The Woman Who Invented the Author
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After the deaths of her father and her husband, Christine de Pizan had a household to support and an uncertain income. Educated in the intellectual world of the French court, she turned poetry and learning into a sustained career through aristocratic patronage and the production of her own books. Over more than two decades she wrote lyric verse, biography, political counsel, military theory, and an influential defence of women. She is widely regarded as one of Europe’s earliest professional women authors. Her achievement rested on craft, persistence, and the readers and patrons who made that work possible.
“Now, for the first time, I begin to laugh.”
c. 1364–c. 1430
Born in Venice to a Bolognese physician and astrologer. Raised at the court of Charles V in Paris. Widowed at approximately twenty-five. Died at the convent of Poissy, date unknown — the last record of her is a poem written in July 1429.
41+
Christine produced at least forty-one known works across thirty years: lyric poetry, dream allegories, political treatises, a military manual, a royal biography, conduct books for women, and a celebrated feminist manifesto. Her military handbook was so authoritative it was printed by William Caxton in 1489 — naming Christine in its opening and colophon.
48 copies
Her L'Épître Othéa (Letter of Othea to Hector) survives in forty-eight manuscript copies — an extraordinary circulation for any medieval author. The Queen's Manuscript, presented to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria around 1410–1415, contains 130 illuminated miniatures and is one of the most sumptuously illustrated books of the entire Middle Ages.
11 years
In 1418, after the catastrophe of Agincourt and the Burgundian seizure of Paris, Christine withdrew to the convent of Poissy. There is a long gap in her surviving public work. Then, in July 1429, she broke her silence with a jubilant poem celebrating the victories of Joan of Arc — an early literary celebration of Joan written during her lifetime.
One of Europe’s earliest professional women authors; author of The Book of the City of Ladies
Defining Events
The Book of the City of Ladies
Christine's masterpiece — a systematic refutation of two thousand years of misogynist literature. Visited by three allegorical figures (Reason, Rectitude, and Justice), Christine builds a metaphorical city populated with illustrious women from history, mythology, and sacred texts. The book is an influential sustained defence of women in medieval European literature, written in the vernacular so any literate woman could read it.
The Querelle de la Rose
A major medieval literary debate about the representation of women. Christine attacked Jean de Meun's massively popular Roman de la Rose as obscene and misogynist, exchanging letters with learned defenders including two royal secretaries and the canon Pierre Col. She addressed an initial dossier to Queen Isabeau on 1 February 1402, with further exchanges later that year — effectively publishing the argument on her own terms. Simone de Beauvoir called it "the first time a woman took up her pen in defence of her sex."
The Tale of Joan of Arc
After eleven years of silence at Poissy, the sixty-five-year-old Christine broke into jubilant verse at the news of Joan of Arc's victories at Orléans and the coronation of Charles VII at Reims. Her Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc — sixty-one stanzas completed at the end of July — is an early literary celebration of Joan composed during her lifetime. Christine saw in Joan a living vindication of everything she had argued about women's capacity.
Timeline
Born in Venice
Christine is born in Venice, to a family with roots in Pizzano near Bologna. Her father, Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano, is a physician, astrologer, and professor at the University of Bologna — a man of real scholarly standing, though not great wealth. No baptismal record survives. Christine's birth year is estimated from internal evidence in her own writings.
To the Court of Charles V
Christine's father is appointed court astrologer and physician to King Charles V of France — one of the great intellectual monarchs of the medieval period. The family relocates to Paris. Christine is approximately four years old. She will spend the rest of her life in France. At the royal court she has access to Charles V's legendary library — one of the largest collections of books in medieval Europe — and her father encourages her to read everything in it.
Marriage to Etienne du Castel
At approximately fifteen, Christine marries Etienne du Castel, a royal notary and secretary. She later remembered their marriage with deep affection. Etienne rose steadily in royal favor, and the couple enjoyed a decade of happiness, producing three children. Christine later described this period as the only truly carefree years of her life.
The Death of Charles V
King Charles V dies, and with him the security of Christine's world. Her father had served under royal patronage for twelve years; his position and income immediately become precarious. The new king, Charles VI, is twelve years old. France will spend the next four decades lurching toward catastrophe under his chaotic reign.
Family Losses
In the space of three years Christine loses everything. Her father dies around 1387, leaving no estate. Her husband Etienne dies of plague in 1389 or 1390 during a royal expedition to Beauvais. Christine is left a widow at approximately twenty-five — responsible for three children, her widowed mother, and a young niece, with uncertain resources and salaries still to recover. She spends the next several years fighting in court to recover salaries still owed to her late husband from the royal treasury. Her legal claims prove difficult and protracted.
