Christine de Pizan (1365–c. 1430) was born in Venice and raised in Paris, where her father served as court astrologer to the French king Charles V, a learned and progressive monarch known as “Charles the Wise.” The stimulating atmosphere of this court provided Christine with the unusual opportunity to receive a sound education, which her father encouraged and her mother opposed.125 In 1380 fifteen-year-old Christine wedded a twenty-four-year-old court notary and secretary. Their marriage was happy and produced three children; but in 1385 her father died in debt, and during an epidemic in 1389 her husband died followed by one of her children. Suddenly bereft of financial means or a husband, twenty-five-year-old Christine turned to writing to earn a living and became the first woman of letters in Europe to do so.
The range and quality of her writing are remarkable. She began by addressing the popular themes of courtly love and chivalry in lyric poems, short narratives, and didactic works, and quickly gained an audience and success. She was then named the official biographer of Charles V, and after 1400 began producing her mature works addressing the vicissitudes of fortune and la querelle des femmes (“the woman question”). This latter topic was prompted by Christine’s desire to respond to the misogynist vein in Western letters and, in particular, to the cynical views about women expressed in The Romance of the Rose, an influential work of French literature composed in the thirteenth century. Christine became the chief correspondent in the associated literary debate called “The Quarrel of The Romance of the Rose” that was ignited, in part, by the appearance of Concerning Famous Women (c. 1359), a work composed by the prominent Italian writer and poet, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375).
While recounting the lives of 104 women, Boccaccio’s Concerning Famous Women “recognized that women can live and achieve glory just as men do. . . . Women can become great scholars, rulers, painters, and poets, if they put their minds to it. But this requires a greater effort on their part since Nature has not made them the equals of men. Nature has given them frail bodies and sluggish minds, and to achieve glory they must first overcome these handicaps. Many of them have done so, and therefore deserve greater praise than men, according to Boccaccio. . . . To lavish praise on a woman, Boccaccio can think of no better adjective than ‘manly,’ and his greatest condemnation of sluggish and insignificant men is to call them women.”126
Responding to Boccaccio in Book of the City of Ladies (c. 1404), Christine did not explicitly criticize his backhanded praise of “exceptional” women, but revised many of his biographies in order to compose a history demonstrating the universality, rather than exceptionality, of accomplished women.127 Beyond retouching the blemishes that Boccaccio included in many of his profiles, Christine expands the number of accomplished women with many Christians from the period after antiquity,128 and introduces the metaphor of the city of women, signifying that women have founded and built a tradition of their own. The metaphor also implies that women belong in public life and deserve education in the liberal arts, which prepare students for public roles.129
As a work of literature, Book of the City of Ladies incorporates a number of different motifs and perspectives. Christine’s background as a learned woman of late fourteenth-century Venice implies the viewpoint of an early Italian Renaissance feminist.130 But her residence in northern Europe contributes to the medieval technique of indirectly establishing her voice through a supernatural visitation. At the same time, the premodern seems to meet the postmodern in Book of the City of Ladies when Christine observes that, since historical writing is influenced by the biases and situation of the historians, the tradition must be reconstructed in order to give voice to those who have not been heard. In this endeavor, the female imagery of the liberal arts was readily at hand; and Christine employs it to ascribe to women the intellectual autonomy and creativity that she herself developed. Nevertheless, her final position was moderate from a modern perspective, for she never argued for social or political equality with men.
In her later years Christine turned to political topics, and in 1418 fled Paris during the bloody civil war. Retreating to a convent where her daughter was a nun, she continued writing until her death in about 1430.
1. Here begins the book of the city of ladies, whose first chapter tells why and for what purpose this book was written.
[i] 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. I looked up from my book, having decided to leave such subtle questions in peace and to relax by reading some light poetry. With this in mind, I searched for some small book.
By chance a strange volume came into my hands, not one of my own, but one which had been given to me along with some others. When I held it open and saw from its title page that it was by Mathéolus,132 I smiled, for though I had never seen it before, I had often heard that like other books it discussed respect for women. . . . Because the subject seemed to me not very pleasant for people who do not enjoy lies, and of no use in developing virtue or manners, given its lack of integrity in diction and theme, and after browsing here and there and reading the end, I put it down in order to turn my attention to more elevated and useful study. But just the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, 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 Mathéolus (for this book had a bad name anyway and was intended as a satire) but, more generally, judging from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all orators—it would take too long to mention their names—it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. They all concur in one conclusion: that the behavior of women is inclined to and full of every vice. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman133 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. Yet I still argued vehemently against women, saying that 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.
This reason alone, in short, made me conclude that, although my intellect did not perceive my own great faults and, likewise, those of other women because of its simpleness and ignorance, it was however truly fitting that such was the case. And so I relied more on the judgment of others than on what I myself felt and knew. I was so transfixed in this line of thinking for such a long time that it seemed as if I were in a stupor. Like a gushing fountain, a series of authorities, whom I recalled one after another, came to mind, along with their opinions on this topic. And I finally decided that God formed a vile creature when He made woman, and I wondered how such a worthy artisan could have deigned to make such an abominable work which, from what they say, is the vessel as well as the refuge and abode of every evil and vice. As I was thinking this, a great unhappiness and sadness welled up in my heart, for I detested myself and the entire feminine sex, as though we were monstrosities in nature. And in my lament I spoke these words:
[ii] “Oh, God, how can this be? For unless I stray from my faith, I must never doubt that Your infinite wisdom and most perfect goodness ever created anything which was not good. Did You yourself not create woman in a very special way and since that time did You not give her all those inclinations which it pleased You for her to have? And how could it be that You could go wrong in anything? Yet look at all these accusations which have been judged, decided, and concluded against women. I do not know how to understand this repugnance. If it is so, fair Lord God, that in fact so many abominations abound in the female sex, for You yourself say that the testimony of two or three witnesses lends credence, why shall I not doubt that this is true? Alas, God, why did You not let me be born in the world as a man, so that all my inclinations would be to serve You better, and so that I would not stray in anything and would be as perfect as a man is said to be? But since Your kindness has not been extended to me, then forgive my negligence in Your service, most fair Lord God, and may it not displease You, for the servant who receives fewer gifts from his lord is less obliged in his service.” I spoke these words to God in my lament and a great deal more for a very long time in sad reflection, and in my folly I considered myself most unfortunate because God had made me inhabit a female body in this world.134
2. Here Christine describes how three ladies [Reason, Rectitude, Justice] appeared to her and how the one who was in front spoke first and confronted her in her pain.
