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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Christine de

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Speaker 1: piece On pretty much frequently summed up as a late

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Speaker 1: medieval writer, but the word writer just does not encompass

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Speaker 1: everything that she did at all. She wrote all kinds

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Speaker 1: of verse. She wrote military manuals and treatises on war

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Speaker 1: and peace and the just governance of a nation. She

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Speaker 1: wrote an autobiography in the form of an allegory. She

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Speaker 1: was the official biographer of King Charles the Fifth of France,

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Speaker 1: and she wrote the only popular piece of writing that

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Speaker 1: praised Joan of Arc while Joan of Arc was still living.

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Speaker 1: She also wrote the Book of the City of Ladies,

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Speaker 1: which is a compilation of notable women from history, literature,

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Speaker 1: and mythology. That was one part of her very active

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Speaker 1: anticipation in an ongoing debate in medieval France about the

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Speaker 1: nature of women and their representation in history and literature,

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Speaker 1: something we still discussed today, and until Christine got involved,

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Speaker 1: this argument had mostly been or exclusively really been going

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Speaker 1: on among men. So she was pretty great, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about it today. Christine de Poison was born in Venice, Italy,

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Speaker 1: in thirteen sixty four. Her father was to Mazzo di

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Speaker 1: ben Venuto de Pazzano, or Thomas of Possan, who was

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Speaker 1: a government advisor and a professor there, and not long

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Speaker 1: after Christine was born, though, he was appointed to the

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Speaker 1: Court of Charles the fifth of France to serve as

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Speaker 1: the king's medical adviser and astrologer, or his medical astrologer.

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Speaker 1: These two things were pretty tightly connected at that point.

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Speaker 1: When Christine was three or four, she and the rest

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Speaker 1: of the family joined her father in France. Her father

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Speaker 1: was a humanist and a highly educated man, and he

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Speaker 1: made sure all of his children were educated. Did he

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Speaker 1: gave Christine the same education that he gave to his sons.

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Speaker 1: Growing up in the Court of Charles the fifth also

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Speaker 1: gave Christine and her siblings access to extensive libraries and

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Speaker 1: numerous prominent scholars. Charles the fifth was nicknamed Charles the Wise,

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Speaker 1: and he surrounded himself with cultured, educated people, and he

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Speaker 1: assembled an incredible library at the Louver So by her

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Speaker 1: early teens, Christine was well read and well educated, and

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Speaker 1: the breadth of her reading was just incredible. It set

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Speaker 1: her up to write about everything from love to military

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Speaker 1: strategy later in her life. When she was about fifteen,

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Speaker 1: a marriage was arranged for Christine. It was to court

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Speaker 1: notary Etienne du Castell, who was about twenty five. The

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Speaker 1: same year that they got married, Etienne was appointed court

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Speaker 1: secretary in spite of her youth when they got married

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Speaker 1: and the difference in their ages, Christine described this marriage

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Speaker 1: as a very happy one. They had three children together,

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Speaker 1: two sons and a daughter, and Etienne encouraged Christine to

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Speaker 1: continue her studies after she got married and became a mother.

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Speaker 1: But things started going downhill for Christine and her previously

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Speaker 1: happy family in thirty Charles the Fifth died of an

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Speaker 1: abscess at the age of forty two, and he was

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Speaker 1: succeeded by his son, Charles the sixth. We actually did

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Speaker 1: a podcast on Charles the Sixth in August of two

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Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. He was the one who initially showed a

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Speaker 1: lot of promise as a leader, but then developed cycles

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Speaker 1: of terrifying and violent psychosis when he reached his early twenties.

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Speaker 1: When Charles the Fifth died, though Charles the sixth was

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Speaker 1: only eleven, so his uncle's were doing most of the

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Speaker 1: actual ruling and all the political back and forth in court.

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Speaker 1: Christine's father lost his position. Etienne still had his post

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Speaker 1: as secretary, but he was being paid a lot less,

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Speaker 1: so the family fell into financial difficulty, and that was

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Speaker 1: compounded when Christine's father died sometime in the late thirteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: Then Christine's husband died suddenly in thirteen nine, possibly due

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Speaker 1: to plague while he was away from home on a

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Speaker 1: mission for the crown. So at the age of twenty

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Speaker 1: five or twenty six, after ten years of marriage, Christine

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Speaker 1: was a widow with children to support because of her

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Speaker 1: father's death. She also needed to support her elderly mother,

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Speaker 1: and the family had taken in a niece as well.