The First Poems
Facing destitution and finding no other path, Christine begins writing poetry — first, she says, as an expression of grief, then as a calculated attempt to earn a living. Her lyric ballads circulate at court and attract the attention of the aristocracy. By 1399 she has assembled enough material for her first collected works and has secured commissions from multiple noble patrons, including Philip the Bold of Burgundy and Louis I of Orléans. She has invented a career.
The Letter to the God of Love
Christine publishes her Épître au Dieu d'Amour — the first of her explicitly pro-woman works. In it, Love's court condemns men who slander women in literature, singling out the Roman de la Rose for particular censure. It is, as Simone de Beauvoir later observed, a landmark in the literary defence of women. Christine is approximately thirty-five.
The Querelle de la Rose
After Christine publicly criticises Jean de Meun's portion of the immensely popular Roman de la Rose, the royal secretary Jean de Montreuil circulates a defence of the poem that is now lost. Christine responds. Brothers Gontier and Pierre Col join in defence of the Rose. The correspondence flies back and forth for two years. Christine collects letters, writes a preface, and addresses an initial dossier to Queen Isabeau on 1 February 1402; further exchanges follow — effectively publishing a major medieval debate about the representation of women, on her own terms.
The City of Ladies
At approximately forty-one, Christine completes her masterpiece: Le Livre de la cité des dames. Framing the book as a dream-vision in which she is visited by three allegorical figures — Reason, Rectitude, and Justice — who commission her to build a metaphorical city populated with illustrious women from history and legend, she systematically dismantles centuries of misogynist literature. The same year she completes its companion volume, Le Livre des trois vertus (Book of Three Virtues), a practical conduct manual for women of every social rank.
The Book of Deeds of Arms
Christine completes Le Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie — a military manual drawing on the Roman strategist Vegetius, advising commanders on siege warfare, troop management, and the law of war. It is one of the most unusual documents of the entire Middle Ages: a woman's guide to warfare, so authoritative that William Caxton printed an English translation in 1489 naming Christine in its opening and colophon.
Withdrawal to Poissy
Paris has become a city of terror. The Burgundians have seized the capital; Armagnac partisans are being massacred in the streets. Christine withdraws to the royal convent of Poissy, northwest of Paris, where her daughter has lived as a nun for years. Her surviving public work falls silent for eleven years while France tears itself apart around her.
In Praise of the Maid
News reaches Poissy that a young woman from Domrémy has broken the English siege of Orléans and marched Charles VII to his coronation at Reims. Christine de Pizan, sixty-five years old, writes her last known work: the Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc, sixty-one exultant octaves celebrating Joan's victories. It is an early literary tribute to Joan written during her lifetime, and Christine saw in it a vindication of everything she had spent thirty years arguing. Then she falls silent again, and history loses her.
Key Figures
Etienne du Castel
Christine married Etienne at approximately fifteen, and in a world where marriages were transactions, theirs was something rarer: a partnership of affection. He was a royal notary and secretary, competent, rising, and — by Christine's own account — genuinely kind. She describes him in poem after poem with undisguised grief after his death: 'In you is all my joy, in you all my happiness, in you my heart, in you my life.' His death from plague in 1389 or 1390 left Christine with three children and no income — but also, eventually, with the freedom to build a literary identity she would develop through the years of widowhood.
Queen Isabeau of Bavaria
Wife of the increasingly unstable Charles VI, Isabeau of Bavaria was one of Christine's most important patrons and the recipient of the Queen's Manuscript (Harley MS 4431) — an extensive collection of Christine's works in a single sumptuously illuminated volume, produced around 1410–1415. Christine presented the manuscript to Isabeau in a ceremony depicted in the famous frontispiece, which shows Christine offering the volume in the queen's reception chamber. Isabeau gave Christine access, prestige, and protection in a court that was growing more dangerous by the year.
The Legacy of Christine de Pizan
Christine de Pizan died sometime around 1430 — the exact date is unknown, and she simply vanishes from the historical record. She was widely read and respected during her lifetime, read and adapted after her death, then given renewed attention by feminist scholars in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her works survive in numerous manuscripts, including volumes produced under her supervision. Her military manual shaped the theory of just warfare. Her City of Ladies is a landmark in the literary defence of women. Her final poem for Joan of Arc remains one of the most electrifying documents of the entire Middle Ages.
She was not the first woman to write. She made writing a sustained profession and identity, supporting her household through literary patronage and the careful production of her own books. That she managed this is astonishing. That she managed it so brilliantly, for so long, and with such range and ambition, is one of the stranger and more moving facts in the history of literature.
Read an imagined first-person retelling of her life in the ePub — from the widow's study to the City of Ladies.
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Read the story of Christine de Pizan — 8 chapters of historical narrative.
Dramatised first-person narrative; not an autobiography.