeffrey B. RussellReviewed work(s):Source: The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Apr., 1965), pp. 31-44Published by: Catholic University of America PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25017609 .

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COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT

By Jeffrey B. Russell*

Towards the end of the eleventh century there appeared in southern

France a variety of literature that represented a new way of looking at

the world. This was the courtly love of the troubadours, soon adopted

by the trouv?res in northern France and the Minnes?nger in Ger?

many, an idea that has been most simply defined by Etienne Gilson as

love as conceived in the courts of the nobility of southern France.1 It

was a revolutionary world view in that it placed human love at the

center of the universe and raised the woman (or, rather, the lady) from the status of drudge and brood mare to that of a high ideal. Both

these revolutionary notions have persisted into our time, and both are

atypical of the views held in other societies and in other periods, wit? ness the role of women in modern Islam or in ancient Greece. The

question is to what extent this new way of looking at the world rep? resented a departure from religious orthodoxy in the eleventh and

early twelfth centuries.

Alexander Denomy called courtly love a heresy,2 and there is a

certain strength in this position. That there was a body of doctrine

proper to courtly love in the same way that a religion has a doctrine

is evident from the consistency of the ideas in troubadour poetry, from

the judgments of the courts of love, and from the theoretical treatise

*Mr. Russell is an assistant professor of history in the University of Cal?

ifornia at Riverside. 1 Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (London, 1940),

p. 171. 2 Alexander J. Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love (New York, 1947).

See also Denomy's "Fin'Amours," Mediaeval Studies, VII (1945) ; "Andreas

Capellanus: Discovered or Re-discovered," ibid., VIII (1946), 139-207; "The De Amore of Andreas Capellanus and the Condemnation of 1277," ibid., VIII

(1946), 107-149; "Courtly Love and Courtliness," Speculum, XXVIII (Jan? uary, 1953), 44-63. Other recent treatments of courtly love are Hans Furstner, Studien sur Wesensbestimmung der h?fischen Mimme (Groningen, 1956) ; Ilse Nolting-Hauff, Die Stellung der Liebeskasuistik im h?fischen Roman (Heidelberg, 1959) ; Aldo D. Scaglione, Nature and Love in the Late Middle

Ages (Berkeley, 1963) ; R. Bezzola, Les origines et la formation de la litt?rature courtoise en occident (500-1200) (Paris, 1944-1963).

31



32 COURTLY LOVE AS RELIGIOUS DISSENT

of Andrew the Chaplain, who was almost the theologian of courtly love.3 This doctrine included the following points that Father Denomy took to be heretical: the apotheosis of human love, the conception that passion of this kind is divine, and the idea that sexual attachments

outside marriage are desirable. It is too much to make of this a

formal intellectual heresy of the nature of Berengar's or of Abelard's

but it does represent a point of view so incompatible with Christian

orthodoxy as to merit classification as a variety of medieval dissent.

If our concern is less with strict theological definitions than with

understanding medieval society and thought, this disaffection is as

significant as heresy itself.

Courtly love has been carefully and extensively studied, and I do

not purport to offer here even a cursive view of the phenomenon as

a whole. I wish to discuss only two problems relevant to the question to what extent courtly love did represent religious dissidence. These

are, first, to what degree courtly love was a perversion of Christianity and, second, what specific doctrines of courtly love may be considered

unorthodox by the criteria of the twelfth-century Church.

The first problem requires a consideration of the origins of the

doctrine of courtly love. Here a number of theories have been ad?

vanced. It is generally agreed that literature fairly described as bear?

ing the marks of courtly love begins at the end of the eleventh cen?

tury, William IX, Count of Poitiers (1071-1127), generally being considered the first troubadour, though M?ller sensibly pointed out

that there may have been earlier lyrics that never were set to paper.4 The literature of courtly love is distinguished by being written in the

vernacular, in Proven?al, French, German, or, later, Italian. Jeanroy,5 the great upholder of the orthodox nineteenth-century interpretation, held that the literature of courtly love derived from the love literature

of classical Latin, particularly from the Ars Amatoria of Ovid. More

recently, Etienne Gilson found a profound influence in Cicero's ideas

of friendship.6 For Jeanroy the fact that civilization was becoming more settled and refined in this period, that the noblesse, increasingly freed from the necessities of constant warfare, had more leisure, and

3 Andrew the Chaplain, The Art of Courtly Love, ed. John Jay Parry (New

York, 1941). 4 Herbert M?ller, "The Meaning of Courtly Love," Journal of American

Folklore, LXXlll (I960), 39. 5 Alfred Jeanroy, La Poesie lyrique des troubadours (Toulouse, 1934). 6

Gilson, op. cit., p. 8.



