Introduction
The familiarity with the love tradition makes it easily mistakable for a natural and universal phenomenon and even brings a laxity of enquiring into its origins. However, it is difficult of not impossible to show love to be anything more than an artistic phenomenon or construct- a literary per formative innovation of Middle Ages. Courtly love was a medieval European formation of nobly, and politely expressing love and admiration. Courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. (Simpson).
The term "courtly love" was first popularized by Gaston Paris in 1883. It has since come under a wide variety of definitions and uses, even being brushed off as nineteenth-century romantic fiction. Its understanding, beginning, and weight persist as an issue of significant question.

Origin of the term ‘courtly love’
The term courtly love was given its original definition by Gaston Paris in 1883 in the journal Romania in the article "Études sur les romans de la Table Ronde: Lancelot du Lac, II: Le conte de la charrette" a treatise inspecting Chretien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (1177). The term courtly was derived from the term ‘amour courtis’ which according to Paris was an admiration and an ennobling discipline. The lover accepts the autonomy of his mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her attention by trying to act bravely and doing whatever deed she desires. In order to prove to her his passion and his unwavering commitment and, he subjects himself to a series of tests and ordeals that she desires to put him. Paris further explains that sexual satisfaction may not have been the main goal or even result of the ‘amour courtis’ but neither was the love entirely platonic as its foundation was sexual satisfaction.
Classical literature, as demonstrated in Dido for Aeneas, the passion described through the text often refers to eros- hot lust. The passion described through this literature is hot and firry. Ars Armitoria and Remedia Amoris translated to mean The Art of Love and the Cure for Love, both written by Ovid are iconic and moralistic expositions produced from the argument that love is a minor offence, hence through this works, Ovid gives rules for illegitimate behavior.
In the middle ages, the notion of courtly love was a new concept, which was discovered in the medieval period. They were also the first to express this kind of love, or romantic passion through art, poetry, plays, and other artistic means. Before then, the lack of literary and social framework in the Christian world before the 11th Century inhibited the expression of love in literature. The only kind of love highlighted in many Christian literatures including the Beowulf or the song of the Roland is the religious traditional Agape kind of love-platonic/ Christian love for all humanity, as brothers and sisters of one family.
The literature of the church was considered anti-feminists. In fact, in the middle ages the taste makes in feudal societies often said, marry not for love but for real estate and heir, and a common quote was ‘marry a fief and get a wife thrown in with the bargain’. In addition, idealized love, or courtly love, in the middle ages was against the practical economics of marriage. Furthermore, passion was prohibited by the church until courtly love came along and remained outside marriage. With time, the term courtly love was accepted. In 1936, C S Lewis wrote the ‘the Allegory of love and further solidified courtly love ‘as a highly specialized type of love whose characteristics may be defined as humility, courtesy, adultery and the religion of love (Lewis). In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment that now seems contradictory as "a love at once illicit and morally inspiring, passionate and disciplined, mortifying and exalting, human and inspirational" (Newman).

History
Many scholars who have believed that courtly love was a historical development rely on historical literature. Courtly love is believed to have begun in southern France in the ducal princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, and Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, a sufficiently peaceful yet isolated region, that was perfect to birth and develop such a movement from around the time of the First Crusade in 1099. In fact, many literary giants (Avignon, Toulouse, Nimes under the domaine of Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine) retreated in this region. In addition, the leisure class, the wealthy, and the self-sufficient society discovered a new craze in this area. The areas courts attracted intellectuals from all over, as the South was more liberal and pluralistic, with Arabs, Jews and Byzantines being among the residents of the area. Perhaps, even the men outnumbered the women in South France.
Eleanor of Aquitaine brought the ideals of courtly love from Aquitaine to the court of France then to England where she was a queen to two kings. Her daughter Marie, who was the Countess of Champagne, introduced courtly love to the Count of Champagne’s Court. In the same period, it was expressed in poems written by troubadours such as William IX Duke of Aquitaine a patriarch of the troubadour poets, who was born in 1071 in Circa. Troubadour poets were mainly rich young men who were called minnesingers. They were composers and performers of old Occitan lyric poetry, which were romantically themed. The female troubadours were called trobairitz. The poetry composed were a learned combination of rhymes, stanzas, and concepts with a theme of love such as The Lais of Marie de France.
