HSTAM 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Chrétien De Troyes, Gaston Paris, High Middle Ages
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15 May 2017
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Lecture Notes 6
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
The setting of courtly love
- Term invented by Gaston Paris in 1900s
- Contemporaries call it Fin’amors (refined love)
o Aristocratic
o Adulterous (married women) – men longing for unattainable woman
o Unequal – but in favor of the woman (man is the woman’s “vassal”)
▪ Man must approve devotion, and woman is very withholding
▪ Accounts written by males, so very focused on the male’s struggle
o Was ideal in society, yet it was adulterous – why did it appear?
▪ Marriage among nobility was politically motivated
▪ Find true love outside of marriage (mistresses)
▪ Noble women are supposed to remain faithful to husbands
- Rise of juvenes – unmarried, landless nobles
o Held in this state so that they can’t have legitimate children to compete with older
siblings
o Never officially became adults because marriage was the rite of passage into
adulthood
o Primary function to serve as warriors
▪ Sent to other noble families to be trained from ‘foster’ fathers that train
these young knights
▪ Multiple juvenes stayed with one lord; formed group called mesnie
(household knights)
▪ Once formally dubbed knights (at age 16-17), they would be released
▪ Expected to find their own way; offer their service and participate in
tournaments
▪ If they were lucky + survived they may be awarded an heiress
o Would attempt to seduce noble woman in order to get marriage/land
▪ Very limited availability of heiresses; heavy competition
▪ B/c church was pushing to require womens’ consent in marriage
▪ Juvene lovers would go after lady they had the most access to; often the
lord’s wife
• Husband could benefit, as long as juvenes don’t sleep with wife
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