Christine de Pizan (1364-1431) lived and moved in lofty circles.  Christine was born in Venice to Tommaso di Benevenuto da Pizzano, a municipal councillor and well-known physician.  Shortly after her birth, the French king Charles V (r. 1364-1380) invited Tommaso to be his court astrologer, and the family moved to Paris.  There, Christine grew up in court circles and was educated at her father's insistence (her mother opposed)--a rare opportunity for women of that day.   She was no less fortunate to marry, at age fifteen, a rather enlightened husband, who likewise encouraged her in her studies and literary pursuits.  Widowed ten years later and with three children to support, she turned to writing full time, and her patrons included the highest nobility and kings of France.  She was, in the words of editor Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, "the first professional woman writer in Europe."  Although the Book of the City of Ladies, an extended allegorical debate about the role of women in history, is her best-known work, Christine was an accomplished author in numerous genres, including verse, songs, epistolary prose, instructional manuals, and works on morality.  She knew the works of numerous classical (Ovid, Boethius, to name but two) and contemporary authors (e.g., Dante, Boccaccio), and was the first woman to write in vernacular prose about women.  The latter years of her life were made difficult by the deteriorating political situation in France owing to its war with England (sustained off and on from 1337-1453).  In 1418 she fled Paris and retired to a monastery where her daughter was a nun.  She lived long enough to see the French monarchy restored by Joan of Arc in 1429.

Questions

(1) Is Christine a "feminist" writer?  If so, what kind of feminist is she?  Does she advocate absolute equality for women? limited equality?

(2) How does Christine respond in The Book of the City of Ladies to detractors of women?  What is her rhetorical strategy of argumentation?

(3) How does Christine enjoin women to conduct themselves?  What social and spiritual roles should they fulfill?

(4) Is the Book of Virtues a practical guide or an idealized vision of female virtue?  Both?