The Afterlife, Reincarnation, and Courtly Love

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Idril

You seem to be knowledgable about the concept of courtly love. Although I am a history major with a concentration in the Medieval Ages I must admit I've never heard it being bluntly described as "guilty." I'm 20, I'm young, I have a lot to learn, and I'll trust your judgement on this. : )
My impression of courtly love is that a love based on admiration bordering on idolatry, if "love" can exist under the circumstances. For instance, a knight who has fallen for a lady far above his station. He understands he will never be able to be with her but continues to harbor illicit feelings regardless. The lady is put upon a pedestal as a sort of otherworldly creature --unattainable, divine.

Back in the dark ages of last century, I was a lit. major/medieval studies minor - so I am actually living my Middle Ages currently. But my passion over the last few decades has been 14th century research. You are partially right that courtly love placed the intended object of affection on a pedestal, in this case always a noblewoman (never commoners, who were raped, robbed and murdered without compunction by any number of preux chevalier); however, it is not correct to think of this object of love as unattainable. Think of it as a challenge rather than impossibility, a quest for gratification as Jean de Meung allegorized in the famous Roman de la Rose. Instead of defeating a dragon or robber baron, the inevitable conquest is the rose (whose flowery petals and delicate inner parts are a metaphor for a woman's genitalia).

Thus, the concept of guilty or illicit love as a major plot point in tales of courtly love. In the vast majority of courtly love stories, poems, trouvere's ballads, etc., the object of desire is a married or espoused woman, usually a lord's or vassal's wife, many times that of a best friend (as in the case of King Arthur's wife, Guinevere, and her adultery with Lancelot). This heightens the danger and suspense of the story. Being in love with one's own spouse or betrothed is certainly not lurid and exciting enough material for the racy Provençal, Italians or French. You must understand that in the Middle Ages (and all the way up to the 19th century), marriage of the nobility was more a political ploy than a love match, and certain liberties were taken and infidelity often winked at. Even popes had bastards.

If anything, Tolkien bowdlerized the idea of courtly love, keeping the valor, devotion and ardent desire, but utterly removing the main themes of illicit love (and often rape, as in the tale of Lucretia as retold by both Boccaccio and Chaucer), treachery, sexual promiscuity and tragic endings - and nearly all the important tales of courtly love ended tragically (with the heart of the doomed lover sent in a box to his amour).

Oh, and welcome to the Downs, Idril, you bring up some intriguing points.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

- and nearly all the important tales of courtly love ended tragically (with the heart of the doomed lover sent in a box to his amour).

First, it depends on what one means by courtly love, a term that is never used in the medieval texts themselves. That said, there are certainly many tales of tragic lover affairs that are tragic, but not all are courtly by most definitions. The great Prose Tristan ends tragically but is far more focused on Tristan’s knightly exploits than on the love affair between Tristan and Yseult. It has never been called a courtly romance as far as I am aware.

Indeed I have read commentary on the so-called courtly versions of the Tristan story, those based on the version told by Thomas, which point out that Tristan and Yseult in these versions really don’t fit the supposed model as set forth in The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus (which in any case I think to be an obvious parody).

A popular medieval love story that ends happily is Aucassin and Nicolette. More often a love affair is just part of a medieval romance of adventure which tends to end with the marriage of the hero, or may contain a second movement in which the marriage falls into difficulties which are resolved, as in Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide or his Yvain.

I only vaguely recall any medieval romance in which the heart of the dead hero is sent to his lady love in a box. That is far from being a normal motif in medieval tales.

Tolkien hardly bowdlerizes his sources because he does not follow any sources closely. Rather, he picks and chooses even within the same tale and most often freely invents.

That said, Tolkien was more interested in adventurous tales than in love tales per se. The same is true of the author of Beowulf.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by jallanite

First, it depends on what one means by courtly love, a term that is never used in the medieval texts themselves.

The term "courtly love" (cortez amors in Provençal) appears as early as the 12th century, but the terms fin'amor ("fine love") and cortez' amors de bon aire ("well-spirited courtly love") used by Occitanian troubadours are also cognate with the concept of courtly love, and widely used. That there was such a literary tradition is beyond doubt, and though added emphasis was placed on the specific term "courtly love" in the 19th century, scholars do not consider it neologistic when referring to the tradition.