Courtly love was expressed using the terminology feudalism that describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior dignity, circling around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. In order to hide the identity of the woman and flatter her at the same, the declared themselves the vassal and addressed the lady as ‘my lord’. The main idea of the ideal lady was the wife of his employer, a lady of a higher status, mainly a rich and powerful female, who also owned a large castle. Many times the lady controlled the household and cultural affairs when the husband was away. In some cases, she did the same when the husband was around. In Marie de France first sequel to the collection the Lais of Marie de France, the queen is depicted as the powerful lady who has been imprisoned …..
The courtly love expressed by troubadours was based on nobility, character, and action, not just wealth and family history, unlike the past where only those who were from noble backgrounds could participate in courtly love. It gave hope to the knights who saw an avenue for advancement into the aristocrat class. Courtly love also provided a way for nobles to articulate love not found in marriage. The lovers as articulated in this context did not refer to sex but rather emotions, which escalated mentally.
The rules of courtly love were defined in the late 12th Century by Andreas Capellanus in his work ‘De Amore’ meaning “concerning love. He lists rules such as marriage is no real excuse for not loving, he who is not jealous cannot love, no one can be bound by double love, and when made public love rarely endures.

Traditions of Courtly Love
The Courtly Love sung of in the songs represents a new structure, neither of the Church nor of feudalism, but an overturning of both.
The language and the relationships between love and religion are similar (and the language, sometimes borrowed from religion, ends up borrowed back by religion in specific lyrics). In feudalism the vassal is the "man" of his sovereign lord; in courtly love, the vassal is the "man" of his sovereign mistress. In religion, the sinner is repentant and asks that Mary intercede on his behalf with Christ, who is considered Love. In courtly love, the sinner (against the laws of love) asks the mother of the love god, Cupid's mother Venus, to intercede on his behalf with Cupid or Eros, who is the god of love. So this new love religion seems to parody real religion.
Courtly love is a classic literary geffe that once reigned as the most popular and most practiced form of literature. Some would argue that love has always had its place in literature throughout all periods. This may be true; however, anyone who has ever read a courtly love tale would recognize immediately that the behaviors of the characters in love are rather peculiar, and that the experience of love, with all of its desire and heartache, is taken to the utmost extreme beyond that of what we would consider "ordinary" or everyday love. Love, in the courtly mauler, is an art to be practiced. It is passionate yet extremely disciplined, and its power is elevated to the point of worship.
In order to discuss courtly love, a distinction must first be made between the ideas of love in general and the highly ritualized practice of courtly love. Courtly love is practiced only between a man and a woman of noble status, most often a knight or squire and a lady with an aristocratic background. The man and the woman are not husband and wife, for courtly love is presented as ideal and above the realm of intercourse, and such relationships did not exist in "real life" medieval marriages. Marriages had nothing to do with love. They were most often arranged, and wives were little more than pieces of property to their husbands. Ordinary love, on the other hand, occurs in the common society of the medieval world and is not even considered love as we understand.
The Lyric
Texts about courtly love, including in the lays of Marie de France, were often set to music by troubadours or minstrels. The Scholar Ardis Butterfield defines courtly love as “the air which many genres of troubadour song breathe.” There is little information about the places, for whom the songs were written, when they were written, how they were written or for whom they wer performed. However, the pieces were performed at court by troubadours, trouvères, or the courtiers themselves. This could be incidental because people at court were encouraged or expected to be “courtly” and be skilful in many diverse areas, including music. Quite a lot of troubadours became tremendously affluent playing the fiddle and singing their songs about courtly love for a courtly audience.
It is difficult to know how and when these songs were performed because most of the information on these topics is provided in the music itself. One lay, the “Lay of Lecher,” says that after a lay was composed,
Then the lay was preserved
Until it was known everywhere
For those who were skilled musicians
On viol, harp and rote
Carried it forth from that region…

Themes of courtly love literature
The literary convention can be found in many authors of the middle ages. Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Dante, Marie de France, Chretien de Troyes, Gottfried von Strassburg and Sir Thomas Malory are some of the famous major authors who dealt with courtly love. Courtly love conventions are expressed in two main medieval genres, Romance and Allegory. In the example given, the study focuses on Marie de France’s works, though citations are also given from other Arthurian Romance.
