s inamorata.

At the famous Courts of Love, the most extraordinary questions were
seriously discussed and decided. A favourite subject for debate was the
relationship between love and marriage, and some of the decisions which
have been preserved for us prove without a doubt that those two great
factors in the emotional life were considered irreconcilable. At the
Court of the Viscountess Ermengarde of Narbonne, the question whether
the love between lovers was greater than the love between husband and
wife was settled as follows: "Nature and custom have erected an
insuperable barrier between conjugal affection and the love which
unites two lovers. It would be absurd to draw comparisons between two
things which have neither resemblance nor connection."

The contrast between the new, spiritualised love and the older, sexual,
instinct created that dualism so characteristic of the whole mediaeval
period. Sexuality and love were felt as two inimical forces, the fusion
of which was beyond the range of possibility. While on the one hand
woman was worshipped as a divine being, before whom all desire must be
silenced, she was on the other hand stigmatised as the devil's tool, a
power which turned men away from his higher mission and jeopardised the
salvation of his soul. Wagner portrayed this dualism perfectly in
_Tannhauser_. "A man of the Middle Ages," says Lucka, "would have
recognised in this magnificent work the tragedy of his soul."

It was but a small step from the worship of a beloved mistress to the
cult of the Virgin Mary. The Church, hostile at first, finally
acquiesced, and "through her official acknowledgment of a female deity,
open enmity between the religion of the Church and the religion of woman
was avoided." A woman, that is to say, the Virgin Mary, had stepped
between God and humanity as mediator, intercessor and saviour.

Both Dante, the inspired woman-worshipper of the Middle Ages, and the
more modern Goethe, saw in metaphysical love the triumph over all things
earthly. And far above either of these intellectual heroes looms the
awe-inspiring figure of Michelangelo, the scoffer, to whom love came
late in life; in his ecstatic adoration of Vittoria Colonna, the
enthusiasm of Plato and the passion of Dante are blended in a more
transcendent flame.

Sexual Mystics and the Brides of Christ present the darker aspect of
metaphysical love. All the latter, including even Catherine of Siena (a
clever politician wh