Dating Needs to Get Medieval Again

In this video, we explore the strange, intense world of medieval romance and compare it with the often soulless experience of modern dating. From courtly love and arranged marriages to TikTok thirst traps and dating apps, we trace how our attitudes toward love, marriage, and intimacy have changed—and what we might have lost along the way.

👑 Was medieval romance just horny nobles writing poems?
🛡 Did people actually marry for love in the Middle Ages?
💘 And what can we learn from their view of love today?

Timestamps
0:00 – Dating Today Is a Nightmare
0:36 – A 1950s Romance Sparks the Question
1:38 – How the Middle Ages Treated Love Seriously
2:00 – The Feudal Roots of Romance
2:54 – The Origins of Courtly Love
3:20 – Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Spread of Chivalric Love
3:38 – Nobles, Marriage, and Secret Affairs
5:00 – “The Art of Courtly Love” and Forbidden Desire
5:36 – Margery Brews and Real-Life Medieval Love Letters
6:31 – Romance Inside Arranged Marriages
6:54 – Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Real-Life Romance
7:26 – The “Power of Women” in Medieval Literature
7:47 – Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and Female Agency
9:15 – Was Medieval Romance Better Than Modern Dating?

💬 What do YOU think? Should we bring back medieval romance in the age of dating apps? Comment below!

📌 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and turn on notifications
🔔 For more videos on medieval history and long-winded rants on our modern soft serve lifestyle.

[brick]

I miss the days of meeting my wife while fetching water at the village well

[jaydoggy]

Similar to courtly love is "Love from afar" made famous by the troubadour Jaufré Rudel: the idea of falling in love with someone by virtue alone without even meeting them in person yet - it makes me think of online dating relationships for long periods of time before actually meeting in person. According to legend (which probably just a legend), he fell in love with Hodierna of Jerusalem, and it was reciprocal, only learning about each other by a pilgrim who kept traveling back and forth by boat. Finally Rudel made the journey, gets sick, and dies JUST as they met, but they both could know it was real. (d'aaww). This story's been made into a few plays, and there was a recent French opera by Kaija Saariaho based on it which is one of my favourites.

[gregharn]

Tbf, modern dating IS silly. Everybody's so scared to be honest. Shit's wild to watch.

[hans]

There are three massive upsides in Medieval dating.
1. The fact that legal divorce wasn't a thing, so you had to work things out somewhat pragmatically and didn't have the danger of losing half your lands and titles in divorce court.
2. It actually makes sense to have parents or a guardian involved in the whole process (goes for the commonfolk and nobility), because you just don't love-drunkenly run into a toxic relationship like people do today when your parents, who know you well and are (most often) well-meaning, have a say in it. This actually persisted into the modern age in some cases, my grandfather for example had to ask my great-grandfather permission to date and later marry my grandmother.
3. The fact that your dating pool was quite limited and local made things easier. In many cases you would know almost your entire dating pool from childhood, so the problem of an overflow of options (which is the main problem with dating apps) wasn't a thing for most people.

[jozinzbazin]

Your channel deserves more views and attention for these lectures. I wish it'll grow.

[ArrowheadHistory]

I totally thought this was like a huge channel. Your production quality is amazing!

[Rivershield]

From a societal/civilizational perspercive, I see no advantajes in modern dating compared to medieval "dating". That kind of configuration was clearly better optimized for the formation of stable families.

[Visigoth_]

It is Ture: The *"Simp"* and the *"Goddess"* are ancient archetypes...

The difference though...

*Then:* The Archetypes were warnings!

*Now:* They're corrupt "ideals."

[theonewhospins]

Hey, I love your content! You're the kind of channel that ca n actually teach me to apply some things from history to my life 🙏I totally share your beliefs and think that the modern world can learn a lot from our medieval ancestors, and for me particularly - I'd love to see people dressing up like it's the 14th century or at least normalize it! God Bless!

[i.b.]