Allegory
This was one of the main common literature in the middle ages and was used to interpret was already written. The tradition of using allegory dates back to the interpretation of the book of Songs of Solomon in the Bible. One school of thought said the book should be taken literary as a simple expression of erotic love. The other school of thought interpreted the book as an expression of the relationship between Christ and the church; they further argued that the book should not even exist without its literal meaning. The final group interpreted the book as one, which was literally written, about sex but the interpretation on the relationship between Christ, the church and the individual Christian soul surpasses all other interpretations.
In her book “Eliduc”, part of the series of Marie de France’s Lais, Marie plays with the idea that romantic love between two people is a symbol of God’s love when the two people who love each other wholly and completely. They leave each other for God, breaking up and shifting into various religious environments. Furthermore, the main character’s first wife leaves her husband and becomes a nun so that he can marry his new lover. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Maun also feature in the works with allegory. In the Roman de la Rose, a figurative handling of courtly love is alluded to when a man becomes engrossed with a single rose in a rose bush. He attempts to pick it repeatedly but fails. Eventually he succeeds. The rose alludes to a female body but the romance also contains lengthy digressive "discussions on free will versus determinism as well as on optics and the influence of heavenly bodies on human behavior.”

Romance
Romance was a genre largely dedicate to the female audience for the first time in European history. Most of the medieval literatures celebrating romance are related to King Arthur’s court, also known as Arthurian romance.
Chrétien de Troyes, one of the founders of Arthurian romance was prominent up to one of his latest romance works, Erec and Enide. This love story featured many common fundamentals of Arthurian romance including the characters such as the knightly quest and women or love as a catalyst to action. Erec and Enide is about a knight (Erec) who is married to an insolvent decent girl (Enide) from Lalut. Erec and Enide meet after Erec was sent by the queen to follow a knight who had previously mistreated the queen’s servant. At Yder, a far off town Erec meets Enide. He defeats the knight and conquers the city then marries his love after returning to the king’s court where he was serving.
There is a twist in the tale when Erec is accused of neglecting his knightly duties because of his overwhelming desire to spend time with Enide. He overhears Enide Crying and plans for an unknown journey. She disobeys his command to be quiet severally to warn him over danger. He defeats several knights who try to kill him and have Enide and makes friends with Guivret. The poem ends when the duo is crowned king and queen of Nantes after they set prisoners free and meet their relations. In Marie de France’s Lais, there is no more prevalent theme in than romance. Her stories consider various perspectives on love relationships, including marriage, extramarital affairs, love between lords and vassals, and love between parents and children. Each lay judges how different types of love either bring contentment, as in "Guigemar," or how they lead to melancholy, as in "Equitan." Every now and then, a sacred, happy love is invalidated by the world outside it, as in "Laustic," whereas other times selfish loves are chastised, as in "Bisclavret." Every single one of the poems can be understood in terms of this theme.

Loyalty
Loyalty helps to clarify Marie's perspectives on the different scenarios she presents. Drifts in loyalty offer the central push on occasion – like in "Equitan" or Bisclavret – but the idea that lords can demonstrate a lack of loyalty to their vassals is scattered throughout. While thinking of Arthur's lack of loyalty to Lanval, or the way Eliduc's lord give him grounds to leave his home because the lord believes insult. "Eliduc" is particularly based on loyalty, since that theme provides insight into the central inconsistency of the main character.
Erec and Enide displays the themes of love and chivalry that Chrétien continues in his later work. Tests play an important part in character development and marital fidelity. Erec's testing of Enide is not condemned in the fictive context of the story, especially when his demeanor is contrasted with some of the more appalling characters, like Oringle of Limors. Nonetheless, Enide's faithful noncompliance of his command to silence saves his life.

Possessiveness
Possessiveness especially by fathers towards their daughters or old men towards their wives, creates many dissatisfied positions in Marie de France lays. The fact that most poems portray typically beautiful young women who are controlled by chauvinistic guardians provides some insight into Marie's perspective as a woman, and it helps to understand why these women are so attracted to men who bring the possibility of rescue. The lays that exhibit possessive fathers are "Guigemar," "Les Deus Amanz," "Yonec," "Laustic," "Milun," and to a lesser extent "Eliduc."