Originally Posted by jallanite

That said, there are certainly many tales of tragic lover affairs that are tragic, but not all are courtly by most definitions. The great Prose Tristan ends tragically but is far more focused on Tristan’s knightly exploits than on the love affair between Tristan and Yseult. It has never been called a courtly romance as far as I am aware.

Then you are not aware of the tremendous amount of scholarly work regarding the courtly love aspects of Tristan and Iseult. A simple Google look-up of "Tristan and Iseult Courtly Love" yields over 47,000 results. Or you can simply read up on it in the works of Joseph Campbell, who used Tristan and Isolde to illustrate the conventions of courtly love.

Originally Posted by jallanite

A popular medieval love story that ends happily is Aucassin and Nicolette. More often a love affair is just part of a medieval romance of adventure which tends to end with the marriage of the hero, or may contain a second movement in which the marriage falls into difficulties which are resolved, as in Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide or his Yvain

Have you even read any Chrétien de Troyes? In Le Chevalier au Lion, Yvain is a landless hero who kills a knight and then marries the dead knight's widow and takes his lands and titles (after several pages of protestation of his adoration for the lady). That is hardly an acceptable moral convention of the time, but more an apsect of courtly love. Le Chevalier de la Charette (The Knight on the Cart) is one long swooning mess of courtly love, where Lancelot undergoes all sorts of melancholy, ridicule and embarrassments to prove his ardor to Guinevere (again, like Isuelt, a married woman). Chrétien de Troyes' work is one of the earliest and clearly defined examples of fin' amour. de Troyes was influenced by Marie of Champagne (daughter of the sexually uninhibited Eleanor of Aquitaine), and through her, de Troyes remade the Arthurian romances in the image of courtly love.

Originally Posted by jallanite

I only vaguely recall any medieval romance in which the heart of the dead hero is sent to his lady love in a box. That is far from being a normal motif in medieval tales.

On the contrary, "Le Roman du Châtelain de Coucy", which I mentioned previously, was the favorite and most widely known in the courts of 14th century dukedoms in France and in Italy (retold there by Boccaccio in The Decameron). The hero, the châtelain of the castle Renault, falls madly in love with Dame de Fayel. The jealous husband of the Dame tricks the hero into joining the Third Crusade, where he covers himself in glory but is fatally wounded by a poisoned arrow. The dying châtelain composes one last love song and a farewell letter for the Dame, and in his will requests that his heart be embalmed and sent in a box with the song, the letter and a lock of the lady's hair. The box is duly dispatched to the Dame, but is intercepted by the jealous husband, who has the heart cooked and served to his wife. When he informs her what he she has eaten, she swears that she will never eat again after having had such noble food. She starves herself to death.

In addition, it was quite common for medieval nobles to send body parts to different places after death. At his request, Robert the Bruce's embalmed heart was placed in a silver casket and carried to the crusades in Spain by Sir James Douglas. When Sir James died gloriously in battle, Muhammed IV, with as much chivarly as the Christian knights, sent Sir James' body with an honor guard back to his enemy, King Alphonso. The remaining Scottish knights embalmed Sir James' heart and it is now buried in St. Bride’s Kirk, and the silver casket with the Bruce's heart was buried in Melrose Abbey. French nobles often requested the body, heart and entrails to be buried in three separate places, while English lords preferred only the body and the heart be buried separately. The Holy Roman Empire also had such post-mortem extractions for separate burial. The practice had chivalric, political and religious implications.

Originally Posted by jallanite

Tolkien hardly bowdlerizes his sources because he does not follow any sources closely. Rather, he picks and chooses even within the same tale and most often freely invents.

I used the qualifier "If anything", as in, had Tolkien paid any attention to the conventions of courtly love at all, he bowdlerized it beyond recognition. There are really no elements of courtly love as I have heard it defined in Tolkien's work.

Referencing Barbara Tuchman from her book A Distant Mirror she states the following:

"Courtly love was understood by its contemporaries to be love for its own sake, romantic love, true love, physical love, unassociated with property or family, and consequently focused on another man's wife, since only such an illicit liasion could have no other aim but love alone...As formulated by chivalry, romance was pictured as extra-marital because love was irrelevant to marriage, was indeed discouraged in order not to get in the way of dynastic arrangements."

