In the Middle Ages, love might be defined in various ways. From a religious perspective, the term was synonymous with voluntas, charity, and dedication to one’s neighbor. This type of love was defended in biblical texts and in moralizing literature.
But love might also be defined as passion or “eros”, the result of the idealization of the loved person.
A manual on love in the 12th century
The association of love as passion is already found in Of lovewritten by Andreas Capellanus, in the 12th century. It is a scientific and practical treatise that describes the rules to follow in romantic relationships.
In it, love is defined as an innate passion, which comes from the contemplation of beauty and an excessive thought of the form of the loved person.
Capellanus classifies love into different types: true lovebetween people of equal social rank; the vulgar lovewhich would be the carnal; the impossible love and the dishonest loveThe author condemns this last type of love, contrary to moral precepts.
The book influenced all medieval literature, medicine and society. And it also established the idea that the love was a disease, based on the theory of the four bodily humors. Health was maintained when these humors (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile) were balanced.
The doctors’ vision
The physician Constantine Africanus, in his translation of a treatise on melancholy, established a direct connection between excess of black bile and lovesickness.
The cause of the disease was an excess of black bile, which explained the association of “love” with “amaro” (bitter). According to him, this disease affected the brain and might cause intense thoughts and worries in the lover.
Along the same lines, Boissier de Sauvages’ thesis related the disease of love with melancholy.
According to Lily of Medicine According to Bernardo De Gordonio, the cause of the disease was the “women’s love” and might cause the death of the patient. It was understood that the man became obsessed with images of his beloved and stored them in his brain.
In this circumstance, body temperature, blood flow and sexual desire increased. Gordonius explained the symptoms in his manual, which included yellowing of the skin, insomnia, lack of appetite, constant sadness due to the absence of the beloved, etc.
This state was considered a disease called love heirs O sickness of love
Arnau de Vilanova, a medieval physician, attributed this disorder to a misjudgment of the “thoughtful memory”, located in the brain. The result was an increase in temperature, caused by the anticipation of sexual pleasure at the cerebral level.
According to him A dramatist of philosophy by Guillem de Conches, and later also according to Gordonio, The brain was divided into three compartments.
The first, located at the top of the forehead, contained the sensory virtue. The second, behind the forehead, contained the sensory consciousness, where the patient judged the images as positive or negative. The third compartment, located below the lower part of the neck, contained the sensory memory, which acted as a computerized image archive.
The man, a candidate to idealize the image of his beloved, saw altered imaginative function.
The disease of love in literature
Love as a disease is a constant in the literary texts of the time. Lucretius, in the Naturededicates book IV to the theme of love, and considers it a very dangerous disease for mental balance of the human being.
Garcilaso de la Vega describes the disease of love as a condition that can lead to madness and death. In his sonnet XIV he explains how his passionate love has dragged him into despair, where he can find neither rest nor peace.
The disease is seen in well-known characters in literature. The Book of Good Love of the Archpriest of Hita It highlights the struggle between the Christian spirit of God’s love and the “crazy love” that consumes the lover.
In The Corbacho The Archpriest of Talavera describes “crazy love” as the direct cause of mental alienation and even death.
In the Prison of Love by Diego de San Pedro The protagonist, Leriano, is an example of the “sickness of love.” He suffers from a deep love passion for Laureola and as a result loses his appetite and sleep, to the point of being on the verge of death.
In The CelestineCalisto, sick with love, manifests an excessive sexual desire that leads him to amorous madness. Until Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes His ultimate goal is for his beloved Dulcinea to know the extent of his passion.
Also the protagonist Tirant, in the Tirant lo Blanch Joanot Martorell, suffered from the “illness of love”. While he was suffering for Carmesina, he had a lack of appetite, insomnia, crying and sighs. Likewise, in the mirror by Jaume Roigthe wise Solomon diagnosed the protagonist in dreams as having hereos love due to an excessive passionate love.
Was there a cure for lovesickness?
The cure of the disease included a double recommendation: diet and moral disciplineThe mandatory diet consisted of Avoid drinking wine, red meat, milk, eggs, legumes and red-colored foods.
The reason for prohibiting these foods was that they incited the movement of blood and sexual desire. The lovesick person had to Eat white meat, fish, and drink water or vinegarIt was also necessary to sweat and take a bath before eating.
In addition to diet, it was recommended mastering carnal impulses To subdue the will: placing a cold iron plate on the kidneys – the organ in which desire was considered to reside –, sleeping on a pillow with nettles, bathing in cold water, etc.
With this entire program of treating love as a disease, it was concluded that the main cause of all evils was letting oneself be carried away by carnal instincts.
A virtuous lifefar from excessive passion, allowed harmony between body and soul to be achieved.
After all, hereos love might cause physical death. and, even worse, the damnation of the soul.
*Anna Peirats, IVEMIR-UCV, Catholic University of Valencia, Spain
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is reproduced here under a creative commons license. Click here to read the original version.
#time #love #considered #synonymous #illness #recommended #cure
