THE THEORY OF COURTLY LOVE
Troubador poetry dealt with war, politics, personal satire and other
subjects: but the theme which is predominant and in which real
originality was shown, is love. The troubadours were the first lyric
poets in mediaeval Europe to deal exhaustively with this subject, and as
their attitude was imitated with certain modifications by French,
Italian, Portuguese and German poets, the nature of its treatment is a
matter of considerable importance.
Of the many ladies whose praises were sung or whose favours were desired
by troubadours, the majority were married. Troubadours who made their
songs to a maiden, as did Gui d'Ussel or Gausbert de Puegsibot, are
quite exceptional. Love in troubadour poetry was essentially a
conventional relationship, and marriage was not its object. This
conventional character was derived from the fact that troubadour love
was constituted upon the analogy of feudal relationship. If chivalry was
the outcome of the Germanic theory of knighthood as modified by the
influence of Christianity, it may be said that troubadour love is the [15]
outcome of the same theory under the influence of mariolatry. In the
eleventh century the worship of the Virgin Mary became widely popular;
the reverence bestowed upon the Virgin was extended to the female sex in
general, and as a vassal owed obedience to his feudal overlord, so did
he owe service and devotion to his lady. Moreover, under the feudal
system, the lady might often be called upon to represent her husband's
suzerainty to his vassals, when she was left in charge of affairs during
his absence in time of war. Unmarried women were inconspicuous figures
in the society of the age.
Thus there was a service of love as there was a service of vassalage,
and the lover stood to his lady in a position analogous to that of the
vassal to his overlord. He attained this position only by stages; "there
are four stages in love: the first is that of aspirant (_fegnedor_), the
second that of suppliant (_precador_), the third that of recognised
suitor (_entendedor_) and the fourth that of accepted lover (_drut_)."
The lover was formally installed as such by the lady, took an oath of
fidelity to her and received a kiss to seal it, a ring or some other
personal possession. For practical purposes the contract merely implied
that the lady was prepared to receive the troubadour's homage in poetry
and to be the subject of his song. As secrecy was a duty incumbent upon [16]
the troubadour, he usually referred to the lady by a pseudonym
(_senhal_); naturally, the lady's reputation was increased if her
attraction for a famous troubadour was known, and the _senhal_ was no
doubt an open secret at times. How far or how often the bounds of his
formal and conventional relationship were transgressed is impossible to
say; "en somme, assez immoral" is the judgment of Gaston Paris upon the
society of the age, and is confirmed by expressions of desire occurring
from time to time in various troubadours, which cannot be interpreted as
the outcome of a merely conventional or "platonic" devotion. In the
troubadour biographies the substratum of historical truth is so overlaid
by fiction, that little reliable evidence upon the point can be drawn
from this source.
However, transgression was probably exceptional. The idea of troubadour
love was intellectual rather than emotional; love was an art,
restricted, like poetry, by formal rules; the terms "love" and "poetry"
were identified, and the fourteenth century treatise which summarises
the principles of grammar and metre bore the title _Leys d'Amors_, the
Laws of Love. The pathology of the emotion was studied; it was treated
from a psychological standpoint and a technical vocabulary came into
use, for which it is often impossible to find English equivalents. The
first effect of love is to produce a mental exaltation, a desire to live [17]
a life worthy of the beloved lady and redounding to her praise, an
inspiring stimulus known as _joi_ or _joi d'amor_ (_amor_ in Provençal
is usually feminine).[7] Other virtues are produced by the influence of
this affection: the lover must have _valor_, that is, he must be worthy
of his lady; this worth implies the possession of _cortesia_, pleasure
in the pleasure of another and the desire to please; this quality is
acquired by the observance of _mesura_, wisdom and self-restraint in
word and deed.
The poetry which expresses such a state of mind is usually idealised and
pictures the relationship rather as it might have been than as it was.
