Sorry if this is too abstract, but it seems like most of the choices that people stress about, what job to go into, what religion to be, who to marry, where to live, whether to have kids, were mostly not there or at least a lot more limited. It also seems like the stress from choices is different then the stress of luck (will there be rain, will the army next door kill us, will I get sick).
I want to know if that stress was just placed on other decisions or if it just wasn't there to the degree we have now? Also when choice did start becoming a huge thing, what was the reaction?
One of the prevailing theories about the growth of courtly love and the romance genre from the 12th century on is that it is a direct response to a feeling by young aristocrats that they lacked agency or choice about their lives.
The 12th century sees the rise of primogenitor (the granting of land exclusively to the oldest child) which in turn results in the growth of a large class of young aristocrats with few prospects. This group is commonly referred to as the iuvenes or "youths" and much of their life was spent trying to parlay their martial and courtly skills into marriage in order to secure their future.
On the other side you have aristocratic young women who are largely lacking in agency, married to men, often times older, with little say in the matter.
Writers like Marie de France and Chretien de Troyes and the audience that they catered to thus engaged in a genre of fantasy designed to provide escapism from these real-world anxieties. Young women escape their loveless marriages in the arms of dashing young knights. Landless aristocrats find success through feats of arms and romantic ventures. And these stories and songs become immensely popular, especially because many of them are being performed in the vernacular. Alongside them elaborate "games" develop (though there is considerable debate about how "real" the courtly love games described by authors such as Andreas Capellanus are) which provide some release via performative mis-behaving and breaking of societal rules.
All of the authors I mentioned above are available in translation, and I'd particularly recommend Marie de France. Her lais are short, sweet and if you keep your eyes open you can really see how they respond to the anxiety of youthful aristocrats.
A follow-up and related question: how about young people in other parts of the world in this time period? I.e. South Asia, China, West Africa, South America?
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