Study, Listen and Fight

• read the narration column first
• then do the exercises

G1 Why is Christine de Pisan’s programme of self education such an achievement? Do women in some countries still face the same kind of prejudices and obstacles?

G2 Since there was no man of the house, Christine she had to assume a man’s role. As she herself explained in her poem The Mutation of Fortune [see below], she had to ‘become a man’, so that she could take on the responsibilities of man in a man’s world. What is your comment on her poem?

“I wish to tell my history,
‘twill seem to some pure mystery.
But even though they won’t believe,
I’ll tell the truth and won’t decieve.

It all happened to me, really;
I was twenty-five, or nearly,
It was no dream when it occured,
No need to evoke the absurd.

When one has seen what I have seen,
these wonders that have really been,
that we do not see every day
because of Fortune’s clever way,
of disguising her mutations,
those deceptive situations
which I hope to unveil here... ...

Before my discourse grows in size,
let me summarize,
this moment, just who I am,
what all this meant.
How I, a woman,
became a man
by a flick of Fortune’s hand

How she changed my body’s form
to the perfect masculine norm.
I’m a man, no truth I’m hiding,
you can tell by how I’m hiding.


And if I was female before
- It’s the truth and nothing more-
it seems I’ll have to re-create
just how I did transmutate
f rom a woman to a male.
I think the title of my tale
is, if I’m not being importune,
‘The Mutation of Fortune.’
Christine de Pisan
From: The Writings of Christine de Pizan, trans. Nadia Margolis, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (New York: Persea Books, 1994), 110 & 112.

A3. [personal exercise]
Are you satisfied with your own level of education? What stands in the way of improving your academic study?

narration

3. 1 Improve your education

Christine de Pisan was born in Venice in 1364 from Italian parents. Her father, who was an astrologer and physician, got a job at the court of the French king Charles V. The family moved to Paris where Christine was given a basic education of reading and writing at her father’s express wishes.

At 15, Christine married Étienne du Castel, a royal secretary. She had 3 children from him, but sadly ten years later her husband died.

Since King Charles V had also died, Christine and her family fell on hard times. As a widow of 25 she had three children, a niece, and her own widowed mother to support.

Christine knew she had the gift of poetry and of writing. She decided that she could make a living if she could develop those talents. Fortunately she had friends at the library of the royal court.

With great determination she embarked on a program of self education. In the beginning she was paid for copying and illustrating other people’s works. Then, slowly she produced her own poetry, plays and books. So she became France’s, and possibly Europe’s, first woman to earn her living by writing.

To appreciate her achievement one should realise that at that time scholarship was entirely in the hands of men. Most women could not read or write. There were no schools or universities open to women. It was commonly believed that women were not intelligent enough to be able to study.

There was especially a religious conviction, based on wrongly interpreted Scripture texts, that women could not be trusted as teachers, either in a classroom setting or in writings. John Duns Scotus (1266 - 1308) explained it in these terms:

“Teaching is prohibited to women, 1. Timoth. 2. ‘Let the women learn in silence’, and ‘I do not permit them [women] to speak or to teach’, where a gloss [reads], ‘not only I but also the Lord does not permit it’;and this is so because of the weakness of women’s intellect, and the mutability of their emotions, which they commonly suffer more than men. For a teacher ought to have a lively intellect in the recognition of truth, and stability of emotion in its confirmation.”
Commentary on Peter Lombard, L4, D25, Q2, §19.

Her works included all genres of writing: biography, autobiography, poetry, history, novels, short stories, books on morality, military techniques, religion, politics, and literary commentary.

H1 How did Christine’s study and self education helped her discover a literary reality that she had not realised before?

H2 Christine did not jump at conclusions. She took time to listen to the opposition. She explains: “I told myself it would be impossible that so many famous men - such solemn scholars, possessed of such deep and great understanding, so clear-sighted in all things, as it seemed - could have spoken falsely on so many occasions that I could hardly find a book on morals where, even before I had read it in its entirety, I did not find several chapters or certain sections attacking women, no matter who the author was.”

In the light of Christine’s example, do you agree with the advice given by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873):

“Leave room for others to express their opinions.
Why it is necessary?
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for all we know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if your own opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling for its rational grounds.”
John Stuart Mill

H3. [personal exercise]
Do you listen to alternative or opposing views? Do you admit that you might be wrong?

3. 2 Listen to the opposition

Initially Christine had to establish her total mastery of literary tradition. But then she turned her attention to the prevailing bias against women.

She describes how she came across male bias in books:

“One day as I was sitting alone in my study surrounded by books on all kinds of subjects, devoting myself to literary studies, my usual habit,. my mind dwelt at length on the weighty opinions of various authors whom I had studied for a long time. made me wonder how it happened that so many different men - and learned men among them - have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behavior. Not only one or two and not even just this Matheolus for this book had a bad name anyways and was intended as a satire) but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators - it would take too long to mention their names - it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realize how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behavior and character of women.”
Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies, Introduction.

Christine says that she carefully studied the facts and the arguments given by men who claimed to be learned scholars. She listened to them but found that their attitude was due to sheer prejudice. This made her resolve not to give in to such an unjust treatment.

Prior to Christine, no woman in Europe had spoken out in the vernacular on issues pertaining to women. She began to dedicate herself to the betterment of women’s lives and to the alleviation of women’s suffering.

I.1 Do you think it took courage for Christine de Pisan to challenge the scholars of her time? Spell out the reasons why.

I.2 Are the following injustices against which Christine protested still common today?

• the lack of access women have to education
• the disappointment women feel at the birth of a daughter
• the accusation that women invite rape [she was very angry at the double standard, by which men, raping women, then blame women for allowing them to do so]
• violence in marriage
• beatings by drunken and spendthrift husbands

I.3. [personal exercise]
If you are a man, do you still have prejudices against women?

3. 3 Fight the good fight

To understand the prejudices against women prevalent in Europe at the time, look at the following texts:

• Valens Acidalius Disputation against women, in which it is demonstrated that they are not human beings (1595)
• A Gentleman, Man Superior to woman, or the natural right of the man to sovereign authority over the woman, asserted and defended (1739)
• See a full list of writings in this so-called Quarrel about Women.

In a number of her writings Christine tackled the misogyny [hatred against women] of authors and scholars.

• Letter of the God of Love [1399]: a defense of women written to counter the courtly love attitudes (in verse)
• The Tale of the Rose [1402]: reply to Jena de Meun’s satyric novel about women ‘The Romance of the Rose’
• Letters on the Debate Concerning the Romance of the Rose [1401-1403]. In these letters to various leading humanists of her time, De Pizan attacks the work as immoral and misogynistic, establishes herself as a spokeswoman for the dignity of all women.
• The Book of the City of Ladies [1405]: de Pizan's impassioned defense of women against misogynistic attacks by men which uses reason and logic and includes accounts of famous, important, and historic women.

During her final years, Christine de Pisan retired in a convent where she died around 1430. She is rightly considered the first feminist European writer.