Troubadour by James Bertrand

Throughout history, many have asked themselves this crucial question: what is love? And now, confused and disillusioned by the Dating Crisis, many more are doing so. Operating under the present concept of romance within the West, which sees the fulfillment of eros as the fulfillment of human happiness, many assume it to be a perennial truth. But this is quite contrary to historical reality. For this idolization of romantic love was once a novel vision; moreover, it was not even native to the West. It arrived in the eleventh century by means of cultural diffusion from Mohammendan-ruled Al-Andalus through the intermediaries of the troubadours of Southern France. These poets and singers endorsed a more emotional understanding of love as opposed to the traditional Christian understanding of love as an act of the will, thereby setting the precedent for later cultural movements that prioritized romantic passion over an ordered love. Without Troubadourism, the later Romanticism would either have been nonexistent or entirely different. Since, however, this cult of love has progressed to the self-obsessed environment of modern dating, it is necessary to look back to the roots of this cultural illness so that it can be properly remedied.

But before Troubadourism can be analyzed, the figure of the troubadour must come under scrutiny. These men—and intriguingly, some women (the troubairitz)—were wandering poets and singers, mostly of Southern French origin, who in their works promoted the ideal of courtly love. The practices and ends of their new ideal were apparently in contrast with the prevailing Christian notions. For it endorsed as the highest form of love not the transcendent participation in the love of God, but romantic sentiment and passion instead. This can especially be seen in how this ideal changed not only the knight’s conception of love, but also loyalty, as the following passage from a medievalist describes:¹

The end goal of courtly love was not marriage. Courtly love describes a relationship that centers around pining and longing. Usually, the object of the knight’s affection was an older, married woman residing in a castle. To the medieval mind, courtly love could happily co-exist with a marriage. The incessant, intense longing spurs the knight to behave in a way that honors his beloved, and he’s well aware that he will never be able to marry.

(Lee, “Strange Do’s and Don’ts of Dating in the Medieval World”)

Such an ethic makes the knight not an honorable servant, but an adulterous slave. A slave not only to female affection, but also to his own “intense longing”. There is no union, no complementarity; there is only unrequited infatuation. Can the petitioning, pathetic nature of this cult of love be more evident? It is true that in the beginning, God looked upon our forefather Adam and said: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). But woman was not created to be man’s god, but to help man see God. Courtly love thus stands in contrast to the hierarchy of loves. It perverts the knight, that heroic warrior figure of Christendom, who, under the chivalric code was meant to use his arms to defend the Church and serve both rich and poor, into a lower sort of man that seeks his own pleasure in fleeting romantic pursuits. His armor, once the “armor of light” (Romans 13:12), becomes a shield to hide his shame.

The decadent nature of Troubadourism becomes ever more clearer in examining The Art of Courtly Love, a work written by the twelfth century chaplain Andreas Capellanus. He, with the intention of criticizing its baseness, has left to posterity a set of rules that reveal the spirit of this false game of courtship:²

1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
2. He who is not jealous cannot love.
3. No one can be bound by a double love.
4. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
5. That which a lover takes against his will of his beloved has no relish.
6. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
7. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
8. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
9. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
10. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
11. It is not proper to love any woman whom one should be ashamed to seek to marry.
12. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
13. When made public love rarely endures.
14. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
15. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
16. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.
17. A new love puts to flight an old one.
18. Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.
19. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
20. A man in love is always apprehensive.
21. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
22. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
23. He whom the thought of love vexes, eats and sleeps very little.
24. Every act of a lover ends with [sic] in the thought of his beloved.
25. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.
26. Love can deny nothing to love.
27. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
28. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
29. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
30. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.
31. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

(Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love. Bk. II.)

As can be deduced, some of these rules contradict one another: for instance, the polygamous implication of Rule 31 clearly contrasts with the monogamous command of Rule 3. If one woman can be loved by two men, or two men can be loved by two women, why then state that none can be “bound by a double love”? The usage of “double love” implies a relationship of more than two partners—one person loving two others instead of only one. Another possible reading could interpret “double love” as describing a mutual love. But this is unreasonable given the foremost doctrine of courtly love, this being that a mutual love based on emotion—whether within or outside of marriage—is true love. The paradox then suggested by the former and most sound interpretation was intentional and possibly satirical, but this not does preclude Capellanus’ observations from being accurate. For in our “free love” culture, do not many persons proclaim a desire for romantic exclusivity while simultaneously engaging in so-called “love affairs”? Therefore, just as the “free love” of our time has wrought, the courtly love of the medieval troubadours was bound to end in contradiction and a multiplication of broken hearts. Once passion is upheld over the will, the abuse of said passions is inevitable. When the monster of lust is fed—whether by emotion, acts, or both—it will continue to demand more. Human experience is unfortunately replete with a Colossus of cases; we need not examine them here.

