Courtly love

Courtly love began in the late eleventh century with William IX of Aquitaine. The ladies of the court were the subject of poems, present at courtly debates, and helped to free women from the role of inferior, destructive Eve and take on some of the status and elevation of the beatified Mary. The veneration for The Lady that once thrived on the tongues of troubadours, knights and courtiers, disintegrated in the political and social warfare that tore Europe asunder for hundreds upon hundreds of years to come. However, the woman also has a great deal of power and responsibility in her role: she has the freedom to accept or deny her suitor, and she must choose her suitor wisely, according to the rules of love. Once a man's feelings of love are revealed to his beloved, he is obligated to perform whatever services she requires, whether she agrees to be his lover or not. Capellanus wrote The Art of Courtly Love based on his time at the court. This was a social court, not a legal one. Marie and Eleanor had a court of perhaps 60 elegant noble ladies who would hold a Court of Love where they would dispute, jury and judge questions of love according to their code of courtly love.

A man always initiates courtly love. William was a well-known troubadour in southern France, and his influence on granddaughter Eleanor (and in turn, her influence on her daughter, Marie) led to the Courts of Love.

Yet taking pleasure in serving the female principle waned, as the years passed. Repeated attempts to revive the sensibilities of the old order were in vain -- Christianity prevailed over those attempts, if not by negotiation and diplomacy, then by the terror and sheer force of the Inquisition.