Courtly Love During The Middle Ages

Before the concept of “courtly love” was discovered, the Middle Ages love was religious; either towards their creator and/or towards humankind as brothers and sisters. Love was also known more of a passion towards a desire or action rather than an intimate and emotional circumstances. During the Middle Ages, marriage was considered an arrangement for materialistic possessions such as money, property, hierarchy, etc. for both sides of the family, not necessarily love. Courtly love is essentially chivalry love towards a cherished person, without any concern of accepting any love in return; it was also considered love outside the marriage of the Middle Ages. The term “courtly love” arose in the early as the 12th century in De Amore (1184-86) written by Andreas Capellanus. He essentially wrote this book to teach the “Rules of Courtly Love”. The Church and other’s religious views often condemned people who acted upon this concept as sexual mutiny.
This piece is in the Provençal language, which was known as the Latin-based language of Provence, France. The composition lyrically is about a man (most likely a knight), whom is destined to love this woman of higher power. Yet, she does not know of his courtly love and he knows she will not care if he dies for her. He still will travel and fight for her because of his loyalty. The composition starts with the melody ascending from a low to high pitch. The melody is conjunct. This piece is strophic in arrangement with eight different strophes. The harmony of the piece is consonant with a soft, yet fragile-like texture to give emotional feel to his situation. This symphony also uses expressive cadences at the end of some phrases to bring out the sensitive state of the vocalist. I would also say that this composition has monophonic chant