The almost devotional connotation of some of these rules ought to be taken into account. For example, Rule 25 and Rule 30 state that the true lover only cares how to please their beloved and that they are “possessed by thought of this beloved.” Possession in this sense implies losing one’s own will or subordinating it to some other thing. It is not the mutual possession or self-giving of husband and wife—it is a religious devotion to the beloved. So, the courtly lover is one who prefers to be devoted to the presence of their beloved instead of the Presence of God; instead of exclaiming with St. Francis “My God and my all!”, they might as well shout “My beloved and my all!” Consequently, jealousy follows from this form of love, as Rule 21 and Rule 22 testify. For a person can never truly be fulfilled by another; but the desire for this to be so by the “true lover” causes them to covet their beloved like how a miser covets money. In using religious Capellanus is illustrating the quasi-religious sentimentality of the cult of love, one that undermines the Christian virtue of charity.³

The origins of this anti-charity, which the eminent historian Christopher Dawson termed “neither Christian, nor Latin, nor Germanic”⁴ have been and still are a source of discussion in academic circles. However, as the aforementioned author indicated and subsequent scholars have argued, to deny the key influence of the Arab world in the creation of Troubadourism is frankly untenable. As one such later scholar, María Rosa Menocal, forcefully argues:⁵

Far from being cloistered “intellectuals” exclusively inspired in the Graeco-Latin and Christian traditions, the troubadours were, quite literally, men of the world. Well-travelled and knowledgeable about the Mediterranean world in which they lived (and this certainly includes the lands of Holy Wars, both Islamic Spain and Saladin’s Palestine), they were, as modern scholars often forget, trend setters par excellence. How then is it possible to relegate to a position of secondary or marginal importance the highly active, well-dispersed, secular, and undoubtedly prestigious Hispano-Arabic tradition which flowered in the period immediately preceding the troubadours?

(Menocal 55)

Discounting theories that claimed a possible origin of their lyrics in Christian mysticism and the erotic poetry of Ovid, she continues:

The troubadours created a secular, original and innovative school of poetry and their verses in Langue d’Oc—not in Latin—their frank sensuality, their lack of traditional Christian “erudition,” and all other distinctive characteristics of troubadour poetry favor a view of their milieu far different from that generally evoked by Western scholars up to now.

(Menocal 56)

Rather than relegate the role of Al-Andalus to a “secondary or marginal importance” and the possible Western antecedents to the role of the primary source of inspiration for the troubadours, reason and evidence concur that the inverse must be true. This does not have to come at the cost of admitting a cultural superiority to the Arab world; in fact, it reveals quite the opposite. For Al-Andalus was indeed the most civilized of the Islamic world at that time—but what did this civilization produce? It did not give to the world something like the asceticism of the Cistercians or the otherworldly heroism of the Crusader. It instead gave to the world a culture obsessed with luxury and sensuality—and thus for one who realizes that there is more to life than this world, it can only be looked upon with revulsion. Such can be gauged by comparing the spirit of the popular Arabic poetry to the aforementioned spirit of courtly love. Engaging in such a comparison, the Saudi scholar Dr. Muhammad Alatrash makes the following observations:⁶

The anthology compiled by Abdullah Al-Udhari is particularly noteworthy, offering a window into the emotional and stylistic depths of Arabic poetry, which parallels the thematic and stylistic motifs found in troubadour poetry. The poems, “Lord, it’s not a crime to long for Raib / Who stokes my heart with love and makes me cry. Lord of the Unknown, I have hidden the name I desire / In a poem like a treasure in a pocket,” and “I held back my love’s name/ And kept on repeating it to myself. Oh how I long for an empty space / To call out the name I love” (Al-Udhari, p. 109, 110), exemplify themes of longing and metaphor that resonate across cultural divides, illustrating the universality of the love experience.

The research of Daniela Beissel and Magda Bogin further enriches this comparative study, examining the nuanced emotional expressions within both Arabic and European poetic traditions. Beissel’s analysis of Arabic poetry’s emotional duality, as seen in “You are joy and you are affliction / You are remedy and you are disease” (p. 8), aligns with the complex depiction of love in troubadour poetry, emphasizing a shared human experience. Bogin’s exploration into the concept of ‘senhal’—a coded language in troubadour poetry—and its parallels in Arabic poetry underscores a profound Arabic influence. Her assertion that the courtly lyric of Provence was significantly influenced by Andalusian and Arabian love poetry, “where Arab poets had been worshipping their ladies for at least 200 years” (Bogin, p. 45), together with insights from Roger Boase and Maria Rosa Menocal, offers a holistic framework to understand the interplay between these literary traditions.

