Courtly Society
in
Medieval Europe
Social Classes
SECULAR
ECCLESIASTICAL
KING
POPE
NOBLES
CARDINALS
KNIGHTS
BISHOPS ABBOTS
MERCHANTS
PROFESSIONALS
CRAFTSMEN
PRIESTS MONKS
SUMMONERS FRIARS
PARDONERS NUNS
PEASANTS
freemen
serfs
PEASANTS
lay brothers and sisters
serfs
January
Limbourg Bros.
Très Riches Heures
of the Duc de Berry
Chivalry
 Chivalry was a peculiarity
of the practice of war in
medieval Europe.
 The feudal knight was
supposed to be devout,
honest, selfless, just, brave,
honorable, obedient, kind,
charitable, generous, and
kind to women.
 complex rituals and rules
Courtly
Love
C.S. Lewis:
“Humility,
Courtesy,
Adultery
and the
Religion of Love”
April
Très Riches Heures
of the Duc de Berry
The "rules" for this game are
roughly:
 Worship of the
chosen lady
 Declaration of
passionate
devotion
 Virtuous rejection
by the lady
 Renewed wooing
with oaths of
eternal fealty
 Moans of
approaching death
from unsatisfied
desire
 Heroic deeds of valor
which win the lady's
heart
 Consummation of the
secret love
 Endless adventures
and subterfuges
 Tragic end
Troubadour Poetry
 Origins in Provençal: Guillaume X considered to be
first troubadour poet
 Troubadours and Trobiaritz flourished between 1100
and 1350 and were attached to various courts in the
south of France.
 Innovations:
vernacular language
passionate love poetry influenced by Islamic
love poetry
voice of amour courtois
love viewed as ennobling -- heightens one’s
sensibility
Secular
Lyric Poetry
 Ballades: poems with at least
three stanzas having the
same rhyme and metrical
schemes and repeating the
same last line: refrain
 Complaints
 Reverdies: spring songs
 Love Songs
Courtly Love
Aubades: poem or song
about lovers parting at
dawn
Minnesänger
Medieval German poets,
who contributed to the
development of the ideas
of courtly love in the
13th and 14th centuries
German minnesänger
were willing to
incorporate the ideals of
courtly love into a
marriage framework -see especially Wolfram
von Eschenbach’s
Parzival
Detail from the Minnesanger Manuscript
La Stil Nuova
 Italian courtly poetry
 Love for lady becomes sublimated
 Protagonist of the stilnovist song .is
a young scholar in love with a star
 Calvacanti, Dante, Petrarch
 Development of the sonnet
Courtly Love
and the
Roman Courtois
Countered Franco-German
ideal of Holy Roman Empire
with Charlemagne as saint
Nourished by
Celtic inspiration
Provençal eroticism
Islamic poetry
Theme: initiation, dedication,
metamorphosis and absorption
into a higher and fuller life
“Love is a cue for chivalric
adventure, and chivalry is a
means of deserving love”
Romance
Romance
Story of heroic adventure often
encompassing courtly love: a
chivalrous, heroic knight, who,
abiding chivalry's strict codes,
fights and defeats monsters and
giants, thereby winning favour
with a beautiful but fickle
princess.
Traditional Material
The matter of Rome:
Alexander the Great
The matter of France:
Charlemagne
The Matter of Britain: King
Arthur
Breton Lai
 Short, rhymed tale of love
and chivalry
Breton/Celtic troubadour
influence
 Courtliness and magic
 Investigations into the
intricacies of love and
honor
 Exploration of questions
of sovereignty in
relationships
The Lais of Marie de
France –11thc.
Church’s response to
Amour Courtois
Obviously disapproved of the cultic status
of the lady and the tacit approval of adultery
Encouraged infusion of Christian ideals into
literature:
Grail romances
 Sublimated love: Dante’s Divina Commedia
 Used the language of courtly love in the
veneration of the Virgin Mary
Religious Lyric
Poetry
Devotional songs
Hymns
Marian lyrics
Carols
Notre Dame du
Chartres
1145-1220
Gothic Cathedral
Arthurian Legend
 Historical: Romano-Celtic dux
bellorum who fought the Anglo-Saxon
invasions
 Major texts:
 12th century
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of Britain
 Chretien de Troyes’ romances
 13th-14th century: French prose
romances
 15th century: Malory
Perceval: The Story of the
Grail
by
Chretien de Troyes,
12th c.
