Troubadours

I was doing a bit of reading on Mythology. Came across a little history about the Troubadours (and no, not the band) and just found it very interesting. So here it is: They were the nobility of Provence, France in the twelfth century, and then later other parts of France and Europe. In Germany they’re known as the ‘singers of love’ and also known as poets.

The Troubadours were interested in the psychology of love. Before the 12th century people did not really know about Amor. And the Troubadours were the first ones in a western society who really thought of love the way we do today – as a person-to-person relationship.

When reading the history of love there where 3 different kinds:
Eros – the biological urge that people feel for each other, lust… Personal factors do not matter here.

Agape - love they neighbor as thyself. This is spiritual love. Compassion. It doesn’t matter who the neighbor is. Love for human being, for life, is an impersonal love.

Amor – Amor is a purely personal ideal. The kind of seizure that comes from the meeting of the eyes, and is a person-to-person experience. It’s considered by the troubadour tradition as the highest spiritual experience.

This was an important factor in the development of western civilization. The accent on the individual, that one should have faith in one’s own experience and not just in dogma handed down by others. In the troubadour tradition, the stress was placed on the validity of the individual experience of what humanity is, what values are. And that way of life opposes a monolithic system.

In the 12th century marriages where arranged by society. Most marriages were for political and social reasons, not of love. So Amor was condemned as heresy and adultery by the Roman Catholic Church. The whole troubadour tradition was extinguished in Provence by the Church in 1209. Being caught up in what was the called the Manichean heresy of the Albigensians. The Crusade was launched by Pope Innocent III and is regarded as one of the most monstrous crusades in the history of Europe..

Not a happy ending at all. But the fact remains about the impact of how the troubadour experienced Amor, and from it, how it has become a defining principle for people who fall in love today.