BY JEFFREY B. RUSSELL 33

that the younger sons of the nobility attached themselves to the

courts of great barons where they found the baron's wife conveniently at hand to help them while away the hours, was enough to explain

why the men of the South should have taken up Latin love literature

and fashioned it to their purposes.

Though Jeanroy's explanation is insufficient in many respects? one asks, for example, why the young nobleman should have chosen

the baron's wife rather than his daughters?he held it firmly until his

death. The theory that courtly love sprang from the Latin love poetry of the Middle Ages found little favor either with Jeanroy or with

modern critics,7 and its derivation from the student songs has also

been rejected.8 The interpretation that makes Arabic poetry the source

has had considerable support, especially since the publication of the

poems of the Arab Ibn Hazm, who lived at Cordoba (994-1065) and

who wrote a kind of an Art of Love.9 After weighing the evidence

carefully, however, Belperron decided that Arabic love poetry had

less in common with courtly love than it had with Ovid, and he pointed out a fundamental difference between the Arab lovers and their

Proven?al counterparts in that Arabic love poetry was libertine in

nature while the attitude of the Proven?al was that of a loving wor?

shipper.10 Father Denomy held that "the origin of the courtly conception of

love as ennobling is to be found not in Arabian literature but, rather, in Arabian philosophy and specifically in the mystical philosophy of

Avicenna."11 Avicenna taught that as long as the appetites of the

"animal soul" are kept subject to the "rational soul" they are good in that they help the soul to approach its goal, which is beauty.

Denomy argued that the troubadour notion that, while gross love was

suitable to animals and peasants, true love was ennobling, derived

from these concepts, themselves neoplatonic in nature. To Christian

neoplatonism re-enforced by Arabian neoplatonism, then, Denomy attributed many of the concepts and much of the language of courtly

7 Pierre Beiperron, La "Joie d'Amour" (Paris, 1948), p. 57. 8

Ibid., p. 58. 9 For the Arab interpretation, see, among others, A. R. Nykl, Hispano

arabic Poetry and its Relations with the Old Proven?al Troubadours (Balti?

more, 1946) ; Gustave E. Von Grunebaum, "Avicenna's Ris?la Fi'L'Isq and

Courtly Love," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XI (1952). 10

Belperron, op. cit., pp. 98-99. 11

Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love, pp. 29-30.




love. The semi-mystical origins of the concepts might then account

for the use by the troubadours of language appropriate to Christian

mystical union.

While the influence of Arabian thought in one way or another

is probably present, we may agree with Belperron's conclusion that

courtly love should in large measure be considered indigenous and

relatively spontaneous. The troubadours had a notion of a love differ?

ent from sensual love, and where, in a Christian environment, were

they more likely to find such ideas than in the Christian religion?

Denomy's suggestions of neoplatonic, and Gilson's of Ciceronian, in?

fluence are not incompatible with such a suggestion.

In a book that no one has yet found unexciting, Denis de Rouge mont offered another explanation. He found a connection between

the doctrine of courtly love and that, not of orthodox Christianity, but of Catharism. The prima facie evidence in favor of this theory is considerable. The south of France was the center of two great un?

conventional movements, courtly love and Catharism. Courtly love

appeared at the end of the eleventh century and Catharism at the be?

ginning of the eleventh, so the argument runs. Both doctrines must

have had enormous hold upon the people, for the evidence tells us so

directly in the case of the heretics, while in that of the courtly lovers we can infer it from the persistence of the literature and from their

remarkable uniformity in doctrine, a sign, M?ller noted, that they were saying something people wanted to hear. The Catharist heresy was influential among the nobility, while the courtly love poems were

composed especially to be sung at noble courts and castles. It is in?

conceivable, the prima facie case concludes from the external evidence, that there should have been no common ground between the two.

This argument has several weaknesses. First of all, that there was

some common ground in the discontent of the population with normal

Christianity is undeniable ; and the Proven?al nobles who were Cathar

ists and who also welcomed troubadours to their tables could not

have failed to perceive a connection. But this by no means shows that

courtly love derived from Catharism. Since courtly love begins in the

eleventh century while dualist Catharism, contrary to Rougemont's

assumptions, does not appear in the West until the 1140's, and since,

further, there is no change in the sentiments of troubadour poets about

1140 that would indicate an influence of the new doctrines, the




chronology clearly indicates that a cause and effect relationship is

impossible.12

Rougemont's argument from internal evidence, from a comparison of troubadour and dualist attitudes, is also of interest. The trou?

badours did not emphasize libertinism or the satisfaction of physical love. Though they might take an occasional tumble with a peasant

girl or even, when circumstances required it, cohabit with their wives, in their dealings with their courtly mistresses they took more pleasure from the poignancy of unfulfilled desire than from the satisfaction of

that desire. This apparent shunning of the sexual act itself might be construed as consistent with dualism. But the peasant girls remain

solid, fleshly evidence against Catharist asceticism. Further, Jeanroy's

objection to this kind of argument is still valid : the troubadours and

courts of love were never accused of asceticism, and even though the

sexual act may not have been central in their mystique, their poetry is not the less sensual in its inspiration. It even extolled practices that a modern psychoanalysis would describe as voyeurism and fetishism.

Further, hints of more thorough sexual activity are by no means

entirely lacking. Marcabru's lady tells a little bird that all will be well

tomorrow when her lover returns, "Que sots pi/ Farem fi,/ Sots lui

mi!* Rougemont is correct in saying that the troubadours condemned

marriage, but they did so not because they disliked generation or sex

but because sex outside marriage provided the tension they sought.

It might be argued that the courtly experimentation with love short

of procreation is consistent with Catharist theory, which was primarily concerned with preventing generation. It is true that the Catharist

credentes were allowed wide leeway and that they may well have been

guilty of some of the unnatural activities of which they were often

accused. But the perfecti were puritanical far beyond a simple fear

of births, and it was they who formulated Catharist doctrines. Cathar?

ist theory enjoined not only technical celibacy but the practice in all

matters of an extreme asceticism designed to liberate the spirit from

this diabolical world of the flesh. The troubadour apotheosis of sex is

a far cry from this. To imagine that because they found tension and

longing more satisfactory than satisfaction itself means that their

12 The late date for the introduction of dualism is increasingly accepted by historians. See for example Arno Borst, Die Katharer (Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 89ff.




concept of love was spiritual would be to fail to understand that the

refined sexuality of the courtly lovers was much more sensual than

the ordinary thing done in the ordinary way.

Rougemont considers certain motifs of courtly love poetry as re?

flecting Catharist influence, among them the themes of death and

separation. But in the first case he takes far too seriously the lover's

threat to die of chagrin, and in any case it is because of a woman

that the sufferer wishes to die, not because of a desire to free the

spirit from the flesh. In the case of the poignancy of separation, Rouge? mont must cite the aurora poems, and these lyrics in which the lovers

curse the dawn that separates them are nothing if not sensual. All

these objections may be nullified if we agree with Rougemont that

the woman in the poems symbolizes the soul of the man, but such an interpretation smacks of the old-fashioned glosses on the song of

Solomon and carries no conviction. There is no need to go beyond

sensuality to explain these sensual troubadour songs. It is inconceiv?

able that the recovery of the spirit from its fleshly bonds, for example, could be expressed in terms like Bernart Marti's "When I have de?

flowered her beneath the embroidered curtains."

Another compelling objection to Rougemont's theory is that the

Church never accused the troubadours, as a group, of Catharism. In

a period when the Church was engaging in a fierce and active struggle

against dualist heresy it is inconceivable that orthodox writers and

polemicists should have neglected to condemn the troubadours if they were substantially infected with this sort of error. It is likely of

course that certain poets, once dualism had arrived in the West, fell

under its influence. Raimbaut of Orange, for example, may have

had an attitude toward the opposite sex that was suspiciously strict :

he condemned all sensual love and said that he wished to treat all

women as his sisters. But to derive courtly love from Catharist dual?

ism or even to posit an essential connection between them is unjus? tified. The final bit of argument that the adherents of the Catharist

interpretation throw upon the scales is that the Albigensian Crusade

marked not only the suppression of Catharism but also the end of

courtly love. Schl?sser answered this with the observation that by the time of the crusade courtly literature had become so stylized and

formal that it would soon have perished in any case. Further, no one

would deny that the crusade in its disruption of Proven?al society




would have done violence to the arts whether heretically inspired or

not.13

If the courtly lovers were dissenters it was not because they were, as a whole, Catharists.

Another, and meritorious, interpretation of the origins of courtly love is that it could arise naturally in certain psychological and social

circumstances. Setting aside overenthusiastic interpretations such as

that which makes courtly love a gigantic manifestation of mother

fixation,14 it is likely that many of the attitudes of courtly love could

arise naturally. There are ancient Egyptian love songs whose flavor

is not unlike that of medieval love poetry.15 Ernest van den Haag

recently pointed out that there is a built-in conflict between marriage and passion, and both marriage and passion are natural things. The

longing for the ideal, the pure, and the beautiful is something that

most have felt in one way or another, and sexual satisfaction can

easily remove the notion that these ideas are incarnate in one's partner. Van den Haag quotes Yeats to this effect : "Desire dies, because every touch consumes the myth." Thus marriage and sex may at bottom

both be incompatible with romantic love, and though many societies

prefer that romantic love should die in order to indulge sexual desire

the better, it is not altogether strange that some societies might choose to exalt the pleasures of romantic love over those of sex.16

Another explanation is the crypto-Marxist theory that women em?

ployed the doctrines of courtly love as well as of heresy as weapons

against their male oppressors.17 Whatever its individual applications,

13 Felix Schl?sser, Andreas Capellanus: seine Minnelehre und das christliche

Weltbild um 1200 (Bonn, 1960), pp. 248-249. The leading proponents of the Catharist interpretation have been Denis de Rougemont, L1 Amour et VOccident

(Paris, 1956), and Otto Rahn, Der Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (Freiburg, 1933). P. Breillet, Recherches albigeoises (Albi, 1948), offers a refutation of the

Rahn thesis. 14 The incest taboo forms part of the explanation of the amusing Morton M.

Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York, 1959). See also Herbert

M?ller, "The Social Causation of the Courtly Love Complex," Comparative Studies in Society and History: An International Quarterly, I (1959).

15 James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old

Testament (2d ed.; Princeton, 1955), pp. 468-469. !? Ernest van den Haag, "Love or Marriage," Harper's CCXXIV (1962),

#1344. 17 See Gottfried Koch, Frauenfrage und Ketzer turn im Mittelalter (Berlin,

1962).




it is doubtful that this theory can go very far in illuminating the

origins of any of these medieval movements.

On the other hand, it is clear that the social institutions of feudalism

entered into the formation of courtly love. C. S. Lewis observed that

the feudal relationship between lord and vassal was, in its ideal form,

very similar to the relationship between the lord and his lady. Lewis

points out that the phrase used by the troubadours in addressing their

lights of love, "mi dons'" originally meant, not my lady, but my lord.18 In Doon de Mayence the vassal speaks of his lord in the following devoted terms :

If my lord is slain, I wish to die too.

Hanged ? Hang me with him. Delivered to the flames ? I want to be burned.

And, if he is drowned, throw me in with him.

Besides this personal relationship between lord and man, the insti? tution of feudalism created conditions in which an attitude of courtly love might arise. Feudalism began as the very serious business of

protecting society from its military enemies, and the men who par?

ticipated in the system as lords or vassals were noted less for a quick finger on the lute than for a quick hand on the sword. As society grew more stable and manners less rude, the old warrior class lost some of its brutality, but it also lost much of its raison d'?tre. By the

beginning of the twelfth century feudalism had generally become

hereditary, and women and children could stand as vassals. With this and other means of avoiding actual military service, the military rationale of the feudal caste was gradually lost, and feudalism needed another ideal to replace that of brute force. The Church attempted to impose its ideals upon knighthood and caused young candidates to fast and to keep vigil in chapel before their dubbing. The knight was

to swear to protect widows and orphans and to see that justice was

done; more than a mere miles, he was to be a miles Christi. It is

problematical how much the ecclesiastical idea of chivalry penetrated the thought, let alone the actions, of the warrior class, but if the

Church's alternative to brute force were not accepted, what other

possibility was there?

