The REAL Medieval Marriage

Within the BBC documentary, “Medieval Marriages”, it is easily shown that the marriages during Marie de France’s time truly and completely conflict with and do not match the characteristics and ideals of courtly love. Marriages were not necessarily forced at any point in this time period (as arranged marriages are), but they were commonly set up and approved by the friends, family, and church of the two involved. Without all of these approvals the marriage would be considered informal and then invalid. This is where courtly love comes into play.

Even though courtly love is meant to be non-sexual and all of those factors are not involved in the situations, it still established the idea that the Hero-Knight claims his love for a married woman (and/or forbidden woman) and pronounces that he wants to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. That claim itself is an informal marriage. It would not hold up to the families involved or the church in real life.

Marie de France’s courtly love clearly takes a truly romantic view of love, marriage, and knightly ideals, but they happen to be incredibly false. It is clear from so many angles that, no matter who you are, the church had quite some power over you and any marriage that took place. The idea that everyone married anyone they wanted to, and that a knight would be allowed to win a forbidden lady, is way out in left field. It would not have happened like that. Marie de France does try incredibly hard to twist the classic story into a more human and real life version, the basis of the entire genre is set in fantasy and that’s hard to get away from. She does not use any true supernatural occurrences and focuses more on the idea of coincidence and karma to make the story more relatable, but it’s still not a clear idea of what romance was back then. Real marriages and courtly love are in two different ballparks all together.

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