First Grail Romance
Grail not here associated
with the cup of the Last
Supper or the cup used to
catch Christ’s blood
A symbol of beauty and
mystery, but not of religious
devotion
13th-14th Century:
French Grail Romances
 Robert de Boron, Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin, c.120212
 Didot Perceval: Perceval le Gallois ou le Conte du Graal,
c.1210-20
 Vulgate prose cycle: French Cistercian retelling of Estoire
del Saint Graal, Estoire de Merlin, Lancelot du Lac,
Queste del Saint Graal, and Mort Artu, c. 1215-30
 Roman Du Graal and Lancelot Cycle: variant versions of
the Vulgate Cycle, c. 1230-1320
Cistercian Spirituality
 Transforms the grail into “the Holy Grail” -- the cup in
which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood dripping from
Jesus’ wounds
 Claims that Joseph of Arimathea brought the grail to Britain
 Grail quests become the central activity of the Arthurian
knights, especially Gawain, Perceval, and Lancelot: none of
whom can achieve the grail because of their impurities.
Introduction of
Galahad,
son of Sir Lancelot
and the maiden
Elaine, who,
because of his
purity is able to
attain “The Holy
Grail”
Dante’s Divina Commedia
Dante greets Beatrice
Paolo and
Francesca
Realism and the International Style
Limbourg Brothers, Tres Riches Heures, 15th c.
FEBRUARY
JULY
Medieval Towns
Rise of the Middle Class – merchants, artisans,
professionals – dependant on commercial exchanges
Guilds – trade “unions” – protected buyers and sellers
Charters of self-government – city-states with elected
officials
Bourgeois vernacular literature
Fabliaux: humorous narratives
Novelle: realistic, contemporary stories
Dits: urban poetry
Antiphonale-Responsoriale
16th Century Choir Book from Iberia
MUSIC
ANTIPHONAL LEAF
14th c., Italy, Tuscany(?)
Guillaume de Machaut
(b. around 1300-d. 1377)
 A poet and innovative composer-major figure in 14th c. French
literature and music.
 Apart from his celebrated
Coronation Mass, his art was
essentially of secular inspiration
 Found its most finished expression
in a series of Dits (stories in verse,
interspersed with lyric and musical
pieces).
 The author celebrated the
traditional themes of courtly love.
Fabliau
Originally a French form
A comic, bawdy tale with a plot that usually involves a
cuckolded husband
Characters include peasants, tradesmen, greedy clergy,
restless young wives, and young scholars
The plots are realistically motivated tricks and ruses.
The fabliaux thus present a lively image of everyday life
among the middle and lower classes.
Bestiary and Beast Fable
 A bestiary, or
Bestiarum vocabulum
is a compendium of
beasts.
 Bestiaries were
illustrated volumes that
described
various real or
imaginary animals,
birds and even rocks.
 The natural history and
illustration of each
Ram from the
Aberdeen Bestiary
beast were usually
accompanied by a
moral lesson.
 A beast fable
is a short tale
with an
explicit moral,
often stated at
the end as a
maxim.
 Characters in
beast fables
are
personified
animals
Novella
The novella is defined as a short, prose narrative, usually
realistic and often satiric in tone.
Novella is an Italian word deriving from the feminine
form of the word for new. The quality of newness in the
novella is, perhaps, best associated with the
contemporary subject matter of the stories
Novelle (pl.) are based on current local events -- with a
viewpoint that ranges from amorous to humorous and
satirical to political or moral.
The characters in a novella are placed in a realistic
setting, complete with the rhythms of everyday life and
conversation.
Novella
Boccaccio’s Decameron
Collection of 100 novelle
with a frame tale
Frame tale realistically
details the Black Death in
Italy
Novelle: short tales based
set in realistic settings
with a variety of characters
from all social classes
Ten young people leave
Florence during the Plague
to find respite in the
countryside. They decide to
pass the time by telling
stories to each other:
Ten stories
For
Ten days:
The Decameron
Geoffrey Chaucer
 First great English
poet
 Early works reflect
courtly concerns and
ideals
 Influenced by
French and Italian
models
The Canterbury
Tales
 Chaucer’s masterpiece
 Frame: Pilgrimage from
London to Canterbury
 Brilliant portraits of
English characters
 Tales include many
genres: romance, sermon,
fabilaux, lai, etc.
Christine de
Pisan
1364-ca. 1430
 First European professional
female author
 Prominent in the “Debate
about Women”
 Works include courtesy
books, military treatises,
dream visions and The Book
of the City of Women
From Christine de Pisan, 'Works'.
Copyright ©, The British Library
Citizens of
The City of
Ladies, 15th
c. MS.
The Middle Ages in Europe faded as
nation states solidified, the learning
and art of the Renaissance emerged,
and the unity of the Western Church
was broken with the Protestant
Reformation.