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Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante, even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This seminar draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the “epic rap battles” of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Requirements include short weekly written responses, active participation in seminar discussions, and a longer final essay.