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Often considered the first professional female writer and what some would call the first feminist, widow and working mother Christine de Pizan began her literary career in medieval France in the 1390s.

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Transcript

Lead: Often considered the first professional female writer and what some would call the first feminist, widow and working mother Christine de Pizan began her literary career in medieval France in the 1390s.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Christine de Pizan, though Italian by birth, was raised in the French court of King Charles V, where her father and later her husband were court advisors. Encouraged by both men, Christine received a comprehensive, classical education at court.

When she was twenty-five, Christine's husband died suddenly and she was left to care for three young children, a niece and her mother on very limited resources. To support herself and her family, Christine took up writing as a vocation. Deeply committed, indeed almost driven to success, Christine began writing poems and ballads in memory of her husband. These expressed a level of romantic love with such sincerity and grace that her works received favorable attention in the French upper class. Eventually, her readers included Europe's intellectuals, and her patrons included Louis, Duke of Orleans; the Duke of Berry; Philip the Bold; King Charles VI and his wife Queen Isabella of Bavaria; and in England, the 4th Earl of Salisbury.

In more than twenty distinguished works Christine concentrated on the political life of France and, foremost, on the defense of the dignity of women. She publicly accused the author of "The Romance of the Rose" of misogyny and argued that this most popular work of medieval France was slanderous toward women. In 1405 she wrote what is considered today her masterwork, "The Book of the City of Ladies," stories of women of the past known for their virtue, heroism and achievements.

After the devastating French loss of the Battle of Agincourt (in 1415 during the 100 Years War) Christine, already devastated by the hostilities with England, retired to a convent. Her last work, "Hymn to Joan of Arc," emerged in 1429. Christine de Pizan, medieval proto-feminist, died the following year.

At the University of Richmond, I'm Dan Roberts.

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