For many years, the origins of the art of courtly love have been an object of discussion. In this chapter, these origins are explored from the perspective of the twelfth-century reception of the Platonic doctrine of the community of women and its insertion into the legal and philosophical thought of the era. The purpose of this study is to show the function of courtly love as a form of emotional control, self-government, and a means to govern others, existing within a cultural context in which it was known that Plato had wanted to authorise a love which, despite being rooted in sexual desire, could foster the cultivation of virtues.1
1 The Passage from the Timaeus about the Community of Women
Plato wrote that “until philosophers rule as kings in cities or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide […], cities will have no rest from evils.”2 Learned persons in the twelfth century had no Latin translation of the Republic, the dialogue in which Socrates, one of its characters, made this statement, although they were familiar with this maxim from other sources and, in particular, from Boethius, who quoted it in De consolatione philosophiae to justify the dedication to public life that had led to his imprisonment.3 Thanks to Calcidius’s translation of the Timaeus into Latin and other
Until the end of the eleventh century, Plato’s Timaeus did not arouse great passions. However, in the twelfth century, during the era of urban renaissance and cathedral schools, it became essential reading for those who, ignoring the warnings of some ecclesiastics, wanted to explore philosophy more closely.5 In keeping with the narrative fiction, the dialogue in the Timaeus would have taken place the day after the one described in the Republic, and this is why, at the beginning of the work, Socrates remembers what had been said on the previous day.6 The passage in the Timaeus that speaks of a community of women is found in this summary, which focuses on the education and way of life of the guardians. Socrates begins by remembering what he had said about the importance of physical training and music to education.7 He then points out that he had also established that those whose mission it was to protect the city should have neither gold nor silver nor any other superfluous object, and that they should all live jointly on the salary paid to them by the rest of the citizens.8 He adds that, given that men and women share a common nature and have the same concerns, individuals of both sexes should be ruled by the same principles.9 Immediately after this evocation he remembers what had been instituted regarding procreation and children’s education. According to Calcidius’s translation, what Socrates had established and what was unforgettable because unusual was “a community of marriages and offspring, taking measures so that nobody could distinguish their own offspring, in order that everybody had the same veneration for each other as they had for the members of their own family.”10
The Timaeus gives few hints about how the “community of marriages” spoken of in the Republic should be established. In book 5 of the Republic, Socrates establishes that these marriages must be decided by lots rigged by the state, devised to guarantee the improvement of the race of the guardians. Sexual encounters for reproductive ends would thus be regulated to ensure that the best males and females unite and reproduce; simultaneously, the system would encourage those for whom the outcome of the lots was less fortunate to think that this was simply a matter of bad luck.11 Even though the synopsis of the Timaeus makes reference to the crooked lots and clearly states their deceitful ends, the book’s discussion is much more vague and ambiguous than the passages of the dialogue it summarises.12 Twelfth-century readers connect with this ambiguity and, as we shall see, interpreted the text in different ways. Nonetheless, they mirrored Plato by talking about it from an androcentric point of view, understanding that the “community of marriages” in Calcidius’s translation refers to the fact that the men should have women in common.13
2
Some documents contemporary with the first commentaries and glosses about the Timaeus from the twelfth century are a testament to the fact that the philosophical proposal of the community of women was already known beyond the scope of scholarly literature. For example, the Benedictine abbot, Guibert of Nogent, in his autobiographical De vita sua (c. 1118), recounts the case of the count and persistent adulterer, John of Soissons, who often scorned religious beliefs and who on his deathbed told a doctor who was trying to make him repent: “I have learnt from many wiser persons than you that all women ought to be in common and that this sin is of no consequence.”14
Guibert makes no reference to Plato, but, in the mediaeval library, the proposal of the community of women, which was known about not only from the Timaeus but also from other sources, had for centuries been associated with Socrates and Plato. Among readers, there must have been little doubt that when Guibert put this statement into the count’s mouth was referring to the author of Dialogues. In his account, Guibert of Nogent adheres to a literal reading of the Platonic proposal that would justify a libertine sexuality.15 There are two possible reactions to a literal reading of this kind: approval or disapproval. Guibert of Nogent’s John of Soissons approved of this interpretation and what the doctrine justifies. Many centuries previously, however, Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240) and Lactantius (c. 250-c. 325), well-known authors in the Middle Ages, had made similar interpretations while disapproving of the doctrine. We
In this matter alone we dissolve partnership, in which alone all other men practice partnership, who not only use the wives of friends, but also most patiently supply their own to their friends, in accordance, I believe, with the well-known teaching of ancient sages and philosophers, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared their wives with friends, those wives whom they had married, perhaps with their consent, to bear children in other households also. For what care could they have for chastity, which their husbands had given away so lightly!19
Lactantius, too, speaks of the shared community of women and offspring in the chapters of Institutiones divinae dedicated to the false wisdom of philosophers.20 He is aware that Plato declared himself in favour of moderating
Lactantius, as can be seen, read Plato’s doctrine literally and, like Tertullian, who also read it this way, criticised it for its undesirable consequences. This was not the case, as we have seen, with Guibert of Nogent’s John of Soissons, who shared the opinion that women should be common to all men. This same opinion is also expressed in the song Companho, tant ai agutz d’avols conres from another of the libertine aristocrats portrayed by the abbot of Nogent, in this case in De gesta Dei per francos: William ix, Duke of Aquitaine, considered by many to be the first troubador.23
William ix of Aquitaine’s poetic works include both songs that address the servitude of love and poems in which the leading themes are married women’s
The Digest’s discussion of usufruct contains nothing about the common use of women,29 but interestingly this institution was considered in Canon Law. Included in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals is a letter, the fifth of those attributed to Pope Clement, which discusses the common use of all things by Christ’s disciples.30 One of the arguments used in this apocryphal letter in favour of communis usus omnium is the authority of a Greek wise man who said that among friends everything should be in common and that wives should undoubtedly be included in this “everything.” In the middle of the twelfth century, this letter was included in the Decretum Gratiani.31 The glossators obviously knew that this wise man was Plato, and one of them refers to the passage in the Timaeus that deals with this subject.32
The Decretum Gratiani also speaks in a muddied and indirect way regarding the community of women. It is addressed in distinction 8, which is concerned with private property and comments on the expression communis omnium possessio also used by Isidore of Seville in his description of natural law in Etymologiae 5.4.1. When Gratian explains that, in keeping with natural
3 Readings that Interpret the Passage from the Timaeus about the Community of Women as the Involucrum of an Honest Doctrine
Bernard of Chartres wrote his commentary on the Timaeus (c. 1114[-] c. 1124/6) around the same time that the abbot of Nogent defamed the nobleman John of Soissons, and William of Aquitaine composed Companho, tant ai agutz d’avols conres. In this commentary, Bernard rejects a literal reading of the passage in the Timaeus about the community of marriages. He points out that this subject—as Socrates himself states in the Timaeus—had been discussed contrary to custom in the Republic and so, as the rhetoric advocates, should not be taken literally but as an involucrum; in other words, as a discourse that says one thing but signifies another.34 The allegorical interpretation he proposes shields itself under the authority of Augustine of Hippo and safeguards Plato from any accusation of immorality. In this interpretation, Socrates’s words should not be transferred into reality in a carnal sense, but only as references to affection (sed in sola affectione) and the common utility (pro communi utilitate), namely for the defence of the state.35 This same position was adopted some years
Like Bernard of Chartres, William of Conches rejects this literal, carnal interpretation of the passage and proposes a spiritual one concerning feelings. He believes that Plato was not advocating indecency but affection, and that he did not mean that wives had to be held in common but that they should all be considered as if they were one’s own wife because everybody should love the wives and children of others with the same honest, affectionate love they felt for their own.37
4 The Passage from the Timaeus about the Community of Women in the Works of Peter Abelard: Theologia Christiana
Unlike his contemporaries Bernard of Chartres and William of Conches, Peter Abelard did not write a commentary on the Timaeus, but he too had read it thoroughly and he refers to the passage about the community of women in two pieces of writing: Theologia christiana (c. 1123) and the Collationes (c. 1135–40). Abelard agrees with these two authors in that the morality of the Platonic institution must be presupposed, and he also interprets this community as referring to affection and designed for common utility. The most notable difference between his reading and those proposed by Bernard and William, is that Abelard does not rely on the doctrine of involucrum as an explanation. Both Theologia christiana and the Collationes propose a literal reading based on the legal distinction between the right to use (ius utendi) and the right to enjoy the fruits and profits of the property (ius fruendi) to which the definition of usufruct in the Digest refers. This reading is more specifically based on the distinction between goods that are common secundum usum and goods that are common secundum fructum. Regarding this distinction, in keeping with 1 Cor. 7:4, it is not the wife who has power over her body, but the husband, and in the same way, it is not the husband who has power over his body, but the wife. In Vulgata, this power over the body is called potestas, the term used in Roman law to talk about absolute and conditioned rights of property, among which there are ius utendi and ius fruendi. Unlike William of Aquitaine, Abelard sees that this institution expresses the criteria according to which women ought to be held in common “in the sense of profit (secundum fructum), not in the sense of use (secundum usum).” In other words, as he specifies, the institution exists not for the physical pleasure they can satisfy, but for their utilitas, the
The philosophers [he says] established a life of continence both for married people and for those who ruled when they organised the cities as if they were communities of married couples, when they defined how those who ruled these republics should behave and when they themselves exemplified the life of continence and abstinence that the clergymen and monks now follow.39
Just a few lines previously, Abelard references Acts 4: 32 and 35 about the community of goods in the Apostolic Age (“among themselves everything was common; no one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they had everything in common and things were distributed to each as any had need”), as well as the great commandment that advocates loving (diligere) thy
Hence Xystus [=Sextus] in his Sentence tells us, “He who too ardently loves his own wife is an adulterer.” It is disgraceful to love another man’s wife at all, or one's own too much. A wise man ought to love his wife with judgment (iudicio), not with passion (affectu). Let a man govern his voluptuous impulses, and not rush headlong into intercourse. There is nothing blacker than to love a wife as if she were an adulteress. Men who say they have contracted marriage and are bringing up children, for the good of their country and of the race, should at least imitate the brutes, and not destroy their offspring in the womb; nor should they appear in the character of lovers, but of husbands.44
In keeping with Abelard’s reconstruction, in the city envisaged by the philosophers, the institution of the community of women secundum fructum is linked to a very specific way of understanding marriage, characteristic of ancient philosophy.
