Courtly love was a unique concept of love in late medieval Europe,and it was also an important cultural phenomenon.Courtly love embraced many characteristics different from the idea of normal marriage of middle ages and also from that of today.The basement of this love was inequality;the aim of this love was not marriage;and this kind of love was strongly influenced by the viewpoint of fealty,similar to the fealty of homager to seignior.The love didn’t originate from the poets of troubadours but from a series of social changes in Europe.The formation of big courts created a peace environmetn,in which the noblewomen played important roles in sociality;the knights were taught to respect noblewomen from childhood;since crusade,the worship of Mary became popular in the West,she turned into the ideal of woman.All the factors contributed to the formation of courtly love.As a cultural phenomenon,courtly love had great impacts.It emphasized affection that was short in medieval marriage,contributed to the formation of etiquette system in noble class and provided women with the opportunity to enhance their social positions.Even today we can still feel the force of courtly love in everyday life.
