Editing Courtly love (section)

===Real-world practice===
A continued point of controversy is whether courtly love was purely literary or was actually practiced in real life. There are no historical records that offer evidence of its presence in reality. Historian [[John F. Benton]] found no documentary evidence in law codes, court cases, chronicles or other historical documents.<ref name="John Benton">{{cite journal |first=John F. |last=Benton |author-link=John F. Benton |title=The Evidence for Andreas Capellanus Re-examined Again |journal=Studies in Philology |volume=59 |number=3 |date=1962 |pages=471–478 |jstor=4173386 |jstor-access=free}}; and {{cite journal |first=John F. |last=Benton |title=The Court of Champagne as a Literary Center |journal=Speculum |volume=36 |number=4 |year=1961 |pages=551–591 |doi=10.2307/2856785 |jstor=2856785 |jstor-access=free}}</ref> However, the existence of the non-fiction genre of [[courtesy book]]s is perhaps evidence for its practice. For example, according to [[Christine de Pizan]]'s courtesy book ''Book of the Three Virtues'' (c. 1405), which expresses disapproval of courtly love, the convention was being used to justify and cover up illicit love affairs. [[Philip the Good|Philip le Bon]], in his ''[[Feast of the Pheasant]]'' in 1454, relied on [[parable]]s drawn from courtly love to incite his nobles to swear to participate in an anticipated crusade, while well into the 15th century numerous actual political and social conventions were largely based on the formulas dictated by the "rules" of courtly love.{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}}