Charity/Selflessness
Perhaps what Marie prizes as honorable above all else is love based in self-sacrifice and charity. The end of her final lay – "Eliduc" – is the best suggestion of this theme, since all of the lovers involved have nothing to do with their romantic entanglements for a life devoted to charity and God. However, the most worthy characters all through are those who love selflessly, without thoughts which are based too much on themselves. In the midst of other examples by Lanval is also a good example of Charity, though Le Fresne is perhaps the second best example,
She heard how the lady cried,
Wept and mourned and piteously sighed
This tormented the poor maid; she
Came to comfort her dear lady
"Madame," she said, "Now there's no need--
Stop mourning so--listen, heed
Me! Give one of these babes to me--
I'll take it and you will be free
I'll see you never feel shame or pain,
Or ever have to see her again…
God willing, he'll find her a nurse

Chivalry
As Scaglione explains, Courtly Love was a blend of aristocratic etiquette, chivalric heroism, but also exclusiveness and even high living. This is, in fact, where the first clash with the Church occurs. According to the clergy, like Bishop John of Salisbury, kings, nobles, and knights were a secular extension of the Church. There was an interdependent relationship of the spiritual and secular interests of the society because of the church and civic rulers defending and practicing the Christian faith. Salisbury observed with caution the predisposition of the aristocracy towards a display of luxury, as knights and ladies' luxurious savors and lifestyle became fasteners of Courtly Love.
Marie's greatest literary accomplishment in the Lais is the way she celebrates the courteous court culture of her day while subtly and consistently trashing it. The hunt for reputation and self-sufficiency works in direct contrast to the charity and self-sacrifice that Marie prizes as honorable of affections. The pursuit of celebrity and women works against people who otherwise love one another (like in "Milun"), and makes it hard to remain selfless

Storytelling
Throughout her stories, Marie makes explicit her role as storyteller, sometimes through authorial intermissions and every so often through self-applause. In terms of the former, Marie often disrupts her story either to propose the subject of a particular lay, or sometimes to reflect on the details of the story, saying something like "I think" about a particular fact.
Never in her life, early nor late,
Had she seen a knight so handsome,
Nor will she ever, in days to come.
"Lady," he said, "How well you speak!
Not for anything would I wreak
That wrong, be your occasion of sin--
The guilt, the doubt, the suspicion
I firmly believe in the Creator..
The result of this is prospectively to suggest the truth of the stories (since it recommends she is merely remembering an accurate story, rather than building it up) and probably just to exhibit playfulness. Marie also commends herself as a storyteller, beginning with her "Prologue," which could have a historical relevance (to defend herself against detractors) or could be meant to stress that storytelling is more than just entertainment – it is a vehicle for conversing deep authenticity.

Fate
It has always been a favorite topic of authors to discuss the role of fate in human life, and a preferred subject of analysts and critics to debate the insinuations of this role on the philosophy of the work. Is Odysseus to blame for his wanderings, and if not, can we bestow him credit for having resolved them? Was there a way for Macbeth to disprove the predictions of the witches? And so on. Each society has its own understanding of the relative potency of motivation and providence.
From the Lais of Marie de France there is an extraordinarily clear view of the worldly medieval view of the sphere of fate and action in human life. Predominantly, from the story of Guigemar there is a division between the realm of love, which is indisputably a matter of fate and nature, and the realm of personal bravery, which is left directly in the hands of man.
Marie's logic of fate is unique, especially when it comes to describing love. She never tries to allege that people can have power over falling in love. Her language often stresses how love hits in spite of our desires. She is inclined to speak of it as a compel force that is like fate. Nevertheless, Marie's constant point is that humans are to be evaluated not by the forces that have an effect on our feelings, but instead how we act in rejoinder to those emotions. The people who are to be respected are those who can be in command of themselves, like Tristam or Eliduc, while those who give in to their feelings, like Equitan, are to be condemned harshly.
The hero of this story, Guigemar himself, allows us to study this partition in detail because he switches between the worlds of love and heroism sharply, quite a few times. As the story begins, he is portrayed as a person who has little respect for love, and lives purely for adventure. Following, a tragic accident, he discards his pursuit for glory and gives himself over to the world of love, knowing that it is the only thing that single-handedly can save him. When he leaves the world of love, he goes back to his armed forces adventuring and abandons love once more. It is only in the final page of the story does fulfill both romantic and military objectives.
