courtly love
a highly stylized code of behavior popular chiefly from the 12th to the 14th century that prescribed the rules of conduct between lovers, advocating idealized but illicit love, and which fostered an extensive medieval literature based on this tradition.
Origin of courtly love
1Words Nearby courtly love
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use courtly love in a sentence
The rule in courtly love was to fall in love with a lady who was married to someone else.
The Saracen: Land of the Infidel | Robert SheaThey read like proverbs, and undoubtedly represent the ideas of courtly society upon courtly love.
The Mediaeval Mind (Volume I of II) | Henry Osborn TaylorMechthild constantly uses phrases from the courtly love poetry of her time.
The Mediaeval Mind (Volume I of II) | Henry Osborn TaylorThe romans daventure afford other instances of this courtly love, sometimes illicit, sometimes looking to marriage.
The Mediaeval Mind (Volume I of II) | Henry Osborn TaylorNevertheless the romantic narratives of courtly love in the latter are mediaeval creations.
The Mediaeval Mind (Volume II of II) | Henry Osborn Taylor
British Dictionary definitions for courtly love
a tradition represented in Western European literature between the 12th and the 14th centuries, idealizing love between a knight and a revered (usually married) lady
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for courtly love
A set of attitudes toward love that were strong in the Middle Ages. According to the ideal of courtly love, a knight or nobleman worshiped a woman of high birth, and his love for her inspired him to do great things on the battlefield and elsewhere. There was usually no physical relationship or marriage between them, however; the woman was usually married to another man.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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