[i] So occupied with these painful thoughts, my head bowed in shame, my eyes filled with tears, leaning on the pommel of my chair’s armrest, I suddenly saw a ray of light fall on my lap, as though it were the sun. I shuddered then, as if wakened from sleep, for I was sitting in a shadow where the sun should not have shone at that hour. And as I lifted my head to see where this light was coming from, I saw three crowned ladies standing before me, and the splendor of their bright faces shone on me and throughout the entire room. Now no one would ask whether I was surprised, for my doors were shut and they had still entered. Fearing that some phantom had come to tempt me and filled with great fright, I made the Sign of the Cross on my forehead.135
[ii] Then she who was the first of the three smiled and began to speak, “Dear daughter, do not be afraid, for we have not come here to harm or trouble you but to console you, for we have taken pity on your distress, and we have come to bring you out of the ignorance which so blinds your own intellect that you shun what you know for a certainty and believe what you do not know or see or recognize except by virtue of many strange opinions. You resemble the fool in the prank who was dressed in women’s clothes while he slept; because those who were making fun of him repeatedly told him he was a woman, he believed their false testimony more readily than the certainty of his own identity. Fair daughter, have you lost all sense? Have you forgotten that when fine gold is tested in the furnace, it does not change or vary in strength but becomes purer the more it is hammered and handled in different ways? Do you know not that the best things are the most debated and the most discussed? . .”
27. . . . [Christine questions Reason.] “But please enlighten me again, whether it has ever pleased this God, who has bestowed so many favors on women, to honor the feminine sex with the privilege of the virtue of high understanding and great learning, and whether women ever have a clever enough mind for this. I wish very much to know this because men maintain that the mind of women can learn only a little.”
She answered, “My daughter, since I told you before, you know quite well that the opposite of their opinion is true, and to show you this even more clearly, I will give you proof through examples. I tell you again—and don’t doubt the contrary—if it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons.136 And by chance there happen to be such women, for, as I touched on before, just as women have more delicate bodies than men, weaker and less able to perform many tasks, so do they have minds that are freer and sharper whenever they apply themselves.”
“My lady, what are you saying? With all due respect, could you dwell longer on this point, please. Certainly men would never admit this answer is true, unless it is explained more plainly, for they believe that one normally sees that men know more than women do.”
She answered, “Do you know why women know less?”
“Not unless you tell me, my lady.”
“Without the slightest doubt, it is because they are not involved in many different things, but stay at home, where it is enough for them to run the household, and there is nothing which so instructs a reasonable creature as the exercise and experience of many different things.”
“My lady, since they have minds skilled in conceptualizing and learning, just like men, why don’t women learn more?”
She replied, “Because, my daughter, the public does not require them to get involved in the affairs which men are commissioned to execute, just as I told you before. It is enough for women to perform the usual duties to which they are ordained. As for judging from experience, since one sees that women usually know less than men, that therefore their capacity for understanding is less, look at men who farm the flatlands or who live in the mountains. You will find that in many countries they seem completely savage because they are so simple-minded. All the same, there is no doubt that Nature provided them with the qualities of body and mind found in the wisest and most learned men. All of this stems from a failure to learn, though, just as I told you, among men and women some possess better minds than others. Let me tell you about women who have possessed great learning and profound understanding and treat the question of the similarity of women’s minds to men’s.”
28. She begins to discuss several ladies who were enlightened with great learning,137 and first speaks about the noble maiden Cornificia.138 “Cornificia, the noble maiden, was sent to school by her parents along with her brother Cornificius when they were both children, thanks to deception and trickery.139 This little girl so devoted herself to study and with such marvelous intelligence that she began to savor the sweet taste of knowledge acquired through study. Nor was it easy to take her away from this joy to which she more and more applied herself, neglecting all other feminine activities. She occupied herself with this for such a long period of time that she became a consummate poet, and she was not only extremely brilliant and expert in the learnedness and craft of poetry but also seemed to have been nourished with the very milk and teaching of perfect philosophy, for she wanted to hear and know about every branch of learning, which she then mastered so thoroughly that she surpassed her brother, who was also a very great poet, and excelled in every field of learning. Knowledge was not enough for her unless she could put her mind to work and her pen to paper in the compilation of several very famous books. These works, as well as her poems, were much prized during this time of St. Gregory140 and he himself mentions them. The Italian, Boccaccio, who was a great poet, discusses this fact in [Concerning Famous Women] and at the same time praises this woman: ‘O most great honor for a woman who abandoned all feminine activities and applied and devoted her mind to the study of the great scholars!’
“As further proof of what I am telling you, Boccaccio also talks about the attitude of women who despise themselves and their own minds and who, as though they were born in the mountains totally ignorant off virtue and honor, turn disconsolate and say that they are good and useful only for embracing men and carrying and feeding children. God has given them such beautiful minds to apply themselves, if they want to, in any of the fields where glorious and excellent men are active; [and these arts and sciences] are neither more nor less accessible to them as compared to men if they wished to study them, and they can thereby acquire a lasting name, whose possession is fitting for most excellent men. My dear daughter, you can see how this author Boccaccio testifies to what I have told you and how he praises and approves learning in women.”
