The thesis is a contribution to the social history of the Middle Ages. It investigates a phenomenon called courtly love, fully expressed at the noble court through an analysis of Thomas Malory's and Chrètien de Troyes' Arthurian romances, letters of Christine de Pisan and auxiliary sources. Its origin and expressions in a period literature, mostly of southern France, its inspirational sources and a continuation of Celtic folklore tradition is discussed in the initial chapters. The next part deals with individual forms of the courtly love and their effects on a gender relationship in a knightly class. The actual activity of a medieval woman and her opportunity to participate in public, ascribed social roles and a development of a masculine view is discussed in following chapters. The final part is engaged in a falling of a knightly ideal as well as a significance of the knight and his dame.

1./1 Courtly Love in the context of ludic elements of courtly culture (Cantigas de Santa Maria and the troubadour chansonnier R) Matouš Jaluška Abstract Dissertation Courtly Love in the context of ludic elements of courtly culture (Cantigas de Santa Maria and the troubadour chansonnier R) strives to refine on the common notion that the me- dieval courtly poetry is a kind of game. It is based in the tradition of thinking about playing, which is based on the essay Homo ludens of Johan Huizinga and continues through works of Roger Cailloise, Jacques Henriot and Eugen Fink to the current trend of Game Studies. Close reading of the authorities in the introductory chapter shows that each of them assigns an im- portant role to the notion of discontinuity or rupture that enables them to establish the game as a non-binding and safe world. The concept of troubadour poetic creation as a safe activity is explored in the second chapter based on the works of the two founding figures of the trouba- dour tradition, Guilhem de Peitieu ("the Count of Poitiers") and Marcabru. The comparison shows that the safety of troubadour poetry is closely connected with the idea of binding or non-binding language. Binding speech is strongly linked to the image of female power and the ability of women to breed offspring and thus to keep...