The phrase "courtly love" refers to a set of ideas about love that was enormously influential on the literature and culture of the middle Ages. The definition of courtly love is; (medieval) a highly conventionalized code of conduct for lovers. In the beginning with the poets throughout Europe promoted the ideas that true love only exists outside of marriage; that true love may be idealized and spiritual, and may exist without ever being physically consummated; and that a man becomes the servant of the lady he loves.
             When in April the sweet showers fall
             And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
             The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
             As brings about the engendering of the flower;
             When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
             Exhales an air in every grove and heath
             Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
             His half-course in the sign of the ram has run,
             And the small fowl are making melody
             That sleep away the night with open eye
             (So nature pricks them and their heart engages),
             Then people long to go on pilgrimages.
             These are the opening lines with which the narrator begins the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. The imagery in this opening passage is of spring's renewal and rebirth. And birth is a result from courtly love. April's sweet showers have penetrated the dry earth of March, hydrating the roots, which in turn produces flowers out of the ground.
             Together with these basic premises, courtly love included a number of minor motifs. One of these is the idea that love is a torment or a disease, and that when a man is in love he cannot sleep or eat, and therefore he undergoes physical changes, sometimes to the point of becoming unrecognizable. Although very few people's lives resembled the courtly love ideal in any way, these themes and motifs were extremely popular and widespread in Medieval and Renaissance literature and culture. They were particul
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