On the other hand, Guigemar consciously rejects the advances of the women about him, preferring to build his fame as a knight. Perhaps he views with disdain the the recklessness of his fellow knights who he has seen fall in love. Certainly, his imaginary peers in the other lais behave with minimal regard for their own safety, sleeping with the wives of hazardous men. This abandon might be hard to understand for a young knight who had never experienced love himself, and one can easily see him consciously deciding that he would be far better off dedicating himself to the rational challenges of war rather than the seemingly pointless risks of love. That his behavior may have been a deliberate attempt to abandon the traditions of love and instead build his personal fame and riches is supported by the unusual manner in which he is forced to abandon his military exploits. "At the height of his fame," Guigemar is hunting with his knights and spies a hind behind a bush. He lets lose an arrow and strikes the hind, but the arrow ricochets and wounds him in the thigh, temporarily ending his life as a warrior. Note he is attacking a hind that when he wounds himself, one of the animals traditionally associated with Venus, the goddess of love. Symbolically, Guigemar is attacking the institution of love. The dying hind tells him that his wound will never heal until he finds a woman "who will suffer for your love more pain and anguish than any other woman has ever known, and you will suffer likewise for her." Clearly, Guigemar is being punished for his lack of love, and the cure will be his discovery of it.
It can also be argued that until this point in the story, Guigemar has been at battle with nature, both against the natural instinct to fall in love and, in more literal way, against the animals he was hunting. During the crucial passage in the forest, nature retaliates, wounding him with his own arrow and forcing him to seek the love he previously ignored. Guigemar’s ability to control his own life is about to end.
Up to the time of his injury, there is little doubt that Guigemar’s fortune lies largely in his own hands, and his ability as a fighter has stood him in good stead. Even after his injury, he rides off alone, forsaking the potential aid of his squire or knights to heal him. He believes that success in overcoming the blight of the final will come from his individual potency and stamina. Of course, fate and the paranormal affect the lives of men on the, but the knight can rightly consider himself an agent with free will, able to shape his destiny. The occasional intervention of, say, enchanted animals, does not indicate any celestial design for Guigemar, as such supernatural elements are a staple of medieval literature and can be considered merely additional players in a complicated world.
It is however at this point in the story that Guigemar makes his critical conversion from the world of battle to the world of love. He rides to a harbor and boards the clearly mystical boat he finds there. As he walk around the center of the ship, it sets sail and carries him away. Note that the ship is unmanned and pilots itself, for this is the first time in the story that Guigemar's life is totally beyond his own control. He concedes that he is in the hands of God and abandons himself to fate. It is only because he is in this state of abandonment that he is able to fall in love; were he still committed to independence and control of his own destiny, love would remain out of the question.
At this time, we are introduced to the lady with whom Guigemar will fall in love. She has been imprisoned by her old and jealous husband who fears she cannot be trusted with her freedom (a still pervasive belief, if recent legislation in Pennsylvania be representative). Should the reader have not already deduced the thematic significance of the lady, she has on her wall a mural depicting the destruction of Ovid's works on restraint in love. There is little doubt that this lady was born under Venus, and will teach Guigemar to abandon his misguided restraint. Interestingly, one implication of the thesis that only fame and valor are under the human control is that women, who are not allowed to pursue fame and fortune, are never in control of their own lives. This fits perfectly with the accustomed role of women in medieval literature. In virtually the entire story of Guigemar, the lady finds herself imprisoned by one man or another, and though she is later able to escape, it is only through the providence that her door was left unlocked, and not through her own machinations that she leaves.
The lady finds him on the enchanted boat, washes his wounds, and thereby steals his heart. The effect of unrequited love in medieval literature being rather extreme, Guigemar soon finds himself in anguish, "the pain she caused him reached deep into his heart." Thus a beautiful cycle of nature has been completed. Guigemar forsakes love for battle, and is brought down by an arrow. He abandons himself, but is saved and raised into the world of love, again by an arrow. It is quite clear that this love will be inescapable as it "has its source in nature", and is thus beyond his control.
