VIEW OF THE LOVE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

First, we have to understand the medieval man vision of love: he thought that woman was negative, and she was a symbol of sin. In that way, we can only find the real love in the friendship of men, because the conception in these times says that they are the only living beings totally completed and able to express this kind of feelings.

Although, in the XI century, a true revolution developed, giving an enormous refinement and importance to the love between men and women; it is known as “courteous love”. Courteous love was developed in the aristocratic environments; women turned in an impossible living being for the lover. This kind of love was a false love too, because in this time this feeling was totally out of the marriage and, if it existed, it was negative.

This new way of thinking involved a new structure, like the vassalage relationship that a servant paid to his lord. Thus, the lover paid oath of love to his lady.

The “courteous love” is a cultural movement, a way of competition between medieval men for getting a woman (they thought that the woman was a trophy). But, eventually, this love has been disappeared.So, medieval love was merely relegated to the men’s friendship and to a cultural movement called “Courteous love”, but nowadays, writers and films and series scriptwriters insist in the idea which says the medieval love was like our love feeling. Since it usually occurs, we are going to talk about this present vision of medieval love and the influence in our thoughts.

We can see films and TV series with typical “medieval love” elements:

  

*A man/woman from royalty or nobility falls in love with a woman/man from the lowest social class.

 *A person that has already fallen in love with the man/woman from the high class (Usually this person is from the high class too) and makes impossible for destroy the love between the main characters.

 *The use of magic: Spells, potions, help or not from mythological beings.

Those elements have made up our perspective of the love in this time so if we haven’t investigated about this topic we think that in fact these elements were the usual tendency in medieval times!

In the Medieval Times, marriage was quite different to current one. Women didn't have a choice as to who they would marry. Most of the time, they didn't even know the man before they were married. Marriage was different in other ways back then too. There were many reasons a marriage could not take place, and strict rules for whether or not a divorce was allowed. Despite the differences in various aspects of marriage, the marriage ceremony has stayed rather similar over the years.

We still carry on some of the Middle Ages marriage ceremony traditions in today's society.

In the middle ages marriages were done by arrangement. Women were not allowed to choose who they wanted to marry. However, sometimes men were able to choose their bride. Marriage was not based on love. Husbands and wives were generally strangers until they first met. If love was involved at all it came after the couple had been married. Even if love did not develop through marriage, the couple generally developed a friendship of some sort. The arrangement of marriage was done by the children's parents. In the Middle Ages children were married at a young age. Girls were as young as 12 when they married, and boys as young as 17. The arrangement of the marriage was based on monetary worth. The family of the girl who was to be married gives a dowry, or donation, to the boy she is to marry. The dowry goes with her at the time of the marriage and stays with the boy forever.