The term amour courtois—translated into English as “courtly love”—came into wide use during the late 19th century through the work of the French philologist Gaston Paris
The term ‘courtly love’, coined by Gaston Paris was often characterised by adultery and section; naturally involving secrecy.
Courtly love and its implications were on of the most prominent themes in the Medieval Era, which raise the question of whether love and secrecy is necessary considering factors like society. For example, it is evident that the society in which the writer of the Medieval Era lived, operated on a highly religious, male-dominated foundation, according to which citizens were classified by power, money and status.
Marie de France presents Guigemar as a story with contrasting and distorted images of loyalty which is ultimately a type of secrecy. For example, if one considers the homosocial system, which is initially where men bond but direct their sexual desires to women. This system had to be engineered so that it wouldn’t proceed to homosexuality which would hurt social reproduction. Guigemar’s character is hyper masculine, he seeks to desire men rather than women since he’s too taken up with this homosical system (puts all his care into pleasing other men). In account of this, the Lai reveals that women existed merely for marital and reproductive purposes. This objectification of women in the medieval era further suggests that marriage was not based on love despite it being viewed as sacred at the time, which is a lie in itself. Also, one may aruge that whilst the strength of homosocial bonds transcended hetereosocial bonds, it is interesting to tsee that this bond is so easily ruptured over a woman who elicits romantic emotions in the two characters, it is apparent that love and secrecy are in a way intertwined in order for marriages to work, which later seems to have inevitable consequences.
Also, Guigemar’s relationship with the lady is adulterous, which is a typical theme in this era, where women are unhappily married to jealous elder men. Could one argue that some women can’t avoid secrecy because it is out of control for them to be honest without any consequences, giving into account that the aging husband has imprisoned his beautiful wife – a convention in the medieval era named maumariée.
La Chatelaine de Vergy, a short medieval romance written in rhyming octosyllabics, framed by a prologue, similarly to Guigemar; recounts the story of a knight and a chatelaine who swear to keep their love a secret. However the homosocial system seems to ruin this; the knight’s feudal oath to the Duke of Burgundy interferes, especially since the malicious duchess wants revenge and attempts to ruin the knight because he rejected her love. La Chatelaine de Vergy is indeed a text about love and it borrows the leitmotiv of traditional courtly love, this is shown in the relationship between the knight and the chatelaine as they are so in love that they are driven by feeling. This intensity is shown through her death of a broken heart (despite being mistaken), she pronounces a long passionate monologue, containing many exaggerations such as ‘vous estiiez ma richece / et ma santez et ma leece’, this further suggests the intensity of her love. Whilst their love was pure, it is mostly the duchess’s feelings that trigger the tragic aspect of the text since she is the one constituting the disruptive element of the tale when the woman makes advances to the knight. Further reinforcing the notion that nothing good can come of secrecy in a relationship, no matter how loving since it is almost impossible to avoid malign forces at work attempting to ruin.
This text examines the relation betweent courtly/romantic love and secrecy to the treatment of the motif of dying for love. The constant invasion of privacy we witness gives a sense that the lovers deserve better, since as readers we know its indecent and wrong. Here the theme of concealment is linked to that of appearances and reality (croit) and the tragic effect of the story derives from the Chatelaine's believing something which turns out to be mistaken, namely that the Knight has revealed their secret (descouvrir nostre conseil 771, descouvertl nostre conseil 809-10) as a consequence of no longer loving her.
The reader knows that it is impossible for love to triumph over a feudal society, making it impossible for secrecy to happily co-exist with love. Feudalism ensured a strict social hierarchy. This is illustrated when the Duke confronts the knight about his supposed act of adultery and demands him to leave or show that he loves another. Either way, there is no way for the knight to not betray the Chatelaine since his only options are to either expose their relationship or to leave her. Furthermore, in La Châtelaine de Vergy, there is competition between two commitments:the promise of the knight to keep his relationship with the lady a secret and the commitment of loyalty to his Duke when he demands that the knight reveals his lover or risk exile thus endangering the homosocial relationship between them.
For example, the adulterous nature of Guigemar’s love leads to him being separated from his lover only after he has been healed by her. So, love’s inconsistent nature in resolving problems makes it inappropriate to consider it as entirely compatible with society if it seems to cause more issues than it solves. The third way in which love can be incompatible with society in medieval texts is because of the peculiar absence of love between characters and the methods of control that act as a replacement. For example, in Guigemar, he meets the lady while she is trapped in a controlling marriage and deprived of a love she can see displayed through Venus in her chamber. The excessive control her husband exerts over her is due to the lack of love between them and the overwhelming existence of jealousy. The deficiency of love in relationships such as this would suggest that love has no true place in medieval society except through adulterous manners such as between Guigemar and the lady. Similarly, before Guigemar encountered the lady, he had no desire for love and the space for love in his life seems to be replaced by his desire to go hunting as well as his desire to exert control over another living being. This exemplifies the point that however incompatible love may be with society, the societal gap left by love in any character’s life can always be replaced by an element of control.
In conclusion, love plays a vital role as a catalyst in medieval texts to propel the storyline especially in the case of love’s role in relation to the problems that arise in texts. Furthermore, a need for love can be seen through the study of these medieval texts in society – for example through the ways that Guigemar’s loving parents played a part in his future success. Yet, love and society are clearly incompatible. Through the presence of love, especially courtly love, male relationships are broken in Guigemar and the main lovers in La Châtelaine de Vergy eventually die. Love seems to serve in all these texts to complicate matters further and does not at any point peacefully abide in society for an extended period. Hence, love and society are, for the most part, incompatible.