Abelard, who did not have Plato’s Republic at his disposal, interpreted Socrates’s summary of the Timaeus from other philosophical sources, among which were Cicero’s De finibus and De officiis, as well as fragments and comments on his De republica that can be read in Augustine of Hippo’s De civitate Dei and Macrobius’ Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis. The contrast between ad voluptatem and ad utilitatem with which the distinction between common things secundum usum and common things secundum fructum is explained, responds faithfully to Cicero’s usual considerations about external goods, about the ties between utility and honesty and about the common utility
In De officiis, Cicero grants the conjugal union an important role. Seeing it as the result of the reproductive instinct, he identifies marriage as the nucleus of the city and the foundation of the republic. Humans, who naturally love themselves, are also by nature social animals who need others with whom they create different types of ties based on affection, and marriage is the first of these ties. Afterwards, and as a consequence of this tie, the children and the homes where the parents and children live appear. Later, when the children marry, more homes are created, and so forth. Cicero believes that this propagation of progeny is the origin of the republic and that the extensive community with the same bloodline this gives rise to is united by love (caritas) and beneficience (beneficentia).48 However, in the republic there are also the affective or emotional ties established between virtuous men (amicitia: friendship). Lastly, there is what for Cicero is the most important tie of all: the affective or emotional tie, the love (caritas) that each one of us must feel for a reality, the republic, which embraces all our loves.49 These Ciceronian approaches lie at the base of Abelard’s views of the community of women according to the fruit (secundum fructum), which involves the spread of love based on the nucleus of
5 The Passage from the Timaeus about the Community of Women in the Works of Peter Abelard: The Collationes
As seen above, Abelard addresses the community of women secundum fructum not only in Theologia christiana, but also in the Collationes. The passage in the Collationes in which Abelard takes up this theme is framed within the context of a dialogue between a philosopher and a Christian about the virtues that generate happiness.51 After having defended the strictly philosophical points of view which, like that of the stoics, make virtue the necessary condition for happiness and make honesty a desirable thing in itself independently of its possible utility, the philosopher goes on to construct a discourse in which philosophy, in the manner of Plato, adapts to popular opinions about these matters and descends into the terrain that Plotinus and Macrobius have called political virtues. In other words, according to Macrobius, those were the virtues with which honest men protect the city, honour their parents, love their
When the philosopher and the Christian converse in the Collationes about the four cardinal virtues identified by Plato in the Republic, they have in mind the political virtues that not only make someone capable of ruling a community, but also of ruling a marriage or a family. The philosopher introduces the Platonic subjects of the common possession of goods and the institution of the community of women and children when he talks about justice, which is one of these virtues. He presents these institutions as an illustration of justice by means of which, preserving the common good, each person is given what they are due depending on their dignity and merits.53 Although the way this subject
In his development of the subject, Abelard does not question the matter of a man’s power over his wife’s body. This is even though he does not hide the fact that this institution is presented in Plato’s Republic as a particular case of the prohibition of property. In line with Cicero’s approach, which Abelard shares, the primacy of the common interest—which is the aim of the Platonic institution—is not incompatible with a political community, of which the constituent nucleus is marriage.55 For Abelard, the women who are common secundum fructum in relation to the men, are women who should be private secundum usum, at least according to the usus carnalis that could give rise to the generation of children.56
In the twelfth century, the discourse about the honest utilitates that can be obtained from married women converges with the classic discourse about friendship and its benefits. And the old passage according to which “among friends everything is in common” ambiguously serves as a link, since the benefits women can offer are also susceptible to being interpreted as a woman’s duty to her husband and as a useful service that the husband grants to his friends, which include those with whom the husband has a feudal tie.60
6 The Community of Women and the Feeling of Love
In Theologia christiana Abelard only refers to the fruits that can be harvested from women in language reminiscent of that used by Cicero in De amicitia. If we take just one step forward in the story of the reception of the passage in the Timaeus about the community of women, we can see that, a few years later, the discourse about this subject offers more details about the function of married women in this economy of benefits. This can be seen, for example, in the glosses of the passages in the Decretum Gratiani, which include women among the common goods. At least since Rufinus (prior to 1159), glossators have remarked that Plato was not thinking about women in common from the point of view of their sexual accessibility (quo ad usum carnis, usum coniuctionem or
In the Collationes, Abelard has the philosopher bring up the subject of the community of women when he talks to the Christian about the four cardinal
7 Governing Emotions as a Political Problem
In the Commentarius in Timaeum, Calcidius says that in the Republic, Socrates outlines the image of a city that is ruled by some just institutions and customs and which enjoys a happiness derived from obeying the laws of a city that, if it adopted customs of the opposite kind, would fall into misery.72 The justness and happiness of this city is inseparable from the virtue of those that reside there. Fair laws and institutions are not enough; what is also needed are citizens who, apart from having the will to be fair, tend to behave as such, and the institutions of the Republic are also organised to this end. Considered from this point of view, the institution of the community of women goes hand in hand with the requirement for sexually temperate citizens. If we interpret this need from the hermeneutic model proposed by Abelard, we can say that
Courtly love is generally declared to be an adulterous love. However, we must not forget that in its most characteristic form, what Andreas Capellanus calls “pure love (purus amor),” the favours that the lover aspires to be granted, and with which his loved one must supply him progressively and with parsimony so that he learns moderation, are kissing on the mouth, embracing with the arms and contact with her naked body in bed. Sexual intercourse (commixtio carnis) is excluded. Indeed, according to Canon Law, there is no adultery without commixtio carnis. The fact that that other type of courtly love that Andreas himself calls “mixed love” (mixtus amor) does not exclude sex simply demonstrates where the often-crossed boundary was that separated what could be considered honest courtly love from what had to be taken as
As we have seen, the fact that the day before, when the just city was being constructed with words, the education that ennabled the guardians to fulfil their duties in both wartime and peacetime was also discussed, is not ignored in the Timaeus. However, courtesy was not born in the court of a philosopher king. It arose in the twelfth century, when princely courts became places where learned men in the princes’ service were committed to educating children and young people from the warring caste, teaching them what they themselves had learned from reading the authors from antiquity.75 The art of love was an important element of the courtly curriculum. Even if they had not yet fallen in love or dedicated themselves to it, adolescents already knew that there was an art that taught how to love in a civilized manner and that it could be found in books.76 The twelfth century has been described as an aetas ovidiana and
8 Plato as a magister amoris
As C. Stephen Jaeger points out in Ennobling Love, before Ovid appeared in the twelfth century, Cicero was the leading authority regarding the doctrine of love.82 Cicero connects friendship with virtue but, unlike Plato, he thinks of it as a kind of love that is incompatible with with the erotic element of physical desire. According to Jaeger, the great novelty of courtly love, the great novelty of this new way of feeling that emerged in the twelfth century, has a lot to do with incorporating this desire into the doctrines about virtuous friendship, an addition that would go hand in hand with considering Ovid, or Ovid read in a particular way, as a master of the art of love, and also of considering women as the protagonists of some love relationships susceptible of generating virtuous
Twelfth-century learned men had neither Symposium nor Phaedrus, Plato’s two great dialogues about love, at their disposal in Latin. The main source they had related to the Platonic theory of love was a work that is much forgotten today, De Platone et eius dogmate by Apuleius, the author of Asinus aurus. This work, which offers an account of Plato’s life and a presentation of his doctrines, is made up of two books, the second of which is concerned with Plato’s moral philosophy, an area that also encompasses his political philosophy. In this book, after presenting the theory of virtues, Apuleius dedicates some chapters to the paths that can lead to their progressive acquisition. The last ones are about friendship and love, which are addressed from this point of view. Apuleius distinguishes different types of friendship. What he says echos Cicero on this issue. First, he talks about the friendship that provides an exchange of affections or emotions among equals and is based on reciprocal love. Then, he speaks about friendship between family members and with offspring, which he says is in keeping with nature. Last, he contrasts this natural love for family and offspring with what people usually call “love,” a passionate desire that transforms lovers of bodies into slaves of pleasure. Apuleius says that Plato prohibits calling this last type of relationship friendship.84 However,
This chapter has been traslated by Sarah Davies.
