Court and Spark

Court and Spark

“Love came to my door


With a sleeping roll


And a madman’s soul

He thought for sure I’d seen him


Dancing up a river in the dark


Looking for a woman

To court and spark”

--Joni Mitchell

As Dr Schwartz’s analysis of Campellanus’ “The Art of Courtly Love” suggests in Marie, Countess of Champagne’s France, courtly love was a model of  “behavior for a class of unmarried young men that might otherwise have threatened social stability.” This offered a guide, a template for a sophisticated version of wooing, or “courting”, putting men in “love service rather than wandering around the countryside, stealing or raping women”, as was almost a typical script of knighthood. 

Some suggest these enterprising society women elevated themselves to an equal status through this art of courtship and the power it afforded them, but I only see a game they were allowed to play until such time—through loss of their standing in society, or their “Lord” deemed it appropriate – that those freedoms of will would be eliminated as he saw fit. 

From another vantage, because she’s a women, even a Countess has to look to a man’s work, the Latin poet Ovid’s, revised by yet another, Capellanus and finally credited to him as author of the ‘rule book” of courtship. When Campellanus revised a wholly different version later, his patriarchal (Christian) roots trumped the Countess’ position, weighing the criminal accusation that all women were “Eve” and had “characters like that of the serpent” (Courtly Love Study Guide, Thompson) all the while praising women for the Virgin Mary’s salvation and redemption. These perceptions were all without merit or a women’s perspective.

I think, though, Courtly Love also served as a fairly accurate commentary on medieval women’s inability to garner anything close to equality with men. Rather than “elevate” women’s status in society as some would claim, I think it only points to the depravity of patriarchal norms that women were forced to live through. 

Still, one might also claim this courtship with its set “codes” or “rules” a man must adhere to in pursuing a woman’s affection was the perfect outlet for a frustrating, confined, if not boring existence (a society women) would live with lacking an ability to contribute, except through sex.

The control – or the premise of it at least – bestowed on these society “babes”, acted out in their quite serious game, was paramount to Eleanor and Marie’s existence, I think, because it also gave them at least the possibility, the option, of sexual attention, or satisfaction, within the patriarchic confines of the day.

It’s hard to not romanticize this period, certainly, giving these women credit for celebrating the poetry of the “troubadorean” “works of Venus” -- flirtation, courtship, love, and sex -- because lets face it, with their knights out gallivanting in adventurous endeavors, often having sexual conquests of their own outside of marriage, courtship was a way to even the playing field if only a little bit. Besides, as Campellanus says, Courtly Love “makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!”