This is the antithesis of Tolkien's view of love. There is no sex outside of marriage, and even forced-marriage in the case of Eol and Aredhel leads to both of their deaths and the doom is visited down up their son Maeglin as well.

Originally Posted by jallanite

That said, Tolkien was more interested in adventurous tales than in love tales per se. The same is true of the author of Beowulf.

I agree.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

That there was such a literary tradition is beyond doubt, and though added emphasis was placed on the specific term "courtly love" in the 19th century, scholars do not consider it neologistic when referring to the tradition.

From Norris J. Lacy in The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, the article on Courtly Love:

COURTLY LOVE, a term first used by Gaston Paris in an 1883 article. It may well be a misleading designation for the medieval phenomenon it is supposed to identify. A good many scholars criticize the term and propose that it be abandoned. That is unlikely to occur, owing to its familiarity and usefulness. It is often, and probably erroneously, used interchangeably with fin’amors, which is the proper term for a conception of love propounded by the Provençal troubadours. A question that has occupied a good many scholars is whether courtly love, in northern France especially, was a historical and cultural phenomenon or simply a literary convention.

Lacy continues. I realize that most scholars do not deny that the tradition existed, but they do disagree, often vehemently, on what exactly was meant by what they call courtly love by different writers.

Then you are not aware of the tremendous amount of scholarly work regarding the courtly love aspects of Tristan and Iseult. A simple Google look-up of "Tristan and Iseult Courtly Love" yields over 47,000 results.

I am so aware. However much of it applies only to works in the Thomas tradition, not to other verse Tristan material and the prose material. You seem not be aware that there were four main streams of Tristan material in European tales: the Welsh tradition, the so-called folk tradition found in the works of Béroul and Eilhart von Oberge, the more refined so-called courtly tradition in the version of Thomas and adaptations into other languages, and the later immense prose romances in four main versions with adaptations into other languages.

Not all tales of adultery need also be tales of what some modern writers call courtly love.

Or you can simply read up on it in the works of Joseph Campbell, who used Tristan and Isolde to illustrate the conventions of courtly love.

Campbell unfortunately so greatly oversimplifies that his work in that area is almost useless.

Have you even read any Chrétien de Troyes? In Le Chevalier au Lion, Yvain is a landless hero who kills a knight and then marries the dead knight's widow and takes his lands and titles (after several pages of protestation of his adoration for the lady). That is hardly an acceptable moral convention of the time, but more an apsect of courtly love.

Yes, I have read all of extant Chrétien de Troyes. That Chrétien so concentrates on marriage is why many commentators don’t think that Chrétien was much influenced by so-called courtly love, at least in its extreme form. I do not see that marrying the widow of a knight whom one has slain should be seen as an aspect of courtly love. I suspect that you may be seeing something you call “courtly love” when the text only tells of love by one person of another.

Le Chevalier de la Charette (The Knight on the Cart) is one long swooning mess of courtly love, where Lancelot undergoes all sorts of melancholy, ridicule and embarrassments to prove his ardor to Guinevere (again, like Isuelt, a married woman). Chrétien de Troyes' work is one of the earliest and clearly defined examples of fin' amour. de Troyes was influenced by Marie of Champagne (daughter of the sexually uninhibited Eleanor of Aquitaine), and through her, de Troyes remade the Arthurian romances in the image of courtly love.

Chrétien comes close to an adulterous relationship in his Cligés and steps over the line in his Lancelot. These, to judge by adaptations into other languages, were the least popular of his poems. Many commentators consider that Chrétien somewhat distanced himself from the morality of his Lancelot when he ascribed both the source material and its treatment to Marie of Champagne and then did not even finish the poem, leaving that to Godfroi de Leigni. This surviving poem by Chrétien alone praises an adulterous hero.

Chrétien’s most popular poems praised married life and dealt with difficulties that arose in marriage. Have you never noticed that only one poem by Chrétien really fits in the courtly love tradition, such as it may be?

On the contrary, "Le Roman du Châtelain de Coucy", which I mentioned previously, was the favorite and most widely known in the courts of 14th century dukedoms in France and in Italy (retold there by Boccaccio in The Decameron).