Plato, Republic 5, 473c-d, trans. George Maximilien Antoine Grube, revised C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis, 1992), p. 148.
Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae, 1.4.5, ed. S. J. Tester (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), p. 146: “Yet thou hast enjoined by Plato’s mouth the maxim, ‘that states would be happy, either if philosophers ruled them, or if it should so befall that their rulers would turn philosophers’,” trans. H. R. James. (“Atqui tu hanc sententiam Platonis ore sanxisti beatas fore res publicas si eas uel studiosi sapientiae regerent uel earum rectores studere sapientiae contigisset”).
Calcidius, Commentaire au Timée de Platon, ed. Béatrice Bakhouche, 2 vols. (Paris, 2011).
Margaret Templeton Gibson, “The Study of the ‘Timaeus’ in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Pensamiento 25 (1969), 183–95. See also: Anna Somfai, “The Eleventh-Century Shift in the Reception of Plato’s Timaeus and Calcidius’s Commentary,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 65 (2002), 1–21; Rosamond McKitterick, “Knowledge of Plato’s Timaeus in the Ninth Century and the Implications of Valenciennes, Bibliothèque Municipale ms 293,” in From Athens to Chartres. Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought. Studies in Honour of Edouard Jeauneau, ed. Haijo J. Westra (Leiden, 1992), pp. 85–95.
Plato, Timaeus, 17a-20b, in Commentaire au Timée de Platon, trans. Calcidius, ed. Béatrice Bakhouche (Paris, 2011), pp. 137–42.
Plato, Timaeus, 17c-18a, p. 139.
Plato, Timaeus, 18a-18b, p. 139.
Plato, Timaeus, 18b-18c, p. 139.
This is the passage in full: “Quid de procreandis suscipiendisque liberis? An uero hoc ita ut cetera, quae praeter opinionem hominum consuetudinemque uitae dici uidentur, memorabile uiuaciorisque tenacitatis de existimandis communibus nuptiis communique prole, si suos quisque minime internoscat affectus proptereaque omnes omnibus religionem consanguinitatis exhibeant, dum aequales quidem fratrum et sororum caritate beniuolentiaque ducantur, maioribus uero parentum religio eorumque antiquioribus auorum exhibeatur atque atauorum reuerentia infraque filiis et nepotibus debita caritas atque indulgentia conualescat?” Plato, Timaeus, 18c-18d, pp. 138–40.
See: Plato, Republic 5, 459a-460a, pp. 133–34.
Plato, Timaeus, 18d-18e, p. 140: “And do you also remember how, with a view of securing as far as we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, male and female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be no quarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot?,” trans. Benjamin Jowett. (“[socrates]. Quid illud, quod sine odio atque aemulatione nubentium melioribus procis melius moratae uirgines sortito obueniant, inferiores porro inferioribus? Non tenetis saluberrimam sortis fraudem curantibus in utroque sexu praefectis nuptiarum, quo suam quisque fortunam sortis improsperam culpet nec praelationem doleat alterius”).
This, in effect, was also Plato’s point of view. In the Republic 4, 423e-24a, p. 99, he had already broached the subject he would later address in the Republic 5, outlining it in these terms: “Their education and upbringing, for if by being well educated they become reasonable men, they will easily see these things for themselves, as well as all the other things we are omitting, for example, that marriage, the having of wives and the procreation of children must be governed as far as possible by the old proverb: friends possess everything in common,”trans. George Maximilien Antoine Grube.
Guibert of Nogent, The Autobiography of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, 3.16, trans. C.C. Swinton Bland (London, 1925).
His attribution to John of Soissons, whom he has previously characterised as a judaiser, is in keeping with a stereotype in anti-Jewish controversy: the criticism aimed at Jews for their alleged inability to interpret the Bible in a spiritual sense. Regarding this censure of the Jewish propensity to interpret the Bible carnaliter, see: Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, “Les juifs et l’écrit dans la mentalité eschatologique du Moyen Âge chrétien occidental (France 1000–1200),” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 49.5 (1994), 1049–63, especially 1053–54.
Tertullian, Apologeticus was an accessible work in the twelfth century. See: Pierre Petitmengin, “Tertullien entre la fin du xiie et le début du xvie siècle,” in Padri Greci e Latini a confronto: Atti del Convegno di studi della Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino, ed. Mariarosa Cortesi (Florence, 2004), pp. 63–88, <
Tertullian, Apologeticus 39, eds. Franz Oehler, John E. B. Mayor, trans. Alexander Souter (Cambridge, Eng., 1917), p. 113: “Itaque qui animo animaque miscemur nihil de rei communicatione dubitamus.” See: Acts 2: 44.
“Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos praeter uxores.” Tertullian, Apologeticus 39, p. 113.
“In isto loco consortium soluimus, in quo solo caeteri homines consortium exercent, qui non amicorum solummodo matrimonia usurpant, sed et sua amicis patientissime subministrant; ex illa, credo, maiorum et sapientissimorumndisciplina, Graeci Socratis et Romani Catonis,nqui uxores suas amicis communicaverunt, quas in matrimonium duxerant liberorum causa et alibi creandorum, nescio quidem an inuitas. Quid enim de castitate curarent, quam mariti tam facile donaverant!” Tertullian, Apologeticus 39, pp. 113–15.
Regarding the mediaeval manuscripts of the Institutiones divinae and their increase in popularity during the twelfth century, see: David Rutherford, “Lactantius Philosophus? Reading, Misreading, and Exploiting Lactantius from Antiquity to the Early Renaissance,” in Essays in Renaissance Thought and Letters in Honor of John Monfasani, eds. Alison Frazier, Patrick Nold (Leiden, 2105), pp. 469–70.
Lactantius, Intitutiones divinae 3.21, eds. Eberhard Heck, Antonie Wlosok (Berlin, 2007), p. 282; Lactantius, The divine institutes, eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Arthur Cleveland Coxe, trans. William Fletcher (Buffalo, 1886), p. 92.
Lactantius, The divine institutes, 3.21–3.22, p. 92; Lactantius, Intitutiones divina, pp. 282–84: “‘Sic’ inquit ‘ciuitas concors erit et amoris mutui constricta uinculis, si omnes omnium fuerint et maritis et patres et liberi […] At idem dixit ‘beatas ciuitates futuras fuisse, si aut philosophi regnarent aut reges philosopharentur’. Huic vero tam iusto, tam aequo viro regnum dare, <qui> aliis abstulisset sua aliis condonasset aliena prostituisset pudicitiam feminarum? Quae nullus umquam non modo rex, sed ne tyranus quidem fecit […]. Restat ut communio ista nihil aliud habeat praeter adulteria et libidines propter quas funditus eruendas uirtus est uel maxime necessaria.”
Guibert of Nogent, “‘Historia quae dicitur Gesta Dei per Francos’,” in Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens occidentaux 4 (Paris, 1967), p. 243; Guibert of Nogent, Autobiographie, ed. Edmond-René Labande (Paris, 1981), p. xv.
The subject of the right over the body of other men’s wives also appears in the song, “Companho, farai un vers [qu’er] covinen,” which suggests that there was a type of emphyteutic contract between the poet and the “master” of one of the women referred to in the song. The question of married women’s desire to enjoy their sexuality with men who are not their own is developed in “Farai un vers, pos mi sonelh” and in “[C]ompaigno, non puosc mudar qu’eo no m’effrei.” These songs can be found in Guglielmo ix d’Aquitania, Poesie, ed. Nicolò Pasero (Modena, 1973). For a further discussion of William’s use of economic lexis and concepts, see: Nicolò Pasero, “Economia della fin’amor,” in L’immagine riflessa 13 (2004), 5–16.
