If matrimonial love had not been questioned, the choice would have lain
between two alternatives: the canonisation of matrimony--an expedient
chosen by the Church--or a fusion of love and sexuality in our modern
sense. The first was a stage which humanity had left behind, for the
ideal of absolutely perfect and pure love had already been evolved, and
the world was not ripe for the second. The tendency of the rarest minds
was in the direction of a further idealisation of love, of freeing it
from all earthly shackles and bringing it nearer and nearer to heaven.
One of the early troubadours, Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaya, gave a
practical illustration to this feeling by falling in love with a lady
whom he had never seen. The story of his love was famous for centuries.
He loved a Countess of Tripoli, a Christian princess, and his whole soul
was filled with his imaginary picture of her. The _Provencal Biography_
relates that "he worshipped her for all the good the pilgrims had
narrated of her.
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