A Link to the Past and a Gateway to the Future

When people hear the phrase, courtly love, they often might think of the act of courting someone for the purposes of marriage. This is not that. In fact, most stories on courtly love had nothing to do with marriage. The idea of courtly love stems from the relationship between knights and their lords or ladies. Often in these stories, the romance would be between a knight and a lady of noble birth and would revolve around the knight doing things to win the heart of the lady. These stories were typically targeted towards nobles, particularly women, because of the subject. Courtly love could be compared to themes found in The Symposium which was written by Plato in around 385 BC. This story takes place at a party where Socrates is debating what love is with other philosophers. During the party a theory was posed that humans used to have two faces, four legs and four arms. One day the Gods wanted to teach humanity a lesson and split humanity in half. Now humans have one face, two arms and two legs. This made them feel incomplete and want to look for their other half. To this day humans are running around looking for their other half.  

 Courtly love follows suit in that it tries to define love and paint a picture of what roles each person plays. In The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Cappelanus states, "Marriage is no real excuse for not loving." (The Art of Courtly Love) This was a radical idea during the time because in the medieval period, people married for status or political alliances rather than love. 
In conclusion, The Art of Courtly Love had a major influence on how society today looks at romance and love. Originally love was not between two people who were married but rather knights and their ladies. Andreas defined the relationship between the lovers as one with a man trying to gain the favor of his lady. Additionally, The Symposium also tried to define what love is and painted the picture of soul mates. These people would be physically bound to one another. Furthermore, the idea of courtly love paved the way for modern ideas of chivalry and what courting for marriage means. Humanity can take these lessons from the past and strive to create a more loving society.