Courtly Love

Courtly Love
by Harris Bin Munawar
On Love & Courtly Love:
According to Andrew the Chaplain, the founder of the formal doctrine of courtly love, "Love is an inborn suffering proceeding from the sight and immoderate thought upon the beauty of the other sex, for which cause above all other things one wishes to embrace the other and, by common assent, in this embrace to fulfill the commandments of love."1
Indeed for many centuries in the Middle Ages and earlier, probably since the time of the ancient Greeks, love has been known to be a physical and mental affliction.2 Interestingly,…