DBQ – Courtly Love

Emily Grise
1. Love is a feeling that causes one to seek a partner to which they will hold tightly to.
Andreas Capellanus writes, “For he who loves is caught in the chains of desire and
wishes to catch another with his hook.” These two in love will hold their hearts together
with all their might. He then goes on to describe love as a characteristic people hold that
enables improvement. People affected by love go from ugly and rude, humble, or proud
to beautiful, endowed with nobility, or humble, respectively. They also become
“accustomed humbly to serve others.” They become shining with virtues and abounding
in good customs (pg 1). In Book Two: On the Rules of Love, readers find that love
requires jealousy (2), one cannot love two others at the same time (4), love is a private
matter (13) love can be consuming (23), and those who love always think about their
beloved (30).
2. The primary restriction on love is age restrictions. Girls are to be at least 12 and boys 14.
Boys, however, must be at least 18 for true love. This kind of specification is not placed
on girls. The maximum age limit for love is men must be under 60 and women under 50.
The other restrictions to love are blindness and excessive passion. He argues that without
being able to see a potential lover, you cannot truly be in love, so blind people are not
capable of love. The exception to this is if a blind person fell in love before becoming
blind. Those who are struck with excessive passion cannot love because love is meant to
be felt towards only one person at a time. A restriction on who may love whom is present
between social classes. A dialogue shows an argument between a man of lower class than
a woman. The woman argues that his physical appearance makes him unsuitable for her
love, while he argues that his virtues are worth much more. Clergymen can love, while
nuns cannot. Prostitutes are shunned and peasants rarely love. I think he included these
descriptions because, based on his idea of love, these restrictions would inhibit people
from this way of love. I think that these restrictions are not accurate for love as it is
thought of today.
3. Love is seen in a different light today than how it is depicted by Andreas Capellanus. He
speaks of love as if it is something that sparks a person’s search for a partner. Today it is
the opposite. When looking for a partner, a person today may describe that as “looking
for love”. Love is found in a person and comes as a result of knowing that person.
Despite this, some of these rules of love do apply today. The age restriction, though only
the lower one, applies today. When young people use the word love, it is often said that
they do not understand the whole of what that entails. This parallels the age requirements
of 12 and 14 established in this text. The age maximum for love does not apply today.
The rules that blindness and excessive passion are inhibitors do not appear to be
applicable to today’s views. The same can be said for the rules of love between different
social classes.
4. I believe that this work is meant to be taken seriously by the audience for which it was
written. The beliefs held by past civilizations seem so crazed when looking at them from
today’s cultural viewpoint that it is possible to take this writing as a satirical work. The
part that seems the most satirical is that which says that a blind person cannot love simply
because they cannot see their partner. There is so much more to love than this that this
idea seems laughable. The dialogue included also points towards this being a satirical
text. The imagery of “flabby legs and big feet” discussed back and forth in the second
dialogue is satirical.