In one of her most famous treatises, The Book of
the City of Ladies, the French “feminist” writer
Christine de Pizan (1364–1429 or 1430) powerfully responded to the vitriolic mockery of women
initiated by Jean de Montreuil, royal secretary and
provost of Lille, after he had read JEAN DE MEUN’s
ROMAN DE LA ROSE in 1401 and had written an enthusiastic essay defending this late-medieval encyclopedic and allegorical ROMANCE initially begun
by GUILLAUME DE LORRIS. Jean was supported by
the brothers Gontier and Pierre Col, who also admired Jean de Meun’s erudition. The conflict
turned into a veritable querelle des femmes (quarrel
about women), in which, however, Christine was
not alone in her defense of women, since the influential chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean
Gerson, defended her position.
After having written a number of poems and
letters defending women, Christine finally composed her Book of the City of Ladies (1405), which
was deeply inspired by the French translation of
BOCCACCIO’s De Claribus Mulieribus (Concerning
Famous Women, ca. 1375). Christine reiterates the
numerous examples of virtuous and admirable
ladies from the past and present, and also adds
many modern personalities to support her case for
women. As early as 1399, in her poem L’Epistre au
dieu d’amours (Letter of the god of love), Christine
had unmistakably stated that misogynous opinions about women dominated the literary world
only because a vast majority of men were responsible for the production of literature. The Book of
the City of Ladies, composed virtually at the end of
the public quarrel, obviously appealed to a wide
audience, as documented by 27 surviving full
French manuscripts and fragments, as well as by a
Flemish (1475) and an English translation (1521).
The Book of the City of Ladies drew its fundamental imagery from St. AUGUSTINE’s CITY OF GOD
and specifically attacked the highly popular, but
vehemently misogynist Liber lamentationum
Matheolulu (ca. 1295) by Matheolus (or Mathieu
of Boulogne) and translated into French by Jeahn
le Fèvre, ca. 1371–72. Christine argues that all people—both men and women—are subject to
human sinfulness and can find salvation only by
striving toward virtue and by fleeing the bodily
prison. Employing the use of ALLEGORY, Christine
utilizes a trope from the New Testament (Luke
1:38), the annunciation to the Virgin Mary, for a
legitimization of her own writing, which associates
her with God’s mother. Three figures, Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice, appear to
the narrator and commission her to build a literary
city where women can find a refuge from male persecutions, or misogyny. In highly learned dialogues, these ladies answer Christine’s questions as
to why men criticize the female sex. Reason, for
instance, points out that some men are “themselves
steeped in sin, some because of a bodily impediment, some out of sheer envy, and some quite simply because they naturally take delight in
slandering others” (Christine 1999, 18). Christine
also learns that Ovid, among many others, was
driven to slandering women because “he was so licentious, both in the way he carried on and in the
encouragement he gave to others to do the same,
he was finally sent into exile” as a castrated criminal (Christine 1999, 21). In subsequent chapters
the question is raised why women have regularly
and systematically been unjustly excluded from
public service and official roles. Reason points out
that there have always been women who acquired
the highest degree of learning, and women who
displayed the most advanced degree of good judgment. For each aspect of women’s ability equal to
that of men we are given a number of examples,
both from mythology and antiquity, demonstrating that the notion of women’s total limitation to
the domestic sphere is entirely erroneous considering many ruling women both past and present.
In the second book, Lady Rectitude instructs
Christine how to erect the houses and buildings
within the City of Ladies, and illustrates this with a
long and detailed list of virtuous, honorable, and
loving women, again drawing the examples from
antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In the third
book, Lady Justice describes what religiously inspired women inhabit the City of Ladies, beginning
with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, then
turning to female martyrs such as Saint Catherine,
Saint Margaret, and Saint Lucy, and to many other
female saints. In her conclusion, Christine admonishes all married women to accept their status and
to love their husbands, whether they are kind or
cruel, good-natured or sinful. She also advises girls
to be “pure and modest, timid and steadfast,” and
to arm themselves “with strength and virtue against
the deceitful ways of seducers” (Christine 1999,
239). Addressing widows and all other women, she
urges them to guard their honor and to protect their
virtues against attacks by men. This City of Ladies
will be populated only by women who “pursue
virtue and shun vice” (Christine 1999, 239).
Far removed from modern feminist approaches,
Christine idealizes the demure but steadfast lady
who understands the limits of her political, economic, and hence public influence, but also knows
how to defend herself against male seductions and
denunciations and to stake her own sphere at
home. Nevertheless, Christine insists on women’s
equality with men in intellectual, artistic, and literary terms. Moreover, she claims that women in
their roles as wives and royal consorts would be
fully entitled to assume highly responsible political
functions as rulers and judges, but also, by the same
token, as heads of their families at every level of life.
Christine also uncovers deep-seated patriarchal
prejudice against women as heirs to a family line
and exposes unjustified male objections to
women’s education and leadership. The Cité des
dames proves to be a masterpiece of medieval feminist writing, which successfully deconstructed
most contemporary misogynist positions and became a beacon of women’s liberation.
Bibliography
Altmann, Barbara K., and Deborah L. McGrady.
Christine de Pizan: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Blamires, Alcuin. The Case for Women in Medieval
Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, and Kevin Browlee,
trans. The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan.
Edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. New York:
Norton, 1997.
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies.
Translated with an introduction and notes by Rosalind Brown-Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
———. Le livre de la cité des dames. Edited by Eric
Hicks and Thérèse Moreau. Paris: Stock, 1996.
Hult, David R. “The Roman de la Rose, Christine de
Pizan, and the querelle des femmes.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, edited by Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace,
184–194, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003.
Willard, Charity Cannon. Christine de Pizan: Her Life
and Works. New York: Persea Books, 1984.
Albrecht Classen