Ovid, Amores, The Art of Love, and Other Poems 3.87–96, ed. John H. Mozley, 2nd ed. revised by G. P. Goold (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 124–25: “Follow then, ye mortal maidens, in the footsteps of these goddesses; withhold not your favours from your ardent lovers. If they deceive you, wherein is your loss? All your charms remain; and even if a thousand should partake of them, those charms would still be unimpaired. Iron and stone will wear thin by rubbing; that precious part of you defies attrition, and you need never fear ’twill wear away. Doth a torch loose aught of its brightness by giving flame to another torch? Should we fear to take water from the mighty ocean? ‘A woman,’ you will say, ‘ought not thus to give herself to a man.’ Come now, why not? What does she lose? Nought but the liquid which she may take in again at will.” trans. by J. Lewis May. (“Ite per exemplum, genus o mortale, dearum,/ Gaudia nec cupidis vestra negate viris./ Ut iam decipiant, quid perditis? omnia constant;/ Mille licet sumant, deperit inde nihil./ Conteritur ferrum, silices tenuantur ab usu,/ Sufficit et damni pars caret illa metu./ Quis vetet adposito lumen de lumine sumi?/ Quisve cavo vastas in mare servet aquas?/ Et tamen ulla viro mulier ’non expedit’ inquit?/ Quid, nisi quam sumes, dic mihi, perdis aquam?”); Guglielmo ix d’Aquitania, Poesie, ed. Nicolò Pasero: “Therefore shall I tell you the Law of the Cunt, as a man who’s done badly and has been repaid worse: if other things dwindle when you take of them, the cunt grows. And he who will not believe my teachings, let him go see by the wood, in a reservation: for each tree people fell, two or three grow. And when the wood is cut, it grows back thicker and the owner doesn’t miss his profit, nor his income: one complains wrongly about the loss, if no harm is done. It is wrong to complain about the loss, if no harm is done.” (“iv. Pero dirai vos de con, cals es sa leis, /Com sel hom que mal n’a fait e peitz n’a pres: /Si queg’autra res en merma, qui-n pana, e cons en creis. /V. E sel qui no volra-n creire mos casteis, /An ho vezer pres lo bosc, en un deveis: /Per un albre c’om hi tailla n’i naison ho dos ho treis. /vi. E quan lo bocx es taillatz, nais plus espes; /E-l senher no-n pert son comte ni sos ses: /A revers planh hom la tala, si-l dampnatges no-i es ges. /vii. Tortz es c’om planha la tala si negun dan no-i a ges”).
Cicero, De officiis 1.16.51–52, ed. Walter Miller (Harvard, 1913): “[51] This, then, is the most comprehensive bond that unites together men as men and all to all; and under it the common right to all things that Nature has produced for the common use of man is to be maintained, with the understanding that, while everything assigned as private property by the statutes and by civil law shall be so held as prescribed by those same laws, everything else shall be regarded in the light indicated by the Greek proverb: ‘Amongst friends all things in common.’ Furthermore, we find the common property of all men in things of the sort defined by Ennius; and, though restricted by him to one instance, the principle may be applied very generally: ‘Who kindly sets a wand’rer on his way /Does e’en as if he lit another’s lamp by his: /No less shines his, /when he his friend’s hath lit.’ In this example he effectively teaches us all to bestow even upon a stranger what it costs us nothing to give. [52] On this principle we have the following maxims: Deny no one the water that flows by; Let anyone who will take fire from our fire; Honest counsel give to one who is in doubt; for such acts are useful to the recipient and cause the giver no loss. We should, therefore, adopt these principles and always be contributing something to the common weal,” trans. Walter Miller. (“[51] Ac latissime quidem patens hominibus inter ipsos, omnibus inter omnes societas haec est. In qua omnium rerum, quas ad communem hominum usum natura genuit, est servanda communitas, ut quae discripta sunt legibus et iure civili, haec ita teneantur, ut sit constitutum e quibus ipsis, cetera sic observentur, ut in Graecorum proverbio est, amicorum esse communia omnia. Omnium autem communia hominum videntur ea, quae sunt generis eius, quod ab Ennio positum in una re transferri in permultas potest: ‘Homo, qui erranti comiter monstrat viam, /Quasi lumen de suo lumine accendat, facit. /Nihilo minus ipsi lucet, cum illi accenderit.’ Una ex re satis praecipit, ut quidquid sine detrimento commodari possit, id tribuatur vel ignoto. [52] Ex quo sunt illa communia: non prohibere aqua profluente, pati ab igne ignem capere, si qui velit, consilium fidele deliberanti dare, quae sunt iis utilia, qui accipiunt, danti non molesta”).
Cicero, De officiis 1.7.21: “There is, however, no such thing as private ownership established by nature, but property becomes private either through long occupancy (as in the case of those who long ago settled in unoccupied territory) or through conquest (as in the case of those who took it in war) or by due process of law, bargain, or purchase, or by allotment,” trans. Walter Miller. (“Sunt autem privata nulla natura, sed aut vetere occupatione, ut qui quondam in vacua venerunt, aut victoria, ut qui bello potiti sunt, aut lege, pactione, condicione, sorte”).
In Digesta 7.1.1, ed. Theodore Mommsen, usufruct is defined as follows: “Usufruct is the right to use and enjoy the property of others, at the same time preserving intact the substance of the same,” trans. Samuel P. Scott, (“Usufructus est ius alienis rebus utendi et fruendi salva rerum substantia.”) The Digest or Pandects of Justinian (Cincinnati, 1932). William characterises the wood in his metaphor as a wood for felling (silva caedua), which is in line with Servius’s definition in Digesta 50.16.30: “‘Wood for timber’ is as some people think a wood which is owned for this purpose, namely to be felled. Servius thinks that it is a wood which grows again from the stock or the root when it is cut,” trans. M. Crawford (“pr. ’Silva caedua’ est, ut quidam putant, quae in hoc habetur, ut caederetur. Servius eam esse, quae succisa rursus ex stirpibus aut radicibus renascitur”). Chapters 9–12 and 52 of book 7 of Digesta refer to the usufruct of the silva caedua.
Digesta 7.1.3 includes slaves alongside beasts of burden among the ‘things’ that could be subject to usufruct.
Clemens, “‘Epistula 5’,” in Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilrammi, ed. Paul Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 65–66.
Gratian, Decretum 12.1.2.1. See: Cicero, De officiis, 1.16 51–52. Norman Cohn quite rightly says in The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, revised edition (Oxford, 1970), p. 193, that the story that explains how this statement ended up being included in the Decretum as if it upheld an opinion of Pope Clement is one of the strangest in the history of ideas.
See: Stephan Kuttner, “Gratian and Plato,” in Church and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to C. R. Cheney, eds. Christopher Brooke, David Luscombe, Geoffrey Martin, Dorothy Owen (Cambridge, Eng., 1976), pp. 93–118.
See: Kuttner, “Gratian and Plato,” pp. 93–94.
For how the twelfth century followers of Plato understood the philosophers’ use of involucra or integumenta, see: Édouard Jeauneau, “L’usage de la notion d’integumentum à travers les glosses de Guillaume de Conches” and “Macrobe, source du platonisme chartrain,” in Lectio philosophorum, ed. Édouard Jeauneau (Amsterdam, 1973), pp. 127–92 and 279–300. See also: Peter Dronke, Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism (Leyden, 1974), pp. 13–78.
Bernard of Chartres, Glosae super Platonem 3, ed. Paul Edward Dutton (Toronto, 1991), pp. 148.80–92: “But, according to this, Socrates would seem not to have presented either a just or honest arrangement of the state. Let us, therefore, say that this was said under a veil of meaning (per inuolucrum), which he acknowledged when he said that this (arrangement) ran counter to custom. For when Socrates treats “of marriages in common and common offspring” he said one thing, [but] he meant another. And if he said that, I do not take that as meaning “carnally,” but “in affection” only, with all baseness (turpitudo) put aside. [It was as if he said] I wish that in the whole state each should love another as his own son, brother, or father, and the wife of another as his own, [thus] following the teaching of the prelates in this. Concerning this idea, Augustine says that Socrates instils affection, not baseness. Or it can be understood that marriages in common [meant] that they take wives not for pleasure, but for common utility, namely for the defence of the state,” trans. Paul Edward Dutton. (“Sed secundum hoc nec iusta nec honesta uideretur ordinatio rei publicae a Socrate depicta. Dicamus igitur per involucrum hoc esse dictum: quod innuit, dicens contra consuetudinem hoc dici. Quando enim egit Socrates de communibus nuptiis et de communi prole, aliud dixit et aliud intendit. Ac si diceret, non accipio istud in re carnaliter, sed in sola affectione, remota turpitudine, quasi in omni re publicae uellem esse ut quisque ita diligeret alium ut filium, uel fratrem, uel patrem et uxorem alterius ut suam, sequendo in hoc praelatorum doctrinam. De hoc loco dicit Augustinus quod Socrates hic inducit affectionem, no turpitudinem. Uel potest intelligi communis nuptias, quod ducerent uxores non pro delectationem, sed pro communi utilitate, scilicet pro rei publicae defensione”). As Paul Edward Dutton points out: “no direct comment by Augustine on Timaeus 18c-19a has surfaced but medieval commentators after Bernard would assume Augustine’s benign reading of this passage” and in some specific cases they unfoundedly identify De civitate Dei as the source. See: Paul Edward Dutton, “Holding women in common. A particular Platonic problem for the twelfth century,” in Plato’s Timaeus and the Foundations of Cosmology in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Renaissance, eds. Thomas Leinkauf, Carlos G. Steel (Leuven, 2005), p. 321.
