Gateway Chronicle 2021

30
The Gateway Chronicle
Medieval Feminism?
Christine de Pizan and the Defence of Women
Although ‘feminist’ claims for women’s emancipation
did not exist in the Middle Ages and education
was restricted, examples of written testimony in
defence of women from misogyny were, perhaps
surprisingly, prevalent. Christine de Pizan provides
many such examples through her writings, and also
her status as France’s first professional woman of
letters; described by some as the Western tradition’s
‘first feminist’. Since the growth of feminist
study in the 1970s, Christine’s extraordinary career
has become known to students of medieval history.
Especially of interest is the stand she takes against
misogyny in a significant proportion of her works,
differentiating her voice from the mainstream discourse
surrounding women’s status in the Middle
Ages. This is clear in her most famous work, The
City of Ladies, however, it is the position against misogyny
that Christine takes in the Querelle de la Rose,
an academic debate surrounding the popular courtly
romance, The Romance of the Rose, that first staged
her career as a defender of women.
Born in Venice around 1364, Christine de Pizan
moved to Paris in 1368 with her family to join her
father, Thomas Pizan, an astrologer at the court of
Charles V. In 1379, she was married to royal secretary
and notary, Etienne de Castel, expanding her
contacts at court. While Christine describes her
education as nothing more than “stealing scraps and
flakes...that have fallen from the great wealth that
my father had”, it is clear from her writings that she
was highly educated, having great knowledge of the
influential works that were of her time, undoubtedly
having access to the royal libraries through her
father’s positions at Court. Following the deaths of
her father (1388) and husband (1389), Christine was
left almost destitute, a widow with three children,
with a niece and her mother to support. Whereas
most widows would have entered a convent or
remarried, Christine was determined to support
her family through the work of her pen. During
this time, it was unheard of for men to achieve this
without subsiding their income from other sources,
such as Court or Church appointments. As a woman,
Christine could not hope to attain such a position,
making her decision to live and support her
family professionally as a writer even more unusual
and daring.
After Christine had established herself through
courtly love poetry, her career began to take a more
anti-misogynist edge, especially influenced by her
reading of the Romance of the Rose. The epic poem
was the best seller in its day; over 200 manuscripts
of it survive, compared to only 84 of Chaucer’s