The Medieval Catalan Demandes d'amor

Abstract

Critical edition of the Catalan version of the demandes d'amor (c. 1400, ms 381 Carpentras), collated with their French counterparts. The demandes d'amours were courtly questionnaires used in social games. They were responsible for a process of courtly feedback in medieval literature, right up to the latest period: late medieval poetry drew on the casuistry of love which, appearing repeatedly in partimens and salon games, was distilled in the collections of demandes. A wide range of themes present in learned literature of love in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and in particular in debates of the joc partit type, were extracted in these demandes, which at the same time provided a thematic pretext for new literary discussions. In this unique Catalan collection (usually the demandes are written in French), the predominant types, as to the subject-matter, are conceptual questions, and those that call for the correct response in a hypothetical situation. On the other hand, requests for judgments of cases of love are here infrequent, and there are only two which ask for a personal confession.