COURTLY LOVE TRADITION
                  [19th C. term amour courtois]

12th C. France:
          troubadours, minstrels, from Provence, south of France            
          courtly audience of aristocratic nobles

Eleanor of Aquitaine married to King Henry II of England
                 her own courts in Anjou and Poitiers in France
Bernard de Ventador:
            famous troubadour poet: see selection in course reader
            love songs in honor of Eleanor at court of Angers
            love affair, exiled to England by Henry

           Arthurian Tradition
         medieval romances of Celtic origin
Tristan story:  Tristan, nephew of King Mark,
            Isolde:  love potion, love affair, tragic ending
King Arthur: legendary British/Celtic warrior,
    Knights of the Round Table:  Lancelot
          knightly service to Lord & Lady,
    Queen Guinevere, loved by Lancelot = adultery
Chretien de Troyes, 12^th C French Lancelot in reader
     note that Dante read a different more moralizing version
                   with an unhappy ending

ANDREAS CAPELLANUS, Art of Courtly Love 1174

cleric at court of Marie de Champagne
Latin De Arte Honeste Amandi, condemned as heretical 1277
        = The Art of Loving Honestly, or Respectably [acc to rules]
Rules of love: see course reader
          Love as suffering, incompatible with marriage
                         enters throught the eyes

Dante’s La Vita Nuova  1292
             influence of Provencal vernacular love poetry
             love songs to Beatrice Portinari, died 1290
             spiritualization of love in Commedia, Beatrice as Divine Love