Sex In History. Part 5: Pure Desire

The desperate fear of sex developed by patrists under the stimulus of Christianity has already been briefly examined. We have seen how sexual restrictions, by damming up Eros, lent a special virulence to the destructive drives of Thanatos. But during the Middle Ages Thanatos combined with Eros in other forms, of a matristic type; forms anathematised by the Church, but which contributed to the power of Europe the concepts of honour, gentleness and romantic love. This is a story which is less well understood, for the Christian Church has destroyed much of the data. Nevertheless we must try to trace it.

This counter movement emerged under the hot sun of Provence and Languedoc, when a period of peace and stability had permitted a leisured and civilized life to develop, especially in the castles of the feudal lords, and at the court of Guilhem of Aquitaine, who ruled over a larger proportion of France than did the French king. Here, towards the beginning of the twelfth century, there appeared an heretical movement and a school of poets; the former called themselves the Cathari, or pure ones, the latter called themselves troubadours.

The troubadours did more than simply write poetry and set it to music. Each troubadour chose as the object of his affections the wife of a feudal lord, and devoted to her all his poetry. In it he extolled the virtues of a relationship between a man and a woman in which the woman is placed on a pedestal and the man seeks to win her favour. He addressed the lady of his choice as Mi-dons, My Lord, and sought to win her approval by his probity. In the Heidelberg MS. we can see a picture of his hands being symbolically bound by his mistress: the very word mistress, in its sense of a woman in an enduring, non-marital relationship with a man, derives from the relationship which the troubadours created. This relationship became known as `domnei` or `donnoi`.

To appreciate the novelty of this development, one must bear in mind that previously it had been an offence, often punishable by death, to address a love-song to a married woman: it was conceived as a form of magical attack. Nevertheless the new movement spread before long to northern France, and later to England, under the influence of the strong minded Alienor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie. It also took root in Germany.

It is not difficult to detect other earmarks of matrism in the troubadours: they were innovators and progressives, interested in the arts and sometimes pressing for social reforms; they eschewed the use of force; they delighted in gay and colourful clothes. Above all, they erected the Virgin Mary into their especial patron: many of their poems are addressed to her, and in 1140 a new feast was instituted at Lyons - a feast which, as Bernard of Clairvaux protested, was "unknown to the custom of the Church, disapproved of by reason and without sanction from tradition" - the Cast of the Immaculate Conception. It is even said that some Provencal priests blessed the relationships between troubadours and their mistresses by placing them under the protection of the Virgin.

It therefore seems justifiable to suspect the presence of mother fixation. But, if so, it was mother fixation of a rather different type from that of the Celts, for many of the troubadours -for example, Gaucelm Faidit - explicitly disclaim any desire to possess their mistress physically. Merely to see her is enough for some of them; others will be contented with a tuft of fur from her mantle or a few threads from her glove. Others, it is true, speak of undressing their lady, of gazing upon her naked body, of caressing it, or clasping it to them, but scarcely ever do they suggest complete possession. Says one: "He knows nothing of `donnoi` who wants fully to possess his lady."Guilhem Montanhagol says: "E d`amor mou castitaz"-From love comes chastity.

Most writers on the subject have assumed without hesitation that the relationship was fully adulterous. Even the usually percipient Briffault unhesitatingly concludes that the relationship was not only sensual but consummated: but if we inspect the references he gives in support of this view we find that they always refer to intimate caresses or to clasping of the naked body, but never refer to such ideas as climax, satisfaction, complete possession and the like. A few writers, however, such as Lucka, have maintained the contrary view.

There are various facts which make the assumption of actual adultery rather unlikely - for instance, the fact that bastard children are seldom if ever referred to. Indeed, the husbands of the ladies in question accepted the relationship and supported the troubadours in their castles, sometimes elevating them to knighthood if they were not knights already. In early Celtic times such tolerance might have been inconclusive, but in twelfth-century Provence husbands were not, as a rule, prepared to be cuckolded openly. Again, we should hardly expect priests to bless an open adultery. Certainly by the fourteenth century the relationship had become so conventional that Petrarca, a canon of the Church, could write passionate sonnets to Laura without arousing any comment.

Denomy, a Jesuit, whose avowed object is to prove the sensual character of the love of the troubadours, accepts that the relationship was never consummated. He concludes: "The analysis reveals that from Guillaume IX there has existed a constant tradition and conception of pure love - `fin amor `..... arising from the contemplation of the beauty of the beloved and effecting a union of the hearts and minds of the lovers. It was a love that yearned for, and at times was rewarded by, the solace of every delight of the beloved except physical possession of her by intercourse. Far from being pure in the accepted sense, or disinterested, it is sensual and carnal in that it allows, approves and encourages the delights of kissing and embracing, the sight of the beloved`s nudity and the touching and lying beside her nude body-in short, all that fans and provokes desire."

As I shall show in a moment, this question of consummation is of some psychological significance, and we can approach it from another angle. I have argued, in the previous chapter, that the matrist`s chief fear is of incest. We may therefore ask, did the troubadours betray any signs of incest fears? For if they did, it becomes intelligible that they might hesitate to consummate a relationship which seemed incestuous in character, as a relationship with a mother substitute necessarily must seem.

The rules governing "courtly love" as it was called, were elaborately worked out and were written down about 1186 by one Andrew the Chaplain, at the court of Queen Alienor. This Treatise on Love was immediately translated into the principal foreign languages, and became a standard work. It is therefore rather striking that, in the third part of the work, when he comes to consider reasons why it may be inadvisable to love at all, the reason which he places before all others is that "love leads to incest". This is hardly the reason which would first occur to one today.

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