Courtly Love and Chivalry in Romeo and Juliet

Courtly love, a cousin to chivalry, is a tradition that requires a man to suffer for love, to serve his lady and to overcome obstacles to prove his worth (like an Arthurian knight). [See the articles on courtly love and troubadours in The Lion in Winter/Middle Ages volume of NEXUS.] The tradition was accompanied by a courtly style of language; it’s most characteristic feature is extravagant, if somewhat generic, praise of the beloved. Her skin was invariably white as snow, her cheeks red as roses.

There are many examples of courtly love and manners in Romeo and Juliet. After Romeo kills Tybalt, Juliet tells her Nurse to “Give this ring to my true knight.”  In Arthurian legend, a similar gift from a lady would inspire a knight to perform brave deeds and overcome difficulties in her name. Here, the ring gives Romeo strength to bear the Prince’s doom.

In earlier versions of the story, Romeo vows to serve Juliet like a troubadour/knight the moment he meets her. “Lady, whatever service I can do for you will be to me supremely dear, as to serve you is all that I desire in this world; and I shall count myself happy if you will but begin to command me as you would command the least of your servants.” [From Matteo Bandello’s Novelle.] The language here is reminiscent of troubadour poetry in which the relationship between a lady and her lover parallels the feudal relationship between a lord and his vassal (the lady, in this case, is the lord, the lover the vassal).

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare retains the essential features of courtly love, but modernizes the language, putting his own spin on it. “What lady doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?” Romeo asks a servant the moment he lays eyes on Juliet. Like a troubadour, Romeo idealizes his ladylove throughout the play, praising her charms and comparing her to the most exulted things possible: a shrine, a saint and a second sun: “What light through yonder window breaks?/It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”

Mercutio and Machoism

After Capulet’s party, Mercutio mocks courtly love language, which he later characterizes as  “groaning for love.” Looking for Romeo, who is hiding in Capulet’s orchard, Mercutio shouts:

Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied!
Cry but “Ay me!” pronounce but “love” and “dove”;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word…[ACT II, Scene 1]

Traditionally, troubadours sighed for their ladyloves in serenades, rhyming romantic words like love and dove in many a line — thus Mercutio’s jest. The following day Mercutio ridicules courtly love by mimicking one of its poetic conventions, putting a  woman on a pedestal and asserting her superiority by comparing her favorably to other famous beauties. Mercutio turns this custom on its head when he sarcastically praises Romeo’s sweetheart by insulting the women to whom he compares her:

Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in.
Laura, to his lady, was a kitchen wench
(marry, she had a better love to berhyme her),
Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots. [Act II, Scene 4]

Laura, of course, was the ladylove and muse of the great Italian poet and humanist Petrarch, the father of the Renaissance. (Petrarch’s sonnets to Laura indirectly influenced Shakespeare’s sonnets.)

Mercutio also puts down the Renaissance obsession with courtesy—another courtly custom of French origin.

R—Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a
case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
M— That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
R—Meaning to curtsy.
M—Thou hast most kindly hit it. [Act II, Scene 4]

Mercutio implies that being courteous is effeminate; even the word “courteous” sounds like “curtsy.” This macho attitude towards romantic love and good manners existed then as it does now. But in general, the educated classes of the Renaissance admired and practiced both courtesy and courtly love. Books written on courtly manners like Castiglione’s The Courtier and Erasmus’ De civilitate morum puerilium were best sellers.

People in the Renaissance had a lot to learn about manners, considering that in the Middle Ages spitting during dinner was accepted practice—as long as you spat under the table and not on it. Medieval courtiers ate meat with their hands; and two or more diners generally shared the same plate or trencher. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that the fork became popular—at least among the upper classes. Using forks first became fashionable and a sign of good breeding in Italy. Spoons, on the other hand, had been used for sometime.  Shakespeare probably alludes to these utensils in Romeo and Juliet when the First Servingman says at Capulet’s feast:

Away with the join-stools, remove the court cupboard, look to the plate.

Among other things, spoons were kept in court cupboards.

—by Jesse Bryant Wilder. © NEXUS, 1996.

Image Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library

Questions

COMPLETE THE QUESTIONS BELOW. YOU WILL NEED TO DO RESEARCH TO ANSWER SOME OF THE QUESTIONS.

1. Cite an example from a poem by the 12th-century troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn and from one other troubadour or trobairitz* in which the poet idealizes the beloved (you can find some of Bernart de Ventadorn’s work at or mypoeticside.com or poemhunter.com. )
2. How is the troubadour verse  you cited similar to Romeo’s praise of Juliet? What other similarities are there between Romeo’s love and that of a troubadour.
3. Contrast the troubadour’s and Romeo’s extravagant praise with Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”
4. What features does Courtly love borrow from feudalism? Explain.
5. In what ways is Romeo’s love for Juliet different from the love of a troubadour for his lady?
6. Mercutio mocks the courtly love traditions. What does this tell us about his nature?
7. Mercutio mentions the courtly love poet Petrarch in Act II, Scene 4. Who is Petrarch, when and where did he live, and who was his muse?  Find a Petrarch poem in which the poet praises his muse.  What does this poem and style of writing have in common with Romeo and Juliet?
8. Mercutio also mentions Dido? Who is she, and what poet or poets wrote about her?
9. Who wrote the earliest known version of Romeo and Juliet?
10. Who wrote the second and third versions of the love story? Read one of these three early versions, then compare it to Shakespeare’s version, noting similarities and differences.

EXTRA CREDIT: A tenson is a poem in which two voices or two troubadours debate a topic. Read the tenson When a Lady Loves by the trobairitz Maria de Ventadorn and Gui d’Ussel. In a short essay, compare and contrast the two perspectives of love in the poem and explain which view is most like the love between Romeo and Juliet.

*TROBAIRITZ is a female troubadour.

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