For true love joins the hearts of two persons with so great a feeling of delight that they cannot desire to embrace anybody else; on the contrary they take care to avoid the solaces of everybody else as though they were horrible things, and they keep themselves for each other.

Andreas Capellanus (Capellanus meaning "chaplain") was the 12th-century author of a treatise commonly known as De amore ("About Love") and often known in English somewhat misleadingly as The Art of Courtly Love though its realistic somewhat cynical tone suggests that it is in some measure an antidote to courtly love. Little is known of Andreas Capellanus's life but he is presumed to have been a courtier of Marie of Troyes and probably of French origin; he is sometimes known by a French translation of his name André le Chapelain.