Courtly Love 101: The Medieval Dating Manual That Shaped Anne Boleyn

Series One: How to Catch a King — Before Anne Boleyn, There Was Courtly Love

Before Anne Boleyn captivated Henry VIII, medieval courts were already obsessed with romantic performance.

Courtly love — shaped by figures like Eleanor of Aquitaine and immortalized in Arthurian legends — taught nobles how to desire. Knights proved devotion. Ladies remained distant. Power lived in restraint.

By the 1520s, this chivalric culture thrived in the Tudor court.

Anne didn’t invent the game.

She mastered it.