The troubadour who knew his business would begin with praises of his
beloved; she is physically and morally perfect, her beauty illuminates
the night, her presence heals the sick, cheers the sad, makes the boor
courteous and so forth. For her the singer's love and devotion is
infinite: separation from her would be worse than death; her death would
leave the world cheerless, and to her he owes any thoughts of good or
beauty that he may have. It is only because he loves her that he can
sing. Hence he would rather suffer any pain or punishment at her hands
than receive the highest favours from another. The effects of this love
are obvious in his person. His voice quavers with supreme delight or [18]
breaks in dark despair; he sighs and weeps and wakes at night to think
of the one subject of contemplation. Waves of heat and cold pass over
him, and even when he prays, her image is before his eyes. This passion
has transformed his nature: he is a better and stronger man than ever
before, ready to forgive his enemies and to undergo any physical
privations; winter is to him as the cheerful spring, ice and snow as
soft lawns and flowery meads. Yet, if unrequited, his passion may
destroy him; he loses his self-control, does not hear when he is
addressed, cannot eat or sleep, grows thin and feeble, and is sinking
slowly to an early tomb. Even so, he does not regret his love, though it
lead to suffering and death; his passion grows ever stronger, for it is
ever supported by hope. But if his hopes are realised, he will owe
everything to the gracious favour of his lady, for his own merits can
avail nothing. Sometimes he is not prepared for such complete
self-renunciation; he reproaches his lady for her coldness, complains
that she has led him on by a show of kindness, has deceived him and will
be the cause of his death; or his patience is at an end, he will live in
spite of her and try his fortune elsewhere.[8]
Such, in very general terms, is the course that might be followed in
developing a well-worn theme, on which many variations are possible. The [19]
most common form of introduction is a reference to the spring or winter,
and to the influence of the seasons upon the poet's frame of mind or the
desire of the lady or of his patron for a song. In song the poet seeks
consolation for his miseries or hopes to increase the renown of his
lady. As will be seen in the following chapter, manner was even more
important than matter in troubadour lyrics, and commonplaces were
revivified by intricate rime-schemes and stanza construction accompanied
by new melodies. The conventional nature of the whole business may be
partly attested by the fact that no undoubted instance of death or
suicide for love has been handed down to us.
Reference should here be made to a legendary institution which seems to
have gripped the imagination of almost every tourist who writes a book
of travels in Southern France, the so-called _Courts of Love_.[9] In
modern times the famous Provençal scholar, Raynouard, attempted to
demonstrate the existence of these institutions, relying upon the
evidence of the _Art d'Aimer_ by André le Chapelain, a work written in
the thirteenth century and upon the statements of Nostradamus (_Vies des
plus célèbres et anciens poètes provençaux_, Lyons 1575). The latter
writer, the younger brother of the famous prophet, was obviously well
acquainted with Provençal literature and had access to sources of [20]
information which are now lost to us. But instead of attempting to write
history, he embellished the lives of the troubadours by drawing upon his
own extremely fertile imagination when the actual facts seemed too dull
or prosaic to arouse interest. He professed to have derived his
information from a manuscript left by a learned monk, the _Moine des
Iles d'Or_, of the monastery of St Honorat in the Ile de Lerins. The
late M. Camille Chabaneau has shown that the story is a pure fiction,
and that the monk's pretended name was an anagram upon the name of a
friend of Nostradamus.[10] Hence it is almost impossible to separate the
truth from the fiction in this book and any statements made by
Nostradamus must be received with the utmost caution. André le Chapelain
seems to have had no intention to deceive, but his knowledge of
Provençal society was entirely second-hand, and his statements
concerning the Courts of Love are no more worthy of credence than those
of Nostradamus. According to these two unreliable authorities, courts
for the decision of lovers' perplexities existed in Gascony, Provence,
Avignon and elsewhere; the seat of justice was held by some famous lady,
and the courts decided such questions as whether a lover could love two
ladies at the same time, whether lovers or married couples were the more
affectionate, whether love was compatible with avarice, and the like. [21]
A special poetical form which was popular among the troubadours may have
given rise to the legend. This was the _tenso_,[11] in which one
troubadour propounded a problem of love in an opening stanza and his
opponent or interlocutor gave his view in a second stanza, which
preserved the metre and rime-scheme of the first. The propounder then
replied, and if, as generally, neither would give way, a proposal was
made to send the problem to a troubadour-patron or to a lady for
settlement, a proposal which came to be a regular formula for concluding
the contest. Raynouard quotes the conclusion of a _tenso_ given by
Nostradamus in which one of the interlocutors says, "I shall overcome
you if the court is loyal: I will send the _tenso_ to Pierrefeu, where
the fair lady holds her court of instruction." The "court" here in
question was a social and not a judicial court. Had any such institution
as a judicial "court of love" ever been an integral part of Provençal
custom, it is scarcely conceivable that we should be informed of its
existence only by a few vague and scattered allusions in the large body
of Provençal literature. For these reasons the theory that such an
institution existed has been generally rejected by all scholars of
repute.