The answer is seen in a comparison of the attitudes of Chr?tien de

Troyes with those of the author of Roland: the epic yielded to ro

is C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (Oxford, 1936), p. 2.




manee and the war-horn to the lute. The mystique of the noble lady became the center of the chivalric code. It may be futile to seek far

afield the reasons why a class that enjoyed increasing leisure should

choose ladies as the center of the cult, the attachment of gentlemen to ladies not requiring elaborate explanation. But the peculiar romantic

nature of the attachment rather than simple libertinism may be ex?

plained in terms of Christian influence. The Church had failed, except in unusual cases like that of the Templars, to make knighthood into

a religious institution, but knighthood in a Christian society could

not help but share deeply in Christian attitudes. Chivalry and courtly love are unimaginable removed from the Christian background. The

straightforward pagan attitude toward sex produced no conflict,

though it might occasionally produce exhaustion, but Christianity, with its ambivalence toward the world, its uncertainty whether the

flesh were good or evil, brought with it an inherent tension. That

tension in turn made passion?passion in its root sense of suffering? in love possible, and it was this suffering for love that the troubadours

found so sweet. The moral obstacles that Christianity put in the

path of sexual fulfillment also helped to create tension. Romantic

love cannot flourish where sexual fulfillment is easily obtainable, but only where obstructions are placed in its way. Beyond this, the

elevation of women, the physically weaker of the sexes (at least so

it used to be thought) in the esteem of men, may itself stem in part from the Christian glorification of the meek.

This returns to the first point : that courtly love is dissent in that

it took Christian ideas and distorted them to fit its own purpose.

Though many doubtless adopted the attitudes of courtly love merely as a game, others took them seriously enough. Nor does the fact that

the courtly lovers were not usually in open defiance of the Church make their disaffection from basic Christian principles less real.

Max Weber noted the similarity between religious and sexual

ecstasy as well as that between the feudal and the erotic relationship.19

Though C. S. Lewis warned that the language of religion applied to

the love of ladies may often be a parody, it is clear that it is an ir?

reverent parody at best, and Lewis admitted that it can become a

serious "extension of religion, an escape from religion, a rival re?

ligion."20 Further, while much of the literature of courtly love is

19 From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edd. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, London, 1946), pp. 343-346. 20

Lewis, op. cit., p. 21.




purely conventional, much again is not, and even the conventional

verse raises the questions of the conventions it uses. That Aucassin

and Nicolete and Andrew the Chaplain reveal attitudes deeply at

variance with Christianity is not to be denied. We do not have to take

the Council of Remiremont, in which nuns debate whether clergymen or laymen are better lovers, or Andrew's pseudo-theological debates, at all seriously to realize that this kind of parody indicates a lack of

piety bordering upon religious disaffection.21 The student songs that

flourished from the latter half of the twelfth century represent the

same sort of irreverence, however genial, for that wThich society con?

sidered sacred.

The relationship between courtly love and various Christian atti?

tudes has been observed by a number of critics. The cult of the

Blessed Virgin, inspired in part by the unusual religious enthusiasm

of the day, grew rapidly in the twelfth century and was not without

its reflection in the cult of the courtly lady. The apparent similarity between the language of courtly love and that of Christian mysticism has not gone unnoticed. Etienne Gilson's refutation of the claims that

courtly love and mysticism are related is convincing if the terms are

taken in their strict sense, but there is a shadowland where such a

relationship is likely. Granted that the two are intellectually dis?

