But as a counter measure, Pope Gregory VII, in an effort to return the Roman Christian priesthood to celibacy in 1095, coinciding with the edits of the First Crusade, issued the Gregorian Reform with its concurrent intensification of anti-female rhetoric that would continue through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.154 Nevertheless, for the next few hundred years, there is a brief rise in romantically inspired worship of real women as well as the more widespread adoration of the mythical/Goddess incarnation of women as the Virgin Mary restored to her ancient title as Mother of God and the more complicated cult of Mary Magdalene. This cultural awakening is exemplified by the troubadour Uc de StCirc of the thirteenth century who wrote, “To be in love is to stretch toward heaven through a woman.”155 The noble knights brought back not only beautiful silks and exotic spices but also new ideas experienced first-hand in the East from their encounters with Arab and Persian women who taught them new, erotic and more exciting means of love-making. This revived the concept of sensual love-making and the idea of sacred sexuality which had been long-forgotten.
Guilhem de Poitou, a nobleman of Occitania, was the first troubadour. His poetry caused a sensation because he wrote about “love” in a way as to grant woman an entirely new place in the medieval world of the male mind. Coming from a man who was at the top of the feudal power pyramid, this new flight of imagination soon became nothing short of an addiction, perhaps the first love addiction of modern times. There were touches of sado-masochism also, as the man became the servant (love-slave?) of the woman who could ask anything of him and he could not refuse her.
Guilhem wrote,
Every joy must abase itself
And every knight obey
In the presence of Midons, for the sweetness of her welcome,
For her beautiful and gentle look
And a man who wins the joy of her love
Will live a hundred years.156
Some scholars believe that courtly love is the inevitable balancing act that was necessary when such a totally male-oriented system as feudalism, abated by the priesthood of the Roman Church, dominated. Others theorize that courtly love traditions are an outcome of Arab influence in Spanish Andalusia and throughout the crusades. Because of the Reconquesta movement by the Church to reclaim the Iberian peninsula from the Islamic Empire, Arabs were prevalent in neighboring Occitania, first in the eighth century as invaders but now in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as refugees and new settlers. Nobel courts kept troops of Moorish singers (joculars) as a sign of status. And there were also female Moorish jocularesses in the court of Guilhem’s father, so the first troubadour grew up in the presence of Islamic-Hispano-Arab traditions. The Arabs in their poetry had been worshipping their ladies for the past two hundred years, evolving the code of homage to a lady, true love as endless suffering, chastity as the highest expression of true love, which the courtly love poems of the European troubadours emulated. It is to Meg Bodin that we owe the explanation of how courtly love of the troubadour and the changing landscape transitioning between the old feudal system and a new order yet to be defined meshed together.
Society’s ground was shifting, and there was as yet no clearly defined place for the restless offspring of the bourgeoisie, the sons of former serfs or the landless sons of poverty-stricken nobles. With his image of the noble lady deigning to receive the low-born poet as her vassal, the troubadour extended to these footloose men the possibility of membership in a new aristocracy, an aristocracy based not on noble birth or feats at arms, but on the nobility of spirit.157
For women of the nobility, the sensual secrecy, the illicit implications, the homage and reverence for her being, and perhaps the occasional intimacy must have been intoxication to those who were previously valued only for their land and the ability to bear offspring. Was there sexuality in the physical sense? Apparently from the men’s poems it is a mark of crafty talent not to reveal those specifics. Certainly the woman could not have risked vaginal sex which could accidentally result in pregnancy. The penalties against their person from family and church were too severe to take such chances. But, it is a good guess that there were more than the words of fantasy seduction involved between some of the “couples” – troubadour and noble lady. And all parties participating – audience, troubadour, ladies of the court (highborn married women) – tasted the thrill of sexual pleasure, equality and freedom from their everyday rigid system as never before when they listened intently to the lilting and sensuous poetry accompanied by music.
The Countess of Narbonne, ruler of France’s celebrated Court of Love, said that the relation between husband and wife and “the true love between lovers are two absolutely different things which have nothing in common.… We say definitely and considerately that love cannot exist between married people.”158
The women troubadours of Occitania, the trobairitz, as they were known, were the same married women who had been the object of the male troubadours’ affection: They were, of course, wives and daughters of the lords of Occitania. Courtly love had been part of their own personal experience before they began to write their own poetry. Some were even related as sisters to the male troubadours of their region. Bogin writes., “As aristocratic women they were the inspiration and the object of the poet’s reverence and praise. It was the first good word for women in a long time and it would be short-lived. Indeed, they were among the privileged few upon whose ease such flattery would fall for centuries to come.”159
The women’s poetic style is fresh and candid; their language is direct and unambiguous, revealing personal experience and emotional content. The men to whom or about whom they write are real people and yet do not unquestioningly adore them. The men to whom they address the poems are not downtrodden knights but are called “friend” and sometimes are portrayed as neither faithful nor trustworthy. One gathers the impression reading their work that this was as close to being “in love” as love was going to be possible in a landscape of nearly complete lovelessness for these women. After all, they were segregated away from their children, often separated by distance from friends or their own family members, mothers, sisters and brothers. In these poems, it is difficult to imagine there was no touching, no kissing, no caressing, no oral sex, because some phrases are so pointed. And why would that not have been possible? Why would these women in worst than loveless marriages, who were given only the choice between arranged betrothal or life at the convent, not use every means to acquire affection and attention while treading carefully on the very fine line of adultery, which all parties to the tryst knew that neither one could cross? It was the thrill of secrecy, intimacy, and the high-wire act skirting danger that drew everyone closer into the romantic mélange. It is important to “hear” the voices of these women of Occitania, now Provence, in their own words, so from Meg Bodin’s The Women Troubadours comes a selection of brief excerpts from longer works of individual writers.
