Considered the founder of the modern woman's movement, modern historians of women debate whether de Pizan's authorship in 1399 of "Letter to the God of Love" or in 1402 of Le dit de la Rose [The Tale of the Rose] (1402) or in 1405 of The Book of the City of the Ladies (1405) sparked the debate of the woman question, but they do not dispute whether or not de Pizan's works did spark the debate. In The Tale of the Rose, de Pizan attacked Jean de Meung's popular The Romance of the Rose as immoral and misogynistic. In The Book of the City of Ladies, de Pizan presents a dream-vision of a utopian city for women inhabited by powerful, educated, and influential women both of antiquity and of her time.

      Daughter of an influential official in the court of Charles V, the naturally inquisitive de Pizan was educated well beyond the standards of her day certainly for women, and indeed, for many men by her liberal father over the objections of her more traditional mother. De Pizan's education would eventually serve her well. Although Charles V intended on securing her father's future in the event of his death by making her father a part of any potential regency, Charles' death in 1380 marked a turning point in her father's life. Like other supporters of Charles V, her father found himself excluded from the inner circles at court by the regency and died impoverished in 1385.

      Christine de Pizan had happily married the up-and-coming court official, Estinne de Castel at age 15. Like her father, Estinne encouraged her to pursue her education. But difficulties arose when de Pizan was widowed in 1389 and she left with herself, three children, a niece, and her mother to support.

      In a sharp break with tradition, de Pizan did not rely on other family members to support her and she did not remarry. Rather, she set out to become a self-sufficient woman, earning her living by her pen. France's, and possibly Europe's, first woman known to have earned her living by the pen, de Pizan wrote in a variety of genres including: biography, autobiography, poetry, history, novels, short stories, feminist polemics, books on advice and morality, military techniques, religion, politics, and literary commentary. A list of only her major publications show how prolific she was as a writer, the range of subjects which she addressed, and only some of the writing styles that she used.

      Like so many other of our feminist foremothers, de Pizan's feminism's is a mixture of the modern and the traditional. Devoutly religious, de Pizan nonetheless addresses a wide variety of feminist topics: the misogyny inherent in much of men's discourse (including religious teachings), the double standard of sexuality and morality, rape, the limited educational and professional opportunities open to women, violence against women, and the trials and tribulations of widowhood. De Pizan rails against men's false promise of chivalry toward misfortunate women. Her work was certainly path breaking: one of the few earlier works to addressed the "women question" was Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris (Concerning Famous Women, 1355-59). According to Richards

      "Boccaccio's purpose in this work was quite simply to write about famous, even notorious, women, regardless of their moral stature. . . . Boccaccio offers his praise of feminine virtue in a negative, back-handed way: since women are so weak in body and slow in mind, they deserve all the more praise when they manage to muster the sufficient "manly courage" for undertaking tasks difficult (even!) for men. Boccaccio avoids mixing famous pagan women and illustrious women from sacred history (except for Eve) because the two classes of women differ fundamentally from one another: by acting according to their religious precepts, the women from sacred history behave almost contrary to human nature and therefore, presumably, disqualify themselves as examples of womanhood."

      De Pizan's creation story is found in her allegorical work, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). The book's name was patterned after Saint Augustine's City of God and the material in her book came from several sources including Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women. In a dream vision, Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice instruct Christine in building a city of ideal women, a utopia for women. Reason provides materials for the foundation, Rectitude helps to build the walls, creates the moat, lays out the city, and Justice adds the finishing touches to the high towers and places.

      In Part 1, Christine and Lady Reason begin by discussing motives behind men's misogyny. Reason sets out to prove that many women have made important contributions to civilization by listing many famous women, mythological women, women of antiquity, and contemporary women, in the domains of law and governance, science, and philosophy. "A pattern is established here that will be repeated in following chapters where parallels are drawn between classical models and more recent examples of comparable virtues, for Christine is clearly unwilling to have feminine virtue relegated to a mythological past."

      The foundation being laid, in Part 2, Lady Rectitude takes over and cites many instances of women who had high morals such as filial piety, wifely devotion, integrity, and generosity. Using only the best building materials, Rectitude constructs the city, streets, shops, and other public and private spaces.

      The city now completed, Lady Justice now steps in to populate the city with the best of women, beginning with the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalean, and a long list of female saints and martyrs. After wearying of such a long list of deserving women, Justice breaks off and Christine finishes, rejoicing in the many fine women of history and warning women of men's snares.

