Andreas Capellanus was the twelfth century author of a treatise commonly titled De amore ("About Love"), also known as De arte honeste amandi, for which a possible English translation is The Skill of Loving Virtuously. His real identity has never been determined, but has been a matter of extended academic debate. Andreas Capellanus is sometimes known by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain. Background De Amore was written sometime between 1186 and 1190. Its structure and content borrow heavily from Ovid's Ars amatoria. It was most likely intended for the French court of Philip Augustus. It has been supposed to have been written in 1185 at the request of Marie de Champagne, daughter of King Louis VII of France and of Eleanor of Aquitaine. A dismissive allusion in the text to the "wealth of Hungary" has suggested the hypothesis that it was written after 1184, at the time when Bela III of Hungary had sent to the French court a statement of his income and had proposed marriage to Marie's sister Marguerite of France, but before 1186, when his proposal was accepted. John Jay Parry, who edited De Amore, has described it as "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explains the secret of a civilization." It may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive; in any event it preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in Western literature. The social system of "courtly love", as gradually elaborated by the Provençal troubadours from the mid twelfth-century, soon spread. It is often associated with Eleanor of Aquitaine (herself the granddaughter of an early troubadour poet, William IX of Aquitaine), but this link has never been verified. It has been proposed that De Amore codifies the social and sexual life of Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1169 and 1174 because the author mentions both Eleanor and her daughter Marie by name; but there is no evidence that Marie ever saw her mother again after Eleanor's divorce from Louis VII in 1152. Outline of De Amore The work deals with several specific themes that were the subject of poetical debate among late twelfth century troubadours and trobairitz. The basic conception of Capellanus is that courtly love ennobles both the lover and the beloved, provided that certain codes of behaviour are respected. De amore describes