The Chivalric The Chivalric Code & Code &

Courtly LoveCourtly LoveBritish LiteratureBritish LiteratureOctober 30, 2014October 30, 2014

PLEASE TAKE OUT PLEASE TAKE OUT YOUR JOURNALSYOUR JOURNALS

Happy Thesaurus Happy Thesaurus Thursday!Thursday!

Share your vocabulary cartoons with the class.Share your vocabulary cartoons with the class.

10/30 10/30 Courtly Love JournalCourtly Love Journal

In your journal, take notes on the following slides and In your journal, take notes on the following slides and answer prompts.answer prompts.

Origins of the Chivalric Code

In literature, King Arthur outlines the proper behavior of his knights when they are seated at the Round Table. He proclaims these “the Chivalric Code.”

The Code of Chivalry dictates that the knights follow the will of the king. Given that this is the era of the Rightful King, we can see why these guidelines were so easily adopted and adhered to.

The Church Provided guidance through

well known precepts.

Seven Deadly Sins

Pride

Greed

Wrath

Envy

Gluttony

Sloth

Lust

Overview of the Chivalric Code

The chivalric code combined Christian virtues with military

virtues:

Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice

Faith, Hope, Charity

Valor and strength in battle

Loyalty to God and King

Courtesy towards enemies

Generosity towards the sick, women, widows and the oppressed

Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry

From Chivalry by Leon Gautier

I. Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and shalt observe all its directions.

II. Thou shalt defend the Church.

III. Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.

Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry

IV. Thou shalt love the country in the which thou wast born.

V. Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.

VI. Thou shalt make war against the Infidel without cessation, and without mercy.

Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry

VII. Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God.

VIII. Thou shalt never lie, and shall remain faithful to thy pledged word.

Ten Commandments of the Code of Chivalry

IX. Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone.

X. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

Courtly LoveCourtly Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhrBDcQq2DM

In your journal, answer the following

questions:1) Think about love in our modern culture. What are the “rules” of Love in our culture? Write at least three rules.

The Ideal of Courtly Love

This relationship was modeled on the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege lord. Remember feudalism? It is the economic

system of the Middle Ages that lords provide land to vassals in exchange for military service.

The knight serves his courtly lady with the same obedience and loyalty which he owes to his liege lord.

She is in complete control; he owes her obedience and submission

The knight's love for the lady inspires him to do great deeds, in order to be worthy of her love

or to win her favor.

“Courtly love" was not between husband and wife because it was an idealized sort of relationship that could not exist within the context of "real life" medieval marriages.

In the middle ages, marriages amongst the nobility were typically based on practical and dynastic concerns rather than on love.

“Courtly love" provided a model of behavior for a class of unmarried young men who might otherwise have threatened social stability.

Knights were typically younger brothers without land of their own (hence unable to support a wife).

They became members of the household of the feudal lords whom they served.

The literary model of courtly love may have been invented to provide young men with a model for appropriate behavior.

It taught bored young knights to control their baser desires and to channel their energy into socially useful behavior (love service rather than wandering around the countryside, stealing or raping women).

The Purpose of “Courtly Love”

The lady is typically older, married, and of higher social status than the

knight because she was modeled on the wife of the feudal lord, who might

naturally become the focus of the young, unmarried knights' desire.

The "symptoms" of love were described as as if it were a sickness.

The "lovesick" knight’s typical symptoms: sighing, turning pale,

turning red, fever, inability to sleep, eat or drink.

The Stages of Courtly Love

The Twelve Rules of Love from The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas

Capellanus1. Thou shalt avoid avarice like the

deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its opposite.

2. Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest.

3. Thou shalt not knowingly strive to break up a correct love affair that someone else is engaged in.

4. Thou shalt not choose for thy love anyone whom a natural sense of shame forbids thee to marry.

5. Be mindful completely to avoid falsehood.

Rules of Love 6. Thou shalt not have many who know of thy love affair.

7. Being obedient in all things to the commands of ladies, thou shalt ever strive to ally thyself to the service of Love.

8. In giving and receiving love's solaces let modesty be ever present.

9. Thou shalt speak no evil.

10. Thou shalt not be a revealer of love affairs.

11. Thou shalt be in all things polite and courteous.

12. In practicing the solaces of love thou shalt not exceed the desires of thy lover.

In the 12th century, literature written in French was referred to as "romance" to differentiate it from "real" literature, which was written in Latin.  

Eventually, the term "romance" began to refer not to any literature written in French, but to the specific sort of literature that was popular among the French-speaking court audiences of France and Anglo-Norman England: stories of the chivalric adventures of knights and their ladies. 