Tibors, born 1130 in Provence, was the earliest woman troubadour, sister to Taimbaut d’Orange, and wife of Bertrand de Baux who was a troubadour patron.
Sweet handsome friend, I can tell you truly
that I’ve never been without desire
since it pleased you that I have you as my courtly lover:
nor did a time ever arrive, sweet handsome friend,
when I didn’t want to see you often;
nor did I ever regret,
did it ever come to pass, if you went off angry,
that I felt joy until you had come back.160
Countess of Dia, born 1140, was descended from a noble family and wife of a lord.
I thrive on youth and joy
and youth and joy keep me alive,
for my friends the very gayest
which makes me gay and playful;
and since I am true,
he should be faithful:
my love for him has never strayed,
nor is my heart the straying kind.
The lady who knows about valor
&n
bsp; Should place her affection
In a courteous and worthy knight
As soon as she has seen his worth.
She should dare to love him face to face;
For courteous and worthy men
Can only speak with great esteem
Of a lady who loves openly.161
And again in another poem:
Of things I’d rather keep in silence I must sing:
So bitter do I feel toward him
Whom I love more than anything.
With him my mercy and fine manners are in vain,
My beauty, virtue and intelligence
For I’ve been tricked and cheated
As if I were completely loathsome.162
The following may be proof that the parties do sleep next to one another, but without sexual intercourse. It was called “epreuve” a test of chastity, which required the lovers to sleep together naked with a sword between them.163
How I wish just once I could caress
That chevalier with my bare arms,
For he would be in ecstasy
If I’d just let him lean his head against my breast.
If only I could lie beside you for an hour
And embrace you lovingly –
Know this, that I’d give almost anything
To have you in my husband’s place,
But only under the condition
That you swear to do my bidding.164
Castelloza was from the Auvergne, wife of a nobleman who fought in the fourth crusade. She was born circa 1200. Hers is a bittersweet poem, stinging from loss and betrayal.
You stayed a long time friend,
and then you left me,
and it’s a hard, cruel thing you’ve done;
for you promised and you swore
that as long as you lived
I’d be your only lady:
If now another has your love
You’ve slain me and betrayed me,
Of being loved without deceit.165
Bieiris de Romans takes her name from the town of Romans. She is thought to have written in the first half of the thirteenth century, and this poem, the only one surviving, is to another woman, but nothing else is known about either authoress or her Lady love.
Lady Maria, in you merit and distinction,
joy, intelligence and perfect beauty,
hospitality and honor and distinction,
your noble speech and pleasing company,
your sweet face and merry disposition
that exist in you without pretension
cause me to turn toward you with a pure heart.
Thus I pray you, if it please you that true love And celebration and sweet humility Should bring me such relief with you, If it please you, lovely woman, then give me That which most hope and joy promises For in you lie my desire and my heart And from you stems all my happiness, And because of you I’m often sighing.166
For this lady, Donna H., nothing at all is known regarding her background, but her chanson is one of the most lucidly written, citing physical love and being overcome by desire.
Rosin, fear shouldn’t keep
a courtly lover from
experiencing joy,
where zeal and passion bind him so
that he can neither suffer nor forego
his sovereign lady’s
voice; for shared bed and lovely sight
make true love turn so bright
that he can’t hear or see or know
if he does right or wrong.167
Finally, in an odd poem of “advice” in which nothing at all is known about any of the three women, two sisters ask an older woman for counsel, in which both marriage and maternity are held in less than high esteem.
