Of these articles, the translation of a few may suffice.
The allegation of marriage is an insufficient plea against love.
No one should love two people at the same time.
Without exceeding good reason no one should be forbidden to love.
No one need love unless persuasion invite.
It is not seemly to love one whom it would be unseemly to marry.
A new love banishes an old one.
Love readily yielded is lightly held.
The establishment of courts for the maintenance of principles such as these may seem unnecessary. Yet they had their raison d’être. In cases of tort and felony the lord of a fief possessed the right of justice high and low. There are crimes now which the law cannot reach. It was the same way then. There were controversies which no mere man could adjust. To remedy the defect the wives of the lords created tribunals of their own.
In the English dominions on the Continent generally, as also in Flanders, Champagne and Provence, these courts were frequent. In describing them Nostradamus said that “disputes arising from the beautiful and subtle questions of love were submitted to illustrious ladies who, after deliberation, rendered judgments termed, ‘Lous arrêsts d’amours.’”