Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France

234 Pages·2014·5.853 MB·English

by  Tracy Adams

christine
de pizan
and the
fight
for
france
s
Tracy Adams
christine de pizan
and the
fi ght for france
w
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christine de pizan
and the
fi ght for france
w
Tracy Adams
Th e Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adams, Tracy, 1959– , author.
Christine de Pizan and the fi ght for France / Tracy Adams.
p. cm
Summary: “Evaluates Christine de Pizan’s literary
engagement with fi fteenth-century French politics. Locates
the writer’s works within a detailed narrative of the
complex history of the dispute between the Burgundians
and the Armagnacs, the two largest political factions”—
Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-271-05071-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Christine, de Pisan, approximately 1364–approximately
1431—Political and social views.
2. Christine, de Pisan, approximately 1364–approximately
1431—Criticism and interpretation.
3. Politics and literature—France—History—To 1500.
4. Political poetry, French—History and criticism.
5. France—History—Charles VI, 1380–1422.
I. Title.
pq1575.z5a34 2014
841'.2—dc23
2014017173
Copyright © 2014 Th e Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Th e Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003
Th e Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of Th e Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock
satisfy the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.
Th is book is printed on paper that contains
30 post-consumer waste.
Frontispiece: Miniature from British Library,
Harley MS 4431, fol. 259v.
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for helena oliver (–)
A woman of uncommon valor
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Contents
Acknowledgments | ix
Note on Translations and Manuscripts | xi
Prologue | 1
1
Christine and the Armagnac-Burgundian Feud: Regency and Kingship | 11
2
Th e Beginnings of the Feud and Christine’s Political Poetry, 1393–1401 | 30
3
Th e Point of No Return and the Political Allegories, 1401–1404 | 63
4
Jean of Burgundy and Reconfi guring Regency, 1405 | 95
5
Heading Toward Showdown and the Prose Treatises, 1405–1407 | 121
6
Th e Great Feud, After 1407 | 146
Epilogue | 173
Notes | 179
Bibliography | 201
Index | 217
vii
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Acknowledgments
Th is monograph came into being during my year as a Eurias Senior Fellow at
the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, 2011–12. My heartfelt thanks
to the Eurias Fellowship Program and to everyone at NIAS, a place of perfect
tranquillity and stimulating intellectual exchange, not to mention spectacular
cuisine, for making that year possible. In addition to the warm, competent
staff and my colleagues there, I would like to acknowledge Rector Aafke Hulk
and research planning and communication director Jos Hooghuis for their
friendship and encouragement. Next, I would like to thank my colleagues
and friends in the International Christine de Pizan Society. As all scholars of
Christine de Pizan know, research on the poet is possible because of the codi-
cological and editing work carried out by the members of the Christine com-
munity. Th anks to all of you.
Special thanks to James Laidlaw, Kerryn Olsen, Glenn Rechtschaff en, and
Christine Adams, who read all or parts of this study, and to Julia Sims Hold-
erness for the many sparkling insights on Christine that she has shared with
me over the years. I am grateful as always to Steve Nichols for his continued
willingness to read and advise. Th anks, too, to Jeff Richards for his scholarly
generosity, and to Gilles Lecuppre for patiently responding to my questions
about fourteenth- and fi fteenth-century France (any mistakes in this study, of
course, are my own). I am grateful to Ellie Goodman at Penn State Press for
taking on this project and helping me to realize it, and to the two anonymous
readers for their careful readings and insights. I owe a large debt to copyeditor
Suzanne Wolk for her painstaking work in preparing this study for publica-
tion. Many thanks to the people and the institutions that allowed me to pres-
ent and receive feedback on this study: Peggy McCracken at the University of
Michigan, Virginie Greene at Harvard University, and Cynthia Brown at the
University of California, Santa Barbara. Th anks to the University of Auck-
land for granting me research leave in 2011–12, during which I completed the
fi rst draft of this monograph, and to our interlibrary loan staff , and, espe-
cially, our subject librarian, Mark Hangartner.
ix
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