Lady Carenza, I’d like to have a husband,
but making babies I think is a huge penitence:
your breasts hang way down
and it’s too anguishing to be a wife.168
In many ways, the life of a noblewoman was one of paradox. She had high socio-economic status, but less personal freedom than the merchant wives or peasant women; she had very few choices available to her for meaningful relationships except with the women serving her in the women’s quarters of the manor house or castle. Because she did not nurse her infants, and they were sent away to wetnurses, there was little opportunity for her to bond with them until they were returned to her care at the ages of two or three, if they even lived to be returned. Her eldest son, the very one she would need to depend on most as she aged, was taken away about age five or six to be schooled and prepared for future leadership of the family fiefdoms. Her second son was claimed by the Church for a position of prominence, but one which held all women in abhorrence and miserable subjugation. Her later sons would become knight errant, fighting and dying, probably never marrying, either killed in endless battles or left to live dissolutely. These men were rather easily socialized by their churchmen brothers to believe all their troubles were caused by the women they so desperately wanted but could never have, including the love from their own mothers! These churchmen were obsessed by their own dilemma, over which they initially had no choice as small boys, and projected both their hatred and despair onto the original object of loss and the only one unable to defend themselves – women. This church/feudal system continuously reinforced a love-hate relationship between men and women at the highest levels of society.
Her daughters’ lives were arranged at an early age, engaged to the eldest son of another noble family in order to cement military alliances with neighboring feudal lords, or sent away as early as age five to eight years old with a smaller dower than required for marriage, to live out her life in a convent. But these daughters were actually freer than their mothers. Their mothers, the noble ladies of the large manors or castles, had strange hardships that may not have been appreciated. They lived life segregated and largely ignored, yet supposedly adored; they were supposed to care little for their children, who were constantly either removed or dying. It is nearly impossible to believe that they did not yearn to know and love their offspring. While told that chastity is the greatest virtue, they were often in great danger of being raped by any number of wandering knights who were often billeted within the castle while their husbands were often somewhere other than at home. Their closest relationships often turned out to be with their maid servants in a state of unequal but mutual dependency. And, as was the fate of all women, they were responsible for cloth production for the entire establishment, working at it literally forever. Now, is it any wonder that courtly love was such an enormous success, even for a fleeting moment in time?
Eleanor of Aquitaine
“Queen of the Troubadours, Standard Bearer of a brilliant, joyous Occitania” are titles given to Eleanor of Aquitaine by historian George Duby, member of the Academy Francaise, author of Women of the Twelvth Century. The beautiful and strong-willed Eleanor, heiress to the duchy of Aquitaine, in 1137 at the age of about thirteen was given in marriage to her first husband, the sixteen year old king of a divided France, Louis VII, who by all accords was obsessed with her beauty. Eleanor’s grandfather was Prince William IX, regarded in tradition as the first of the troubadours. She was very well acquainted with courtly love, with non-traditional relationships that her grandfather kept with various women, and with the extraordinary privilege her status and wealth of inheritance bestowed upon her, much in addition to her physical beauty, personal intellect and charisma given to her by nature. Ten years after her marriage to the love-smitten king, she was required by her husband to accompany him as he led the Second Crusade to the Holy Lands in 1048. The expedition failed miserably, with great loss of life, prestige and money. Into this sorry mess, Eleanor decided that she no longer wished to be married to Louis and raised the issue of the two of them being related too closely by blood as cousins, a situation shared by the majority of royal households across the continent.
In 1049 Louis and Eleanor visited Pope Eugenius III on their
return from the disastrous crusade. He convinced the couple to remain together, even remarrying them, solemnly prohibiting future dissolution or talk of consanguinity.169 But in only three years, Eleanor reinstituted the same argument: She and Louis were of the same blood, which was true, making their marriage “incestuous” and nullifying it because in the eyes of the Roman Church, it did not exist at all, despite their remarriage by the Pope himself. This time, it was agreed to by Louis and his advisors. The face-saving reason given was that, although Eleanor had born two daughters during the eleven years of this marriage, she had not yet born a son/heir to the throne and, therefore, she was dispensable.
In 1152 Eleanor left the court, taking her duchy of Aquitaine with her, which represented almost one-third of France in the southwestern portion. It was reported that she was having an affair with the English Geoffrey Plantagenet. Then, at the age of twenty-nine (considered middle-aged) and almost immediately after her departure from the court of the French king, Eleanor was married not to the father, Geoffrey, but to the nineteen year old Henry Plantagenet, king of England! As soon as she was remarried, Eleanor was pregnant and afterward gave birth every other year, producing three more daughters and five sons. In 1165 her last known child was born. Eleanor was forty-one, and her reproductive capacity like that of all married women of her world, had been exploited to the fullest. She had five daughters and five sons. Also like them, after menopause, she assumed the role of matron, assumed power through her sons, often tyrannizing her daughters-in-law, leaving her officials to administer her dower.170 Eleanor was in the very center of the discovery in the twelfth century of the cult of love: physical love as well as mystical/romantic love.
Partly due to the fact that thousands of adult sons of noble families were doomed to be life-long bachelors, groups of men roamed around always seeking out women and becoming a disruptive force for both the married and unmarried women. Because at the same time, the Church was intent on Christianizing the depth of the nobility, churchmen condemned polygamy and incest, hoping to persuade the ruling class to accept the church’s definition of marriage. Even though chastity, later celibacy, did not always work with its own clergy, the purpose of the church in severely restricting sexual activity in the non-clerical population was to gain control over both their behavior and their minds.
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