Christine de Pizan (1364-1431) has been recognised as a poet, early
humanist and feminist precursor but rarely as political theorist whose
works were intended to have a direct impact on the tumultuous politics
of her time. The essays in this collection focus on Christine as a
political writer and provide an important resource for those wishing to
understand her political thought. They locate her political writing in
the late medieval tradition, discussing her indebtedness to Aristotle,
Aquinas and Augustine as well as her transformations of their thought.
They also illuminate Christines political epistemology her understanding
of political wisdom as a part of theology, the knowledge of God. New
light is thrown on the circumstances which prompted Christine to write
on political issues and on her attitude to Isabeau of Bavaria. These
essays show that Christines originality consisted in her capacity to
modify and feminise the tradition of Christian Aristotelianism through
the use of elements of Christian imagery, in particular Mariology, in
order to construct an image of the virtuous and prudent monarch which
had lost the explicitly manly and warlike character of the Aristotelian
phronimos. This reconfigured image of the monarch lent itself to the
extension which she developed in her more feminist works, which
demonstrated the prudence of women and their capacity, in times of need,
to function as authoritative political figures.
