Andreas Capellanus

Andreas Capellanus (Capellanus meaning "chaplain") was the 12th century author of a treatise commonly entitled De amore ("On Love"), and often known in English as The Art of Courtly Love. Nothing is known of Andreas Capellanus's life, but he is presumed to have been a courtier of Marie of Troyes, and probably of French origin; he sometimes known by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain.

His work

De Amore was written at the request of Marie of Troyes, daughter of King Louis VII of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine. A dismissive allusion in the text to the "wealth of Hungary" has suggested the hypothesis that it was written after 1184, at the time when Bela III of Hungary had sent to the French court a statement of his income and had proposed marriage to Marie's sister Marguerite, but before 1186 when his proposal was accepted.

John Jay Parry, the editor of De Amore has described it as "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explains the secret of a civilization". It may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive; in any event it preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in Western literature.

The social system of "courtly love", as gradually elaborated by the troubadours of southern France from the mid 12th century, soon spread. One of the circles in which troubadour poetry and its ethic were cultivated was the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine (herself the granddaughter of an early troubadour poet, William IX of Aquitaine). It has been claimed that De Amore codifies the social and sexual life of Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174, though it was evidently written at least ten years later and, apparently, at Troyes.

Outline of De Amore

After an introductory analysis of "What love is" (Parry, pp. 28-36), Book One of De Amore sets out a series of nine imaginary dialogues (pp. 36-141) between men and women of different social classes, from bourgeoisie to royalty. In each dialogue the man is pleading inconclusively to be accepted as the woman's lover, and in each he finds some small reason for optimism. These dialogues are followed by short discussions of love with priests, with nuns, for money, with peasant women, and with prostitutes (pp. 141-150).

Book Two takes love as established, and begins with a discussion of how love is maintained and how and why it comes to an end (pp. 151-167). Following this comes a series of twenty-one "judgements of love" (pp. 167-177), said to have been pronounced in contentious cases by great ladies. Among these, three judgements are attributed to "Queen Eleanor" and another four simply to "the Queen", seven to Eleanor's daughter Marie of Troyes ("the Countess of Champagne"), two to Eleanor's niece Isabelle of Vermandois ("the Countess of Flanders"), one to "a court of ladies in Gascony", and five to Viscountess Ermengarde of Narbonne, who is thus singled out as the only patron of a "Court of Love" not belonging to the immediate family of Eleanor of Aquitaine. However, it has been suggested that "the Queen" is not Eleanor but Adèle of Champagne, Eleanor's successor as wife of Louis VII and Queen of France. Book Two concludes (pp. 177-186) by setting out "The Rules of Love".

Book Three, the briefest (pp. 187-212), is entitled "The Rejection of Love". Far less original than books one and two, its general point of view is the misogynistic one that was already familiar from classical and medieval literature: since women's faults are many, men had better keep away from them. The purpose of book three is to shoehorn the whole work into agreement with established morality.

Sidelights

De Amore gives a listing of the stages of love which resembles in some ways the modern baseball euphemism:

"Throughout all the ages, there have been only four degrees ^* in love:

"The first consists in arousing hope;

"The second in offering kisses;

"The third in the enjoyment of intimate embraces;

"The fourth in the abandonment of the entire person."

In De Amore there are few references to social classes below the bourgeoisie. Such references as exist are highly unsympathetic and may be read as advocating rape:

If you should, by some chance, fall in love with a peasant woman, be careful to puff her up with lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient opportunity, do not hold back but take your pleasure and embrace her by force. For you can hardly soften their outward inflexibility so far that they will grant you their embraces quietly or permit you to have the solaces you desire unless you first use a little compulsion as a convenient cure for their shyness. We do not say these things, however, because we want to persuade you to love such women, but only so that, if through lack of caution you should be driven to love them, you may know, in brief compass, what to do (Parry, p. 150, adapted).

Bibliography

Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, trans. John Jay Parry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941. (Reprinted: New York: Norton, 1969.)

External links