William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem 18c, ed. Edouard Jeauneau, p. 178 (chapter 18).
William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem 18c, p. 178: “But we say that Plato had not ordered baseness, but affection. Plato did not say that these marriages were in common, but only that they should be regarded as such. I was as if he had said that each should love the wife and children of another in a good way and as thought they were his own,” trans. Paul Edward Dutton. (“Nos vero dicimus Platonem non imperasse turpitudinem sed affectum. Non enim dixit quo desset communes sed reputarentur. Ac si diceret: Unusquisque uxorem et filios alterius in bono diligat ac si sui essent”).
Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.48, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert (Turnhout 1969), p. 150: “He wished wives to be held in common according to the fruit and not for delight (usum), that is, for the utility to be gained from them, not for the physical pleasure to be satisfied in them,” trans. Paul Edward Dutton. (“Uxores itaque uult communes esse secundum fructum, non secundum usum, hoc est ad utilitatem ex eis percipiendam, non ad uoluptatem in eis explendam, ut uidelicet tanta sit in omnibus caritas propagata, ut unusquisque omnia quae habet, tam filios quam quaecumque alia, nonnisi ad communem omnium utilitatem possidere appetat”).
Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.45, p. 150: “Instituerunt autem, iuxta euangelicam praedicationem, tam coniugatorum quam rectorum quam continentium uitam, cum et ciuitatibus quasi coniugatorum conuentibus modum uitae assignauerunt, et quales ipsi rei publicae rectores esse oporteret definierunt, et in se ipsis continentium atque abstinentium uitam expresserunt, quam nunc clerici siue monachi profitentur.” The philosophers, who looked to promote moderation among their fellow citizens, would have reserved abstinence for themselves, which is not limited to placing desire under the power of reason but attempts to leave it behind. See: Macrobius, Commentarii in Ciceronis ‘Somnium Scipionis’, ed. James Willis (Leipzig, 1970), 1.3–10.
Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.45, p.150: “Ciuitatum autern conuentus tanta proximi caritate iunxerunt, ut, omnibus in commune redactis, nihil ciuitas nisi fraternitas uideretur, et nihil aliud rectores ciuitatis quam rei publicae dispensatores dicerentur, ut iam tunc illam primitiuae ecclesiae apostolicam praesignarent uitam, de qua in Actibus apostolorum dicitur: Quia erant eis omnia communia, et nihil suum dicebat aliquis, sed unicuique distribuebatur prout opus erat. Cuius nunc uitae se professores monachi dicunt, cum haec omnibus recte conuiuentibus philosophi uiure assignauerint, iuxta illam de aequitate caritatis regulam: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum.”
Cicero, De Re Publica, De Legibus, Cato Maior de Senectute, Laelius de Amicitia, ed. Jonathan G.F. Powell (Oxford, 2006), 1.39 and 6.13; Cicero, De officiis 1.17.54–57; Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei, eds. Bernhard Dombart, Alfons Kalb (Tournhout, 1955), 2.21.4, 19.21, 19.24.
Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.46, p. 150: “Has anyone gone as far in prohibiting ownership and making everything common as Socrates? In the decree introduced in Plato’s Timaeus, he established that wives should also be common so that no one could recognise their own children.” (“Quid etiam amplius omnem interdixit proprietatem et omnia in commune redegit quam illud Socratis decretum in Timaeo Platonis inductum, in quo uxores quoque communes fore instituit, ut nullus proprios recognoscat liberos?”).
Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.46, p. 150.
Jerome, “Adversus Jovinianum,” in Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. Jean Paul Migne, vol. 23, 1.49, p. 293; See: Plato, Phaedrus 230e-34c; Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana 2.47: “Unde Hieronymus, Contra Iouinianum libro I: Sextus in Sententiis: ‘Adulter est, inquit, in suam uxorem amator ardentior’. In aliena quippe uxore omnis amor turpis est, in sua nimius’. Sapiens uir iudicio debet amare coniugem, non affectu. Reget impetus uoluptatis, ne praeceps feratur in coitu. Nihil est fedius quam uxorem amare quasi adulteram. Certe qui dicunt se causa rei publicae et generis humani uxoribus iungi et liberos tollere, imitentur saltem pecudes, et, postquam uxoris uenter intumuerit, non perdant filios nec amatores uxoribus se exhibeant, sed maritos.”
Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, ed. Leighton D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1998), 2 and following.
Cicero, De finibus 4.68.
Cicero, De finibus 5.65 and 68.
Cicero, De officiis 1.17.54.
Cicero, De officiis 1.17. 56–58.
Peter Abelard, Theologia christiana 2.48: “He took into account what Valerius Maximus, among others, remembers. Aulus Fulvius ordered the death of his son, who had joined Catilina’s conspiracy, saying that he had not fathered him for Catilina against the country, but for the country against Catilina. He understood that the good rulers of the republic do not use their possessions for themselves, but for the common good.” (“Quod diligenter ille attendebat de quo Valerius Maximus inter caetera commemorat dicens: Aulus Fuluius filium suum prauo consilio amicitiam Catilinae secutum inque castra eius temerario impetu ruentem, medio itinere abstractum, supplicio mortis affecit, praefatus non se illum Catilinae aduersus patriam, sed patriae aduersus Catilinam genuisse. Et hos fortasse omnes tales ueros rei publicae rectores intellexit, qui ea scilicet quae possidere uidentur, non sibi, sed communi deputant utilitati”). Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 5.8.5.
For the sources of his treatment of the virtues, see: Peter Abelard, Collationes, ed. and trans. John Marenbon, Giovanni Orlandi (Oxford, 2001), pp. lxxvi-lxxix; and John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (New York, 1997), pp. 202–07.
Peter Abelard, Collationes 2.111–39; Plotinus, Enneads, ed. and trans. Lloyd P. Gerson, George Boys-Stones, John M. Dillon, R. A. H. King, Andrew Smith, James Wilberding (Cambridge, Eng., 2017), 1.2.1–2; Macrobius, Commentarii in Ciceronis “Somnium Scipionis,” 1.8.
Peter Abelard, Collationes 2.118–19, pp. 134–36: “The Philosopher: Justice then is the virtue that bestows on everyone his due while preserving the common benefit --that is, that virtue whereby we want everyone to have what he’s worthy of, if this doesn’t imply any common injury. For it often happens that when we grant someone what he deserves for his merits, what’s done individually for the one person implies a common injury. And so, in order that the part not prejudice the whole, and the individual the community, the words ‘while preserving the common benefit’ are attached. Surely, it’s appropriate for all things we do to be rightly referred to this end: that everyone pay attention in all things not so much for domestic affairs as for public ones, and that he lives not so much for himself as for his country. Thus Socrates, the first and greatest teacher of moral philosophy, advised that all things be held in common and be applied to common advantage. As a result, he arranged even for wives to be in common, so that no one would recognize his own children. Everyone would believe they were begotten not so much for himself as for his country. Thus, this community of wives is taken no with respect to the flesh’s usage but with respect to the enjoyment [or: fruit] of descendants. Aulus Fulvius by both word and deed left an example of this to posterity’s memory by killing his own son. He said he’d begotten him not for Catiline against the country, but for the country against Catiline. On fire with zeal for justice, not considering his son as a son but as the country’s enemy, he exhibited the above definition of justice not with his mouth so much as by his hand,” trans. Paul V. Spade. (“Philosophus: Iustitia itaque uirtus est communi utilitate servata suam cuique tribuens dignitatem, haec est ea virtus, qua volumus unumquemque habere id, quo dignus est, si hoc commune non inferat damnum. Saepe etenim contingit, ut dum alicui pro meritis sua reddimus, quod singulariter in uno agitur, commune inferat damnum. Ne itaque pars toti, singularitas praeiudicet communitati, adiunctum est ‘communi utilitate servata’. Ad hunc quippe finem omnia, quae gerimus, recte referri convenit, ut in omnibus scilicet non tam proprium quisque bonum quam commune attendat, nec tam rei familiari quam publicae provideat, nec tam sibi quam patriae vivat. Unde et ille primus et maximus moralis philosophiae doctor Socrates cuncta in commune redigi et ad commune commodum censuit applicari, ut uxores quoque communes esse institueret, ita scilicet, ut nemo proprios recognosceret liberos; hoc est, non tam sibi eos quam patriae crederent generatos, ut haec videlicet communitas uxorum non in usu carnis, sed in fructu prolis accipiatur. Quod tam verbo quam opere Aulus proprium occidendo filium posterorum memoriae reliquit in exemplum, eum se, inquiens, non Catilinae adversus patriam, sed patriae adversus Catilinam genuisse. Hic vero iustitiae zelo accensus nec in filio filium suum, sed hostem patriae considerans praedictam iustitiae definitionem non tam ore quam manu exhibuit”). The source of the definition of justice the philosopher bases this on is found in Cicero, De inuentione 2.53.160.
