The Book of the City of Ladies Read online

  Christine composed a number of texts in defence of women, the most important of which is Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (The Book of the City of Ladies) (1405).6 This text, which was well received in France during Christine’s own lifetime and was later translated into both Flemish (in 1475) and English (in 1521), is probably the most familiar of all her works to modern readers. The City of Ladies belongs to the genre of the biographical catalogue, a genre established in classical antiquity which celebrated the lives of famous men and women.7 Christine’s catalogue of illustrious heroines appears within the framework of an allegorical dream-vision in which she herself is the chief protagonist. This vision comes to her one day as she sits in her study reading Matheolus’s Lamentations, a thirteenth-century tirade against marriage in which the author vilifies women for making men’s lives a misery.8 The misogynist portrait which he paints of womankind as depraved and malicious creatures so shocks and depresses Christine that she falls into a state of despair at being a member of such a sex.

  At this point in Christine’s dream-vision, three personified Virtues – Reason, Rectitude and Justice – come to correct the negative view of women that she has absorbed from her study of Matheolus. They inform Christine that she has been chosen by God to write a book which will refute, point by point, the misogynists’ accusations against womankind. This book will be like a city, one which is designed to house virtuous ladies and to protect them from anti-feminist attack. The Virtues then go on to provide Christine with examples of past and present heroines who will form the foundations, walls and towers of this allegorical City of Ladies. In Part I, Reason gives her examples of women, mostly pagans, who were famous for their soldierly courage, artistry or inventiveness; in Part II, Rectitude supplies Christine with stories of pagan, Hebrew and Christian ladies who were renowned for their prophetic gifts, exemplary chastity or devotion to their loved ones and fellow countrymen; in Part III, Justice recounts the lives of female saints who were crowned with glory for their steadfastness in the face of martyrdom or for their unfailing devotion to God. Christine’s major source for Parts I and II of the City of Ladies is the De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning Famous Women) (c. 1375), a catalogue of women by the Tuscan author Boccaccio, which she may have read in its French translation, the Des Cleres et Nobles Femmes. For Part III of her text, Christine is heavily indebted to the Miroir historial (1333), Jean de Vignay’s French translation of the historical sections of Vincent of Beauvais’s vast encyclopedia, the Speculum Maius (begun after 1240). Through her examples of distinguished women, Christine seeks to prove in the City of Ladies that the female sex has played a crucial part in human civilization, artistically, politically and spiritually. Her aim is thus two-fold: both to refute the misogynist equation of womankind with sinfulness and to instil a sense of self-worth in her female readers.

  In claiming that women can match men in terms of their military prowess, leadership, ingenuity and intelligence, Christine may seem to anticipate some of the key tenets of twentieth-century feminism. However, unlike modern feminists, Christine stopped well short of demanding for her sisters the equality of opportunity or access to education which would have enabled them to realize their potential. Although the heroines of the City of Ladies demonstrate that women have the innate capacity to be warriors and teachers, orators and artists, Christine does not recommend that her female contemporaries should actually pursue such careers. Indeed, in the sequel to her catalogue of women, Le Livre des Trois Vertus (The Book of the Three Virtues, also known as The Treasure of the City of Ladies) (1405), Christine’s ambitions for her contemporaries seem to be even more modest. In this later text, which is a courtesy book for women offering them moral teachings and pragmatic advice about how they should dress, speak and behave, Christine instructs her female readers to accept their lot with patience and to submit to male control, be it that of their husbands or their fathers. Far from inciting her contemporaries to resist the limitations placed on them by society, she recommends traditional virtues to them: tolerance and humility to wives, modesty and obedience to virgins, and courage and dignity to widows.

  Not surprisingly, this contradiction between the pioneering role which Christine created for herself as a professional writer and the restricted roles as daughters, wives and mothers which she outlined for other women, has led some twentieth-century critics to question whether she really deserves to be thought of as a ‘mother to think back through’.9 However, it would be anachronistic to apply modern standards to Christine’s ideas about the position of women which, inevitably, differ radically from our own. If we are to evaluate the true nature of her achievement as a defender of women in the early fifteenth century, we must put Christine back into her proper historical context and read the City of Ladies in the light of the intellectual resources that were available to her at that time.