There have been debates about whether courtly love was a social reality or simply a literary fiction. Regardless, it was a widespread and significant notion.  

The Literary Convention of Courtly Love

In your journal, answer the following

questions:2) What examples can you think of in literature, art, film, culture, etc. that represents courtly love?

3) What is problematic about courtly love?

Problematic Aspects of Courtly Love

1. Unrealistic: Typically the courtly love relationship was not between husband and wife.

2. Adulterous (although this aspect bothers modern readers more than past readers)

3. Put women on an inaccessible pedestal: women had to be a paradoxical ideal (both temptress and virgin).

4. It prevents the knight from reaching his full potential in some cases.

5. The women would serve as distractions to other important quests.

6. Knight would suffer from the symptoms of love

Literary TheoryLiterary theory is a way of looking at art, literature, and culture with different lenses. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain

assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also

allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider

important.

Answer the following question

in your journal:4) What is feminism?

5) How are men portrayed in medieval literature?

6) How are women portrayed in medieval literature?

Emma Emma Watson’s UN Watson’s UN

SpeechSpeechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-

iFl4qhBsE

Feminist Literary TheoryFeminist Literary TheoryThese are the foundations of Feminist Literary Theory. (Though there are three waves of feminism that focus on different aspects).

1.Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept.

2.In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values.

3.All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world.

4.While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine).

5.All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.

6.Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not.

Masculine Images

How are men portrayed in medieval literature?

Physically strong hero

Protector 

Wise father figure

Super lover extraordinaire  

Feminine Images Aloof princess in a tower (Think “Damsel in Distress” archetype)

Emitter of life (Think the “Life Giving Mother” archetype)

Virginal and sweet.

Tempting and desirable.

This is problematic because of Sigmund Freud’s “Madonna-Whore complex.” This is the complex that Freud argues men develop when they see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Men with this complex cannot maintain attraction to a woman in a committed, loving relationship. He explains, “Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love.”

Feminist Questions to Explore

How does the portrayal of a category (sex) interact with how the “reader” thinks of a person/character?

Does the person seem to deserve personhood?

Would a character’s actions be viewed differently if they were a different sex?

Is the female perspective simply not there? If so, does it harm the women that are in the medium?

Do ideas of sex/gender from the time period of a piece linger into the present and is that a bad thing? (Misogyny, perhaps?)

Does any mention of sex-related words lead to the character being a stereotype?

Application to Courtly Love

Women as property

Any moral dubiousness is not the violation of the sanctity of marriage so much as the other man’s affront to the husband’s ownership of the wife. Thus, the wife that loses some culpability in wrongdoing because the primary grievance is between the two men.

Application to Courtly Love

Women as divinity

Courtly love places women on a pedestal, simply for the man to worship. She is not an individual because any analysis of her stops at her beauty. The man raises the woman up to a level that she cannot come down from and interact on a level with the rest of the world.

Women as inhuman

When women do act of their own agency, they are “mischievous” or “manipulative”. (Pay attention to Morgan Le Fay in Sir Gawain) There is no moral reasoning behind a woman’s actions, therefore she probably always means ill. (When she means anything by it at all)

Answer the following questions

in your journal:7) Compare and contrast modern love with courtly love. How are they similar? How are they different? Cite examples.

8) Summarize Feminist literary theory in your own words.

Modern Love vs. Courtly Love Modern: A feeling or disposition of deep

affection or fondness for someone, typically arising from a recognition of attractive qualities, from natural affinity, or from sympathy and manifesting itself in concern for the other's welfare and pleasure in his or her presence (OED)

Courtly Love: A certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive mediation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love’s precepts in the other’s embrace (Capellanus)

Modern Love vs. Courtly Love: Female Archetypes

Modern Woman:

Personality

Independence

Not looking for love, love finds her

Initial rejection

Growth of love through an external situation

Conflict between being ‘true’ to self and surrendering to affection

Courtly Love Woman:

Separated into classes, and each class has identifiable characteristics associated with it

Marriage

Initial rejection, but eventual submission through the persuasion of the man in the steps of courtly love

Conflict between love, class, and social duties.

Homework Read Part Three of Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight.

PLEASE TELL ME TODAY IF YOU ARE LOST OR CONFUSED WITH THIS BOOK. I WOULD LIKE TO

MEET WITH YOU DURING ADVISORY TODAY!

DO NOT GET BEHIND BECAUSE YOU ARE CONFUSED.