Were the story to end at this point, its message would still be clear: to fall in love we must abandon ourselves to nature. Those unwilling to do so are doomed to purely materialistic existences, and risk the violent retaliation of nature. However, the story does not end, and Guigemar is soon caught in flagrante delicto. In an interesting statement that it is the right of a real man to be with the woman he loves, Guigemar defends himself with a "large fir-wood pole". The symbolism involved is clear, and suggests that all a true knight must do is brandish his pole, and his right to be with the lady is understood. In this case, the lady’s husband is understandably peeved, but does not kill Guigemar. Instead, he escorts Guigemar back to the enchanted boat which brought him to their castle and compels him to return home. In many versions of the Arthurian myths as well, though Arthur realizes that Guenevere is sleeping about, he does nothing. It is admitted, in literature at least, that it is the right of a knight to leads ladies to adultery.
Guigemar finds himself no longer in a position to love engage in love, as he agreed not to take on a new lover unless she can untie an impossible knot in his shirt. This leaves him with no recourse but to revert to his original state, pursuing personal enrichment. If our thesis is correct, that material issues are in the hands of man while love is a question of fate, then Guigemar should now find himself once more in control of his life. Indeed he is, in all matters but those of romance. He is able to rebuild his force of loyal knights and is soon a powerful figure on the field again. However he cannot chose a new wife, as he is unwilling to lay aside the lady he was forced to leave behind. She, on the other hand, having no alternative to the realm of courtly love, and thus no alternative to the rule of Nature, has boarded the enchanted boat and escaped. That she is not in control herself is proved by the fact that that she intends to kills herself on the boat, and is incapable, and the fact that boat does not even take her to the right place - she has even less control than Guigemar does. Clearly, the lady in this story, as in many courtly romances, is a mere tool of the man's fate.
The final passage of the story of Guigemar is a tribute to the forces of love and Guigemar's valor. Fate has seen to it that the lady is brought to Brittany, and compelled the evil and cowardly Meriaduc to invite Guigemar to be his ally in an upcoming tournament. When Guigemar realizes that his lady is in Meriaduc’s castle and that Meriaduc intends to keep her, he wages immediate battle. Guigemar’s actions are not those of a man who thinks that his future is entirely in the hands of God. Clearly, he believes that it is incumbent upon him to save his lady. We see none of the passive behavior, which characterizes him in the middle section of the story, when he refuses even to drown himself or which characterize the lady throughout the story, awaiting whatever salvation the world may provide. He saves her, much as she had earlier saved him.
This is appropriate, the the lay of Guigemar is essentially a story of salvation. Guigemar had been a good knight who was considered a "lost cause" by those who believed that it is the obligation of a knight to love a lady. But in succumbing to the force of nature, which has control over love, Guigemar is saved, at least in social terms. His lady, who has no possible realm except that of love, is thus totally lost at the beginning of the story, for she is totally without love for her husband and hopes he will be "consumed by hell-fire". Guigemar, by providing a target for true love, thus grants her life. Later of course, he rescues her physically as well.
The medieval mindset on the question of control was a complicated one, and different actions, or types of actions, seem to have fallen under different jurisdictions. In the idealized world of the romances, certainly in the idealized world of the Lais of Marie de France, these jurisdictions are quite rigid. A man described as tremendously brave and mighty will find himself incapable of even slipping off a boat to kill himself when he views his life as being under another's control. Guigemar resists the standard cultural mandates to relinquish personal control, and he almost perishes for it, but at the end, it is love that conquers all
Perspectives of courtly love
The Procedure:
That's the static phenomenon interpreted. But the process of courtly love, a long-standing relationship with standardized procedures, can be extracted from the literature and tales of love in the medieval period. Here's the deal. Andreas Capellanus describes the optic physiology of the first moments. In short, he sees her. Perhaps she is walking in a garden. The vision of her, which is made up of light rays, enters into his eyeball (hence the blind cannot fall in love). Through a rather circuitous anatomical miracle, the love-ray makes its way down around his esophagus and sticks in his heart. Now he's love-struck. She doesn't know about him at all. She is of high status and "daungerous," which means not that she knows Tai Kwon Do but rather that she is standoffish. He is abject.