  What then were the dominant medieval ideas about women which Christine had to refute in order to mount a successful defence of her sex?

  The Middle Ages inherited a tradition of anti-feminism from two different sources: Judaeo-Christian theology and the medical science of classical antiquity.10 From the Book of Genesis, medieval theologians took the idea that Eve – rather than Adam – was the one chiefly responsible for Original Sin entering the world. As a result, God had punished her and all other women by making her subject to her husband and inflicting upon her the pains of childbirth. This condemnation of the entire female sex on the basis of Eve’s sin was buttressed by the teachings of Saint Paul. According to the apostle, women should keep silent in church and should cover their heads when praying in remembrance of the shame brought upon humankind by Eve’s transgression (I Corinthians 11: 5–13). Misogynist clerics also had at their disposal other key passages of the Bible, such as the descriptions of the harlot in Proverbs 7: 10–12 and of the wicked woman in Ecclesiasticus 25: 23–6, which inveighed against female vices such as disobedience, garrulity, treachery and lasciviousness. Even the undoubtedly virtuous example of the Virgin Mary was not enough to counter totally this negative view of women. Although, for medieval theologians, Mary’s conception of Christ had made possible the salvation of our individual souls in the next world, her virtue still did not remove women’s guilt for their part in the Fall. Women’s punishment, in the form of subjection to their husbands, thus remained firmly in place in this world.

  From Greek scientific thinkers such as Aristotle and Galen, medieval medicine derived a view of the female as a defective male.11 This opinion was based on the theory of the four elements which make up all living things: earth, fire, water and air. Each of these elements has a related quality: coldness, heat, moisture and dryness. Whilst man was thought to be dominated by heat and dryness, woman was supposed to be ruled by coldness and moisture. Since medieval thinkers believed that heat was the primary instrument of nature, they concluded that man was superior to woman, being the warmer of the two sexes. Moreover, this lack of heat in woman meant that her body and mind were unstable. For example, it was feared that she was in danger of going mad if her animal-like womb, which wandered at will due to the coldness of her body, ever strayed up into her head. Menstruation too was taken as a sign that, unlike man, woman was too cold and feeble to regulate internally the amount of toxic humours in her body. Medieval philosophers such as Isidore of Seville, a theologian writing in the seventh century AD, reinforced these scientific views of the differences between the sexes by using pseudo-etymological reasoning. In order to prove that females were a lesser species than males, Isidore claimed that man, vir in Latin, was so-called because of his natural affinity with strength, virtus, whereas the word for woman, mulier, came from the adjective meaning softer or weaker, mollier, which was itself derived from the noun for weakness, mollitie.12

  These two traditions bequeathed to the medieval world a view of women as the moral, intellectual and physical inferiors of men. Literary texts in the Middle Ages echoed many of these theological and scientific ideas about the female sex and ind
eed often drew directly on biblical and classical sources for their anti-feminist inspiration. Matheolus’s satirical attack on women and marriage, which Christine cites at the beginning of the City of Ladies, was by no means an isolated case. Short moralizing treatises known as dits endlessly rehashed the arguments against womankind, using animal similes to compare women to the most dangerous and venomous of beasts, such as bears and snakes, and showing how the traditional female vices of gossiping and backbiting destroyed good relations between men.13 Another popular genre which helped to reinforce misogynist stereotypes was that of mythography, which involved extracting Christian messages from stories of classical mythology. For instance, in the Ovide Moralisé, an anonymous fourteenth-century work based on tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when a male figure such as Icarus is represented as being guilty of hubris in flying too close to the sun, this is interpreted allegorically as the human soul’s refusal to humble itself before God. However, when a female figure such as Venus is condemned for being guilty of sensuality, this is read not only as an allegorical account of the frailty of the human soul in general but also as literal evidence of the duplicitous and fickle nature of the female sex.

