Chivalry Game: How to negotiate desire.

What we commonly know as chivalry and what literary scholars call courtly love has two aspects.  One is a religious/moral philosophy, and the other is a method of seduction (game).  To date I’ve been focusing on the religious/moral side, but today I’ll touch on the game side.  On the game side chivalry is all about what Rollo calls negotiating desire (LSFW).  From Harvard’s page on De Amore (1184-86):

[Since love is often acquired by fluency in speech, Andreas next provides his readers with a series of sample dialogues, suitable to the various classes — plebian (gentry), noble, and most noble.]

First Dialogue
A plebian (gentleman) speaks with a woman of the same class.

[He greets his lady and praises her beauty; she replies that he is trying to flatter her, since she is not beautiful:]
The woman says: Your words seem to be false, since I do not have a beautiful figure. Yet you extol me as more beautiful than other women.

The man says: The custom of the wise is never to praise their own beauty . . . And if you think yourself not beautiful, then you should consider me a true lover, since your beauty seems to me to be greater than that of all other women; love makes even an ugly woman seem beautiful to her lover. . .

The woman says: Although, your virtue is greatly to be praised, I am young and I shudder at the thought of the embraces of old men.

The man says: Certainly old age is not to be blamed . . . [ he explains that his many years have enabled him to do more noble deeds than would be possible for a young man.]

Third Dialogue
A plebian (gentleman) speaks with a woman of the higher nobility

The man says: If a man of the middle class seeks to join himself in love with a women of the higher nobility, he ought to have a multitude of good qualities, for in order for a lower-born man to be worthy to seek the love of a higher born woman, he should be filled with inumerable good qualities, and an infinite number of good deeds should extol him. . . .

. . . Thus if, after a long period of proof, he is found worthy of love, a woman of the higher nobility may choose a plebian (gentlemen) as her lover. . .

[A sample dialogue is given; the man begs the lady to accept his service as a lover. The lady says that she is not pleased that he ranks so far beneath her.]

See the rest at the link above.

See Also: 

• Why he won’t hear it.
• The chivalric rules of love.