Editing Eleanor of Aquitaine (section)

===== Courtly love, troubadours and the Golden Myth =====

Of all her influence on culture, Eleanor's time in Poitiers between 1168 and 1173 has been claimed to be the most critical, yet very little is actually known about it.{{sfn|Weir|2012|p=194}} Henry II was occupied with his own affairs after escorting Eleanor there.{{sfn|Weir|2012|p=170}} For a long time, writers dealing with this period stated that her court was a center of [[chivalry]] and the [[troubadour]] culture. This evolved further into the tradition that Eleanor presided alongside her eldest child, Marie of Champagne, over what became known as "The Court of Love", where [[courtly love]] thrived. While troubadours both attended her court and praised her, the Court of Love was a later literary invention. This emerged from a late 12th-century treatise known as ''The Art of Courtly Love'', or ''Tractatus de amore et de amoris remedio'' by [[Andreas Capellanus]],{{sfn|Black|2015|p=389}}{{sfn|Capellanus|1960}} which appeared long after the period of Eleanor's court in Poitiers, and is largely [[satirical]].{{sfn|Weir|2012|pp=174–175}}{{sfn|Boyle|2006|p=4, 18, 22}}{{sfn|Turner|2009|loc=cap 7}}

The ''Tractatus'' stated that Eleanor, together with her daughter Marie, [[Ermengarde of Narbonne]], [[Elisabeth, Countess of Vermandois|Isabelle of Vermandois]] and other ladies, would listen to the quarrels of lovers and act as a jury on questions of romantic love. He records some twenty-one cases, the most famous of them being a problem posed to the women about whether true love can exist in marriage. According to Capellanus, the women decided that it was not at all likely.{{sfn|Turner|2009|loc=cap 7}} There is no evidence for any of Capellanus' claims.{{sfn|Weir|2012|pp=175–176}}{{sfn|Kelly|1937}}{{sfn|Swabey|2004|pp=71–73}} Despite this, many popular accounts, such as the biography by Polly Schoyer Brooks, continue to give credence to it, at least as some sort of "parlor game".{{sfn|Brooks|1983|p=101ff}}

There is no evidence to the claim that Eleanor invented "courtly love", an expression that only appeared in the late nineteenth century.{{sfn|Turner|2009|loc=cap 7}} The concept of ''courtoisie'' (''amour courtois'', ''fin'amor'') was a set of attitudes regarding love associated with the courts and praised by troubadours that had begun to grow before Eleanor's Poitier period.{{sfn|Aurell|2007|pp=14–15}} What can be said, is that this ''fin'amor'' first appeared in the south in the early twelfth century, became popular and spread north, and that there were troubadours at Eleanor's court, such as [[Bernart de Ventadorn]] and [[Arnaut Guilhem de Marsan]], as at other Occitan courts. The rest is merely conjecture.{{sfn|Turner|2009|loc=cap 7}} The legend of a court of love has formed an important element in what has been referred to as the "Golden Myth" of Eleanor's life.{{sfn|Evans|2014|p=168}}{{sfn|Flori|2004|pp=239–272}}