Character #2: High Romance Court Lady (late 1200s/early 1300s)

My second and final character fits the most dreamy princess fantasy of my childhood: The high romance period of chivalry! Anything that makes you think of the Knights of the Round Table, tournaments with jousting, and ladies as the object of supreme adoration…

Eleanor of Aquitaine and one of her daughters seem to have started, or at least greatly encouraged, the minstrels and poets of their day to write stories, poetry, and songs about these themes, and it inspired generations to come. They were so into this notion that both of Eleanor’s husbands got highly sick of it and even sent her to prison for a while over it.

This was in the period of the Crusades, and Chivalry, and right before the first plagues hit Europe. You can call it the height of feudalism, before there were many towns or much of a middle class. The Silk Road was a thing, so trading across Eurasia opened all new markets for fabrics and spices. Pilgrims traveling to the Middle East and back was a normal part of life. When people fantasize about the Medieval period, this is often what they imagine.

Two reasons for this are the notion of Chivalry, which was all about nobles and knights holding themselves to a higher standard of conduct than was normal before such rules were created– and the notion of Courtly Romance.

Courtly Romance was all about elevating women to be the supreme good in the world. It was about love that was before or beyond marriage, which was generally a business contract about land, goods, and status for both families. Love had nothing to do with it for most. But for the upper classes, love was considered for a time (and revived on the regular over the centuries) to be the most blessed state of all– with or without sex. Noble men and knights basically “showed off” their skills and went on quests to impress women, who would grant them a favor like a personal kerchief or a some other small token to show her approval.

This was radical in it’s time, rather like hippies were to the serious gray-clad drones of the 60s! LOVE as an ideal!? But for bored upper class women, it was a chance to feel special– as if they mattered in a world where for centuries they really didn’t. Venerating women as people to impress and win over was very threatening to the status quo of female humans as non-entities. It became wildly popular among not just women, but the younger generations of the time.

It inspired a whole new genre of fiction and art that stays with us to this day. Early 20th century to early 21st century songs are a revival of those ideals, although not as far as venerating women, just love in general– but it started WAY back hundreds of years ago. And I really love those stories, so why not have my second character come from that specific period?

Also–? Again it’s one bright spot for a female character where most women live lives of drudgery and servitude. Even in the upper classes, women generally were around to sate male lust and birth preferably male babies for their husbands. When the most interesting women with educations were all NUNS–?! What’s a cool, creative chick supposed to do?

Cat will be happy I think. The cooking character she wants to do will be from the same time period because her character is the child of pilgrims, which is how she’s going to be able to do the Middle Eastern cooking she wants to specialize in from the Middle Ages.

For my own Romantic character, I’ll be learning and teaching the court dances for the Dancing Guild– a branch of which I’ll have to start in the Barony of Dragon’s Laire because they don’t have one in my Barony yet! That’s for the future, but it fits this second character very well.

Okay– I have a plan now! Again, I just need names and garb and I am all set! (Though money, time, and effort are required for all of this, at least I have a positive focus for something fun to do.)