29. Here she tells of Proba the Roman.141 “The Roman woman, Proba, wife of Adelphus, was equally outstanding and was a Christian. She had such a noble mind and so loved and devoted herself to study that she mastered all seven liberal arts142 and was an excellent poet and delved so deeply into the books of the poets, particularly Vergil’s poems, that she knew them all by heart. After she had read these books and poems with profound insight and intelligence and had taken pains in her mind to understand them, it occurred to her that one could describe the Scriptures and the stories found in the Old and New Testament with pleasant verses filled with substance taken from these same works. . . .”
33. Christine asks Reason whether there was ever a woman who discovered hitherto unknown knowledge.
[i] I, Christine, concentrating on these explanations of Lady Reason, replied to her regarding this passage: “My lady, I realize that you are able to cite numerous and frequent cases of women learned in the sciences and the arts. But I would then ask you whether you know of any women who, through the strength of emotion and of subtlety of mind and comprehension, have themselves discovered any new arts and sciences which are necessary, good, and profitable, and which had hitherto not been discovered or known?143 For it is not such a great feat of mastery to study and learn some field of knowledge already discovered by someone else as it is to discover by oneself some new and unknown thing.”
She replied, “Rest assured, dear friend, that many noteworthy and great sciences and arts have been discovered through the understanding and subtlety of women, both in cognitive speculation, demonstrated in writing, and in the arts, manifested in manual works of labor. I will give you plenty of examples.
[ii] “First I will tell you of the noble Nicostrata whom the Italians call Carmentis. This lady was the daughter of a king of Arcadia, named Pallas. She has a marvelous mind, endowed by God with special gifts of knowledge: she was a great scholar in Greek literature and had such fair and wise speech and venerable eloquence that the contemporary poets who wrote about her imagined she was beloved of the god Mercury. They claimed that a son whom she had with her husband, and who was in his time most learned, was in fact the offspring of this god. Because of certain changes which came about in the land where she lived, this lady left her country in a large boat for the land of Italy, and in her company were her son and a great many people who followed her; she arrived at the river Tiber. Landing there, she proceeded to climb a high hill which she named the Palentine [sic], after her father, where the city of Rome was later founded. There, this lady and her son and all those who had followed her built a fortress. After discovering that the men of that country were all savages, she wrote certain laws, enjoining them to live in accord with right and reason, following justice. She was the first to institute laws in that country which subsequently became so renowned and from which all the statutes of law derive. This lady knew through divine inspiration and the spirit of prophecy (in which he was remarkably distinguished, in addition to the other graces she possessed) how in time to come this land would be ennobled by excellence and famous over [the earth. . . .]”144
37. Concerning the great good accrued to the world through these women. “My lady, I greatly admire what I have heard you say, that so much good has come into the world by virtue of the understanding of women. These men usually say that women’s knowledge is worthless. In fact when someone says something foolish, the widely voiced insult is that this is women’s knowledge. In brief, the typical opinions and comments of men claim that women have been and are useful in the world only for bearing children and sewing.”
She answered, “Now you can recognize the massive ingratitude of the men who say such things; they are like people who live off the goods of others without knowing their source and without thanking anyone. You can also clearly see how God, who does nothing without a reason, wished to show men that He does not despise the feminine sex nor their own, because it so pleased Him to place such great understanding in women’s brains that they are intelligent enough not only to learn and retain the sciences but also to discover new sciences themselves, indeed sciences of such great utility and profit for the world that nothing has been more necessary. . . .
38. [iv] Then I said to her,145 “Now, my lady, I indeed understand more than before why you spoke of the enormous ingratitude, not to say ignorance, of these men who malign women, for although it seems to me that the fact that the mother of every man is a woman is reason enough not to attack them, not to mention the other good deeds which one can clearly see that women do for men, truly, one can see here the many benefits afforded by women with the greatest generosity to men which they have accepted and continue to accept. Henceforth, let all writers be silent who speak badly of women, let all of them be silent—those who have attacked women and who still attack them in their books and poems, and all their accomplices and supporters too—let them lower their eyes, ashamed for having dared to speak so badly, in view of the truth which runs counter to their poems; this noble lady, Carmentis, through the profundity of her understanding taught them like a schoolmistress—nor can they deny it—the lesson thanks to which they consider themselves so lofty and honored, that is, she taught them the Latin alphabet!
[v] “But what did all the many nobles and knights say, who generally slander women with such false remarks? From now on let them keep their mouths shut and remember that the customs of bearing arms, of dividing armies into battalions, and of fighting in ordered ranks—a vocation upon which they so pride themselves and for which they consider themselves so great—came to them from a woman and were given to them by a woman. Would men who live on bread, or who live civil in cities following the order of law, or who cultivate the fields, have any good reason to slander and rebuff women so much, as many do, if they only thought of all the benefits? Certainly not, because thanks to women, that is, Minerva, Ceres, and Isis, so many beneficial things have come to men, through which they can lead honorable lives and from which they live and will live always. Ought not these things be considered?”
“Doubtless, my lady. It seems to me that neither in the teaching of Aristotle, which had been of great profit to human intelligence and which is so highly esteemed and with good reason, nor in that of all the other philosophers who have ever lived, could an equal benefit for the world be found as that which has been accrued and still accrues through the works accomplished by virtue of the knowledge possessed by these ladies.”146
And she said to me, “They were not alone, but there are many others and I will tell you of them.”
