Caveats of the Arabic/Courtly Thesis from G.A. Bond

In his essay “Origins,” Gerald Bond largely unseats the theory that the distinctives of fin’amor arose from Arabic influence. This thesis has been fairly popular and has attracted a good deal of scholarly attention(beginning perhaps with A.J. Denomy who attributed a possible influence to Avicenna and co.) and Bond deals with both the attraction to this thesis and its caveats.

Speaking of the attractions to the thesis, he writes:

“The Court culture of eleventh-century Arabic Spain was by all accounts brilliant, sophisticated, and particularly interested in artistic creation. Furthermore, secular as well as mystical love was a frequent topic of both lyric and didactic works; theories of profane love had been well worked out before 1100. Motifs (such as the need for secrecy), styles (such as difficult composition), and concepts (such as the raqib or “guard”) similar or identical to those of troubadour poetry appear in the amorous verse of Muslim Spain. Reading such parallels as proof of influence, many scholars have asserted that the troubadours derived their main impulses from Arabic sources.(Boase 62-75; Menocal)”

But for it’s difficulties he has this to say:

“It is certainly possible that the Muslim culture exerted a general influence on such areas as chivalry and courtliness(Nelli) and perhaps even on the social role of versemaking. This general and passive influence would have been the routine result of the interactions between the cultures brought about by the various activities of the Christian courts of Northern Spain, which became increasingly powerful and wealthy as the eleventh century progressed. But specific and willful influences are less easily accepted.”

More specifically, Bond, goes on to address the three main caveats:

1) They(Spanish/Arabic sources) would have had to have been assimilated by Occitan courts already by the time the first known troubadour began writing in the early years of the twelfth century.

2)While there was very little interaction between the courts, most of the “interaction” was due to the very successful and lucrative(to the Spanish) invasions – thereby, as Bond puts it: “hardly conducive to imitation.”

3) Perhaps most importantly(which is fairly important if it is more important that “there was no communication between Occitan and Arabic culture…”) is that “even the most lettered among the troubadours(especially the early ones) did not understand Arabic, and nothing is known to have been translated.”

Gerald A. Bond, Origins. from: Akehurst, F., and Judith Davis. A Handbook of the Troubadours. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. pg. 242-43.