After haunting himself with visions of her limbs (by the way, she's long gone now), he swoons a lot and follows various of Andreas' rules ("you can't eat, you can't sleep; there's no doubt you're in deep"). Eventually all this love has to come out somehow, and remarkably it tends to emerge in well-crafted stanzas with rhyme patterns mentioned above and a zippy little meter. Secretly, the lover writes poems to the lady called "complaints" ("planh" in Provençal) because they are largely constructed of laments about his own suffering. These may be delivered to her by an intermediary. But she remains scornful while he or his friend continues heaving poems in her window tied to rocks.
Before actually getting a poem in the teeth, she, through some quirky event, will come to know who has been sending the poems. Eventually she will smile, which means she has accepted him as her "drut" ("dread" -- meaning not "oh, no, there he is again" but rather in the sense of awe: "revered one"). Next comes the performance of tests. The lover gets a token, perhaps a glove or a girdle (not the 18-hour kind -- more a scarf or sash). And the woman gets carte blanche -- jousting, journeys, deeds, anything she wants. "Sir Eminem has insulted me. Kill him." He has to. "Bring home some pork chops. Those last ones were awful." He has to go slay a wild boar. "Fetch me the molars of the Sultan of Baghdad." He's got to climb the widest sea and swim the highest mountain and, though he has nothing against them per se, he's got to hack his way through the Sultan's guards and face the old boy, saying, "Render hither thine molars, payan swine!" "Nay, that likest me not nor will I nother!" Then he has to decapitate the Sultan, wrench out the back teeth, and get back home (probably switching clothes with a palmer at some point), only to find out that now she wants some Baskin Robbins pistachio swirl. And this goes on endlessly.
Something Fishy:
Supposedly the finer points of courtly love were so complex that Eleanor's daughter, Marie of Champagne, commissioned her chaplain, Andreas, to write a rulebook. Another religious man, Chretien de Troyes (fl. 1160-1172) was ordered to write "Lancelot," in which the knight's hesitation at getting into a cart is crucial. Andreas supplies a Latin prose work, De Arte Honeste Amandi (The Art of Courtly Love, as the title is usually loosely translated), which subsequently has been taken as a textbook on courtly love.
But Andreas is a churchman. Check out some of the chapters in the Table of Contents! And what's your honest reaction to reading some of this. A textbook on illicit love? 31 rules? Why 31?
Andreas also provides legal cases! Supposedly, the history of love included Courts of Love ruled by the ladies. There's no historical evidence that this ever took place, and it seems pretty unlikely, but Andreas' material has been referred to so often that it has come to seem true.
Here's one case: a woman's husband has died. Can she accept her servant as her lover? The decision: no, she must marry within her rank. This is not to say that a widow may not marry a lover, but then he would be her husband, not her lover.
Another case: a knight is serving his lady by defending her name. It's getting embarrassing and she wants it stopped. There is much debate about this case. The decision: no, the woman is wrong; she cannot forbid him from loving her.
A final case: two little kids were playing in their medieval sandbox and noticed all the fine ladies and gentlemen engaged in the new love fad about them. They imitatively also agreed to a contract between them: that they would share a kiss each day. They years have passed and this guy keeps showing up at the door every morning for the kiss. The woman wants to be released from this juvenile contract. Does she have a case? The decision: granted, because the rules specifically state that one cannot be about the business of love until one is around the age of thirteen. Therefore all those kisses given since that age must be returned. (Huh?)
So is this all a joke? Andreas also offers a retraction -- an about-face at the end. And he mentions a "duplicem sententiam" (a double lesson). Finally all seems sinful and love a heresy.

Feminist Perspective:
Does Courtly Love heighten the status of women? Yes, compared to their roles merely as "cup-bearers" and "peace-weavers" -- that is, in Beowulf for example, servants and political pawn in marriage. But...