Cicero, De finibus 5.65.
See: Cicero, De officiis 1.17.
According to 1Cor. 7:4, as we have seen, women also have an exclusive right to sexual intercourse with their husbands. Obviously, this does not mean that the society of the time entirely agreed with this perspective.
In Collationes, the community of wives is only explicitly addressed in relation to fructus prolis. However, in Theologia christiana 2.48, Abelard himself opens the door to considering other fruits. See above, note 37.
See, for example, De amicitia 26 and 31–32, ed. Jonathan G.F. Powell (Oxford, 2006), pp. 332 and 334: “For while it is true that advantages are frequently obtained even from those who, under a pretence of friendship, are courted and honoured to suit the occasion; yet in friendship there is nothing false, nothing pretended; whatever there is is genuine and comes of its own accord. […] For as men of our class generous and liberal, not for the purpose of demanding repayment —for we do not put our favours out at interest but are by nature given to acts of kindness— so we believe that friendship is desirable, not because we are influenced by hope of gain, but because its entire profit is in the love itself. 32 From this view those men who, after the manner of cattle, judge everything by the standard of pleasure, vigorously dissent; nor is it strange; for the raising of the vision to anything lofty, noble and divine is impossible to men who have abased their every thought to a thing so lowly and mean,” trans. William Armistead Falconer. (“Amor enim, ex quo amicitia nominata est, princeps est ad benevolentiam coniungendam; nam utilitates quidem etiam ab eis percipiuntur saepe qui simulatione amicitiae coluntur et observantur temporis causa; in amicitia autem nihil fictum est, nihil simulatum, et quidquid est, id est verum et voluntarium” (26); “Ut enim benefici liberalesque sumus non ut exigamus gratiam (neque enim beneficium feneramur, sed natura propensi ad liberalitatem sumus), sic amicitiam non spe mercedis adducti, sed quod omnis eius fructus in ipso amore inest, expetendam putamus. 32 Ab his, qui pecudum ritu ad voluptatem omnia referunt, longe dissentiunt; nec mirum; nihil enim altum, nihil magnificum ac divinum suspicere possunt, qui suas omnes cogitationes abiecerunt in rem tam humilem tamque contemptam”).
Cicero, De officiis 1.17.56–57.
In fact, this is also the logic behind the verses that the nun (and, therefore, the wife of Christ) Constantia writes to Baudri, abbot of Bourgueil (1046–1130) (Karlheinz Hilbert, Baldricus Burgulianus Carmina (Heidelberg, 1979), 201, vv.116–20): “The bride of God should love God’s servants./ You are a servant of the bridegroom, you are brother and co-heir;/ You, too, you are worthy by my bridegroom’s love./ The bride should respect the friends of her bridegroom./ Therefore I respect you, I love you vigilantly,” trans. Gerald A. Bond, The Loving Subject, Desire, Eloquence, and Power in Romanesque France (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 183–93. (“Servos sponsa Dei debet amare sui. / Tu sponsi servus, tu frater tuque coheres, / Tu quoque, tu sponsi dignus amore mei./ Sponsa sui sponsi venerari debet amicos; / Ergo te veneror, te vigilanter amo”). As Constantia humorously remembers, the wife has the duty to love her husband’s friends. See: Jean-Yves Tilliette, “Hermès amoureux, ou les métamorphoses de la Chimère. Réflexions sur les carmina 200 et 201 de Baudri de Bourgueil,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge, Temps modernes 104/1 (1992), 147. For the sources and uses of the sentence according to which among friends everything is common, see above, notes 12, 18 and 25.
Stephanus Tornacensis, Summa decretorum, 12.1.2 (Bolognese school: Orleans after 1160). Huguccio, Summa decretorum, 12.1.2 (Bologna, c. 1188–1190): “quidam: scil. ‘Plato in Timeo’, in omnibus sunt coniuges. Coniuges debent esse communes non quo ad usum carnis set quo ad alteris officii obsequium et quo ad delectionem etcet.” Quoted in: Kuttner, “Gratian and Plato,” pp. 109–10 and 113.
See: Silvio Pellegrini, Studi rolandiani e trobadorici (Bari, 1964), pp. 178–91 (chapter: “Intorno al vassallasggio d’amore nei primi trovatori”); Rita Lejeune, “Formules féodales et style amoureux chez Guillaume ix d’Aquitaine,” in Atti dell’viii Congresso internazionale di studi romanzi (Florence, 1959), pp. 227–48.
See: Georges Duby, Male moyen age: de l’amour et autres essais (Paris, 1990), pp. 46–49 (chapter: “Que sait-on de l’amour en France au xiie siècle?”).
Andreas Capellanus, De amore 1.6.403, ed. P.G. Walsh (London, 1982): “But although all good things seem to proceed from women, and although Godhas given them a great privilege and we say that they are the cause and origin of everything good, still they are clearly under the necessity of so conducting themselves toward those who do good deeds that by their approval the good character of these men may seem in every respect to increase from strength to strength,” trans. John Jay Parry. (“Sed quamvis et mulieribus cuncta videantur bona procedere, et multam eis Dominus praerogativam concesserit, et omnium dicantur esse causa et origo bonorum, necessitas sibi tamen evidenter incumbit ut tales de debeant bona facientibus exhibere, ut eorum probitas earum intuitu de virtute in virtutem modis omnibus crescere videatur”).
Peter Abelard, Scito te ipsum 1.9, ed. Rainer M. Ilgner, trans. David E. Luscombe (Turnhout, 2001), p. 15: “What we-have said with respect to lechery, let us consider with respect also to gluttony. Someone passes through another man’s garden and seeing delightful fruits he falls into longing for them; however, he does not consent to his longing so as to remove something from there by theft or robbery, even though his mind has been incited to great desire by the pleasure of food. But where desire is, there undoubtedly is will. And so he desires to eat of that fruit in which he is certain there is pleasure. In fact, by the very nature of his infirmity he is compelled to desire what he is not allowed to take without the knowledge or the permission of the lord. He represses his desire; he does not extinguish it, but because he is not drawn to consent, he does not incur sin.” (“Transit aliquis iuxta ortum alterius et conspectis delectabilibus fructibus in concupiscenciam eorum incidit, nec tamen concupiscencie suæ consentit, ut inde aliquid furto uel rapina tollat, quamquam delectatione cibi in magnum desiderium mens eius sit accensa. Vbi autem desiderium, ibi procul dubio uoluntas consistit. Desiderat itaque fructus illius esum in quo delectacionem esse non dubitat. Ipsa quippe suæ infirmitatis natura compellitur id desiderare, quod inscio domino uel non permittente non licet accipere. Desiderium ille reprimit, non extinguit: sed quia non trahitur ad consensum, non incurrit peccatum”). See also: Peter Abelard, Scito te ipsum, 1.9, p. 9.
Peter Abelard, Scito te ipsum 1.8, p. 8: “So sin is not lusting for a woman but consenting to lust; the consent of the will is damnable, but not the will for intercourse,” trans. David E. Luscombe. (“Non ita concupiscere mulierem, set concupiscentiae consentire peccatum est, nec uoluntas concubitus, set uoluntatis consensus dampnabilis est”).
Peter Abelard, Collationes 2.120–21, p. 136: “Therefore whoever is steadfast in this will we’ve been talking about, so that he cannot be easily dislodged from it, is rich in the virtue of justice even if he’s not yet accomplished in courage and moderations. But because what’s hard to remove is yet sometimes forced to withdraw by some great intervening cause (for example, this good will that’s called justice sometimes disappears out of some fear or greed), courage is needed against fear and moderation against desire. Certainly, if the fear of a thing we don’t want or the greed for what we do want is so great that overcomes reason, they easily pull the mind away from its good purpose and lead it into contrary ones. Thus, courage takes up the shield against fear, and moderation the bridle against greed, so that, strengthened by them too, we’re able to attain as far as is in our power the things we already want through the virtue of justice,” trans. Paul V. Spade. (“Quisquis igitur in hac constans est voluntate, quam diximus, ut ab ea facile dimoveri non possit, virtute pollet iustitiae etiamsi fortitudine et temperantia nondum sit consummatus. Sed quia, quod difficile amittitur, recedere tamen nonnumquam grandi aliqua interveniente causa cogitur, sicut haec ipsa bona voluntas, quae iustitia dicitur, timore aliquo vel cupiditate evanescit, contra timorem fortitudo, contra cupiditatem temperantia est necessaria. Timor quippe rei, quam nolumus, vel cupiditas eius, quam volumus, si tantae sint, ut rationi praevaleant, facile a bono proposito mentem retrahunt et in contraria ducunt. Unde adversus timorem fortitudo clipeum, adversus cupiditatem temperantia sumit frenum, ut, quae scilicet per virtutem iustitiae iam volumus, per has etiam roborati implere potentes simus, quantum in nobis est. Unde utramque harum quandam animi firmitatem et constantiam dicimus, quibus potentes efficimur ad hoc, quod per iustitiam volumus, exsolvendum. Quarum quidem contraria quaedam infirmitates animi et impotentiae vitiis resistendi recte nominantur, ut ignavia sive pusillanimitas, quae remissum hominem reddunt, et intemperantia, quae nos in obscenas voluptates vel turpia desideria resolvit”).
