The subject also found its theorists, prominent among whom was the court-chaplain Andreas, who wrote a very learned book on love in Latin.  He expressed in propositions and conclusions what the contemporary poets expressed in verse, proving thereby that spiritual love was not merely a poetic fiction but the profoundest belief of the period, supported by the full complement of its philosophical weapons.  “In the whole world there is no good and no courtliness outside the fountain of love.  Therefore love is the beginning and foundation of all good.”  He also proved that a noble-minded man must be a lover, for if he were not, he could not have attained virtue.  “Love disregards all barriers, and makes the man of low origin the equal and superior of the nobleman.”

This conception of spiritual nobility, which was later on perfected in the theory of the cor gentil, only existed in Provence and in Italy; it remained unknown in France and Germany.

Andreas drew a distinction between base love, the amor mixtus sive communis, and pure love, the amor purus.  “Love,” he maintained, fully agreeing with the poets, “gives to a man the strength of chastity, for he whose heart is brimming over with the love of a woman, cannot think of dallying with another, however beautiful she may be.”  He proved from substance and form that a man cannot love two women.  In the Leys d’Amors, a voluminous fourteenth-century Provencal treatise, largely a text-book of grammar and prosody, we read:  “And now lovers must be taught how to love; passionate lovers must be restrained, so that they may come to realise their evil and dishonourable desires.  No good troubadour, who is at the same time an honest lover, has ever abandoned himself to base sensuality and ignoble desires.”  The same author opined that a troubadour who asked his lady for a kiss, was committing an act of indecency.  On the other hand, Andreas was very broad-minded in drawing the line between both kinds of love, allowing kisses, and even more, in the case of true love. (The best troubadours disagree with him in this respect.)

A scholasticism of love, modelled on ecclesiastical scholasticism and substituting the beloved woman for the Deity, was gradually evolved.  Love, veneration, humility, hope, etc., were the sacrifices offered at her shrine.  She was full of grace and compassion, and was believed in as fervently as was God.  Some of the poets were animated by a curious ambition “to prove” their feelings with scholastic erudition, and more especially by the later, Italian, school, amore, cor gentil, valore, were conceived as substances, attributes, inherent qualities, etc.  The allegories of amore played a prominent part, and spoiled many a masterpiece.  The German poets steered clear of these absurdities, which even Dante did not escape.