Christine de Pizan by Lori Walters
JEAN GERSON ÉCRIVAIN De l'oeuvre latine et française à sa réception européenne Études réunies par Isabelle Fabre CCLXXVIII, 2024
What Christine found in Gerson was the theological basis for the strengthening of Queen Ysabel d... more What Christine found in Gerson was the theological basis for the strengthening of Queen Ysabel de Bavière's regency as well as of her own authority as author and book producer. What Gerson found in Christine was a most energetic promoter of his teachings to the royal court. Gerson collaborated with Christine to influence the Queen as mother to her royal offspring and as symbolic mother to France's loyal subjects.
Christine de Pizan: A Casebook , 2003
ontexts and Continuities: Proceedings of the IVth International Colloquium on Christine de Pizan, 21-27 July 2000, 2002
Why does the author represent herself as an avatar of her patron saint Christine in a work with a... more Why does the author represent herself as an avatar of her patron saint Christine in a work with a secular humanist aim? Christine was conscious of a widespread fifteenth-century ideal of the writer/statesperson, what I call the 'humanist saint'. This ideal represents the coming together of the imitatio Christi and the secular translatio studii et imperii, the displacement of the locus of political power and learning, exemplified in the persons of rulers and their philosopher-advisors, from Ancient Greece to Rome and then to Christian Europe.
A synopsis of the 3 extant manuscripts of Christine de Pizan's Livre de Paix.
Reconsidering Boccaccio: Medieval Contexts and Global Intertexts, 2018
This chapter focuses on the way Christine de Pizan (1365-ca.1430) modeled her promotion of France... more This chapter focuses on the way Christine de Pizan (1365-ca.1430) modeled her promotion of France’s Queen Ysabel de Bavière on Boccaccio’s endorsement of Johanna I in his De mulieribus of 1362-1375. Queen Johanna (1326-1382) ruled the kingdom of Naples from 1343 to 1382 as a sovereign queen; Queen Ysabel (1370-1435) reigned alongside King Charles VI from her coronation in 1389 until to his death in 1422. This paper has a second focus: to determine how and why Christine correspondingly takes Boccaccio’s dedicatee, Andrea Acciaiuoli, the Countess of Altavilla, a distinguished and apparently learnèd lady in Johanna’s service, as a model for her own role as the Queen’s advisor. I argue here that one of the ways Christine actively tries to establish Queen Ysabel’s permanent reputation is to create for herself an authorial persona that both conflates and surpasses the combined roles of the male poet Boccaccio and his female dedicatee, Andrea, whom he had portrayed as an influential member of the Neapolitan queen’s court.
Le Moyen Français , 2014
I argue that the Queen's MS and Paix have more in common than their similar, if not identical, d... more I argue that the Queen's MS and Paix have more in common than their similar, if not identical, dates of presentation. The goal of each was also to celebrate the achievement of peace and to encourage efforts to maintain it. Christine was well aware that the peace that she celebrated at the beginning of 1414 was fragile, and indeed, it did not hold.
Courtly Pastimes , 2021
The Jeux a vendre is central to Christine's larger didactic aims and it serves this purpose nowh... more The Jeux a vendre is central to Christine's larger didactic aims and it serves this purpose nowhere better than in her masterpiece: the Queen's Manuscript (London, British Library, MS Harley 4431). I would argue that Christine's supposedly gratuitous display of poetic virtuosity in the Jeux a vendre is part and parcel of the evidence that she programs into the Queen's Manuscript as a whole to make a case for women's intellectual, rhetorical, and moral excellence.
Le passé à l’épreuve du present: Appropriations et usages du passé au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance, 2007
This paper studies how Christine places her biography of King Charles V in the line of the Grande... more This paper studies how Christine places her biography of King Charles V in the line of the Grandes chroniques de France. This official history of the French royal house was commissioned c. 1250 by the future "St Louis" from a monk of St Denis named Primat. A major model of the GCF was Charlemagne's use of Augustine's City of God as model for his "holy Roman empire."
Teaching the Works of Christine de Pizan, , 2018
The Prologue as a guide to reading the famous Harley MS:
Ordonnance; Patroness and Author; Epist... more The Prologue as a guide to reading the famous Harley MS:
Ordonnance; Patroness and Author; Epistre Othea, Illuminated Heart of the Manuscript; Debating the Roman de la Rose; Prologue as Prayer; The Queen's MS as the City of Ladies Writ Large.
Etudes sur Christine de Pizan. Acts of the Eighth International Christine de Pizan Conference, Poznan, Poland, 2017
Le Receuil au Moyen Age: La Fin du Moyen Age,, 2010
This is the study of a devotional compilation made for Marie de Berry, daughter to the famous Duk... more This is the study of a devotional compilation made for Marie de Berry, daughter to the famous Duke of Berry, by her confessor, an otherwise unknown cleric named Simon de Courcy. Besides describing the collection, I discuss its many connections to the work of Christine de Pizan and theologian Jean Gerson.