      De Pizan foreshadows many of the themes that we shall meet again and again: Adam was made from mud while Eve was made from a refined substance; Adam was created in an earthly field while Eve was created in an earthly paradise; God created Eve while Adam slept (i.e., God did the work of creating of Eve, not Adam); Eve was made from Adam's rib, not from Adam's foot; the Supreme Being would not create something bad, so woman cannot be inherently bad; woman, like man, was created in the image of God; the soul, not the body, is the part of humanity that is made in God's image; and only thanks to a woman, Mary, was our Redeemer brought into this world.

      De Pizan's commentary on the creation story flows through the entire work. In part 1.9.3 while discussing a misogynistic work Secreta mulierum, (The Secrets of Women) Christine and Lady Reason have the following exchange.

      "My lady, I recall that among other things, after he has discussed the impotence and weakness which cause the formation of the feminine body in the womb of the mother, he says that Nature is completely ashamed when she sees that she has formed such a body, as though it were something imperfect."

      "But, sweet friend, don't you see the overweening madness, the irrational blindness which prompt such observations? Is Nature, the chambermaid of God, a greater mistress than her master, almighty God from whom comes such authority, who, when He willed, took the form of man and woman from His thought when it came to His holy will to form Adam from the mud of the ground in the field of Damascus and, once created, brought him into the Terrestrial Paradise which was and is the most worthy place in this world here below? There Adam slept, and God formed the body of woman from one of this ribs, signifying that she should stand at his side as a companion and never lie at his feet like a slave, and also that he should love her as his own flesh. If the Supreme Craftsman was not ashamed to create ad form the feminine body, would nature have been ashamed? It is the height of folly to say this! Indeed, how was she formed? I don't know if you have already noted this: she was created in the image of God. How can any mouth dare to slander the vessel which bears such a noble imprint? But some men are foolish enough to think, when they hear that God made man in His image, that this refers to the material body. This was not the case, for God had not yet take a human body. The soul is meant, the intellectual spirit which lasts eternally just like the Deity. God created the soul and placed wholly similar souls, equally good and noble in the feminine and in the masculine bodies. Now, to turn to the question of the creation of the body, woman was made by the Supreme Craftsman. In what place was she created? In the Terrestrial Paradise. From what substance? Was it vile matter? No, it was the noblest substance which had ever been created: it was from the body of man from which God made woman."

      "My lady, according to what I understand from you, woman is a most noble creature. But even so, Cicero says that a man should never serve any woman and that he who does so debases himself, for no man should ever serve anyone lower than him."

      She replied, "The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues. And surely he is happy who serves the Virgin, who is above all the angels."

      "My lady, one of the Catos -- who was such a great orator-- said, nevertheless, that if this world were without woman, we would converse with the gods."

      "She replied, "You can now see the foolishness of the man who is considered wise, because, thanks to a woman, man reigns with God. And if anyone would say that man was banished because of Lady Eve, I tell you that he gained more through Mary than he lost through Eve when humanity was conjoined to the Godhead, which would never have taken place if Eve's misdeed had not occurred. Thus man and woman should be glad for this sin, through which such an honor has come about. For as low as human nature fell through this creature woman, was human nature lifted higher by this same creature. And as for conversing with the gods, as this Cato has said, if there had been no woman, he spoke truer than he knew, for he was a pagan, and among those of this belief, gods were thought to reside in Hell as well as in Heaven, that is, the devils whom they called the gods of Hell - so that it is no lie that these gods would have conversed with men, if Mary had not lived."

      De Pizan also writes about the creation story in her "Letters to the God of Love."

      "God created woman in His noble image and bestowed upon her the wisdom and insight necessary to achieve salvation, and the gift of understanding. He also gave her a most noble shape and she was created out of very noble materials; for she was not fashioned out of the clay of the earth, but exclusively out of the rib of man, whose body was at that state, to tell the truth, the most noble part of earthly creation. And the authentic Old Testament stories in the Bible, which cannot be untrue, tell us that woman, not man, was created first in earthly paradise; but as far as the deception is concerned, for which our mother Eve is blamed and which resulted in god's harsh sentence, I can assure you that she never did deceive Adam, but innocently swallowed and believed the words of the devil, which she thought were sincere and true, and with this conviction she went on to tell her husband. There was therefore neither trickery nor deceit in this, for innocence devoid of all hidden malice should not be called deception. No one deceives without intending to deceive, otherwise it is not real deception. . . . "

      Alcuin Blamires, Woman Defamed, Woman Defended: An anthology of Medieval Texts, Claredon Press, Oxford, 1992 (p. 284 for de Pizan on Adam and Eve in her Letters to the God of Love 1399)

      Christine de Pizan and Earl Jeffrey Richards (translator) The Book of the City of Ladies with foreword by Mzarina Warner [New York, Persea Books, 1982]

      Charity Cannon Willard, Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works, a Biography, [New York, Persea Books, 1984]

Christine de Pizan Society

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