1. Jerome, Letters VI xxii 30. Jerome (c. 347–c. 420) was Christian scholar and editor
2. The gradual codification of the “seven liberal arts” is evidenced by the tables in Henri I. Marrou, “Les arts libéraux dans l’antiquité classique,” in Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen Âge (Montréal: Institut d’études médiévales, Universitéde Montréal, 1969), pp. 5–27.
3. Jerome, Letters CXXIII 15–16. Translation adapted from St. Jerome, Lettres (Paris: Société d’Édition Les Belles Lettres, 1961), v. 7.
4. Arthur O. Norton, Harvard Text-Books and Reference Books of the Seventeenth Century (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1935), p. 8n. See selection #29 from Harvard College, New England’s First Fruits (1643).
5. Christoph Schäublin, “De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture?” in De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, ed. Duane W. H. Arnold and Pamela Bright (Notre Dame, IN: University Notre Dame Press, 1995), pp. 47–55; Edmund P. Hill, “Introduction,” in Augustine, Teaching Christianity, De Doctrina Christiana, tr. Edmund P. Hill (New York: New City Press, 1996), p. 95.
6. Frederick Van Fleteren, “St. Augustine, Neoplatonism, and the Liberal Arts: The Background to De Doctrina Christiana,” in De Doctrina Christiana, pp. 14–5.
7. In his Miscellanies, the Christian theologian and educator Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150–215) attempted to synthesize Platonic and Christian doctrine and declared that the liberal arts and secular philosophy were gifts of God acquired through the Holy Spirit.
8. D. W. Robertson, Jr., tr., Augustine: On Christian Doctrine (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), pp. 64, 67–75, 136–8, 142–3. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc.
9. Augustine thus endorses the argument of Bishop Ambrose on behalf of the Egyptian, Hebraic, and therefore Judaeo-Christian origins of Greek learning. This argument was directed both to Christian rigorists who scorned pagan learning, fearing the temptation to indulge in worldly things, and to pagans who dismissed even the Christian doctrines they admired as being derivative of Greek philosophy. Augustine later retracted his endorsement of Ambrose’s view (which was still widely credited as late as the fifteenth century, but he never relinquished his steadfast defense of the appropriateness of secular learning and the liberal arts for Christians.
10. Having addressed other kinds of arts, Augustine begins a discussion of the liberal arts that ends at II xxxix.
11. According to the Stoic usage that influenced Augustine, dialectica, translated here as “disputation,” refers to grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Understood in this way, “disputation,” together with “number,” refers to the two hemispheres of the liberal arts: language and mathematics.
12. Note here and below Augustine’s wariness of the temptation of sophistry, reminiscent of Isocrates’s warning in selection #2.
13. Here and below, Augustine’s distinction between the validity of logical inferences (which are based upon the rules of a pagan liberal art) and the truth of such inferences (which depend upon the nature of their premisses) exemplifies his strategy of reconciling pagan and Christian cultures. In the words of a later scholastic aphorism, classical learning and Christian doctrine “are different but not contradictory.”
14. Having addressed the art of logic (II xxxi–xxxiv), Augustine now turns to rhetoric, his specialty, which occupies the bulk of his attention.
15. This contrast between “discovered” and “instituted” is another distinction frequently employed by Augustine in order to reconcile pagan and Christian cultures.
16. In his dialogue The Teacher, Augustine challenges the efficacy of relying not only on rules, but even on teaching at all as a means to learn how to act.
17. Vergil, Aeneid I 2. Here and below the citations and translations are given by the translator.
18. Here the Platonic understanding of the mathematical liberal arts is simplified to a formula that is being handed on: “numbers have immutable rules . . . considered in themselves [arithmetic] or applied to the law of figures [geometry], or of sound [music], or of some other motion [astronomy].” The surviving remnants of the treatises that Augustine wrote addressing each of the four mathematical arts indicate that he understood little of the underlying principles and interpreted these arts in a practical and mundane fashion, as compared to Plato’s understanding.
19. Augustine is known for favoring Plato and neo-Platonic philosophy.
20. This is a succinct summary of Augustine’s, twofold defense for the verbal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. As recounted in the first three books, written some thirty years earlier, grammar and logic serve Christians in the interpretation of sacred texts. The second service is to train Christians in preaching the truth that they learn from interpretation. Hence, the focus of Book IV is primarily upon rhetoric, the most “dangerous” of the liberal arts.
21. Compare II xxxvii above with the judgment in selection #16 by John of Salisbury (I 1).
22. This chapter provides “an outline of the officia—dialectical and rhetorical—of the Christian orator. . . . The foundation of Augustine’s office is entirely classical; the spirit is wholly Christian; the result is a new rhetorical ideal.” Thérèse Sullivan, Doctrina Christiana, Liber Quartus, A Commentary and Translation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1930), p. 44n1.
23. Cicero, On Discovery I 1. Augustine’s quoting of Cicero inaugurates the practice by Church leaders.
24. Cicero, Orator 21, 69.
25. The telling phrase “ecclesiastical orator” expresses the reconciliation of Christian and classical cultures that is being advanced here.
26. Cicero, Orator 29, 101. See Martianus Capella (V 428) in selection #8.
27. William H. Stahl, “Introduction,” in Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, v. 1, p. 21. Very little is known about Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, however. Some phrases within the nine mythological chapters of The Marriage suggest that he was a non-Christian lawyer who lived in north Africa near Carthage, making him a neighbor and contemporary of Augustine.
28. See IX 891 in this selection.
29. History of the Franks, bk. X, pts. 18, 31, by Gregory of Tours (538–594), French historian and bishop.
30. Philippe M. Verdier, “L’iconographie des arts libéraux dans l’art du moyen âge jusqu’à la fin du quinzième siècle” in Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen Âge (Montréal: Institut d’études médiévales, Universitéde Montréal, 1969), pp. 305–54.
31. Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1948) tr. W. R. Trask (1953; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 37–8.
32. Stahl, “Introduction,” v. 1, p. 21.
33. Drawn from the transation of William H. Stahl and Richard Johnson with E. L. Burge, in Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press: 1977), v. 2, pp. 3–7, 34–5, 62–7, 106–11, 155–9, 218–20, 290–2, 314–7, 345–9. Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press.
34. Philologia at this time denoted learning in general, rather than either the meaning implied by the “philological theses” in the Harvard College curriculum of 1642 in selection #29 or the modern sense of “philology” as the study of the linguistic aspects of written texts.
35. According to the Carolingian commentator Remigius of Auxerre (c. 841–908), the meaning of this scene “is that Philology beholds Mercury, or eloquence, while she is engaged in mastering the rudiments of grammar and literary studies; in other words, we discover and attain eloquence only through the study of the basic liberal arts.” Translator’s note, p. 34n. See Remigius’s interpretation of selection #9 by Boethius, noted in the introduction below.
36. Phoebus, meaning “brilliant or “shining” in Greek, was another name for Apollo, Greek god of light, arts, muses, medicine, and prophecy. Martianus employs a euphemism here, and routinely employs “Phoebus” below.
37. Belief that leading intellectuals were gathered together in paradise was common in the fourth century A.D.; the ancient philosophers and scientists are accompanied here by symbols of their doctrines. Translator’s note, p. 62n. These points held throughout the Middle Ages. See Verdier, “L’iconographie des arts libéraux,” pp. 305–54.
38. Linus, legendary son of the Greek god Apollo and a Muse, is said to have taught music to Hercules or Orpheus; Aristoxenus was a Greek theorist of music of the fourth century B.C. Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 B.C.), Greek philosopher from Ephesus, believed that all things were in a continual state of flux because fire was the basic substance of the cosmos. Thales (c. 636–c. 546 B.C.), Ionian philosopher and physicist, maintained that water was the basic substance of the universe.
39. Aristotle made an important distinction between entelecheia (fulfillment, completion) and energeia (actuality).
40. Arcesilaus (c. 316–c. 241 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher whose views resembled those of the Skeptics.
41. “The old woman is Grammatiké (Grammar). Mercury is said to have invented languages for mankind. His Greek name Hermes is taken to be akin to hermeneutes (an interpreter); hence, the idea that he ‘found and brought up’ Grammar. The idea that various disciplines originated in Egypt was common.” Translator’s note, pp. 64–5n.
42. Osiris, legendary Egyptian king and god of the underworld.
43. The conventional “parts” of speech in ancient manuals.
44. In line with the predominant Ciceronian view of the time, “grammar” includes the study of literature, rather than merely forms and rules of language and syntax.
45. In the original Latin, several chapters begin with a hymn in verse.
46. “This refers to the common, ancient sophism: ‘What you have not lost, you have; you have not lost horns from your head, therefore you have horns on your head.’ ” Translator’s note, p. 106n.
47. “Chrysippus was a celebrated, Stoic philosopher [c. 280–c. 207 B.C.] who ‘heaped’ up a ‘pile’ of sorites in a book on logic. . . . Carneades, a skeptic philosopher [213–129 B.C.], is said to have used hellebore, a purgative drug, to make his mind keener and more subtle before disputing with Chrysippus.” Translator’s note, p. 106n.
48. This forbidding image of the liberal art of logic was well known in subsequent centuries. Attavante degli Attavanti (1452–c. 1517), an Italian illustrator and miniaturist, painted a portrait of this liberal art of logic in a manuscript of the Marriage of Philology and Mercury written for the King of Bohemia and reposited today in the St. Mark’s Library of Venice. The coiled snake was embroidered on an allegorical gown worn by Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) in a portrait.
49. “The Latin here, deducti per quosdam consequentes gradus, applies equally well to a logical argument ‘deduced through certain successive steps’ as to Dialectic’s symbolic hairstyle.” Translator’s note, p. 107n.
50. The metaphor portrays the experience of being induced to adopt some attractive propositions (the patterns), trapped by their hidden implications (the hook), and then slowly and painfully compelled to yield to the logical scrutiny of an interlocutor. The view that the deceptive and malevolent craftiness, represented by the hidden snake, was “unknown in all the Greek schools” reflects a deeply pejorative view of the philosophical schools in late antiquity. Compare the confirming testimony of Cicero in selection #4, Quintilian in selection #6, and Boethius in selection #9.
51. The meaning of this sentence is not clear, according to the translator. Perhaps Martianus is manipulating technical terms in logic to demonstrate the point of his previous sentence.
52. Observe the comparison of Greek and Roman characteristics, which persisted in the liberal arts tradition, as noted by Cicero in selection #4 and by Bathsua Makin in selection #30.
53. The arts referred to in this sentence are, respectively, grammar, rhetoric, and geometry. The subsequent parts (344–354) draw heavily from the Introduction of Porphyry (c. 232–c. 304), broaching the initial epistemological problems of dialectical inquiry raised by Aristotle in his introductory books on logic.
54. Why are military metaphors found throughout the liberal arts tradition?
55. See selection #7 by Augustine (IV xvii 34).
56. “The diction echoes Cicero’s translation of Aristophanes’s description of Pericles.” Translator’s note, p. 157n.
57. Though often unreliable, Isidore of Seville states correctly in selection #11, “geometry has been named from ‘earth’ and from “]’measure.’ For ‘earth’ is called ge in Greek, and ‘measure’ is metron” (III 10.)
58. Martianus proceeds to interpret geometry less as a mathematical art than as geography, and incorporates material from a popular travelogue rather than an informed account of geography. The interchanging of geography for geometry continues in the liberal arts tradition, as Bathsua Makin implies in selection #30.
