HIST 107 Introduction to Medieval History Lecture 19 Courtly Love and King Arthur Main Questions 1 What sort of culture developed around courts in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 2 How much significance should we attach to the emergence of courtly love Preliminary Remarks Although a subject such as courtliness and courtly love does not have the immediate focus of for example royal power or the new monasticism see previous lectures it does in fact involve the coming together of a number of strands that we have already looked at For example From the lecture on lordship we saw how the post Carolingian world especially in France fragments into regional and then local units By the twelfth century this process is beginning to reverse and regional courts the courts of powerful princes are reestablishing themselves as the main centres for political judicial and cultural transactions They are the go to places Ultimately the royal court will eclipse all the rest but it has not achieved this dominance yet From the lecture on the new learning we briefly considered how rulers courts acted as centres for teaching and learning though we know relatively little about this function What we can say is that some courts at least developed a reputation for cultural taste What we will see in this lecture is courts expanding this role a body of literature emerges which does not just happen to be performed and listened to in courts it is also largely about life in courts especially relations between female and male courtiers From the lecture on lordship we also considered the importance of marriage as an alliance between two aristocratic families Often the bride would be young in her teens but married to an older husband That bride would be the only high status woman able to live and move in the communal living areas of the lord s castle the unmarried daughters were kept locked away out of sight The lord s wife therefore might become an object of distant unrequited desire on the part of the young knights closer than her husband to her own age serving in the lord s retinue These are some of the factors that lead to the growth of ideas and practices including a body of literature that are referred to under the heading courtly love NB courtly love is a modern not a medieval term popularized in fact by the medievalist C S Lewis better known as the author of the Narnia stories 1 Key Questions A What is the background to the emergence of courtly love B What are the most important aspects of courtly love literature and of the world it evokes A What is the background to the emergence of courtly love This is important to ask because two major long term factors are at issue 1 The emergence of literature in vernacular languages Vernacular regular language spoken generally on the street in contradistinction to Latin the language of education and the Church Before 12th century vernaculars are not treated as literary languages some exceptions e g Old English in England used in texts such as the Anglo Saxon Chronicle but this perhaps originally a consequence of the breakdown of Latin education in the Viking period But this changes why is not entirely clear but one cause is a sort of overspill from the growth of education see previous lecture and the clustering of the educated products of the schools around courts for career opportunities related to this a new emphasis on writing this captures aspects of oral culture which had always been around but under our source radar So not entirely coincidental that earliest surviving monuments of western European languages epic tales popular at aristocratic centres e g English Beowulf maybe 9 10th century perhaps earlier Low German Heliand 9th century Castilian Cantar de Mio Cid c 1207 in northern French Chanson de Roland Song of Roland c 1120 very distantly based on an incident in 778 when part of Charlemagne s army is defeated in the Pyrenees returning north from Spain The Roland is generally considered the earliest of the genre of chansons de geste songs of deeds cf Rosenwein Reading pp 384 8 later example Raoul de Cambrai c 1180 Epics have roots in oral performance clue use of repeated formulae Themes predominantly masculine and public Values loyalty bravery physical prowess warfare male display conflicts in the plots reflect this emphasis 2 e g in Raoul de Cambrai conflict of loyalty to family v to lord in Roland fear of dishonour v obligations to one s lord These are the cultural products of a very male world catering to aristocratic male tastes 2 Second factor partial recalibration of the status of women Traditionally women s status depressed by two forces i Church s teaching Eve made from Adam source of sin ii aristocratic females marginalized in the changes in family structure see previous lecture on Geschlecht and Sippe But some countervailing forces rise of the cult of the Virgin Mary in 11th and 12th century Church changing the nature of marriage part of broader reform agenda see earlier lectures marriage now more a sacrament rituals now resembling modern practice and mutual consent of couple now emphasized Courtly love also in part an equalizing of the relationship between men and women if only the small minority in an aristocratic court Women can exercise more control over their love lives in theory anyway But a big scholarly debate is the change in women s status apparent or real Is courtly love in fact another disguised form of subjugation But we need to look more into the specifics of courtly love so the next question is B What are the most important aspects of courtly love literature and of the world it evokes Initially a French phenomenon then spreads to Germany and England More specifically a southern French phenomenon at first Why is the southern French connection significant Southern France politically and culturally detached from northern France Occitan aka langue d oc Proven al different from northern French langue d oil Early poets songwriters in south often nobles themselves first known in fact duke of Aquitaine William IX 1086 1126 others lesser southern lords e g Bertran de Born Jaufr Rudel see Rosenwein Reading pp 389 91 professional class of travelling performers troubadours stock genre shortish lyric poem often performed to music 3 often praising a distant unavailable uninterested woman and lamenting how much love for her is hurting the poet love is now pain some of this comes from renewed interest in ancient Latin poets e g Ovid maybe