The Evolution of Love

by Emil Lucka

To sigh, to rejoice and to grieve;

But no longer I'll squander my days,

We have come to the parting of the ways. Etc.

He was indefatigable in abusing the tender passion, and had a great deal to say about the immorality of women. But it is characteristic of the strong public opinion of the time that even this misogynist (who, perhaps, after all was only a disappointed man) praised "high love."

The subject also found its theorists, prominent among whom was the court-chaplain Andreas, who wrote a very learned book on love in Latin. He expressed in propositions and conclusions what the contemporary poets expressed in verse, proving thereby that spiritual love was not merely a poetic fiction but the profoundest belief of the period, supported by the full complement of its philosophical weapons. "In the whole world there is no good and no courtliness outside the fountain of love. Therefore love is the beginning and foundation of all good." He also proved that a noble-minded man must be a lover, for if he were not, he could not have attained virtue. "Love disregards all barriers, and makes the man of low origin the equal and superior of the nobleman."

This conception of spiritual nobility, which was later on perfected in the theory of the cor gentil, only existed in Provence and in Italy; it remained unknown in France and Germany.

Andreas drew a distinction between base love, the amor mixtus sive communis, and pure love, the amor purus. "Love," he maintained, fully agreeing with the poets, "gives to a man the strength of chastity, for he whose heart is brimming over with the love of a woman, cannot think of dallying with another, however beautiful she may be." He proved from substance and form that a man cannot love two women. In the Leys d'Amors, a voluminous fourteenth-century Provençal treatise, largely a text-book of grammar and prosody, we read: "And now lovers must be taught how to love; passionate lovers must be restrained, so that they may come to realise their evil and dishonourable desires. No good troubadour, who is at the same time an honest lover, has ever abandoned himself to base sensuality and ignoble desires." The same author opined that a troubadour who asked his lady for a kiss, was committing an act of indecency. On the other hand, Andreas was very broad-minded in drawing the line between both kinds of love, allowing kisses, and even more, in the case of true love. (The best troubadours disagree with him in this respect.)

A scholasticism of love, modelled on ecclesiastical scholasticism and substituting the beloved woman for the Deity, was gradually evolved. Love, veneration, humility, hope, etc., were the sacrifices offered at her shrine. She was full of grace and compassion, and was believed in as fervently as was God. Some of the poets were animated by a curious ambition "to prove" their feelings with scholastic erudition, and more especially by the later, Italian, school, amore, cor gentil, valore, were conceived as substances, attributes, inherent qualities, etc. The allegories of amore played a prominent part, and spoiled many a masterpiece. The German poets steered clear of these absurdities, which even Dante did not escape.

At the famous courts of love, presided over by princesses, the most extraordinary questions relating to love were discussed and decided with a ceremonial closely following the ceremonial of the petty courts of law. Andreas preserved for us a number of these judgments, some of which prove the really quite obvious fact that love and marriage are two very different things, for if spiritual love be considered the supreme value, matrimony can only be regarded as an inferior condition. And it was a fact that in the higher ranks of society,—the only ones with which we are concerned,—a marriage was nothing but a contract made for political and economical reasons. The baron desired to enlarge his estate, obtain a dowry, or marry into an influential family; no one dreamed of consulting the future bride, whom marriage alone could bring into contact with people outside her own family. To her marriage meant the permission to shine and be adored by a man who was not her husband. "It is an undeniable fact," propounded Andreas as regula amoris, "that there is no room for love between husband and wife," and Fauriel translated a passage as follows: "A husband who proposed to behave to his wife as a knight would to his lady, would propose to do something contrary to the canons of honour; such a proceeding could neither increase his virtue nor the virtue of his lady, and nothing could come of it but what already properly exists."—Another judgment maintained "that a lady lost her admirer as soon as the latter became her husband; and that she was therefore entitled to take a new lover." At the court of love of the Viscountess Ermengarde, of Narbonne, the problem whether the love between husband and wife or the love between lovers were the greater, was decided as follows: "The affection between a married couple and the tender love which unites two lovers are emotions which differ fundamentally and according to custom. It would be folly to attempt a comparison between two subjects which neither resemble each other, nor have any connection." A husband declared: "It is true, I have a beautiful wife, and I love her with conjugal love. But because true love is impossible between husband and wife, and because everything good which happens in this world has its origin in love, I am of opinion that I should seek an alliance of love outside my married life." All this was not frivolity, but the only logical conclusion of dualistic eroticism, incapable of blending sensuality and love. It was equally logical that love between divorced persons was not only regarded as not immoral, but as perfectly right and justifiable; it was even decided that "a new marriage could never become a drawback to old love." In the old novel, Gérard of Roussillon, the princess, beloved by Gérard, is married to the emperor Charles Martel, and compelled to part from her knight. At their last meeting, before a number of witnesses, she called on the name of Christ and said: "Know ye all that I give my love to Sir Gérard with this ring and this flower from my chaplet. I love him more than father and husband, and now I must weep tears of bitter sorrow." After this they parted, but their love continued undiminished though there was nothing between them but tender wishes and secret thoughts.

Matrimony had no advantage over the love-alliance, not even the sanction of the Church. A love-alliance was frequently accompanied by a ceremony in which a priest officiated. Fauriel describes—without mentioning his source—such a ceremony as follows: "Kneeling before his lady, with his folded hands between hers, he dedicated himself to her service, vowing to be faithful to her until death, and to shield her from all harm and insults as far as lay within his power. The lady, on her side, declared her willingness to accept his service, promised to devote her loftiest feelings to him, and as a rule gave him a ring as a symbol of their union. Then she raised and kissed him, always for the first, usually for the last time." The parting of the lovers, too, was a solemn act, resembling in many ways the dissolution of a marriage.