Journal of European Studies, 2005
This study deals with the ways that Christine de Pizan (1365-c.1430) transformed her personal mem... more This study deals with the ways that Christine de Pizan (1365-c.1430) transformed her personal memories of King Charles V into an enduring form of national memory by allying her 1404 biography of Charles with official French history. To legitimize her role as royal biographer, Christine created a double-gendered persona evocative of Mary and Christ and Mary and David. Her persona allowed her (1) to 'give birth' metaphorically to the idea of a 'wise king' capable of guiding the nascent 'nation' of France mentioned in the official history, and (2) to unite symbolically the kingdom's male and female subjects behind present and future monarchs.
Au Champ des escriptures: Actes du IIIe colloque international sur Christine de Pizan, Lausanne, 18-22 juillet 1998, 2000
Digital Philogy, 2017
A glowing tribute to Anne de France, duchess of Bourbon (1461-1522), appears on one of the final ... more A glowing tribute to Anne de France, duchess of Bourbon (1461-1522), appears on one of the final folios of Paris, BnF, fr. 24392. The poem, composed between 1488 and 1498, praises Anne for serving as regent for her brother, the future King Charles VIII. Citing her many attributes, the poet likens Anne’s eloquence to that of Christine de Pizan (1365-c.1430). How and why he makes this comparison is the subject of this two-part article. I conclude that it is not by accident that the encomium author added his compliment to Anne to Français 24392.
This paper analyses Christine de Pizan’s inclusion and decoration of the Livre du chemin de lonc ... more This paper analyses Christine de Pizan’s inclusion and decoration of the Livre du chemin de lonc estude (Book of the Path of Long Study) in her masterpiece, the Queen’s Manuscript, London, British Library, Harley 4431. It shows how she directed the choice and placement of the miniatures in order to foreground the theme of her book as a gift of wisdom.
Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe, , 2003
Reputation preoccupied Christine de Pizan (1365-ca. 1430) throughout her career, especially a wom... more Reputation preoccupied Christine de Pizan (1365-ca. 1430) throughout her career, especially a woman's reputation, and particularly her own. As France’s first professional woman writer, she was repeatedly subjected to the defamation that typically awaited the woman who dared to "prendre la plume." In this paper I will concentrate my attention on Christine’s meditations on talk and reputation in two works she composed around the same time. The first, Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du roi Charles V le Sage (Book of the Deeds and Good Customs of King Charles V the Wise), was completed November 30, 1404. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had commissioned her to write his deceased brother’s biography, possibly intending it as an instruction manual on responsible leadership for the dauphin, Louis of Guyenne, whose father, the “mad” king Charles VI, had brought France to the brink of civil war. The second work, L’Advision Cristine, 1405 (Christine’s Vision), is a dream vision in which Christine relates major current events in France to misfortunes in her own life. I propose to consider how Christine quotes and corrects negative talk about herself and king Charles V in order to fashion a positive reputation for both.
The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature, 2002
Christine de Pizan’s Sept psaumes allégorisés of 1409 is a work whose intellectual import and ver... more Christine de Pizan’s Sept psaumes allégorisés of 1409 is a work whose intellectual import and verbal artistry have up to now gone unnoticed. Her commentary on the seven penitential psalms proves to be a carefully executed and commanding ventriloquist performance that was calculated to elicit a powerful moral response in a medieval audience. Christine in effect has the Old Testament patriarch David, the purported author of the psalms, speak French to teach a lesson to her patron, Charles the Noble, and to the entire country.
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Christine de Pizan by Lori Walters
Ordonnance; Patroness and Author; Epistre Othea, Illuminated Heart of the Manuscript; Debating the Roman de la Rose; Prologue as Prayer; The Queen's MS as the City of Ladies Writ Large.
Ordonnance; Patroness and Author; Epistre Othea, Illuminated Heart of the Manuscript; Debating the Roman de la Rose; Prologue as Prayer; The Queen's MS as the City of Ladies Writ Large.
In the opening section of my study, I supply background information on Tou. Although it might at first seem unnecessarily detailed, my goal is to show how Tou"s diacritical marks are not just mechanical signs, but instead enter into the complex semiotics of the Rose. Huot has noted the Rose's protean quality. Those who recast the Rose realized the work's potential to serve as a template for an inquiry on the ability of signs to signify meaning. Tou pushes the quest for the Rose as transcendent signifier farther than do other Rose manuscripts. In Tou, the Rose quest becomes a search for a transparency of meaning as it had been in the garden before the Fall, when human beings spoke face to face with a divinity in a mutually understandable language. (3)
pp. 133-54.
about Chrétien’s patrons and manuscripts of his texts. The only reliable historical information we have about Chrétien is that he was associated with Marie’s Champagne
court. I accordingly base my analysis upon a recent study of that court, focusing in particular on Patricia Stirnemann’s painstaking survey of the library of the Champagne counts that housed BNF fr. 794, the most complete copy of the five romances ascribed to Chrétien.