The Art of Courtly Love

Addressing Walter, Andreas explains that he wrote the book because of his affection for Walter. However, Andreas does not believe wise men should devote their time to love. He wants Walter to be educated about love because rejecting love with full knowledge of its pleasures is more pleasing to God than rejecting it because one is ignorant about it. There are many reasons men should avoid love.

The first reason is that God condemns “the works of Venus” (187) outside of wedlock. Second, love can cause men to harm their neighbors instead of loving them, as commanded in the gospel of Luke. Third, love can cause men to become estranged from their friends. Fourth, “there is no sin more serious than fornication,” which “defiles both body and soul” (189). Fifth, a man in love is a man enslaved, with heart and soul vexed by suspicion and no longer living for himself. Sixth, love can result in poverty or, alternately, force men to accumulate wealth by dishonest means in order to feed his love. Seventh, love can be a source of torment for men in life and after death. Eighth, men should avoid love because “chastity and the restraining of carnal desires” (192) are the most praiseworthy virtues among both men and women. Ninth, love can cause every kind of “criminal excess” (193), from homicide and adultery to swearing oaths and idolatry.

A tenth reason Andreas opposes love is that he cannot see anything good coming from it. It causes men to lose “all honor in this world” and “their celestial heritage” (194) in the next. It can consume men’s minds, distracting them from honorable labor and service. It can inspire lechery, mental blindness, and war. It causes men to break up marriages. This violates the gospel of Matthew that declares husband and wife are “one flesh” (196), that men should not separate what God has joined together, and that man should love no other person as much as he loves his wife. Andreas urges Walter to resist the lure of love. He hopes that Walter’s “noble birth and excellence of character” (198) will guide him to spurn temptation and remain chaste.

An eleventh reason men should avoid love is that it weakens their bodies by depriving them of sleep, food, and drink. It also harms their digestion and, overall, shortens their lifespans. Twelfth, it causes men to lose their wisdom. Thirteenth, “no woman ever loved a man or could bind herself to a lover in the mutual bonds of love” (200). Andreas explains that this is because “every woman” is miserly, avaricious, envious, slanderous, fickle, disobedient, lacking restraint and self-discipline, gossipy, a drunkard, a wanton, prideful, vain, deceitful, and overall “prone to every evil” (201). This is true of all women, at all times, in all places, with no exception, “not even the Empress or the Queen” (208). Finally, Love harms men because he carries “unequal weights” (210), making men fall in love with women who are incapable of feeling and thus returning love.

Andreas acknowledges that his book contains two points of view. In the first part, he answers Walter’s request to understand the rules of love. If he wishes to practice love, the book will show him how to attain “all the delights of the flesh in the fullest measure” (211). However, Andreas believes this would harm Walter rather than make him happy. Thus, in the second half of the book, Andreas attempts to be useful to Walter by showing him why men should reject love. Doing so will ensure both honor in this world and “glory and life everlasting” (211) after death.