This work is situated within the history of ideas, feelings, and mentalities of the 15th and 16th centuries in Germany. The corpus, linking Mélusine (1456) by Thüring von Ringoltingen and Maguelonne (1527) by Veit Warbeck to Galmy (1535) and Gabriotto (1555) by Jörg Wickram, as well as to the translation of the Ethiopics (1556) by Jean Zschorn, allows for tracing, through the analysis of these five representative novels, the evolution of the concept of love during the pivotal period marking the transition from the Italian Renaissance to the Reformation.

Each novel is approached according to three paradigms. First, a historical and positivist approach contrasts the concept of physical love conveyed by romantic fiction with the customs of the time. The interpretation of the second parameter, romantic feeling, takes into account the confessional and philosophical dimension of the novels, whether it be Neoplatonism, Protestantism, or Neostoicism, as well as their own aesthetics through the study of love discourse and narrative strategies.

Finally, marriage, representing the third element, is situated within a legal framework where diachronic analysis attempts to trace the institutionalization of love. The use of a methodology that favors the versatility of literary theories is a way to address the problematic and aesthetic complexity of the subject.