59. This selection from the discourse by Arithmetic about her art lends a sense of the material that Martianus borrowed from standard, elementary textbooks of his day and that constituted the study of the liberal arts in the early middle ages.
60. This literal translation points to Martianus’s “limited comprehension of the subject of solid numbers. He conceives of a solid number as a plane number multiplied by 2; or, represented geometrically, as two identical plane surfaces, one superimposed on the other, the altitude being two. . . . The figure that Martianus uses is called a ‘brick’ by Greek arithmeticians.” Translator’s note, p. 291n.
61. This chapter was the shortest and most popular book of Martianus’s treatise, because the content presented the most informed account of its subject until the recovery of Greek learning in the 1200s. The Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) subsequently credited Martianus for advancing the idea of the heliocentric orbits of the planets. On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, bk. X, pt. 10.
62. This is the exclusion of medicine and architecture that Marcus Terentius Varro had included among the arts to be studied, as discussed in the introduction to Martianus.
63. Each planet was said to emit a particular note as it orbited the earth, and together they made a harmony.
64. “Melic” derives from the Greek melos, meaning poetry or song. The “reverend sisters” refers to the seven prophetic arts, whom Jupiter passes over.
65. These two introductory treatises of Aristotle’s logic were often accompanied in the middle ages by an Introduction, written by Porphyry and translated by Boethius, broaching the epistemological problems of dialectical inquiry raised by Aristotle.
66. Boethius, Arithmetic I 1. Boethius’s Arithmetic is a translation of the Introduction to Arithmetic by Nicomachus of Gerasa, and quadrivium (actually Boethius’s term is quadruvium) is a translation of the Greek tessares methodoi (four ways to pursue study).
67. In Latin, Satura. “The Latin term means a dish of mixed ingredients, a stew; it became the name of a literary form invented by early Latin writers—a mixture of prose and verse on a miscellany of topics. This is the genre satire; one type of satire became purely verse (e.g., the satires of Horace, Persius, Juvenal); the other, Menippean satire, retained the mixture of prose and verse—this is what Martianus is writing. The caustic tone which is implied in the modern word ‘satire’ was not essential to the ancient genre, but was present in the writing of Lucilius and Juvenal, and from the latter was taken over into European satirical writing.” William H. Stahl and Richard Johnson, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), v. 2, p. 4n.
68. Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 128.
69. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, tr. S. J. Tester in Boethius, “Tractates,” “De Consolatione Philosophiae,” new edition (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), bk. I, pp. 131–45. Reprinted by permission of the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library. The Consolation of Philosophy has frequently been translated; this version has been selected for its preservation of the literary qualities of the original.
70. See in selection #28 Queen Elizabeth’s translation of the opening lines of the following paragraph.
71. Boethius is sometimes considered the first scholastic philosopher due, in part, to the implication here and throughout the Consolation that philosophy leads to divine wisdom, or theology.
72. How might the metaphorical appearance of Philosophy—her age, her dimensions, the fabric of her dress, and other aspects—be interpreted? Boethius’s image of Philosophy appears in the iconography of medieval cathedrals throughout Europe.
73. The markings on the dress likely represent Aristotle’s division of philosophy into practical philosophy, beginning with the Greek letter Pi, and theoretical philosophy, beginning with the Greek letter Theta. The Carolingian commentator Remigius of Auxerre (c. 841–908) interpreted these markings to represent the ascent from secular knowledge (pi) to divine knowledge (theta) via the steps of the seven liberal arts. This interpretation appears in later iconography.
74. A reference to the sectarianism of the philosophical schools in late antiquity, during which time “true” philosophy was forgotten, as Boethius asserts above. See the similar, extended image in Prose 3 below.
75. Boethius may be drawing this scene from the opening chapters of Proverbs in which the female figure of “Wisdom” is represented as a woman shooing away harlots. Or Boethius may be recalling Plato, Crito 44a–b, in which Socrates, awaiting death in prison, dreams that a beautiful woman, clothed in white, came and called to him.
76. The Eleatics constituted a school of philosophy founded some time after 540 B.C. and most famously represented by Parmenides and his student Zeno of Elea. The Academics were the successors of Plato in the Academy at Athens.
77. How can this dismissal of the Muses of poetry be reconciled with Boethius’s own use of poetry?
78. Boethius’s purposes and technique of interweaving prose and poetry have stimulated a great deal of speculative commentary. Is Boethius following the example of Socrates, who, while waiting to be executed, reports that he was visited by his Muse who told him to write poetry, which he did? (Plato, Phaedo 60e–61b.)
79. Following his curiosity, perhaps? Is this an image of free inquiry?
80. “Bound by number and law” is likely a reference to Platonic philosophy; “causes” to Aristotelian. Note that Boethius had written treatises on both mathematics and logic.
81. Compare the purpose and tone of the prose sections with those of the poetic sections.
82. The images of “forgotten his real self’ and trying to see clearly are, again, Platonic metaphors.
83. Perhaps a metaphorical description of intuitive insight.
84. In the ninth and tenth centuries, Boethius’ figure of Philosophy becomes interpreted as Divine Wisdom or Christian truth.
85. This image comports with Cicero’s complaint against the sectarianism of philosophy in his day and the image of the liberal art of logic portrayed by Martianus Capella.
86. Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 B.C.), Greek philosopher and scientist and teacher of Socrates, fled from Athens for fear of persecution in about 450 B.C. “Zeno of Elea is said to have died helping to rid his native city of a tyrant in the second half of the fifth century B.C.; Socrates was condemned to death in Athens in 399 B.C.; Canius, or better, Canus, Seneca [the Younger] and Soranus are quoted as types of the ‘Stoic opposition’ to the emperors; Canus died under Caligula in about A.D. 40, Seneca and Soranus under Nero in 65 and 66.” Translator’s note, pp. 142–3n.
