Considering Capellanus

After reading a bit of Capellanus’ The Art of Courtly Love, I’ll have to admit that I am most certainly intrigued…

There wasn’t too much of the text that lost my interest and I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many thought-provoking similarities there were between Capellanus’ definition of love and our modern understanding of the term. Going into the reading this week with the expectation of seeing many stark differences was a great outlook to have as it allowed me to take better notice of the similarities that I honestly wasn’t expecting to find. For instance, the notion that “the easy attainment of love makes it of little value [while] difficulty of attainment makes it prized,” (Capellanus) is clearly something that we still witness / value in our society today. Especially speaking as a female, there have been countless times throughout my life that the term “playing hard to get” has come up in some sort of context or another (and I say especially speaking as a female because – at least from my perspective – this term is usually reserved for / said in reference to a woman). The notion that a lover’s value (specifically a woman’s) increases alongside the level of difficulty it takes to win their affection, a notion that is still very much alive and well today, comes directly from the concept of courtly love.

Indeed looking back at the readings for this week it becomes clear that the ideals of the medieval period still play an incredibly integral role in how our modern society constructs and stereotypes gender roles. For example, the classic 21^st century cliché of a “whipped man” and a “controlling wife” are again direct products of courtly love. The ideal male lover of the medieval age was expected to serve his lady who, as Dr. Thompson points out, was often depicted as “cold and cruel.” This was honestly the part of the reading that stuck out to me the most, as I wasn’t previously aware that our modern concept / stereotype of a subservient or “whipped” male – and by association the “controlling” female - was a product of courtly love (now I know who to blame).

However while I wasn’t expecting to notice so many similarities at the start of my reading this week, I’m certainly glad that I did. These similarities unexpectedly drove me deep into thought and I spent a much longer time than I ever originally intended considering the ways in which our society still reflects the remnants of medieval courtly love as opposed to all the ways in which the two are so starkly different. At first I thought that the differences would be more intriguing; that their examination and consideration would be the best way for me to begin to develop an understanding of courtly love. That clearly wasn’t the case. I actually found it much harder to connect with or relate to the differences. To my surprise it was the similarities between Capellanus’ medieval definition of love and my modern understanding of the term that provided the most useful for consideration.