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Manners, Morals, and Misogyny in the Middle Ages
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17390 |
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BOOK WORLD
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1 / 1990 |
5,026 Words |
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Lucy Mazareski
Lucy Mazareski reviews frequently for Catholic publications. |
A MEDIEVAL WOMAN'S MIRROR OF HONOR
The Treasury of the City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan
New York: Bard Hall Press/Persea Books
272 pp., $11.95 paper, $24.95 cloth
The story of Christine de Pizan begins long ago, so long ago it could almost begin, “Once upon a time there lived a young woman at the court of a king." Although at the time princesses and noblewomen did in fact wear the pointed hats and bombard sleeves of fairy tale allure, Christine's story is no fairy tale. Though she lived among princesses, she herself was not one. She did, however, write books for them. And for dukes, duchesses, even the king; Christine de Pizan was not only France's first women of letters, she was probably the first woman since antiquity to earn her living as a writer. And so, a woman's life lived across the haze of six hundred years is vibrantly alive for us, recorded in an astonishing range of books and tracts and poems written in an erudite, lyric, penetrating, witty, and utterly endearing style.
Still other firsts distinguish her career. Because her premier concern was the status of women, Christine became the first woman to stand against prejudicial and acrimonious attacks and attitude in certain works of literature and in society at large, and she was the first woman to write a book in praise of women. That she could take pen in hand and write scholarly defenses of women was no mean feat in an age when women lacked access to education. This lack was one of her greatest sorrows, and a theme to which she repeatedly
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