87. Scholars now believe “Senator” to be part of Cassiodorus’s name and not to signify a position held.
88. Augustine, On the Order of Things II xvi 44. Compare Aristotle’s selection #3.
89. Cassiodorus, Introduction to Divine and Human Letters I xxviii 1–4.
90. Cassiodorus, Institutiones, ed. R. A. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon, 1937), bk. 2.
91. Cassiodorus, Introduction to Divine and Human Letters, tr. Leslie W. Jones (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946), pp. 142–9, 180–1, 196–9. Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press.
92. Psalms 13: 3. “Not included in the Authorized Version.” Translator’s note, p. 143n.
93. Many of Cassiodorus’s etymologies were borrowed by Isidore; and most, including this one, are incorrect.
94. These lines come from Boethius’s Arithmetic I 1, as mentioned above.
95. See selection #8 by Martianus Capella (III 229).
96. Cadmus was the legendary Greek founder of Thebes. The identity of Helenus is obscure.
97. The Latin grammarian Palaemon published his Grammatical Art, probably at Rome between A.D. 67 and 77. Phocas published his Art of Names and Words at Rome in the fifth century A.D. Probus was the foremost grammarian of the first century A.D., who flourished at Rome between A.D. 56 and 88. Translator’s note, p. 146n. Censorinus was a Latin grammarian of the third century A.D.
98. Aelius Donatus, Roman grammarian of the mid-fourth century A.D., wrote a standard textbook in grammar, divided into the Lesser Art or First Art (addressing the eight parts of speech) for novices and the Greater Art or Second Art for more advanced students.
99. This reference supports the view in the introduction that Cassiodorus intended his work not as a textbook or encyclopedia, but as a kind of annotated bibliography.
100. Attributed to Cato the Elder, the standard, epigrammatic definition of the Ciceronian orator (“a good man, skilled in speaking”) was quoted by Quintilian (Education of the Orator XII i 1), by Cassiodorus (II ii 1) in selection #10, and by Isidore (II 3) in selection #11, and is mentioned by Francesco Petrarca in selection #24.
101. This is quoted from the Latin rhetorician Fortunatianus, Three Books on the Art of Rhetoric I 1, written in the last half of the fourth century A.D. and modeled upon Quintilian’s Education of the Orator with illustrations drawn from Cicero’s works. Translator’s note.
102. This is the classical five-fold division, and Cassiodorus draws the following account largely from Cicero, On Discovery I 9.
103. The following three paragraphs are derived directly from Boethius’s Arithmetic.
104. Alypius, was a Greek writer on music, probably from the third century A.D.; Albinus, Latin writer on music from the fourth century A.D.; Gaudentius, Greek writer on music from the first three centuries A.D. The translator notes: “The elementary treatise on music which bears the name of Euclid is really the work of a pupil of Aristoxenus [Greek theorist of music from the fourth century B.C.]. [Ptolemy], the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer of the second century A.D., wrote a theoretical work on harmony.” (translator’s note, p. 196n.) Lucius Apuleius, Latin author of the second century A.D., wrote the only Latin novel to survive to modern time.
105. Augustine wrote On Music as one of a series of treatises addressing each of the seven liberal arts. But the series was not completed and several of the treatises have been lost.
106. Censorinus was a Latin grammarian of the third century A.D. A “stade” measured about 200 yards. On Varro, see the introduction to selection #8 by Martianus Capella.
107. This Apollonius is likely Apollonius of Perga (c. 262–c. 190 B.C.), who was an important Greek geometer, like Euclid and Archimedes. It is certainly not Apollonius of Alexandria, Greco-Alexandrian grammarian of the second century A.D., or Apollonius of Rhodes (c. 295–215 B.C.), Greco-Alexandrian epic poet.
108. In Greek, aster is star, nomos is law.
109. Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisigothique (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1959), pp. 3–4, 13–5, 32–3.
110. Isidore, Bishop of Spain, Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911), bks. I–III.
111. Isidore of Seville, Origins or Etymologies in Twenty Books, bks. I–III, adapted from a new, unpublished translation by J. Albert Dragstedt.
112. These definitions of the mathematical arts are more Glauconic than Socratic, as seen in selection #1 by Plato.
113. Compare this rare reference to a learned female in the Christian encyclopedias to selection #12 by Christine de Pizan and selection #30 by Bathsua Makin.
114. This definition exemplifies Isidore’s borrowing directly from Cassiodorus (II pref. 4) in selection #10.
115. Most of the following thirty chapters follow the organization of the authoritative, grammatical handbook for advanced students, the Greater Art of Donatus.
116. Attributed to Cato the Elder, the standard, epigrammatic definition of the Ciceronian orator (“a good man, skilled in speaking”) was quoted by Quintilian (Education of the Orator XII i 1), by Cassiodorus (II ii 1) in selection #10, and by Isidore (II 3) in selection #11, and is mentioned by Francesco Petrarca in selection #24.
117. This fivefold division of rhetoric had become conventional by the first century B.C., as stated by Cicero in On Discovery I 9. See selection #10 Cassiodorus (II ii 2).
118. While employing “Logic” here as a term for a division of philosophy comprising grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, Isidore proceeds to treat dialectic as an art of formulating arguments that is subsidiary to rhetoric.
119. Though attributed to the encyclopedic work of Marcus Terentius Varro, the quotation was borrowed by Isidore from Cassiodorus (II ii 2). This metaphor comparing logic and rhetoric originated with Zeno of Elea, according to Cicero (Orator 32, 113) and Quintilian (Education of the Orator II xx 7). Consequently, the metaphor was 1100 years old by the time of Isidore, and would continue to be invoked in the liberal arts tradition for another thousand years. See Juana Inéz de la Cruz in selection #31.
