Between Mercy and Lechery: The Courtly Love Codex in Spanish Literature of the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

Throughout the entire Christian Middle Ages the concept of love is torn between two extremes arising from the basic contradiction between body and soul and the condemnation of sexuality based on it: love is either one of the highest virtues or a deadly sin. In literature, the resolving of the conflict between spiritual longing and physical lust reached pinnacle in the specific concept of love relationship between man and woman in the lyric of the troubadour style. – In Spain of the fifteenth century, the genuine “troubadouresque ambience” reached full swing and declined in conventions of the courtly codex which permeate the cancionero poetry as well as the sentimental novel and are masterfully exposed and parodied in Celestina (1499), a novel in dialogue by Fernando de Rojas. Our contribution is focused on the ambiguous role of mercy (pietas) being the element which determines the disentanglement of love process. This emotional attitude, most often expressed in the Christian context since Christianity makes an appeal to believers to be compassionate towards the suffering and dead Christ and therefore expect Him to be merciful towards them, is also appealed by a courtly lover in addressing his beloved one. In this perspective, the courtly etiquette followed the Christian teaching and demanded acts of mercy from a lady, however, on condition that a man would not betray her trust. Furthermore, the selected examples of literary works show how the abundantly ambiguous metaphoric of mercy in the dialogue between the two potential lovers more or less intentionally opens up a wide area of interpretations among which the first place is taken by salacious urges of both participants.