Fair enough. But that is only one story. You indicated more when you wrote:

… and nearly all the important tales of courtly love ended tragically (with the heart of the doomed lover sent in a box to his amour).

One example is not “nearly all”.

I am quite aware of the customs of saving embalmed body parts as relics. But that is not a common motif in medieval adventure romances.

I used the qualifier "If anything", as in, had Tolkien paid any attention to the conventions of courtly love at all, he bowdlerized it beyond recognition. There are really no elements of courtly love as I have heard it defined in Tolkien's work.

Nor is there in many medieval poems, including most of Chrétien. And you can’t bowdlerize something which is mainly your own invention, unless you produce a cleaned-up version of your own work. Even Tennyson produced a mostly faithful Victorian version of Chrétien’s Erec et Enide in his two idylls The Marriage of Geraint and Geraint and Enid. He did not need to bowdlerize it in any way. I fail to see how Chrétien is more explicitly telling a tale based on the ideals of courtly love than Tennyson.

Tolkien introduces a version of courtly love only in Gimli the dwarf’s deep love and affection for Galadriel, when Gimli desires only a lock of Galadriel’s hair as a gift.

This is the antithesis of Tolkien's view of love. There is no sex outside of marriage, …

What of Beren and Lúthien? From the published Silmarillion:

But as she [Lúthien] looked on him [Beren], doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped away from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking.

What do you imagine Lúthien was doing in Beren’s arms and on subsequent meetings when she rejoined him again? I admit that this account is not explicit and the verse versions published in The Lays of Beleriand are also not explicit. In contrast, Chrétien has Perceval share a bed for the night with Blanchefleur but explicitly indicates that no sex occurred, not something one would expect in someone pushing courtly love as commonly understood.

Christopher Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales Part II remarks on page 52:

In the old story, Tinúviel had no meetings with Beren before the day when he boldly accosted her at last, and it was at that very time the she led him to Tinwelent’s cave; they were not lovers.

This implies that in the later story Christopher Tolkien understands that at the same point Beren and Lúthien had become lovers.

Note also in Sir Thomas Malory’s “Tale of Sir Gareth” in his Le Morte d′Arthur there is emphasis on preventing Gareth and Lady Liones from lying with one another until they are properly married. Courtly love is not nearly as common in medieval tales as you think it is, and even where the idea of an adulterous relationship occurs as true love in a story, other more conventional ideas may occur in the same tale without forcing the reader to choose between them.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

What of Beren and Lúthien? From the published Silmarillion:

But as she [Lúthien] looked on him [Beren], doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped away from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking.

What do you imagine Lúthien was doing in Beren’s arms and on subsequent meetings when she rejoined him again? I admit that this account is not explicit and the verse versions published in The Lays of Beleriand are also not explicit. In contrast, Chrétien has Perceval share a bed for the night with Blanchefleur but explicitly indicates that no sex occurred, not something one would expect in someone pushing courtly love as commonly understood.

There's a great Downs thread on the sexual nature of Beren and Luthien's relationship started by Lush: Ooh la la Luthien. Mark 12_30 provides some relevant quotations on elven marriage from "Laws and Customs of the Eldar" (HoME, Morgoth's Ring).

[jallanite]

The thread http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=2427 was an excellent one. It indicates what I expected, that you can read into the Beren story that Beren and Lúthien were chaste until they eventually married, or that they began to have sex when they first met.

But, as pointed out, Tolkien does not even bother to relate any marriage of Beren and Lúthien.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

The thread http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=2427 was an excellent one. It indicates what I expected, that you can read into the Beren story that Beren and Lúthien were chaste until they eventually married, or that they began to have sex when they first met.

But, as pointed out, Tolkien does not even bother to relate any marriage of Beren and Lúthien.

Well, if, as he wrote in Laws and Customs of the Eldar,

Originally Posted by Mark quoting Tolkien

It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete

,

then he wouldn't have to describe any marriage ceremony, especially given Beren's escape from the gift. He seems to partake of Luthien's elven heritage. When Arwen gives up her elven heritage, she becomes human, like Aragorn, and so their love follows human conventions.

Perhaps it means that elves didn't need rituals but men (and hobbits) did.