Andreas Capellanus is known to us only through
his famous Latin treatise De amore, or De arte honeste amandi (Art of Courtly Love), from ca. 1185–90.
Both in content and structure based on Ovid’s Ars
amatoria and Remedia amoris, this treatise constantly raises expectations about its own sources
and its overall intentions, and then disappoints
them as well. Although we know nothing concrete
about Andreas, we can be certain from the many allusions in his text and its learned character that he
was a cleric and a teacher. Although Andreas repeatedly refers to the Countess MARIE DE CHAMPAGNE, and has included in his text fictional
judgments promulgated by her about difficult conflicts in love, we can be certain that this represents
only part of his literary strategy and that Andreas
actually served at the Parisian court of King
Philippe Auguste educating the young prince(s). In
his prologue he addresses his student Walter (Gualterus) who had asked him to explain to him the secrets of love, and promises to outline for him
everything he knows himself about this arcane and
complex subject matter: “For I know, having
learned from experience, that it does not do the
man who owes obedience to Venus’s service any
good to give careful thought to anything except
how he may always be doing something that will
entangle him more firmly in his chains” (Andreas
1941, 27). This highly ambiguous statement sets a
tone for the entire work that has intrigued and puzzled scholars for centuries. Does Andreas advocate
COURTLY LOVE or does he reject it? He confirms himself: “although it does not seem expedient to devote oneself to things of this kind or fitting for any
prudent man to engage in this kind of hunting . . . ,
I can by no means refuse your request” (27).
This treatise, which proved to be one of the
most influential critical discussions of (courtly)
love throughout the entire Middle Ages, consists,
apart from the author’s preface, of three books.
The first book begins with several definitions of
what love is, between what persons love may exist,
what the effects of love are, etc. Next Andreas offers a number of dialogues, each between a man
and a woman, mostly of different social classes. In
all of these dialogues the man woos the lady, but
she regularly rejects him, and only once can the
man convince her by means of a frightening allegorical tale that love is a noble undertaking if she
can find the man to be worthy of the erotic reward
(83). These dialogues offer Andreas many opportunities to examine the essential values of courtly
love, to experiment with various literary genres,
and to explore the basics of courtly love discourse
itself. Finally we also learn about what love means
for male clerics and nuns, prostitution, and about
love among and with peasants who can easily be
raped, an act that the narrator does not describe as
a crime (150).
Closely following Ovid’s model, Andreas subsequently, in his second book, discusses how to retain love. It also confirms the extraordinarily high
position assigned to courtly ladies who are treated
with greatest respect because of their rhetorical sophistication and impressive knowledge of the rules
of love, which are repeated throughout the first
two books as absolutely binding for all members of
the courtly world. At the end we even hear that
many copies of these basic rules were created and
disseminated at all courts (186). Moreover, Andreas adamantly confirms that true love is possible only outside of marriage, which is eventually
illustrated through a beautiful Arthurian tale of a
young Breton knight who has to win a hawk from
King Arthur on behalf of his lady.
The third book, however, argues the very opposite, as the narrator now emphasizes that God has
forbidden love outside of marriage, and then he
moves into a most amazing, perhaps even hilarious
misogynistic diatribe in which he ridicules and severely condemns all women for their natural vices.
The narrator concludes his treatise with serious
warnings to Walter to stay away from any form of
love, but his conclusions remain surprisingly ambiguous and opaque: “you will see clearly that no
man ought to mis-spend his days in the pleasures
of love.” And: “pass by all the vanities of the world,
so that when the Bridegroom cometh to celebrate
the greater nuptials . . . you may be prepared to go
forth to meet Him” (211). Older scholarship
tended to ignore the third book entirely and glorified The Art of Courtly Love as the fundamental
statement relevant for all of courtly literature.
Modern scholars have considered the third book,
with its apocalyptic warnings of Christ’s second
coming that shift gears so radically, and have suggested that Andreas indeed rejected courtly love altogether and used the first two books only as an
ironic backdrop for his actual topic. Only most recent scholars have realized the considerable degree
of irony and satire throughout the entire treatise
and observed Andreas’s playful use of traditional
literary and scholastic genres, resorting to selfmockery and ridicule of theological literature and
also of the pervasive misogyny deeply influencing
all of medieval society.
In fact De amore proves to be a masterpiece of
rhetorical dialectics and illustrates the artistic nature of courtly love literature both in Latin and
in the various vernaculars. Undoubtedly, however, the debate about the true meaning of this
text will continue, but this phenomenon itself
might well have been the author’s ultimate purpose. We know that the treatise remained well
known throughout the Middle Age because it is
documented in Albertanus of Brescia’s De dilectione Dei et proximi (1238); because it is included
in a list of books to be condemned, published by
Bishop Etienne of Paris (1277); because it was
translated into various vernaculars; and because
of the large number of manuscripts and earlymodern prints of the text.
Bibliography
Allen, Peter L. The Art of Love: Amatory Fiction from
Ovid to the Romance of the Rose. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
Andreae Capellani Regii Francorum. De Amore, Libri
Tres. Edited by E. Trojel, 1892; Munich: Fink, 1972.
Andreas Capellanus. The Art of Courtly Love. Translated with Introduction and Notes by John Jay
Parry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.
Brown, Catherine. Contrary Things: Exegesis, Dialectic, and the Poetics of Didacticism. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1998.
Classen, Albrecht. Verzweiflung und Hoffnung. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2003.
Albrecht Classen