Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition

6. Love and the Natural Order: Psychology and Physiology

6 ≥ LOVE AND THE NATURAL ORDER Psychology and Physiology Chapter One of the De amore offers an essentially psychological definition of love, as we have seen. It identifies the phenomenon under discussion as an “internal affect” (passio innata), that is, an emotion, then it goes on to describe its specific character in terms of the (“efficient”) causes, physical and psychological, that give rise to it (visio, cogitatio) and the goals, psychological and especially physical, to which it is directed (amplexus, amoris præcepta compleri). In commenting on this definition, the rest of Chapter One fills out the psychological processes involved in love’s origin, development, and progress toward its goal (cogitatio plenior, concupiscere, actum). The Chaplain thus elaborates a complex process involving several steps, an essentially internal, psychological process that parallels the external, physical process described by the traditional topic of the quinque lineæ amoris. Beyond this most scientific of chapters, many other passages in the De amore raise questions or carry implications concerning the psychology and physiology of love. These discussions are most concentrated in the theoretical, scholastic chapters that open Book One, but far from being limited to those chapters, they are also found dispersed throughout the entire treatise. The present chapter will unite such passages and examine them in light of each other and of Andreas’s definition. From this examination an idea will emerge as to how the Chaplain viewed love as a natural phenomenon. Andreas’s discussion of love psychology and physiology draws on a 198 variety of sources and traditions. It makes use of a number of basic notions from scholastic philosophy and psychology, as we have seen with respect to the definition, and also from medieval medicine. Equally important , however, are the literary sources, including the love writings of Ovid as well as the lyric poetry and romances of the troubadours and trouvères. The problems raised explicitly or implicitly by the treatise concerning the nature of love are the result of conflicts between these traditions or, in some cases, of unresolved conflicts within a given tradition . For the sake of clarity, our discussion of love psychology and physiology in the De amore will be organized around a certain number of basic concepts, many of which appear already in Andreas’s definition. Of course, such a separation is artificial, for these concepts constantly interact with each other throughout the treatise. Nor is it easy to separate the psychological and physiological aspects of love from the social and moral questions with which they are inextricably intertwined. Nevertheless , the latter concerns will be reserved for the last two chapters of our study. Sight and beauty According to Andreas’s definition, the ultimate efficient cause of love is sight (visio), namely that of the beauty of the opposite sex (formæ alterius sexus). This association of love with sight has behind it a long tradition. The Ars amatoria begins with advice on “looking” for girls, and the classical and medieval commonplace of the five stages of love usually begins with visus. The lyric poetry of the troubadours as well as the medieval vernacular romances often identify the first sight of the beloved as the crucial moment in the generation of love, sometimes describing it allegorically in terms of Love’s arrow entering the eye and striking the heart. The same image recurs in Petrarch and his Renaissance imitators under the label innamoramento pergli occhi. The association of sight with falling in love is also important in the medieval medical tradition, for example in the Prose Salernitan Questions.1 love a n d t h e n at u r a l o rd e r 199 1. The Prose Salernitan Questions, B16 (ed. Lawn, p. 10). Cf. Baldwin, Language, p. 140. Among the later references to sight in the treatise, the first and most striking occurs in Chapter Five, “What Persons Are Suited for Love.” Here the blind are excluded from loving because they cannot see an object on which to reflect immoderately (DA 1.5.6 [40]). To my knowledge , no external source has been identified for this restriction. It is probably just a logical deduction from the prominent role assigned to sight in Andreas’s definition, to which the final clause, “as was shown fully above,” alludes explicitly. It underlines forcefully the importance ascribed...