Amour courtois - Amour courtois

Japanese: 宮廷風恋愛 - きゅうていふうれんあい（英語表記）amour courtois

Under the feudal system of the Middle Ages in Europe, this was a love (feeling) between a knight and his lord's wife. It is also called "feudal love" because it is likened to the master-servant relationship between a lord and a knight. In classical antiquity, women had a low status, and male homosexuality was considered to be of a higher order. In the Middle Ages, after the First Crusade (1096-99), wives who stayed at home had more say, and noblewomen became more cultured and took the lead in the court. Court life's manners, events, and customs became more refined, and the love between a wife and a knight was always dominated by women, with the principle of hierarchy. (In Middle French, the word for "peasant" is related to "vilain", which means "lowly", and is opposed to "courteous". Incidentally, "court" means "royal court".) Based on this principle, at the end of the 12th century, André le Chapelain defined "courtly love" and wrote a collection of case law, but this merely reflected the trends in aristocratic society at the time, and it is unclear whether the author expressed a positive or negative view of it (De Amore, The Art of the Love).
The term "courtly love" was not used by 12th- or 13th-century writers themselves. It was first used by French philologists in 1883 to refer to the absolute love (albeit adulterous) of Lancelot, the most outstanding of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, for Queen Gunièvre. Medieval writers used the name fin'amour (fin means complete, most refined) to describe this phenomenon. Unmarried women were excluded, and marriage (a political expedient) was criticized, reflecting the spirit of the times in which sensibility and passion were regulated within the feudal system that governed human relationships. Therefore, although "Tristan and Iseult," which is said to be a "myth of passionate love," concerns the adultery between the knight Tristan and his uncle's wife Iseult, it is based on the principle of equality and is strictly speaking different from "courtly love," and can be said to have a universal character.
Troubadours, poets of southern France in the first half of the 12th century, personified love, and lovers identified themselves with the personification of youth, and were always caught between bliss and trials (such as the personification of the tell-tale). The first outstanding troubadour, Elénore d'Aquitaine, granddaughter of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, married Louis VII of France in 1137, then divorced her in 1152 and remarried in the same year (to Henry II of the Plantagenet dynasty). As a result, the court of Elénore d'Aquitaine, a representative literary advocate of the era, and the advanced culture of southern France moved northward. This meant the transplantation of French language and the spread of literature in what is now England and France, and the children of the two kings also devoted themselves to the defense of northern French poets, trouvère (this role was very important before the invention of printing). The youth of the troubadours' lyric poetry overlaps with the image of knights as young men, and the soil was cultivated in which people sought to strive for spiritual improvement (love is the supreme form of human relationships) as well as martial arts, making it an important theme in romance. "Courtly love" was the spread of French culture, and about 20 years later the same phenomenon was observed on a European scale in Germany and other places in the 12th and 13th centuries. This should also be seen from the perspective of the influence of literature on real life (the domination of reality by the imaginary world). Some people deny the existence of "courtly love" because it is difficult to find evidence outside of literature, but this should be seen as an exaggeration.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information

Japanese:

ヨーロッパ中世の封建制度下，騎士による主君の奥方への恋愛 (感情) 。主君と騎士との主従関係になぞらえたもので「恋愛の封建性」ともいわれる。古典古代にあって，女性の地位は低く，男性の同性愛が高次元のものとみなされていた。中世では第一次十字軍 (1096～99) 後に，留守を預る奥方の発言権は増し，貴族の女性の教養は高くなり，宮廷内での主導権を握ることとなる。宮廷生活の作法，行事，慣習など洗練の度合いが増し，奥方と騎士との対異性間の愛は常に女性上位であり，階級原理に貫かれている (語源となる中世フランス語では「農民」を表す語は「下賤な」 vilainに通じ，「宮廷風の」 courtoisに対立。ちなみに courtとは宮廷の意味) 。この原理に基づき，12世紀末，アンドレ・ル・シャプラン André le Chapelainは「宮廷風恋愛」を定義づけ，判例集を著わすが，あくまで当時の貴族社会の風潮を示したもので，作者の肯定見解か，否定見解かは不明である (『恋愛術』 De Amore) 。
「宮廷風恋愛」という語は，12，13世紀の作家自身によって使われることはなかった。 1883年フランス文献学者によって使われるようになった。アーサー王の配下にある「円卓の騎士」の中でもっともすぐれた騎士，ランスロの王妃グニエーブル Gunièvreへの絶対的な愛 (恋愛至上主義に貫かれているが，不倫) を名指してのものであった。中世の作家たちがこの現象を示すのに用いた名称は，「至上の愛」 fin'amour (finとは，完全な，もっとも洗練されたの意味) であった。未婚の女性は対象外であるし，婚姻 (政略上の方便) はここで批判され，人間関係を律する封建制度の枠内で感性や情念も律せられる時代精神を反映している。したがって，「情熱恋愛の神話」といわれる『トリスタンとイズー』は，騎士トリスタンと伯父の妃イズーとの不義が問題であるにしても，平等原理に立ち，厳密には「宮廷風恋愛」とは別系であり，さらに普遍的性格をもつといえよう。
12世紀前半の南フランスの詩人たちトルバドゥールでは，「愛」が擬人化され，恋する者はみずから「青春」という擬人化と同一視し，至福と試練 (擬人化「告げ口」など) のはざまに常にあった。最初のすぐれたトルバドゥール，アキテーヌ公ギヨーム9世の孫娘アリエノール Aliénore d'Aquitaineがフランス王ルイ7世との結婚 (1137) ，ついで離婚 (52) と同年の再婚 (プランタジネット朝のヘンリー2世) の結果，時代を代表する文芸擁護者アリエノール Aliénore d'Aquitaineの宮廷と南フランスの先進的文化が北上することとなった。これは現在の英仏におけるフランス語の移植と文学の伝播を意味し，2人の王との間の子供たちも北フランス語詩人たちトルベール trouvèreの擁護に力を注いだ (印刷術の発明以前，この役割の重要性は高い) 。トルバドゥールの叙情詩の青春は騎士＝若者のイメージと重なり，武道と同時に精神的向上 (恋愛は人間関係の至上の形式) を目指すことが要請される土壌が培われて，ロマンスの重要なテーマとなる。「宮廷風恋愛」はフランス文化の普及であり，約 20年後にはドイツなどヨーロッパ的スケールで同一現象が 12，13世紀に集中して観察される。これは文学の実生活への影響 (想像界の現実支配) という観点からもみられるべきであろう。文学以外に証言を求めることが困難なため，「宮廷風恋愛」の存在を否定する見解もあるが，行過ぎとみるべきであろう。

出典　ブリタニカ国際大百科事典小項目事典ブリタニカ国際大百科事典小項目事典について　情報

<<: Court Literature

>>: Court politics