Let's suppose you find yourself transported back to medieval times and now you are looking for a little romance (which is of course the main purpose for going back in time).  But what are the rules of the game?  What is the social etiquette of the day surrounding love?  Today we'll review some commonly held modern day beliefs about love and evaluate them from a medieval perspective.  Please note: these rules apply only to noble ladies, since I'm assuming you didn't go back in time to be a peasant!

BELIEF:  Before you get married, you should date different people until you find your soul mate and fall in love.

FALSE:  In medieval times you would spend about 3 nano-seconds after childhood before you were married…at the age of twelve.  No sex and the single girl for you.

BELIEF:  Your parents would be interested in finding you a good match, a kind man who would treat you well and be someone you could eventually fall in love with.

FALSE:  Particularly for the nobility, marriages were arranged based on wealth, inheritance, family status, and political ambitions. The feelings of the persons involved were not a consideration. While occasionally these marriages developed into love matches (like in my novels – oh yeah), often a medieval lady was matrimonially entangled with a less than desirable mate.  The laws giving medieval men license to beat their wives may not have increased the likelihood of wedded bliss.  

BELIEF:  You should look for a lover who is kind and respectful, someone honorable, who is not afraid to defend you if the need should arise.

TRUE:  In its romanticized ideal, courtly love ennobled the knight to seek his lady's favor by being honorable, brave, courteous, and charming.  Never would he brawl or act unseemly in the presence of his lady.  The love-struck knight may even be emboldened to take on great acts of courage and daring in her name.

BELIEF:  You should expect your husband to treat you with love and respect.

FALSE:  In this age of chivalry, courtly love was seen as love for its own sake, without regard to family, or fortune.  Thus, true love could only exist between partners who were NOT married to each other.  And since essentially all ladies were married, this meant a romance between a knight and a lady married to someone else.  In fact, the illicit nature of the relationship was seen as a fundamental to the allure. 

Around 1175, Andreas Capellanus wrote De Amore (Concerning Love) for Countess Marie de Champagne, who theoretically held "courts of love" in which she tried cases of amore.  Capellanus writes that married people simply cannot love each other since the act of marriage would destroy all possibility for love.  (Hmmm, some modern folks might share that belief!)

"It is clearly known that love cannot claim a place between husband and wife… Love is nothing other than an uncontrolled desire to obtain the sensual gratification of a stealthy and secret embrace. Now I ask you: what stealthy embrace could take place between a married couple…?"

In one of Capellanus' stories, a woman spurns the advances of one knight because she is already engaged in a romantic affair with another man.  Through a change of circumstances she is married to her lover.  The spurned knight then demands that she accept his amorous advances since she clearly can no longer be in love with her former lover, now husband.  His case is upheld by Countess de Champagne's fictional court and the lady is advised to take the knight as a lover! 

BELIEF:  If you do engage in an extramarital affair, you should keep the liaison secret.

TRUE:  Not only did the medieval church view "courtly love" as nothing short of adultery but the law was also not on the side of the errant lovers, hence the need for secrecy.  In the rein of France's Philip the Fair, two nobles accused of adultery with the wives of King Philip's sons were castrated, dragged through the town, and hung as adulterers and traitors of their lords.

On that happy note, I bid you all best of luck in your romantic adventures.  May you find the love you seek, though perhaps not of the medieval variety!

References:

Gies,J & Gies,F. Life in a Medieval Castle. HarperCollins, New York. 1974.

Capellanus, NF. Courtly Love. Found in: Canton. The Medieval Reader. HarperPerennial, New York, 1995.

Tuchman, BW. A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century. Ballantine Books, New York, 1978.