The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan

First published:Le Livre de la cité des dames, 1405 (The Book of the City of Ladies: A Fifteenth-Century Defense of Women, 1521, 1982)

Type of work: Biography

Type of plot: Allegory

Time of plot: Early fifteenth century

Locale: Paris and the City of Ladies

Principal characters

• Christine de Pizan, the narrator
• Lady Reason, the first allegorical guide
• Lady Rectitude, the second allegorical guide
• Lady Justice, the third allegorical guide

The Story:

Christine de Pizan is sitting in her study reading when her mother calls her to supper. The next day, as Christine resumes reading The Lamentations of Mathéolus, which slanders women’s character, she reflects on the behavior of the female sex. While she is lost in thought, a vision of three ladies appears to her. They tell Christine that they come to correct the erroneous impressions that men created about women by helping her build a city where virtuous women will reside. They identify themselves as Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice.

Christine accepts their commission to build the City of Ladies by writing about worthy women. With Lady Reason’s guidance, she places the foundations. Christine first asks Lady Reason why male authors malign women. Reason offers several explanations and affirms that these accounts of women’s behavior are false. Christine inquires why women do not hold positions of governmental authority. Reason recounts the lives of several women who ruled after the death of their husbands, including Nicaula, empress of Ethiopia in antiquity, and French queens such as the Merovingian Fredegund and Blanche of Castile in the thirteenth century.

When Christine asks about women’s strength, Reason tells how the ancient Assyrian Queen Semiramis led armies after her husband’s death. Reason relates the feats of strength of the Amazons in ancient Greece and cites instances of other women from antiquity who acted with bravery. Lady Reason answers Christine’s queries about learned women by mentioning two Roman poets, Cornifica and Proba, and the Greek poet Sappho. Other women, such as Manto, Medea, and Circe from Greek antiquity, excelled in magical sciences. Several women from ancient times, including Nicostrata, Minerva, Ceres, and Isis, discovered arts, sciences, and technologies. Women contributed to the arts and crafts of textiles and painting. To Christine’s inquiry if women behave prudently, Lady Reason, explaining qualities of prudence based on the biblical book of Proverbs, adduces the lives of the Romans Gaia Cirilla and Lavinia, Queen Dido of Carthage, and Queen Ops of Crete.

Lady Rectitude then assumes the guidance of Christine’s work in completing the city walls and building edifices within the city. Rectitude instructs Christine on the wisdom of women by telling about the ten Sibyls and their gifts of prophecy. She cites several biblical women—among them Deborah, Elizabeth, and the Queen of Sheba—whose understanding made them prophetic. Other women, such as the Greek Cassandra and the Byzantine Antonia, had prophetic powers. When Christine asks why parents prefer sons to daughters, Lady Rectitude demonstrates that many daughters take care of their parents. The Roman virgin Claudine defended her father from attack, and another Roman woman nursed her imprisoned mother.

Rectitude announces that the buildings of the City of Ladies are complete and ready to be inhabited. In response to Christine’s inquiries about women’s role in marriage, Rectitude brings to the city Queen Hypsicratea, who shows such devotion to her husband that she accompanies him on military campaigns and into exile after his defeat. The city is filled with married women who counsel their spouses wisely and commemorate their deceased husbands. Of women who saved their people, Rectitude mentions Hebrew women such as Judith and Esther, the Sabine women of ancient Rome, and the Frankish queen Clotilda, who converted her husband Clovis to Christianity. Many women were noted for chastity, including the biblical Susanna and the Greek Penelope, wife of Ulysses. The Roman Lucretia tried to protect herself from rape. Women such as Griselda and the Roman empress Florence endured extreme hardships in remaining faithful to their husbands. Rectitude praises the virtues of French queens who are Christine’s contemporaries, among them Queen Isabella, wife of Charles VI, and the duchesses of Berry, Orléans, and Burgundy.

Lady Justice takes up the task of completing the high towers and selecting their residents. The Virgin Mary becomes the queen of the City of Ladies. Justice leads in female martyrs for the Christian faith by recounting the acts of martyrdom of more than thirty saints. Christine finally declares that the city is complete and exhorts women to follow the virtuous examples of the residents of the City of Ladies.

Bibliography

Altmann, Barbara K., and Deborah L. McGrady, eds. Christine de Pizan: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2003. Collection of essays, including articles that place Christine within the context of late medieval France, French politics and theology, and critiques of her work. Part 2, “Building a Female Community,” contains an analysis of The Book of the City of Ladies by Judith L. Kellogg and other feminist interpretations of Christine’s life and work.

Birk, Bonnie A. Christine de Pizan and Biblical Wisdom: A Feminist-Theological Point of View. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2005. Examines how Christine used the religious traditions of her time to defend women against misogynist beliefs and attitudes. Chapter 5 focuses on The Book of the City of Ladies.

Brown-Grant, Rosalind. Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading Beyond Gender. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Analyzes Christine’s works to trace how her assault on misogynism evolved over the years, culminating in her defense of women in The Book of the City of Ladies.

Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of the Ladies. Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards. New York: Persea Books, 1982. A modern English translation of Christine de Pizan’s book. Contains a substantial introduction to the work and helpful notes on the text.

Curnow, Maureen Cheney. “’La Pioche d’Inquisition’: Legal-Judicial Content and Style in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames.” In Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan, edited by Earl Jeffrey Richards et al. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Curnow finds much evidence that the author’s fourteen-year involvement in legal battles exposed her to a lexicon and style of argument which served her well in The Book of the City of Ladies.

Quilligan, Maureen. The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan’s “Cité des dames.” Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Drawing on her extensive research in the field of medieval allegory, Quilligan goes through each part of the book offering an in-depth commentary which suggests Christine’s purpose in choosing certain tales to include in the work, indicates sociopolitical views intimated in the text, and expresses Christine’s ideas in terms of modern psychology. The author includes a defense of Christine against present-day detractor Sheila Delany and a discussion of Le Livre des trois vertus (The Book of the Three Virtues), also known as The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Christine’s sequel to The Book of the City of Ladies.

Richards, Earl Jeffrey, ed. Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. A collection of essays about the literary works of Christine de Pizan, several of which focus on The Book of the City of Ladies.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Christine de Pizan is one of the “misbehaving” women included in this study, which provides a feminist analysis of The Book of the City of Ladies.

Willard, Charity Cannon. Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works. New York: Persea Books, 1984. An extensive biography that contains thorough summaries of Christine’s works and documents her long and ardent involvement in the Quarrel of the Rose. The chapter entitled “A Feminine Utopia” examines the contents of The Book of the City of Ladies, its sources, and its relationship to the corpus of Christine’s works. Numerous manuscript illuminations are reproduced in black and white.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “The Franco-Italian Professional Writer Christine de Pizan.” In Medieval Women Writers, edited by Katharina M. Wilson. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984. A concise introduction to the life and works of Christine de Pizan, this essay by one of the leading authorities on Christine contains a brief summary and evaluation of the contents of The Book of the City of Ladies, twelve pages of abstracts from the 1982 English translation by Earl Jeffrey Richards, elucidating notes, and a substantial bibliography.