  The fabliaux, the genre of short comic tales, also represent women differently from men. Fabliaux writers tended to criticize male characters as individual members of a particular social group, mocking peasants for their stupidity in letting themselves be duped or condemning priests for their lascivious pursuit of women. Female characters, on the other hand, were invariably treated as representatives of their sex, not as individuals.14 Thus, if a peasant woman or a bourgeois wife cuckolded her husband or cheated him of his money, the author usually appended a moral in which, even if he had to express a sneaking admiration for the woman’s cunning, he would none the less warn all men to be on their guard against such a treacherous and two-faced sex.

  Even medieval romance, a genre which put forward a much more elevated view of womankind than that found in the fabliaux, was not immune from misogynist influence.15 Though certain romance authors presented adulterous queens such as Isolde and Guinevere as tragic heroines whose doomed passion for their lovers commands the reader’s sympathy, other authors were less lenient in their treatment of women. One of the stock anti-feminist stereotypes circulated in medieval romance was that of the ‘Potiphar’s wife’, a stereotype derived from the Bible. In the Old Testament, this character is a high-born lady who tries to seduce Joseph, her husband’s servant, and then, when unsuccessful, spitefully denounces him to her husband for attempting to rape her. Heldris de Cornuälles, author of the thirteenth-century French romance the Roman de Silence, for example, pulls no punches in condemning the ‘Potiphar’s wife’ of his text. Here, it is a queen, Eufeme, who tries to avenge herself on Silence, a young knight in her husband’s service, whom she has been unable to seduce. When it is revealed that the innocent Silence is in fact a girl dressed up as a knight, Eufeme’s husband, King Ebain, punishes his wife for her treachery and has her put to death whilst the narrator adds his own scathing remarks about the unreliable and corrupt nature of woman.

  The most infamous work in terms of its treatment of women was the Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose), a text which became the supreme literary authority in the medieval anti-feminist canon. This vast allegorical narrative was first begun around 1240 by Guillaume de Lorris but was greatly expanded around 1275 by Jean de Meun who, for this reason, was regarded in the Middle Ages as the more important author of the two. The Rose tells of a young man’s quest for a lady, symbolized by a rosebud, in which he is aided and abetted by personified figures such as the Friend, who instructs him in the art of seduction, the Old Woman, who guards the rose, and Genius, Nature’s chaplain, who encourages the lover to consummate his desire for the lady in the interests of perpetuating the human species. The Rose rehearses many familiar commonplaces of classical literary misogyny, including Ovid’s ironic advice in his Art of Love on how to catch women who, despite appearing chaste, are in fact all too willing to be caught.16 It also repeats many key arguments from classical misogamous or anti-marriage texts, such as the view expressed by the Greek writer Theophrastus in his Aureolus that wives neglect their husbands and have eyes only for their lovers.17 Because of the great prestige which the Rose enjoyed throughout the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was with this text that Christine had to engage most actively and critically throughout her works in defence of women.

  Literary misogyny in the medieval period was not confined to secular works but was also a staple ingredient of religious texts. Christian doctrine stated that, on the Day of Judgement, men and women alike would be treated according to their individual just deserts. However, as in the fabliaux, preachers tended to criticize men for failing to live up to the ideals of their particular occupations whereas women were condemned as an entire sex for their garrulity and lechery. Moreover, where both sexes were at fault, as for example in the case of adultery, preachers tended to hold women responsible for attracting men in the first place, rather than apportioning equal blame to both parties.

  Even in hagiography, which provided examples of women who were moral and virtuous, male and female saints were not treated identically. For both sexes, sanctity was achieved as the soul struggled to liberate itself from the temptations of the flesh. However, for women, but not for men, this process was primarily defined in sexual terms. Whereas men could attain sainthood through a wide variety of roles, for example through their eloquence as preachers or their asceticism as hermits, the typical roles reserved for women were those of virgin-martyr or repentant prostitute.18 In the former scenario, a beautiful young maiden, such as Saint Margaret, would find herself under attack from a lustful pagan emperor who wanted to seduce her and force her to worship idols. Her only response would be to protect her virginity at all costs, even if it entailed the most horrific forms of physical torture. In the latter scenario, the whore who converted to Christianity, such as Saint Mary the Egyptian, would suffer terrible torments leading to the loss of her beauty as penance for the sensual pleasures she had supposedly enjoyed as a sinner. As in preachers’ sermons, hagiographical texts thus tended to represent women as a sex whose corporeality was more problematic than that of men. Unlike their male counterparts, women were deemed to reach the ranks of God’s chosen saints only by overcoming the obstacle of their innate sexual attractiveness.