(Alatrash 134)

Here the same sort of pining and longing that is essential to courtly love is present, and was entrenched in Islamic Spain well before the first troubadour sang his song. It may seem—and indeed is—quite ironic to consider the idea of Mohammendan men giving poetic adoration to their women given the stance of their faith on the relationship between the two sexes, which insists on absolute female submission to the man. But this is not exactly out of balance with the overall spirit of their doctrine, given the inherent worldliness of the Koranic fables. Any people that follow a so-called prophet who was seduced by dreams of lust and worldly power will fall under the same curse; once they acquire the means to become materialistic, they will immediately race into materialism. The laws of their “prophet” will be bent, because he himself was twisted. The condition of the opulent Arab Gulf states is a modern proof of this fact. Despite their vast sums of money, the monuments they have constructed are not built to last—when their oil empire crumbles, there will be no equivalent to the Parthenon or the Cathedral of Chartres waiting under the sand for future archaeologists. One must conclude that such a people have neither the natural virtues nor the spiritual concern of Western man.

Troubadourism must not be then considered an authentic development of Western high culture, but an intrusion by an alien culture that was as decadent as it was civilized. Courtly love, by promoting romantic sentiment as “true love”, places emotion over reason; consequently, marriage is attacked. And in this subversion, the whole social order comes under assault, for to attack marriage is to attack the family. In any age this doctrine is destined to wreak havoc, but the special conditions of Medieval Christendom must have made its effects especially egregious.

The medieval feudal system essentially was a system of intertwined loyalties—in that society, one’s loyalty to one’s family was placed above personal interest, hence the prevalence of arranged marriages under that social order. For a knight to pine after the heart of his lord’s wife was not only a grave sin; it was a violation of his very role as servant warrior of that lord. Courtly love was thus not only a rebellion against Christian asceticism, but also a revolution of individual self-interest over the common good.

What then is to be done about the persistence of this malaise through the ages? There are, as there were in the Middle Ages, three options: to fight it, baptize it, or tolerate it. Evidently the last must be excluded.

How then can this romantic obsession be fought against?

It must be fought with an insistence on Christian chastity; we must reinforce or return to those Catholic morals which alone give us the true guide to matters of romance. We must then heed the Wise Man’s declaration: “Pass not beyond the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28). Men, resist the transient sterility of disjointed modern courtship, and if you seek to marry, seek out a woman who honors the “ancient bounds” in word and in deed.

What then of “baptizing” courtly love?

By baptizing, it is meant that the form of courtly love is to be reconciled to the substance of Christian truth. No better example of this exists than St. Francis of Assisi, who instead of praising a mere worldly lady, gave praise first and foremost to God through his beautiful “Canticle of the Sun”. There is a broad lesson to be applied to ourselves in this regard: God’s creatures are indeed magnificent, but they are not ends to themselves. They are means—means that exist in subordination to the ultimate end, who is God.

An analogy in this regard can be drawn to money, for as St. Paul wrote: “For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10). Just as the desire—meaning excessive craving for—of money is the “root of all evils”, not money itself (for it too is a means to an end), it is the desire of romance which is evil, not romance itself. Men must realize that their dignity depends not on a woman’s affection, but on being made in the image and likeness of God. Though it is true that some women may be capable of making you a better man, it was Jesus who underwent the sublime martyrdom of Golgotha to save your soul.

In closing, we must come to realize that, as Chateaubriand writes, “Man does not need to travel in order to grow greater: he carries immensity with him.”⁷ Never did man nor woman need to “travel”—to be of the world—to be fulfilled. Never did Western man require the odes of those wandering poets, the troubadours, to find peace within his soul. For indeed we possess an immensity within us; one that cannot be filled by the pleasures of this world, but only by our Creator. In the present decaying state of our civilization, men must not “go their own way”—for that is a path of chaos and charlatans. But, it is impossible to stay still forever. We must therefore “go” somewhere—back to God!

1. Lee, Faith. “Strange Do’s and Don’ts of Dating in the Medieval World.” The Collector. 29 November 2023.

   https://www.thecollector.com/courtly-love-medieval-dating.

2. Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love. Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

   https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/capellanus.asp.

3. For further reading on Capellanus’ The Art of Courtly Love, the following is recommended:

   Beider, Peter G. Backgrounds to Chaucer. Chapter Ten. The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.

   https://the-orb.arlima.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/courtly.html.

4. Dawson, Christopher. Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Image Books. 1991. p. 153.

5. Menocal, María Rosa. “Close Encounters in Medieval Provence: Spain’s Role in the Birth of Troubadour Poetry.”Hispanic Review. Vol. 49. No. 1. Williams Memorial Issue (Winter, 1981). pp. 43-64.
   University of Pennsylvania Press. https://www.mariarosamenocal.com/uploads/3/0/8/9/3089194/1981_article_close_encounters.pdf.

6. Alatrash, Dr. Muhammad Khaled. “Echoes of Al-Andalus: Unveiling the Arab Influence on Medieval European Troubadour Poetry.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation. 12 April 2025. https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt. p. 134. https://al-kindipublishers.org/index.php/ijllt/article/view/9120.

7. 
   The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. Volume 6. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Freemantle & Co. 1902. p. 210. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55124/pg55124-images.html#Page_199.