Femdom and Courtly Love

I was pricing a volume of medieval cultural studies when I noticed an essay by feminist literary theorist Toril Moi. Her topic was courtly love, specifically the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus.

De Amore is usually regarded as the foundation text of courtly love. Being a bit interested in Moi and never really happy with the attempts to fit F/m D/s in the context of early medieval literary lore.

A few quick observations:

• No one thinks that the literature of courtly love documented how people lived. Though some may have tried after they read the works. Life imitating art as Oscar Wilde would have it.
• How important the theme of adultery - not cuckoldry - was surprised me. But marriage among the powerful was an issue of statecraft back then, not romance. Given that people wed for polity it is no surprise they’d dream of passion with someone other than their spouse.
• The story of Camelot shows that idealized infidelity wasn’t pictured as a source of happy endings. Courtly love was a way of sugar coating immorality.
• People tend to think of the lover’s longing as a form of beautiful suffering. Many scholars believe that this was meant to show that the lover should turn to the love of God.
• Different authors probably had different purposes. But the most common may have been to please - to flatter - the patron. Before the true commercialization of publishing in the 18th century that is how poets earned their daily bread.

I’m too much of an ignoramus to have an opinion myself.