One must acknowledge that the chivalrous stance is a game the master group plays in elevating its subject to pedestal level.... As the sociologist Hugo Beigel has observed, both the courtly and the romantic versions of love are 'grants' which the male concedes out of his total power. Both have had the effect of obscuring the patriarchal character of Western culture and in their general tendency to attribute impossible virtues to women, have ended by confirming them in a narrow and often remarkably conscribing sphere of behavior. (Kate Millett, Sexual Politics 37; qtd. in Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics 27)
Marxist Perspective:
The "love story" has been one of the most pervasive and effective of all ideological apparatuses: one of the most effective smokescreens available in the politics of cultural production. One need only think of the historical popularity of crime stories purveyed as "love stories": from the Trojan War -- that paradigmatic "linkage" of love and genocide -- to Bonnie and Clyde, from the subcultural Sid and Nancy to the hyperreal Ron and Nancy. The degree to which the concept of love is used as a "humanizing" factor, a way of appropriating figures whom we there is no other defensible reason to want to identify with. It is also a way of containing whatever political or social threat such figures may pose within the more palatable and manipulable (because simultaneously fetishized as universal and individual) motivations of love and sexual desire.... the "love story," a narrative that frequently disguises itself (qua narrative) or is taken as "natural" as opposed to the contrivances of other generic forms. (Charnes 136-137).
Annihilation of Courtly love
The era of courtly love vanished quickly under the impact of economic and cultural devastation brought by the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). Northern knights headed by Simon de Montfort swept down, the country was impoverished, freedom disappeared, and an inquisition and northern French dialect were imposed. The rule of Paris put an end to the south for centuries. But the songs did survive and travel, into the north by the trouvères, east into Germany with the minnesingers, south to Italy.
Points of controversy
A point of ongoing controversy about courtly love is to what extent it was sexual. All courtly love was erotic to some degree, with a bit of Platonism. According to the troubadours the ladies have physical beauty and the feelings and longing the ladies arouse in them. However, the poet is at a crossroad: to live a life of continuous desire channeling his energies to higher ends, or actually consummate. Scholars
Denis de Rougemont said that the troubadours were pressured by Cathar doctrines which rejected the pleasures of the flesh. He further says that they were figuratively addressing the spirit and soul of their ladies. Rougemont also said that courtly love subscribed to the code of chivalry, and therefore a knight's allegiance was always to his King before his mistress. Edmund Reiss claimed it was also a spiritual love, but a love that had more in common with Christian love, or caritas.] On the other hand, scholars such as Mosché Lazar argue it was traitorous sexual love with physical control of the lady the desired end.

Andreas Capellanus in De Amore libris tres identifies pure love as follows
It is the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with every feeling of delight. This kind consists in the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it goes as far as the kiss and the embrace and the modest contact with the nude lover, omitting the final solace, for that is not permitted for those who wish to love purely.... That is called mixed love, which gets its effect from every delight of the flesh and culminates in the final act of Venus.
Within the body of troubadour poems there is a wide range of approaches, even across the works of individual poets. Some poems are physically sensual, even bawdily imagining nude embraces, while others are highly spiritual and border on the platonic.
Another major controversy that exists is the question as to whether courtly love was only a literary form of art, or if it was the norm in the day. Though no historical evidence exists in form of law codes, court cases, chronicles or other historical documents, the existence of nonfiction genre is thought to be evidence according to John Benton. In the courtesy book by Christine de Pizan, the book of three virtues, the author strongly disapproves courtly love, as it was a convention used to cover up illicit affairs. It is further speculated tha courtly love was expressed in the world customs such as crowning the queen of love and beauty tournaments. Philip le Bon in 1454 also depended on stories derived from courtly love to stimulate the aristocrats to participate in an anticipated crusade at his feast of the Pheasant. In addition, many of the 15th Century convention and social gatherings were based on formulas said to have been derived from the ‘rules of courtly love’

Works Cited
Bornstein, Dian. "Courtly Love." Dictionary of the middle east (1964): 122.
Butterfield, Ardis. "Vernacular Poetry and music." Cambridge companion to Medieval Music (2011): 209.
Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly love. New York: The Art of Courtly Love, 1964.
Chaucer and His Poetry. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press,, 1933.
Courtly love. 16 May 2007. 18 October 2013 <middleages.com>.
Lewis, C S. The Allegory of love. 1936.
Loris, Guillaume de. Le Roman de la Rose. O Donoghue: C . Dahlberg, 1959.
Marie, de France. The Lais. translated by Glynn S Burgess and Keith Busby, 2003.
Newman, Francis X. "The meaning of Courtly love." vii (1968): 13.
Schwartz, Debora B. "Courtly Love." BAckgrounds to romance (2005).
Simpson, David L. Chivalry and Courtly Love. Chicago: DePaul University, 1998.
Troyes, Chreten de. Erec and Enide. 1170.