I like the original of Tristan and Iseult, because they kinda have a modern love. After he tricks her into coming with him they accidentilly drink a love potion and fall passionatly "in love" with each other. The maid finds them "looking into the distance" (and not looking at each other.) You don't get the feeling, they even like each other, both cheat, both can't bear the other happy without them being in the picture, and both destroy their very real, very good relationships with someone they can be with. Future generations interpreted them as "star crossed lovers" because she was engaged to someone else and he was bound by oath to that someone else, but the original shows quite clearly, that their love is artificial, not for the other person, but the idea of the other person (looking dazed into the distance instead of at each other) and clearly unhealthy and destructive.

[daniellamunoz]

I love all your videos! I know of the subjects too but instead of being nitpicky I want to gush about the subjects even more when I watch your channel!

[jahirareyes]

hmm :( people always mention the medieval era but of it only from the 1100s-1300s .It seems anytime before the 1000s is forgotten in terms of relationships before that point is either ignored or overlooked..

[Beatrice.Lieberman]

It’s hurts to think of life without my boyfriend, I never imagined it would get to this point where I would let go. I know im not supposed to write this here but I’m gradually loosing myself and I don’t know what to do. I’m still holding unto the beautiful moments we shared and I hope that he finds happiness.

[TheLonestarofTexas]

Just some comments from a Catholic here who knows what they’re talking about because the video can be misleading about this kind of thing, it should be noted that marriage for anyone of any class was, and of course still is, always considered one of the seven sacraments. You can find writings from the most renowned theologians pertaining to this matter, for one from the medieval time period, you can look to the Church’s most famous and greatest theologian ever, St. Thomas Aquinas, but of course, as I said, this was not a medieval innovation, marriage was always a sacrament. It is true that in certain ways, just like all of the other sacraments, more formal prayers and developments of the sacrament’s execution were refined, but it doesn’t mean that marriage was somehow informal or not practiced by the lower class of Cristian layman.

[nughty_knight]

I've been researching the origins of romance during the medieval period and I've come to the conclusion that their courtship practices were based on Gnostic teachings from southern France. This is why many poems and stories are dedicated to unattainable love which was considered the purest among Gnostics because there was no physical intimacy and thus the body was unpolluted by the material world. Many medieval stories are have this theme where the knight idealizes a princess despite her already being married.

[Visigoth_]

*History's Warning:*

Even when language appears noble or poetic, the subtle framing—placing the Masculine in a reactive or secondary position—is an inversion. It’s a quiet form of gynocentric programming, where even Masculine agency is defined in terms of the Feminine: responding to Her, contextualized by Her, orbiting Her.

That inversion is everywhere in the modern corpus:

"She inspires, he protects." → he serves her.

"Behind every great Man is a great Woman." → he exists because of her.

"Happy wife, happy life." → his virtue is submission.

Even the ideal of Chivalry—once oriented toward Honor and Virtue—was corrupted into "courtly love" replacing the Grail Quest with worship of the Feminine:
Not the sacred, but the seductive.
Not God, but the goddess.
-
Stop "defaulting the rightful place of The Masculine as a response to The Feminine" (this is an inversion of the rightly Order.).
*Man is not a reaction. He is a standard.*

Do not default the Masculine to second place.
That is the lie of the modern world.
And the death of every civilization that believed it:
Men "Lead the way" (set the boundaries; establish and maintain Order: The Feminine follows and Women benefit from this and thrive with fertility.).

[MahmudHasan-me]

Don't know about medieval times(haven’t watched the video yet) but I think we can unanimously agree modern dating sucks.

[ProfRedPill]

Thy mead tis ne worth thy pressen. Lol 😎🍿

Modern English: The Juice is not worth the Squeeze.

[gabrieljordan]

No one was confused about their gender either.

[Moribus_Artibus]

Apparently you never heard of all the trashy raunchiness that would happen in Constantinople and Venice