The courtly ancestry of Amadis de Gaula

Drawing on the considerable amatory content of antique literature a mysterious group of poets known as the troubadours conceived in eleventh- and twelfth-century Languedoc an idealized vision of love which they called fin'amors. This new conception of love appeared in a society which conformed politically to feudalism in its most highly developed form, and socially to the ideal of chivalry. And while this society responded increasingly to the teachings of Christianity, rejection of its non-Christian origins surfaced in a general ambivalence in the treatment of sacred and profane material. The literary and social phenomenon which we study under the denomination of "courtly tradition" has resulted from the combination and development of elements from feudal chivalry, fin1amors and Christian doctrine: initially, troubadour poetry was inspired by chivalric models and, repeatedly thereafter by its reflection in chivalric literature. By the same token, chivalry was slowly stimulated and modified by its troubadouresque image. As fin'amors interacted with chivalry in social and moral forms which ranged from cortezia in the South to courtoisie in the North, the two ideals, under the constant influence of the Church, gradually merged into courtly chivalry — the term we find most appropriate for expressing a Christianized vernacular literature based on Southern amatory ideals and set in a chivalric framework. Courtly chivalry first appears in the Northern roman courtois, especially as it is developed by Chrétien de Troyes, who attempts to reconcile fin,amors with Christian matrimony. The spirit of the trouveres, especially the Christianizing tendencies of Chrétien, is best represented by the late thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose wherein we find the clearly developed concept of courtship as a prelude to marriage, an idea which will be emphasized by the revisers of Amadis de Gaula. Due to its extended period of composition (up to two hundred years), the Amadis constitutes an excellent example of the development of courtly tradition, that is, the manner in which the ideals of chivalry and fin1amors were combined and Christianized in the formation of courtly chivalry. Analysis of Amadis de Gaula leads us to two main conclusions: (1) based on abundant examples of knightly and troubadour concepts the work must be considered to be, in many ways, an amalgamation of the ideologies of chivalry and fin'amors; and (2) the several revisions of primitive versions of the Amadis (which probably revealed an early Christian conscience), especially the one by Rodriguez de Montalvo, became increasingly moralistic and concerned with the aims of Church doctrine. Proof of the second conclusion may be seen, especially, in the Christianization of various chivalric and troubadour topoi and in the implicit statement that romantic love, culminating in sexual conquest, is a prelude to Christian matrimony, and should be forgotten after the wedding rituals.