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With regard to the question recently posed concerning Aelred of Rievaulx, I wonder if the list member is acquainted with C. Stephen Jaeger's _Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility_ (UPennP, 1999) recently reviewed in _Speculum_. The book may touch on some of your concerns about friendship/love in Aelred's time. Jaeger "refers to love principally as ennobling performance" and "denies that in their time, [this type of love] would necessarily have been considered sexual." The reviewer continues: "A central chapter...compares, too, the court context and the monastery with respect, especially, to texts on male-male love and friendship in which modern readers might (mis)interpret signs of passionate intimacy to indicate not sublime love but sexual desire or activity." Jaeger compares Aelred's _Spiritual Friednship_ with Capellanus's _De amore_, but just might touch on Cicero and - who knows - perhaps even Aristotle. Bonne chance, MG __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/