550 - We Still Play Medieval Dating Games
Welcome back, Annalisa!
We’re so excited to welcome back Annalisa Castaldo to the show for a fascinating conversation on The Art of Courtly Love, a medieval manuscript written 900 years ago that resembles a strange combination of romance novel, pickup artist manual, and incel manifesto. Annalisa Castaldo is a professor of English, core faculty in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and chair of the English department at Widener University. Annalisa is also an ordained Buddhist priest and member of Multiamory’s exclusive community.
Throughout this episode Annalisa discusses the origin of the book The Art of Courtly Love and the history behind it, and we explore how these medieval dating practices still influence our current modern dating and the problematic courtly rituals so many of our traditions stem from.
Annalisa discusses the following points with us during this episode and we chat about what they mean, both past and present.
"We declare and we hold as firmly established that love cannot exert its powers between two people who are married to each other. For lovers give each other everything freely, under no compulsion of necessity, but married people are in duty bound to give in to each other's desires and deny themselves to each other in nothing." (p. 106, The Art of Courtly Love)
“Real” love requires freedom and choice, but marriage is an obligation, therefore love cannot exist in a marriage.
Modern parallel: How do we still separate romantic love from committed partnership? NRE vs. long-term love?
Women have only one power: saying yes or no. They are not permitted to pursue and must be passive beyond their one power.
Modern parallels: Who texts first? Who proposes first? How does gender affect dating dynamics?
"Love causes a rough and uncouth man to be distinguished for his handsomeness; it can endow a man even of the humblest birth with nobility of character." (p. 31)
Men need love to become better people, but women don’t need this ennobling effect because they are already moral gatekeepers.
Modern parallels: The “she makes me want to be a better man” trope. This sets women up as rehabilitation centers for men.
The Suffering and Obsession Rules
"That love is suffering is easy to see, for before the love becomes equally balanced on both sides there is no torment greater, since the lover is always in fear that his love may not gain its desire." (p. 28)
A few of the rules we discuss in this section are:
Rule XXX: "A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved."
Rule XXIII: "He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little."
Additionally:
Is this NRE or unhealthy obsession?
The romanticism of suffering for love - still prevalent today?
How this normalizes anxiety as "true love.”
The Strategic Rules: Medieval Dating Games
Key rules in this section:
Rule XIII: "When made public love rarely endures."
Rule XIV: "The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized."
Rule XXI: "Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love."
Discussion points:
Playing hard to get - timeless or toxic?
The secrecy rule vs. modern "soft launching" relationships.
Jealousy as proof of love - how this enables controlling behavior.
The Medieval PUA Scripts
Class-based approach system:
Different dialogues for different class combinations.
Scripts include anticipated objections and counterarguments.
Example: Middle-class man approaching noblewoman vs. peasant woman.
"If you should, by some chance, fall in love with some of their women [peasants], be careful to puff them up with lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to take what you seek and to embrace them by force." (p. 150)
Discussion points:
Direct line to modern PUA culture and "negging."
The idea that different "types" of women need different approaches.
Class/status anxiety in modern dating (i.e. out of someone’s league).
The Manipulation Through Fear: The Afterlife Fairy Tale
This story is from pages 73 to 82 in The Art of Courtly Love. It’s summarized as:
Man tells woman a tale of visiting the afterlife.
Women who reject all lovers are tortured on thorns.
Women who accept too many lovers are overwhelmed with unwanted service.
Only women who accept the "right" amount of lovers are rewarded.
Discussion points:
Using fear and shame to control women's choices.
Modern versions/parallels: "You'll die alone with cats" or "hitting the wall."
The impossible balance women must strike.
Medieval incels
In this medieval text, the author, Andreas Capellanus, teaches men how to “win” at love, then turns around and declares that it’s all terrible and women are evil.
"No woman ever loved a man or could bind herself to a lover in the mutual bonds of love. For a woman's desire is to get rich through love, but not to give her lover the solaces that please him." (p. 200)
Lists of women’s “flaws” go on for pages, from page 201 to 209, listing women as "greedy, envious, slanderous, slaves to their belly, inconstant, fickle, disobedient, proud, vain, liars, drunkards, gossips.”
Incel Playbook, Medieval Edition
Familiar key arguments in this section:
Women only want money/resources (medieval "gold diggers").
Women are incapable of real love.
Women are naturally deceptive.
Nice guys finish last (good men are rejected for wealthy ones).
Discussion points:
The "red pill" isn't new - this is 900 years old.
It has the same structure as the modern manosphere: "Here's how to get women" followed by "actually, women are terrible"
The Madonna/whore complex in full display.
Some points for critical analysis:
These aren't "timeless truths" about love - they're constructed rules from a specific time/place.
We still see these exact patterns in modern dating.
Understanding the source helps us question what we assume is "natural."
We can choose which traditions to keep and which to abandon.
To wrap up our conversation with Annalisa, we touch on the following points:
Which of these medieval ideas still serve us? Do any of them?
Which ones are we ready to let go of?
How do we create new "rules" based on equity and genuine connection?
What would Andreas think of modern polyamory?