Courtly Love: The 30 Essential Qualities (or The Rules, Medieval-Style)

I bought "A Middle-English Anthology" (Anchor, 1969) at the Elizabethtown (PA) Town
Library used book sale last Thursday and this was in an appendix (without my comments,
of course):

THE RULE OF COURTLY LOVE,

BASED ON THE DE AMORE OF ANDREAS CAPELLANUS

1. Marriage should not be a deterrent to love. [This doesn't mean that you should still love
your wife after you get married.]

2. Love cannot exist in the individual who cannot be jealous. [Oh, just what a woman
wants in a man!]

3. A double love cannot obligate an individual. [Eh? Does this mean if the woman loves
the man back, he's under no obligation to her? Or does it mean he can love more than one
woman with no obligation to either?]

4. Love constantly waxes and wanes. [Ain't it the truth!]

5. That which is not freely given by the object of one's love loses its savor. [Receiving
something from a woman who's giving it to you out of some sense of obligation she's
feeling? I can see that...not wanting to accept that kind of thing. They really need to talk
more...get some things straightened out...deal with those expectations that lead to so much
misunderstanding and conflict...]

6. It is necessary for a male to reach the age of maturity in order to love. [So much for
those love-swooned days of adolescence!]

7. A lover must observe a two-year widowhood after his beloved's death. [Especially if her
death was the result of her lover's killing her in a jealous rage!]

8. Only the most urgent circumstances should deprive one of love. [Priorities in life are
now firmly established.]

9. Only the insistence of love can motivate one to love. [If you aren't out-of-your-mind in
urgency to love someone, forget it??]
10. Love cannot coexist with avarice. ["Avarice" - insatiable desire or extreme greed for
material wealth. I guess the one insatiable desire (avarice) would kind of crowd the other
one (love), huh?]

11. A lover should not love anyone who would be an embarrassing marriage choice. [So
much for that guilty pleasure your friends would razz you about unmercifully if they
knew...]

12. True love excludes all from its embrace but the beloved. [All what? All other women?
All other activities? If the former, it's a monogamous bent that's in conflict with some
other axioms mentioned in this list (notably #s 17 & 30). If the latter, it's consistent with
the obsessiveness of Courtly Love.]

13. Public revelation of love is deadly to love in most instances. [Well, if she's
married...yeah...no shit.... And if she'd not, it's kind of adolescent, don't you think...?
Though secret loves are kind of exciting...enticing...aren't they...?]

14. The value of love is commensurate with its difficulty of attainment. [If it ain't love you
have to get by stalking a woman, it ain't worth it?]

15. The presence of one's love causes paleness of complexion. [Oh, how cliché!
Oh...yeah...not in the Middle Ages.... This was where that stuff started that later was
repeated so much as 'romantic' characteristics that only then did it became cliché...]

16. The sight of one's beloved causes palpitation of the heart. [Ditto]

17. A new love brings an old one to a finish. [One love at a time - no
doubles/triples/quadruples/etc. Conflicts with other characteristics in this list. See #s 12 &
30]

18. Good character is the one real requirement for worthiness of love. [Messing around
with a married woman must not be considered soiling good character then?]

19. When love grows faint its demise is usually certain. [When it's over it's over. Give
back each other's apartment keys. Change the locks just to be sure, with the obsession and
jealousy and all...]

20. Apprehension is the constant companion of the true lover. [Ooooooo...makes me want
to fall in love right now! Just look at all I'm missing!]

21. Love is reinforced by jealousy. [This on top of #2... The list-maker must really want to
make this point, huh?]
22. Suspicion of the beloved generates jealousy and therefore intensifies love. [See what I
mean? And may I say regarding this trait: no takers here.]

23. Eating and sleeping diminish greatly when one is aggravated by love. [Who needs
Atkins when Courtly Love will do the trick? The insomnia, though...don't much like that
idea....]

24. The lover's every deed is performed with the thought of his beloved in mind. [Only
confirms an earlier thought: Courtly Love AKA obsessive love.]

25. Unless it pleases his beloved, no act or thought is worthy to the lover. [Ditto]

26. Love is powerless to withhold anything from love. [Kind of reconfigures one's
priorities, huh?]

27. There is no such thing as too much of the pleasure of one's beloved. [Ditto my
comments for #s 24 & 26, and the second possible meaning discussed in #12.]

28. Aggravation of excessive passion does not usually afflict the true lover. [Love until it
hurts - then stay there as long as you can! Hmmm... "Excessive" as a desirable trait, and
the aggravation it causes made a personal goal...? I don't think so!]

29. Thought of the beloved never leaves the true lover. [Obsession again - but in the first
glow of love, really kind of true, isn't it...?]

30. Two men may love one woman or two women one man. [Kind of ensures that jealousy
will figure into it, I guess. By the way, this conflicts with #17 doesn't it? Or is he
advocating threesomes?]

I hope you got a kick out of all this, as I said. Courtly Love... Seems
like some people we might all be familiar with among our acquaintances
still live in the Middle Ages, huh? Or maybe we see a few of these traits sometimes in
ourselves...? :)

KAW September 2002