Christine de Pizan

Relevant Work
 Pages
(NATC, 3rd ed.)

## Biography

Christine de Pizan was a prolific poet and author during the Middle Ages writing on literature, politics, and the defense of women.

Christine de Pizan was born in 1364 in Venice, Italy. She was the daughter of Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano. Her father became known as Thomas de Pizan, named for the family's origins in the town of Pizzano, southeast of Bologna. Her father worked as a physician, court astrologer and Councillor of the Republic of Venice. Thomas de Pizan accepted an appointment to the court of Charles V of France as the king's astrologer and in 1368 Christine moved to Paris. In 1379 Christine de Pizan married the notary and royal secretary Etienne du Castel.

She had three children. Her daughter became a nun at the Dominican Abbey in Poissy in 1397 as a companion to the King's daughter Marie. Christine's husband died of the plague in 1389, and her father had died the year before. Christine was left to support her mother and her children. When she tried to collect money from her husband's estate, she faced complicated lawsuits regarding the recovery of salary due her husband. On 4 June 1389, in a judgment concerning a lawsuit filed against her by the archbishop of Sens and François Chanteprime, councilors of the King, Christine was styled "damoiselle" and widow of "Estienne du Castel".

In order to support herself and her family, Christine turned to writing. By 1393, she was writing love ballads, which caught the attention of wealthy patrons within the court. Christine became a prolific writer. Her involvement in the production of her books and her skillful use of patronage in turbulent political times has earned her the title of the first professional woman of letters in Europe.

## Treatise on the *Roman de la Rose*

### **Background and Historical Context**

In 1402 she contributed to the literary debated surrounding *Roman de la Rose* interacting with prominent 15th century French intellectuals including Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris. Gontier Col, a royal secretary, was so incensed by her criticism that he demanded her to retract her statements, which she refused.

### **Key Words and Terms**

* Quarrel of the Rose: France's literary debate over the merits of the *Roman de la Rose* (*Romance of the Rose)* as originally writted by Guillaume de Lorris and continued by Jean de Meun.

### **Key Quotations**

"I call it an exhortation to vice, encouraging immoral life, a doctrine full of deceit; the path to damnation; a public defamer. It gives rise to suspicion and idolatry, to shame for many people, and possibly to heresy." (NATC, 3rd ed. 217)

"I am certain that you--to whom God allows it--and all the others onto whom God has bestowed clarity and a good conscience, untarnished by sin or its intention, will do penitence (the purpose of which is to bare the secrets of our conscience and to condemn our own will as judge of truth) and will judge the *Roman de la rose* properly and wish perhaps that you had never seen it. This will suffice." (NATC, 3rd ed. 218)

“I, Christine de Pizan, an ignorant woman
of inadequate opinion—for this your wisdom may well hold the insignificance of
my arguments in disdain—beg you to take into consideration my female weakness”(3).

"And as much as I am a woman, I am much
better able to speak of these things than one who has no experience in this
matter , and who thus can go only by mere assumption and guessing”(8).

"I should not be accused of madness, arrogance,
or pretentiousness in that I, a woman, dared to criticize such a skilled author
and to diminish the praise of his work, when he alone dared to defame and to
insult, without an exception, an entire sex” (10).

### **Discussion**

In this treatise, Christine criticizes the popularity of *Roman de la Rose* because she believed it was a inherently immoral piece of work. She argued that the depictions of women were inherently misogynist and this encouraging of a immoral life could lead to shameful behavior.

"Christine objected to the obscene-language used by some of the allegorical figures, most notably Reason's naming of the 'secret parts' of the body and Genius's exhortation to procreate, and to the defamation of women in the speeches of the Duenna, the Jealous Husband, and Genius" (NATC, 3rd ed. 210).

Essentially, Christine argued about the inherent morality of *Roman de la Rose.* She believed that obscenity was immoral and sinful, and also inherently connected to misogyny and wrongful depictions of real women.

## **Other Works by Christine de Pizan**

* *Epistle of the God of Love* (1399)
* *Christine's Vision* (1405)
* *The Book of the City of Ladies* (1405)
* *Poem of Joan of Arc* (1429)

## References

1. ↑ Margaret C. Schaus (2006). Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 133.