The most important single book about Courtly Love (“fin amor”, romantic love, perfect love) is probably the book, in three sections, called De Amore [About Love]. The author is Andreas Capellanus, or “Andy the Chaplain”. About Love was probably written around 1170 A.D. The most widely quoted parts of the book are the thirty-one “rules of courtly love”, which give a kind of summary of the whole doctrine of courtly love.
1. Being married is not a good excuse for not falling in love.
2. The lover is always jealous; no jealousy, no true love.
3. A person cannot be bound by two loves (i.e. you can love – in the way of courtly love – only one person at a time).
4. It has been noticed that love is either increasing, or decreasing (i.e. it never stands still).
5. The lover never really enjoys something that he or she gets from, or does with, his or her lover unless the lover really wants it, too.
6. A man cannot ordinarily love before the age of puberty.
7. When one lover dies, the other lover should keep a two year period of mourning.
8. A person should not say “no” to his or her lover except for the most powerful reason.
9. A person cannot love unless the power of love drives him or her to it (i.e. falling in love – in courtly love – is not something that a person decides to do, or wills doing: it’s something that happens to the person).
10. If a person is too concerned about money, love usually does not visit the person’s house.
11. A person should not love someone whom he or she would be ashamed to marry.
12. The lover does not want to hold in passionate embrace anyone, except his beloved.
13. If a love is not kept secret – if everybody finds out about it – the love rarely lasts long.
14. Love: if you think you can have it easily, you won’t want it so much; but if you think it will be hard, or impossible, to get, you’ll want it very badly.
15. Whenever the beloved walks into the room, the lover turns pale.
16. When a lover, not expecting to, suddenly sees his or her beloved, his (or her) heart will jump in his or her breast.
17. A new love drives out the old love.
18. Only persons of good character are worthy of love.
19. If the force of a love starts to weaken, it will most likely die quickly; in such a case, love rarely recovers.
20. The person in love is always shy and full of fear.
21. The power of love is always increased by true jealousy.
22. If a lover is seized by some suspicion of the beloved, the lover’s jealousy and the power of lover over the lover will be increased.
23. A person who is troubled by the thought of love does not sleep much or eat much.
24. No matter what the lover is doing, he or she always finished by thinking of the beloved.
25. If it’s not something to please the beloved, the real lover doesn’t think it’s any good.
26. Love can deny nothing to love.
27. The lover will never get tired of the satisfactions which the beloved gives him or her.
28. If the beloved should ever seem to take the lover lightly, the lover will immediately begin to suspect bad things of him or her.
29. If a person has too much sexual desire, that person will usually not have the experience of courtly love.
30. The true lover always works hard to hold in his or her mind the image of the beloved.
31. In courtly love, one woman may be loved by two men at the same time, as may one man by two women [but the or she cannot love both in return].
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