Andreas Capellanus
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Andreas Capellanus (Capellanus meaning "chaplain") was the twelfth century author of a treatise commonly entitled De amore ("About Love"), and often known in English, somewhat misleadingly, as The Art of Courtly Love, though its realistic, somewhat cynical tone suggests that it is in some measure an antidote to courtly love. Nothing is known of Andreas Capellanus's life, but he is presumed to have been a courtier of Marie of Troyes, and probably of French origin; he is sometimes known by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain.
Work
De Amore was written at the request of Marie de Champagne, daughter of King Louis VII of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine. A dismissive allusion in the text to the "wealth of Hungary" has suggested the hypothesis that it was written after 1184, at the time when Bela III of Hungary had sent to the French court a statement of his income and had proposed marriage to Marie's sister Marguerite of France, but before 1186, when his proposal was accepted.
John Jay Parry, the editor of De Amore, quotes critic Robert Bossuat as describing "De Amore" as "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explains the secret of a civilization". It may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive; in any event it preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in Western literature.
The social system of "courtly love", as gradually elaborated by the Provençal troubadours from the mid twelfth century, soon spread. One of the circles in which this poetry and its ethic were cultivated was the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine (herself the granddaughter of an early troubadour poet, William IX of Aquitaine). It has been claimed that De Amore codifies the social and sexual life of Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174, though it was evidently written at least ten years later and, apparently, at Troyes. It deals with several specific themes that were the subject of poetical debate among late twelfth century troubadours and trobairitz.
