What is the office of the duly ordained soldiery? To defend the Church, to assail infidelity, to venerate the priesthood, to protect the poor from injuries, to pacify the province, to pour out their blood for their brothers, and., if need be, to lay down their lives. The high praises of God are in their throat, and two-edged swords are in their hands to execute punishment on the nations and rebuke upon the peoples, and to bind their kings in chains and their nobles in links of iron.
But to what end? That they may serve vanity, avarice, or their own self-will? No. Rather to the end that they may execute the judgment committed to them, wherein each follows not his own will but the deliberate decision of God, the angels, and men, in accordance with equity and the public utility.... Soldiers that do these things are 11saints," and are the more loyal to their prince in proportion as they zealously keep the faith in God; and they advance the honour of their own valour as they seek in all things the glory of God.
What is required of a good knight? That he should be noble. What means noble and nobility? That the heart should be governed by the virtues. By what virtues? The virtuous knight should be wary and prudent, just in the doing of justice, continent and temperate, enduring and courageous; and withal he must have great faith in God, hope at His glory, and finally he must have charity and the love of his neighbor.
Of what profit is a good knight? I tell you that through good knights is the king and the kingdom honoured, protected, feared, and defended.... I tell you that without good knights, the king is like a man who has neither feet nor hands.
Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love's precepts in the other's embrace.
1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
2. He who is not jealous cannot love.
4. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
6. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
7. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the
survivor.
9. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of
love.
11. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to
seek to marry.
12. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his
beloved.
13. When made public, love rarely endures.
14. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty
makes it prized.
15. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his
beloved.
16. A lover's heart palpitates when he catches sight of his
beloved.
17. A new love puts to flight an old one.
19. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
20. A man in love is always apprehensive.
21. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
23. He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very
little.
25. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will
please his beloved.
23. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
30. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by
the thought of his beloved.
31. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by
two women.
from: The Portable Medieval Reader, eds. J. B. Ross & M.M. McLaughlin (Penguin, 1949)