amor courtois

The Symbol of the Rose in The Middle Ages

Dec 7, 2025

Roses as Symbols

allegory in literature, amor courtois, courtly love, dante alighieri, Golden Rose Vatican, Guillaume de Lorris, history of the rose, medieval literature, Medieval symbolism, Middle Ages culture, Roman de la Rose, Rosa Mistica, spiritual symbolism, symbolism of the rose, Tellingroses

We’re in the year 1230, deep in the Middle Ages. In France, Guillaume de Lorris begins Le Roman de la Rose—a dreamlike allegory written decades before Dante’s Divina Commedia. In those times, people didn’t aspire to fame or influence. They aspired to spiritual perfection, to earning love as a form of inner completion. A true…