similar, this dissimilarity does not always extend to their emotional

attitudes, and emotions are often more important to people than the

intellect. The tension of courtly love, the anguish of separation, the

idolization of the beloved, all are too similar to mystical feeling, if not

to mystical thought, to be dismissed. Gilson points out certain deep differences, such as that which separates the mystic's desire for union

from the courtly lover's diffidence in regard to consummation. The

courtly love of women is certainly different from Christian charitas, as Gilson says, but mysticism, too, sometimes becomes more emotional

than pure charitas. Gilson is speaking of high mystical theory; the

practice was doubtless not always that elevated. Evelyn Underhill, while observing that the mystic cannot be identified with the ecstatic,

points out many similarities between divine and profane love. "Like

his type, the 'devout lover' of romance," she observes, ". . . the mystic

serves without hope of reward." The dictum of Kempis that "to

21 Council of Remiremont in G. Waitz, "Das Liebesconcil," Zeitschrift f?r deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, VII (1948) ; Andrew the Chaplain,

op. cit., pp. 138-141.




rejoice in tribulation is no difficult thing for the lover" would apply to either a courtly or a mystical lover. The language of exile and

pilgrimage are common to mystical and secular love, and the poem of

the Moslem mystic Jalalu'd Din makes use of more than one image that would become dear to human lovers :

With Thy Sweet Soul, this soul of mine Hath mixed as Water doth with Wine.

Who can the Wine and Water part,

Or me and Thee when we combine ? ...

Thy Love has pierced me through and through Its thrill with Bone and Nerve entwine.

I rest a Flute laid on Thy lips ; A lute, I on Thy breast recline.

Breathe deep in me that I may sigh ; Yet strike my strings, and tears shall shine.22

Finally, I am not sure that Gilson is right in saying that it is pos? sible to experience the ecstasy of love without having heard a descrip? tion of Christian mystical ecstasy, if the "ecstasy of love" is under?

stood in a sense that would have been meaningful to the troubadours.

It would certainly be too much to derive courtly love from Christian

mysticism, particularly the systematic mysticism of someone like Saint

Bernard, but it is also too much to rule out the penetration of attitudes

deriving loosely from mysticism.23 Graham Greene said : "The words

of human love have been used by the saints to describe their vision

of God ; and so, I suppose, we might use the terms of prayer, medita?

tion, and contemplation to explain the intensity of the love we feel

for a woman."24

Wechssler25 did most to show similarities between Christianity and

the cult of love. The ambivalence of Christianity as to whether it

rejects or affirms the world is reflected in the ambivalence of the

troubadours as to whether or not they desired consummation of their

physical desires. The doctrine of love that held that a lover should

22 Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism (New York, 1961), pp. 19, 92, 426. 23 Gil son, op. cit., Appendix IV. E. Anichkov, loachim de Flore et les milieux

courtois (Paris, 1931), had affirmed the theory. See also R. J. Schoeck, "Andreas Capellamis and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: The Twelve Rules of

Love and the Twelve Steps of Humility," Modern Language Notes, LXVI

(1951). 24 The End of the Affair (New York, 1951), p. 55. 25 E. Wechssler, Das Kulturproblem des Minnesangs (Halle, 1909).




be true to his one beloved (although the beloved, it is true, could

not be his wife) may be a reflection of the Christian teaching of

monogamy, though it may also derive from the feudal relationship. The longing, the Sehnsucht of the Christian for the unattainable Deity is reflected in the Sehnsucht of the troubadour for the unattainable

lady. The cult of the lady is comparable to that of the Virgin and

the saints: the lover approaches his lady as a penitent; he begs her

forgiveness ; he asks her grace ; he seeks salvation at her feet.

The origins of courtly love will continue to be debated, and it is

clear that its roots tap many soils. Wechssler's position is probably overstated: courtly love is not simply a distorted image of Chris?

tianity. Yet it is clear that the particular form it took was possible

only within the context of Christian society. In this sense it was, as

a perversion of Christian ideas, a form of religious dissidence. It can?

not be dismissed as an idle pastime, for the commitment of the

courtly lovers to their ideas was more than that. If ultimate concern

is the mark of a religious attitude, as Tillich maintains, then the

courtly lovers were religious, and their religion was not Christianity, even though many of them may have attended Mass. Tillich would

call their concern an idolatrous faith in that it elevated the finite

quality of human love to the level of the infinite.

