Christine de Pizan was an Italian-born writer at the court of France in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, often called Europe's first professional woman of letters. Widowed young, she supported her family by writing poetry, history, political advice and works defending women, above all The Book of the City of Ladies of 1405. She wrote in French amid the Hundred Years' War and a bitter civil war among the French princes, and her final poem celebrated Joan of Arc.
From Venice to Paris
She was born Cristina da Pizzano in 1364 in the Republic of Venice. Her father, Tommaso, whose family came from Pizzano near Bologna, was a physician and astrologer who served Venice as a councillor. In 1368 he accepted a post as astrologer to Charles V of France, and Christine, aged four, moved with the family to Paris. Her father insisted on a broad education for her, which was rare for a girl.
In 1379 she married Étienne du Castel, a notary and royal secretary, and they had three children. Her father died in 1388, and her husband died of plague the following year, leaving her, in her mid-twenties, responsible for her mother and children and entangled in lawsuits over money owed to his estate.
Becoming a professional writer
By 1393 her love ballads were attracting wealthy patrons at court, and she went on to produce dozens of works in verse and prose, overseeing the making of luxury illuminated copies. Her patrons included Louis of Orléans, the dukes of Burgundy and Queen Isabeau. Her Letter of Othea to Hector of 1400 framed princely virtue as a goddess's advice to the Trojan hero.
From 1402 she led a famous literary dispute over the Romance of the Rose, Jean de Meun's popular poem, attacking it as slanderous to women. In 1404 she wrote a life of Charles V for Philip the Bold, presenting the late king as a model ruler.
The City of Ladies
In 1405 Christine completed her best-known books. In The Book of the City of Ladies, three allegorical figures, Reason, Rectitude and Justice, help her build a city peopled by admirable women from the Bible, the lives of saints and ancient history, many taken from Giovanni Boccaccio. Against writers who disparaged women, she argued that men and women were alike made in God's image and that women would learn as well as men if they were taught the same subjects. Its companion, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, advised women of every rank on living virtuously.
Civil war and politics
From the early 1400s the madness of Charles VI left the French court divided between the factions of Orléans and Burgundy. After John the Fearless had Louis of Orléans murdered in 1407, the rivalry became open civil war. Christine responded with political works addressed to the dauphin Louis of Guyenne, including The Book of the Body Politic (1407) and The Book of Peace (1413), urging rulers to be just and merciful. After the defeat at Agincourt she wrote a consolation for women who had lost relatives.
Retreat and last poem
With civil war and the English occupation of Paris, Christine is thought to have spent her last decade in the Dominican convent at Poissy, which her daughter had entered in 1397. In 1429, within days of Charles VII's coronation, she composed the Tale of Joan of Arc, hailing Joan as the fulfilment of ancient prophecies. She is believed to have died around 1430, before Joan's trial.
Influence
Her advice books were read by royal women into the 16th century, and William Caxton translated one into English in 1489. Elizabeth I owned copies of several of her works. Later neglected, she was revived by scholars in the 20th century, and in 1949 Simone de Beauvoir wrote that one of her poems marked "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defence of her sex".
On our maps
Our 1400 map shows France in the decades of her writing career, and the 1492 map shows the kingdom after the Hundred Years' War had ended.