From Heloise and Abelard to Romeo and Juliet, Jean Verdon delivers an amusing yet highly serious survey of love.

In the Middle Ages, troubadours proposed an art to love. Literature spoke of love, but also sexuality, especially as the Arabs were culturally sophisticated when it came to love. Although passion proved unsettling to the Church, matrimony was held as a sacred bond. Kidnappings were staged for couples who refused to have children. Outside of wedlock, love reigned triumphant as well, as in St. Augustine's common-law marriage, or the passion of Romeo and Juliet… A medieval historian specializing in daily life, Jean Verdon deftly and subtly shows how humans truly experienced an emotion that somtimes imperiled body and soul alike.