120. This reference is to the Introduction to the epistemological problems of dialectical inquiry raised by Aristotle, which was written by Porphyry and translated, along with Aristotle’s two introductory treatises to logic, by Boethius.
121. This division of philosophy into physics, ethics, and logic was attributed to Plato by Cicero (Academica I v 19–21) and Augustine (City of God VIII 4, XI 25). But it seems to be derived from the Stoics, who passed it successively to Cicero, Augustine, then here to Isidore, and later to Hugh of St. Victor, as appears in selection #15.
122. Isidore’s treatment of mathematics follows closely the borrowing by Cassiodorus from Boethius, while also drawing material from Augustine.
123. Indicative of the transition from late antiquity to the middle ages, Isidore’s discussion of music ignores the philosophical, mathematical tradition of Pythagoras and Plato, and addresses the ecclesiastical and sonorous interpretation found in Augustine.
124. Having interchanged the terms astronomy and astrology in the previous paragraphs, Isidore now distinguishes them.
125. See The Book of the City of Ladies (II 36).
126. Guido A. Guarino, “Introduction,” in Concerning Famous Women by Giovanni Boccaccio, tr. Guido A. Guarino (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963), pp. ix, xxvi–xxvii.
127. For example, see 28 below. Even when quoting an example of Boccaccio’s exceptionalism (29), Christine refrains from criticizing it.
128. Only five of Boccaccio’s 104 profiles were of Christian women after about A.D. 400.
129. Christine’s urban metaphor of a sanctuary of public and intellectual life for women may be compared with “the republic of women” in Laura Cereta’s letter of 1488 in selection #27.
130. See the introduction to Laura Cereta in selection #27.
131. Christine de Pizan, Book of the City of Ladies, Book I, drawn from the translation by Earl J. Richards (New York: Persea Books, 1982), pp. 3–6, 63–5, 70–1, 80–1. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, Inc.
132. This book is generally believed to be Book of Lamentations, written by Mathéolus in the final third of the thirteenth century. This diatribe against women and marriage comprised 5,614 lines of Latin verse, and was translated into Old French in the final third of the fourteenth century by Jean le Fèvre who added his reply. Christine is likely responding to the appearance of the recent translation. Translator’s note, p. 259n.
133. “If one chooses to view Book of the City of Ladies as Christine’s ongoing commentary on the Quarrel of The Romance of the Rose, this phrase [“my character and conduct as a natural woman”] takes on a special significance: in the Rose, Nature, replying to Reason, presents extended attacks on the chastity of women. Christine turns the tables in Book of the City of Ladies. First, she presents a counterversion of Nature’s portrayal of the ‘natural’ behavior of women, and second, she makes Reason—who came off so poorly in the Rose—her first guide and helper in constructing the City of Ladies.” Translator’s note, p. 259n.
134. Is Christine sincere or ironic in this introductory account of doubting the misogynist authors, finally accepting their acknowledged authority, and ultimately detesting herself?
135. The three ladies in Christine’s vision portray the virtues of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. This device of envisioning a supernatural visitation is typical of Christine’s writings as well as medieval writings in which authors express themselves indirectly in order to speak on controversial topics that they lack the authority, or believe are too risky, to address.
136. This statement and the following elaboration echo in debates over women’s access to the liberal arts in the late nineteenth century, as appear in the readings below from that period.
137. Under this heading, Christine addresses three female poets of antiquity: Comificia, Proba, and Manto. Legends about each of them are recorded by Vergil, Dante, and Boccaccio.
138. The figures Cornificius and Comificia that occasionally appear in medieval literature are difficult to identify positively. The best known Cornificius in Western letters was a Latin author who wrote a work on rhetoric in the first century B.C. and was mentioned as a detractor of Vergil in an apparent interpolation in Donatus’s Life of Vergil. Boccaccio states that Comificia and Cornificius were poets during the rule (31 B.C.–A.D. 14) of the Roman emperor Augustus. Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women, LXXXIV, p. 188. See the reference to Cornificius in selection #16 by John of Salisbury, and the reference to Comificia in selection #27 by Laura Cereta.
139. In a contemporaneous case of “deception and trickery,” a young woman reportedly disguised herself as a young man in order to study the liberal arts at the University of Cracow, as related in selection #23. See also a similar incident in Juana Inéz de la Cruz, “The Poet’s Reply” (1691) in selection #31.
140. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), Roman monk and pope.
141. Commensurate with the effort to reconcile classical and Christian cultures in late Antiquity, the learned, upper-class, Roman woman Proba in about A.D. 360 wrote a Biblical history by weaving together verses drawn from Vergil. Compare the image of Proba in selection #27 by Laura Cereta.
142. Christine follows the introduction of Proba by Boccaccio, who also noted that “Whoever her teacher may have been, it can easily be seen that [Proba] excelled in the liberal arts” (Concerning Famous Women, XCV, p. 219). As appears in selections #15–21, the curriculum of “all seven liberal arts” had broken down by this point, even though such literary references and iconographical representations continued.
143. This question, posed in her own voice, may be the most original among Christine’s innovative inquiries.
144. Christine may be drawing from Vergil’s Aeneid (VIII 338–42) or from the selection by Isidore (14) in selection #11. See the reference to Carmentis, or Nicostrata, in selection #27 by Laura Cereta, as well as in Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women, XXV, pp. 52–5.
145. Here is the resolution of the self-questioning and self-loathing that Christine posed at the outset.
146. Is Christine’s statement about the importance of these women to be understood as a literal assertion, a generalization about the overlooked contribution of all women collectively, or a somewhat ironic reversal of the “exceptionalism” presented by Boccaccio?