courtly love

American  

noun

1. 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.

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courtly love British  

noun

1. 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

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courtly love Cultural  

1. 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.

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Etymology

Origin of courtly love

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

Next to pictures showing her and Bardella walking, holding hands, and clambering over rocks, Paris-Match waxes lyrical about a couple "reinventing courtly love – 21st Century-style".

From BBC • Apr. 9, 2026

The contrivance might fit the novel’s theme of courtly love, but it’s hard to buy the premise of Nell as a gauche and pining scientist.

From New York Times • Mar. 31, 2020

Back from a Crusade, the knight hero of Sir Walter Scott’s novel fights for courtly love and Saxon honor.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 11, 2019

Chivalry, courtly love, spiritual quests and other aspects of romantic “medievalism” certainly mattered deeply to Fitzgerald, who initially intended “The Great Gatsby” to be a “Catholic” novel.

From Washington Post • May 8, 2019

First, the rage for songs of courtly love gave people an appetite for songs that were memorable - which they were less likely to be if the tune was hidden away.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall