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7. Love and the Social Order: Courtly Values and Feudal Society
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7 ≥ LOVE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER Courtly Values and Feudal Society The complex of medieval love conceptions commonly known as “courtly love” contains an important social component. The term that many modern scholars use to designate these ideas refers first of all to the social milieu in which they originated, the aristocratic circles of the feudal courts. Whether or not they reflect the social practices of the courts, they are embodied in a large corpus of vernacular love literature produced in that milieu, literature in which social considerations play an important role. By far the most pervasive image in the love lyrics of the troubadours and trouvères, for example, is the “feudal metaphor,” which compares the relationship of the lover to his lady with that between a vassal and his lord. Not without reason, some scholars have seen in courtly love a “feudalization” of love. The dialogues of the De amore, which constitute more than one-half of the treatise, are organized around the social class of the participants. Not surprisingly, social questions make up an important part of their contents. Particularly concentrated in the dialogues, social matters are also raised in many other passages scattered throughout the treatise. Nor are they limited to the question of class that provides their point of departure, for several other related matters also figure prominently in the discussion. The social implications and ramifications of love thus form one of the major centers of interest of the work. The treatment of social questions in the De amore, unlike that of the other subjects discussed, relies primarily on contemporary, medieval 238 sources. These comprise two main traditions: that of the vernacular love literature and that of the ideas and practices of feudal society. The first of these traditions is easily verifiable in the poetic texts; the latter, that of the non-literary and perhaps even non-verbal “social intertext,” is more difficult to pin down, but no less real. Together they make up the non-clerical, vernacular sources that we have called “courtly.” Certain of the social themes of vernacular poetry do have classical antecedents, and for some not specifically medieval social questions classical authors such as Ovid exercised a direct influence on the treatise. The social problems raised generally concern conflicts between these traditions or, in some cases, contradictions within one of them. As with other matters , Andreas usually seeks compromise and synthesis between conflicting authorities. We have seen that Andreas’s treatment of the psychology of love is sometimes difficult to separate from social considerations. Likewise, the distinction between the social and the moral is often far from clear. Questions such as love and marriage, for example, or love and the clergy have obvious and important implications both for social organization and for ethics. Here I shall limit the discussion to matters relating exclusively or primarily to medieval secular society, reserving for the last chapter the questions in which Christian morality constitutes an important factor. As in the preceding chapter, I shall, for the sake of clarity , organize my remarks around a limited number of concepts, keeping in mind that they are all interrelated. Nobility Social promotion through love is an important theme in the poetry of the troubadours. Although himself of the highest nobility, the first troubadour, William of Poitiers, proclaimed that love is capable of transforming a churl into a courtly man or a courtly man into a churl.1 The troubadours frequently stress the nobility of the woman whose love they seek and their own temerity in placing their aim so high. At the same time, they claim that love, though unrequited, makes them love a n d t h e s o c i a l o rd e r 239 1. Mout jauzens me prenc en amar (P.-C. 183, 8), vv. 29–30. [18.209.209.28] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:55 GMT) better, inspiring in them an emulation of the beloved through which they hope to become worthy of the elevated love for which they long. Expressed fleetingly and sporadically in the poetry, this complex of ideas takes on a more substantial form in the thirteenth-century biographies of the troubadours known as the vidas and razos. The “life” of Bernart de Ventadorn, for example, asserts that he was born the son of a servant but that he later aspired to the love of Eleanor of Aquitaine, granddaughter of William of Poitiers and queen...