  How then could a writer such as Christine begin to take issue with a set of ideas that had so thoroughly permeated every area of medieval thought? The misogynists’ position was not entirely unassailable: their chief weakness lay in their heavy reliance on previous sources for their ideas. As was common practice for all writers in the Middle Ages, anti-feminist authors proved their erudition principally by recycling the acknowledged authorities on a topic. It is thus hardly surprising that misogynist opinions gained such currency in medieval culture given that they were derived from the very weightiest sources, such as Aristotle and the Bible. However, the misogynists were in fact forced to quote selectively, citing the bad things that their favourite authorities said about women and leaving aside the good.19 And good things there certainly were. Whether in scripture or in history, illustrious members of the female sex were not lacking. Far from it: for every sinful Eve or Jezebel, there was an heroic Judith or an Esther; for every lustful Clytemnestra or Jocasta, there was a valiant Penthesilea or an Andromache. In theology, the early Fathers of the Church might have condemned Eve as the instigator of the Fall but they had also argued that, since she was made from Adam’s rib and not his foot, God had intended her to be her husband’s cherished helpmeet, not his downtrodden slave. Moreover, no less an authority than Saint Augustine himself had argued that men and women were equal in their rationality. Even in scientific thought, women’s supposed physical and mental inferiority might disqualify them from public office, but it also meant that they were deemed to be more affectionate than men, particularly towards children.20 By turning the miso
gynists’ method of selective quotation against them, a pro-woman writer could therefore cite exactly the same authorities as they did whilst taking the good said of women and leaving out the bad. In practice, however, very few male authors took up this option, one notable exception being the early thirteenth-century Italian author Albertano of Brescia.21 As Christine herself observed, it was only when a woman put pen to paper that a more positive view of the female sex would emerge. What then were the circumstances which led to Christine’s being the first woman to do precisely that?

  Christine had gone to live in what was to become her adopted country of France in 1368 when her father, Tommaso da Pizzano (whom she referred to as Thomas de Pizan), accepted the position of physician and astrologer at the court of King Charles V. Along with her two brothers, Paolo and Aghinolfo, Christine spent a comfortable childhood in Paris. Unusually for girls of her social rank, most of whom were taught to read French but almost certainly not to write it, she was encouraged by her father to do both, despite opposition from her mother, who preferred her to spend her time on more traditional female pursuits, such as spinning. Christine read widely in the vernacular and probably acquired some knowledge of Latin as well. In 1380, at the age of fifteen, she was given in marriage to Etienne de Castel, a royal secretary. By her own account, the union was a happy one, producing three children. Yet, within the space of ten years, she was to lose both her father and her husband, two events which forced her to adopt a lifestyle for which her previous privileged existence had scarcely prepared her.

  Christine did not become a professional writer immediately on becoming head of her household. Rather, it is thought that, in order to provide for her children, as well as for her elderly mother and a niece who had been placed in her care, she worked for a number of years as a copyist for the various manuscript workshops which flourished in Paris. However, from 1399, Christine began to compose her own literary works. Her aim was to make a living for herself by writing books that would appeal to the tastes of the royal princes at the Valois court, such as Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother of King Charles VI (who had succeeded their father, Charles V, in 1380). These early works, which were mostly lyric poetry, were well received by her aristocratic audience. She built quickly on this initial success and began not only to write more serious texts, such as an account of the role of Fortune in human affairs, Le Livre de la Mutation de Fortune (The Book of the Mutation of Fortune) (1403), but also to receive commissions from her noble patrons for political and moral works, such as a biography of the late king for his brother Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Le Livre des Fais et des Bonnes Meurs du Sage Roy Charles V (The Book of the Deeds and Good Character of King Charles V the Wise) (1404).