Peter Abelard, Collationes 2.123, p. 136: “Temperantia est rationis in libidinem atque in alios non rectos impetus animi firma et moderata dominatio.”
Plato, Republic 3, 389d, p. 65: “And aren’t these the most important aspects of moderation for the majority of people, namely, to obey the rulers and to rule the pleasures of drink, sex, and food for themselves?” See also Republic 4, 430d-32a, especially 430e, p. 106: “Moderation is surely a kind of order, the mastery of certain kinds of pleasures and desires. People indicate as much when they use the phrase ‘self-control’ and other similar phrases. I don’t know just what they mean by, but they are, so to speak, like tracks or clues that moderation has left behind in language. Isn’t that so?”
Peter Abelard, Collationes 2.123, pp. 136–38: “For we often go beyond restraint while seeming to ourselves be moderate when we violate the limits of moderation. For example, when we seek self-control, we afflict ourselves with unrestrained fast, and when we want to tame vice, we snuff out nature itself. And so going to excess in many ways, we establish the instead of the virtues. Hence after the occurrences of ‘firm’ in the definition, it’s right to ad ‘restrained’,” trans. Paul V. Spade. (“Sepe etenim modum excedentes, dum nobis temperantes esse uidemur, temperantiae terminos transgredimur, ut, dum sobrietati studemus, immoderatis ieiuniis nos affligamus, et dum uitium domare cupimus ipsam exstinguamus naturam et sic in multis excedendo pro uirtutibus finitima ipsis vitia statuimus. Vnde merito postquam dictum est ‘firma’, subiunctum est ‘moderata’”).
Regarding the confluence between Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines in Apuleius, see: Lucius Apuleius, “De Platone et eius dogmate,” in Opuscules philosophiques et fragments, ed. Jean Beaujeu (Paris, 1973), 2.13.
Calcidius, Commentaire au Timée de Platon 1.5, p. 207.
In Andreas Capellanus’s De amore the impossibility of courtly love existing between spouses is argued from Canon Law and by means of the same sentence from Adversus Jovinianum that Abelard quotes in the passage from Theologia christiana, the one that refers to the community of women: “As for what you tried to prove by your answer—that the love which can be practiced without sin is far preferable—that, apparently, cannot stand. For whatever solaces married people extend to each other beyond what are inspired by the desire for offspring or the payment of the marriage debt, cannot be free from sin, and the punishment is always greater when the use of a holy thing is perverted by misuse than if we practice the ordinary abuses. It is a more serious offense in a wife than in another woman, for the too ardent lover, as we are taught by the apostolic law, is considered an adulterer with his own wife,” trans. John Jay Parry, 1941. (“Quod autem voluistis vestra responsione firmare talem esse penitus eligendum amorem qui possit sine crimine exerceri, stare non posse videtur. Nam quidquid solatii ab ipsis coniugatis ultra prolis affectionem vel debiti solutionem alterna vice porrigitur, crimine carere non potest; immo satis acrius vindicatur, si sacrae rei usum deformet abusus, quam si consueta utamur abusione. Gravius est in uxore quam in alia reperitur. Nam vehemens amator, ut apostolica lege docetur, in propria uxore iudicatur adulter”). Capellanus, De amore, 1.6.382–83; Abelard quotes Jerome to demonstrate that the philosophic doctrine of the community of women and adultery are incompatible. Andreas quotes him to demonstrate that the doctrine of courtly love and marriage are incompatible. But the two authors’ consensus in this quote demonstrates the congruence between the two doctrines.
See: Capellanus, De amore, 1.6.470–75. In fact, “purus amor and mixtus amor are two forms of the same love.” Moshe Lazar, Amour courtois et “fin amors” dans la littérature du xxe siècle (Paris, 1964), p. 271. What separates them is their legality or illegality from the point of view of a literal reading of the ecclesiastical canons. The relationship between the proposals in Andreas Capellanus’s De amore about pure and mixed love and Canon Law must be highlighted. According to Canon Law, there is no marriage if there has been no commixtio carnis, and without commixtio carnis neither has there been adultery. Thus, this carnal union, which could be exclusively interpreted as commixtio seminum, was the essential condition as much for the sacrament as for the crime. From an androcentric point of view, “pure love” could be defined as a relationship with a woman married to someone else (and, therefore, alienae potestati subiecta) wherein the law that prohibits adultery is not actually infringed (because there has been no vaginal penetration or ejaculation required for this illicit act). Pure love, which, if it were between spouses, would infringe matrimonial laws, prevents those that are not married from infringing the law on adultery.
See : Martin Aurell, Le chevalier lettré. Savoir et conduite de l’aristocratie aux xiie et xiiie siècles (Paris, 2011).
In keeping with what was already said in the thirteenth century in Flamenca 6.1765–70, Edward D. Blodgett, ed. (Abingdon, 2013), p. 92: “He had never had anything to do with love such that he could know by experience what it was. From hearsay did he know what love was, since he had read all the authors who speak of it and are concerned with how lovers should behave.” (“Ancar d’amor no s’entremes /per so que lo ver en saupes; /per dir saup ben que fon amors, /cant legit ac totz los auctors /que d’amor parlon /e si feinon consi amador si capteinon”). It must not be forgotten that this art that the knights found in books was what was taught by clergymen, who already knew about it. See: “Altercatio Phyllidis et Flore,” in Love Lyrics from the ‘Carmina Burana’, ed. and trans. P.G. Walsh (Chapel Hill, 1993), 92.41: “My cleric is preeminent in knowledge and instruction on the power of Venus and of the god of love. It is through the cleric that the knight has become a follower of Venus.” (“Quid Dione valeat /Et amoris deus, /Primus novit clericus /Et instruxit meus; /Factus est per clericum /Miles Cithereus”).
For courtly love as a refining technique and a means of self-control, see: Martin Aurell, Le chevalier lettré. Savoir et conduite de l’aristocratie aux xiie et xiiie siècles, pp. 365–80.
Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium 116, ed. Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols. (London, 1917–25), 3: 332–33: “The question has often been raised whether it is better to have moderate emotions, or none at all. Philosophers of our school reject the emotions; the Peripatetics keep them in check […] I think that Panaetius gave a very neat answer to a certain youth who asked him whether the wise man should become a lover: ‘As to the wise man, we shall see later; but you and I, who are as yet far removed from wisdom, should not trust ourselves to fall into a state that is disordered, uncontrolled, enslaved to another, contemptible to itself. If our love be not spurned, we are excited by its kindness; if it be scorned, we are kindled by our pride. An easily won love hurts us as much as one which is difficult to win; we are captured by that which is compliant, and we struggle with that which is hard. Therefore, knowing our weakness, let us remain quiet. Let us not expose this unstable spirit to the temptations of drink, or beauty, or flattery, or anything that coaxes and allures.’ Now that which Panaetius replied to the question about love may be applied, I believe, to all the emotions. In so far as we are able, let us step back from slippery places; even on dry ground it is hard enough to take a sturdy stand,” trans. Richard Mott Gummere. (“Utrum satius sit modicos habere affectus an nullos, sæpe quæsitum est. Nostri expellunt, Peripatetici temperant’ […] Eleganter mihi videtur Panaetius respondisse adulescentulo cuidam quaerenti an sapiens amaturus esset. ‘De sapiente’ inquit ‘videbimus: mihi et tibi, qui adhuc a sapiente longe absumus, non est committendum ut incidamus in rem commotam, inpotentem, alteri emancupatam, vilem sibi. Sive enim nos respicit, humanitate eius inritamur, sive contempsit, superbia accendimur. Aeque facilitas amoris quam difficultas nocet: facilitate capimur, cum difficultate certamus. Itaque conscii nobis inbecillitatis nostrae quiescamus; nec vino infirmum animum committamus nec formae nec adulationi nec ullis rebus blande trahentibus. Quod Panaetius de amore quaerenti respondit, hoc ego de omnibus affectibus dico quantum possumus, nos a lubrico recedamus: in sicco quoque parum fortiter stamus”). See: Seneca, Epistulae 85, 2: 290, which also provokes controversy with a philosophical approach that advocates moderation and not extirpating passions: “Falsa est itaque ista mediocritas et inutilis, eodem loco habenda, quo si quis diceret modice insaniendum, modice aegrotandum. Sola virtus habet, non recipiunt animi mala temperamentum.”
Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 4.33.70, ed. Reinhold Klotz (New York, 1888), p. 141: “But we may suffer some sportive freedom in the poets, in whose fiction we see Jupiter himself implicated in these scandalous affairs. Let us come to philosophers, preceptors of virtue, who deny the necessarily licentious character of love, and in this are at variance with Epicurus, who, as I think, is not far from the right. For what is that love of friendship of which they speak? Why is not a deformed young man or a beautiful old man the object of love? The worst form of licentiousness, as I think, sprang from the Greek gymnasium, where every improper liberty is permitted,” trans. Andrew P. Peabody. (“Sed poetas ludere sinamus, quorum fabulis in hoc flagitio versari ipsum videmus Iovem. Ad magistros virtutis, philosophos, veniamus, qui amorem negant stupri esse et in eo litigant cum Epicuro non multum, ut opinio mea fert, mentiente. Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae? Cur neque deformem adulescentem quisquam amat neque formosum senem? Mihi quidem haec in Graecorum gymnasiis nata consuetudo videtur, in quibus isti liberi et concessi sunt amores”).
See: Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 4.34.72 and 75–76, pp. 141–42.
Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 4.34.71, p. 141: “Now we see that the loves of all these writers are licentious. There have also appeared some of us philosophers—chief among them my favorite Plato, whom on this score Dicaearchus rightly accuses—who have given their sanction to love,” trans. Andrew P. Peabody (“Atque horum omnium libidinosos esse amores videmus. Philosophi sumus exorti, et auctore quidem nostro Platone, quem non iniuria Dicarchus accusat, qui amori auctoritatem tribueremus”).
C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia, 1999), p. 79.
Jaeger, Ennobling Love, pp. 79–81, 82 and following.
Lucius Apuleius, De Platone et eius dogmate 2.13, ed. Jean Beaujeu (Paris, 1973): “Plato also says, that friendship is the conciliator of society, that it consists in concord, and that it is reciprocal, and produces mutual delight, when the love on both sides is equal. Friendship is attended with this advantage [of mutual delight], when a friend wishes that he who is the object of his love may be blessed with prosperity, in the same manner as he himself wishes to be blest. But this equality cannot be effected, unless there is an according similitude in both, through an equal fondness. For as equals are conjoined with equals by an indissoluble bond, so unequals are mutually disjoined, and are not friendly to each other. The vices, however, of enmities are produced by malevolence, through a dissimilitude of manners, a discordancy of life, and professions and dispositions contrary to each other. For Plato says, that there are other kinds of friendship; of which, some are generated for the sake of pleasure, but others from necessity. And the love, indeed, of familiars and children is consentaneous to nature; but that which is for the sake of pleasure only, and which is vulgarly called love, is abhorrent from the clemency of humanity, and is an ardent appetite, by the libidinous stimulus of which, the lovers of body being captivated, think that the whole man consists in that which they behold. The same Plato forbids us to call such like calamities of souls friendships, because they are not mutual, and are incapable of producing reciprocal love, and neither possess constancy nor length of duration. To which may be added, that such love terminates in satiety and penitence,” trans. Thomas Taylor. (“Amicitiam ait sociam eamque consensu consistere reciprocamque esse ac delectationis uicem reddere,quando aequaliter redamat. Hoc amicitiae commodum prouenit, cum amicus eum quem diligit pariter ac se cupit prosperis rebus potiri. Aequalitas ista non aliter prouenit nisi similitudo utroque parili caritate conueniat. Nam ut pares paribus inresolubili nexu iunguntur, ita discrepantes et inter se disiuncti sunt nec aliorum amici. Inimicitiarum autem uitia gignuntur ex maliuolentia, per dissimilitudinem morum et distantiam uitae et sectas atque ingenia contraria. Alia etiam amicitiae genera dicit esse, quarum pars uoluptatis gignitur causa, pars necessitatis. Necessitudinum et liberorum amor naturae congruus est, ille alius abhorrens ab humanitatis clementia, qui uulgo amor dicitur, est adpetitus ardens, cuius instinctu per libidinem capti amatores corporum in eo quod uiderint totum hominem putant. Eiusmodi calamitates animarum amicitias idem appellari uetat, quod nec mutuae sint nec reciprocari queant, ut ament atque redamentur, nec constantia illis adsit et diuturnitas desit amoresque eiusmodi satietate ac paenitentia terminentur”).
Lucius Apuleius, De Platone et eius dogmate 2, 14: “Hence Plato enumerates three kinds of love; of which one is divine, being in concord with an incorruptible intellect and the nature of virtue, and which is not accompanied by repentance; the second pertains to a degenerate mind, and the most corrupt pleasure; and the third is mingled from both, and pertains to a soul of a temperate disposition and moderate desires. But souls that are more clouded with oblivion are impelled by corporeal desires, and propose to themselves one thing only, that they may enjoy the use of bodies, and may assuage their ardour by pleasure and delight of this kind. Purer minds, who are facetious and courteous, love the souls of those that are good, are benevolent to them, and desirous that they may excel in laudable arts, and may be rendered more worthy and illustrious characters. Souls of a middle nature consist of both the extremes, and in consequence of this are not entirely averse to the delights of the body, and may be allured by souls of an amiable disposition. As, therefore, that most filthy, brutal, and base love is not engendered from the nature of things, but from disease and corporeal infirmity, so that divine love, which was bestowed by the beneficence of the Gods, is believed to accede to the minds of men through the inspiration of the celestial Cupid. There is also a third species of love, which we have denominated a medium, and which subsists through an affinity to divine and terrestrial love, is connected to each by an equal bond of alliance, and in the same manner as divine love is proximate to reason, and is joined to the desire of pleasure, like the terrestrial love,” trans. Thomas Taylor. (“Plato tres amores hoc genere dinumerat, quod sit unus diuinus cum incorrupta mente et uirtutis ratione conueniens, non paenitendus; alter degeneris animi et corruptissimae uoluptatis; tertius ex utroque permixtus, mediocris ingenii et cupidinis modicae. Animas uero fusciores inpelli cupidine corporum unumque illis propositum esse, ut eorum usura potiantur atque eiusmodi uoluptate et delectatione ardorem suum mulceant; illas uero <quae> facetae et urbanae sint animas bonorum deamare et studere illis factumque uelle, uti quam plurimum potiantur bonis artibus et meliores praestantioresque reddantur. Medias ex utroque constare nec delectationibus corporum prorsus carere et lepidis animarum ingeniis capi posse. Vt ille igitur amor taeterrimus et inhumanissimus atque turpis non ex rerum natura, sed aegritudine corporali morboque colligitur, sic ille diuinus, deorum munere beneficioque concessus, adspirante caelesti cupidine in animos hominum credatur uenire. Est amoris tertia species, quam diximus mediam, diuini atque terreni proximitate collectus nexuque et consortio parili copulatus, et ut rationi propinquus est diuinus ille, ita terrenus ille cupidini iunctus est <et> uoluptati”).
John Gillingham, “From Civilitas to Civility: Codes of Manners in Medieval and Early Modern England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002), 267–89, especially 282.
Regarding moderation, see: Capellanus, De amore 1.6.463: “So a woman ought not assent immediately to the desire of a suitor, but should first make him a great many cautious promises and should with proper moderation postpone giving him the good things she has promised him; then, to test the purity of his faith, she should sometimes say that she has completely changed her mind about what she promised him a while before and that she is not willing to do what she promised.” (“Non ergo debet statim mulier petentis annuere voluntati, sed infinitis eum primo caute ditare promissis et cum competenti moderatione bona differre promissa, et, ut eius fidei puritatem agnoscat, debet quandoque a promissis prioribus se prorsus annuere alteratam et nolle quod promiserat adimplere”). Regarding the aquisition of virtuous habits, see: Capellanus, De amore 1.4.1: “O what a wonderful thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!” (“O, quam mira res est amor, qui tantis facit hominem fulgere virtutibus, tantisque docet quemlibet bonis moribus abundare!”) and also De amore 1.6.472, which talks about amor purus: “This love is distinguished by being of such virtue that from it arises all excellence of character, and no injury comes from it, and God sees very little offense in it. No maiden can ever be corrupted by such a love, nor can a widow or a wife receive any harm or suffer any injury to her reputation,” trans. John Jay Parry (“Amor iste tantae dignoscitur esse virtutis quod ex eo totius probitatis origo descendit, et nulla inde procedit iniuria, et modicam in ipso Deus recognoscit offensam. Ex tali nempe amore neque virgo nunquam corrupta nec vidua vel coniugata potest aliquod sentire gravamen vel propriae famae dispendium sustinere”).
Lucius Apuleius, De Platone et eius dogmate 2.26.