If there is the flavor of religious dissent in the origins of the cult

of love, there are certain portions of its doctrine that are clearly un?

orthodox. It is true and significant that the Church never condemned

courtly love as a heresy, nor is mention made of its tenets in confes?

sional guides for priests, so that it would again be going too far to

claim that the troubadours and their admirers were formal heretics.

Denomy's belief that the theorists of courtly love, Andrew the Chap? lain in particular, were Averroists in holding a doctrine of the two

truths is intellectualizing that which is not intellectual. But it would

not be going far enough if it is not recognized that the doctrines of

the cult of love, if taken at all seriously, do represent a confrontation

with Christian teaching.

The exaltation of a finite creature, a living woman, above the

highest altar of one's devotion is the most evident example of such

confrontation. Then there is the transference of Christian terms like

passion" and "devotion." For example, the term "adoration" had

such a strict theological meaning as to occasion a grave crisis in the

Western Church at the time of the Iconoclastic controversy. Yet it




was readily transferred from God to the lady. The phrase "I adore

her" (cf. Bernart de Ventadour's "Lady, for your love, I clasp my hands and adore you"), if taken at all seriously, is a blasphemy.

The doctrine that the object of love must be another man's wife

clearly vitiates the meaning of the sacrament of marriage, and the

idea that devotion to another man's wife positively represents a higher

morality is an evident departure from orthodoxy. Further, the ap?

proval of sensual love of any variety is a radical departure from Chris?

tian tradition. Love for the lady went so far as to replace faith as the

guide of life ; devotion to the lady was supposed to protect one from

harm. Grace was replaced by the courtly "joy" in bestowing upon the

lover a "liberating feeling of confidence and inner triumph."26 The

lady, rather than God, became the ultimate judge of conduct, and

one behaved according to what pleased her rather than according to

what pleased the Almighty. Keep chaste, not for the sake of the Lord, but "for the sake of her whom thou lovest," urges Andrew the Chap? lain. The knight obeys his lady's every whim without question in the

manner of the pious Christian who says, "Thy will be done." He is

utterly humble in her presence and hardly dares touch her; he

trembles in her presence like a worshipper before Yahweh.

The lover's passion not only keeps him from harm but enables him

to perform astounding feats of derring-do, in precisely the fashion that

in the popular hagiographies the faith of the saints enabled them to

perform miracles. The "joy" of the knight transforms him into a

"new man," just as baptism changes and renews. As the rich young man was urged to abandon all for Christ's sake, so the courtly lover

is urged to sacrifice material possessions, home, family, and duty to

follow his lady love. The knight takes up his cross of passion as the

Christian takes up the cross of a different passion. The knight serves

in love's army, a miles amoris rather than a miles Christi. The Chris?

tian monk spurns the world in order to concentrate his attention upon

God, but the courtly lover rejects it ("All that I see is displeasing to

me")27 when his lady is absent or unkind. The young man preparing himself for love must possess the qualities of a religious novice : "Love, do you think I have any hope of being happy ? Yes, my friend, through

patience and submission (Aimeric de P?gulhan)." Patience and sub?

mission, yes, but to another God than Jehovah.

26 Moller, op. cit., p. 47.

27 Andr? Berry, Floril?ge des troubadours (Paris, 1930), #6.




Nor is that all. The dawn poems that paint the poignancy of sep? aration and the impermanence of the things of this world reflect the

orthodox theme of the vanity of vanities. More blatant was the overt

attack of the courtly lovers upon the orthodox view of the clergy. Andrew the Chaplain and others readily permitted clerks to indulge in love affairs.28 William of Poitou, indeed, was accused of desiring to found an abbey of love on the model of a cloistered monastery.29

The clergy is consistently portrayed with cynicism, disdain, or open

mockery.

Courtly love, though peripheral, is important to the study of medie?

val dissent. Not a heresy in the formal sense, it did represent devia?

tion from Christian principles, perversion of Christian ideals, and

hostility to the Christian clergy and at least implicitly to the Christian

Church. Like the widespread existence of superstition and magic, the currency in France and Germany in this period of the attitudes of

courtly love indicates that disaffection from Christianity in medieval

Europe could take various forms and was by no means unusual.

28 Andrew the Chaplain, op. cit., pp. 141-142. 29

Berry, op. cit., p. 33.



courtly love as religious dissent

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