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Speaker 1: It does appear that in all of this Christine had

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Speaker 1: inherited some property. She was entitled some of her late

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Speaker 1: husband's salary as well, but actually getting any of this

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Speaker 1: became this really complicated legal tangle. It was exacerbated by

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Speaker 1: the fact that she was a woman, which made it

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Speaker 1: a lot harder for her to advocate for herself. And

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Speaker 1: all of these matters was eventually resolved after about fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: but that did not help her at all. In the meantime, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fifteen years is a long time to have financial struggles

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Speaker 1: while you try to get what is due to you, right,

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Speaker 1: That's a long time to have to deal with them.

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Speaker 1: Christine did have other family that she could have gone

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Speaker 1: to live with, or she could have remarried. Either of

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Speaker 1: those would have been the typical course of action for

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Speaker 1: a woman in her situation, but she didn't want to

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Speaker 1: do then, in part because she was so heartbroken following

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Speaker 1: the death of her husband, so she decided to try

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Speaker 1: to earn a living as a writer. This is kind

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Speaker 1: of a theme on the show. We've done a number

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Speaker 1: of previous episodes about women who decided to earn a

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Speaker 1: living by writing. This is because for big chunks of history,

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Speaker 1: writing has been one of a very few available options

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Speaker 1: for women from the more affluent social classes to try

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Speaker 1: to earn their own money. At the same time, writing

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily totally acceptable, and sometimes it was only possible

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Speaker 1: while writing under the name of a man. But for

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Speaker 1: a particular social class it was one of a very

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Speaker 1: very few options. But there is a really big difference

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Speaker 1: between Christine de Paison and other women that we've talked

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Speaker 1: about on the podcast who decided to earn their own

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Speaker 1: money as writers. She lived before the invention of the

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Speaker 1: printing press. There were multiple printing methods in use in

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Speaker 1: Asia long before this, but in the West, Johann Gutenberg

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Speaker 1: is credited with developing a press that used movable type

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Speaker 1: sometime in the early to mid fourteen hundreds. Christine died

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Speaker 1: long before Gutenberg printed his Bible and long before the

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Speaker 1: printing press revolutionized the way publishing worked in the West.

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Speaker 1: So unlike the other women that we've talked about on

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Speaker 1: the show who made their living by writing, she was

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Speaker 1: not writing books to sell to the masses or through subscriptions.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't a mass distribution method that was efficient at all.

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Speaker 1: To sum it up, Christine de Pisan was going to

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Speaker 1: try to make a living as a writer of medieval

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Speaker 1: illuminated manuscripts. The very few people who earned a living

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Speaker 1: writing at this point we're doing so by writing commissioned

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Speaker 1: works for wealthy patrons. It was virtually unheard of for

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Speaker 1: a woman to go out seeking patrons, but Christine did.

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Speaker 1: It definitely helped that she had so many connections from

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Speaker 1: having grown up connected to the royal court and from

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Speaker 1: being the widow of a court secretary. It also helped

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Speaker 1: that she started out writing the kinds of pieces that

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Speaker 1: were really popular at the time, including lyric poems and allegories.

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Speaker 1: Love poems were especially popular, and Christine had a lot

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Speaker 1: to draw from. She really channeled her grief over her

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Speaker 1: husband's death into a lot of her early work, and

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Speaker 1: she called her happier love poems written during this time

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Speaker 1: singing joyously with a sad heart. Her first commissions were

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Speaker 1: short pieces for members of the French nobility, or she

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Speaker 1: would dedicate a poem to someone who would then give

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Speaker 1: her a gift as a gesture of thanks. In less

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Speaker 1: than a year, her work was being passed around and

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Speaker 1: read outside of France. By fourteen o three, she had

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Speaker 1: written enough poems to turn them into a collection that

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Speaker 1: was one ballad vile and those are three different poetic forms. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She also made ends meet by doing transcriptions and illustrations

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Speaker 1: of other people's work and may While she was still

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Speaker 1: writing the poems that would later become that first collection,

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Speaker 1: she also wrote an eight hundred and sixty verse poem

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Speaker 1: called the Letters of the God of Love or the

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Speaker 1: Letters of Cupid, written in the form of a letter

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Speaker 1: to Cupid during a spring festival. Although sometimes it's translated

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Speaker 1: as a letter from Cupid. It's a lot of variety

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Speaker 1: and how people approach her work and translating it. In

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Speaker 1: this work, women from a range of social classes, married

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Speaker 1: and unmarried, describe a number of insults and degradations that

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Speaker 1: they have experienced in their lives. And these insults and

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Speaker 1: degradations are not just from knights and nobles and other

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Speaker 1: real life men, or from the general expectations of society.

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Speaker 1: They're from works of literature, including Roman de la Rose

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Speaker 1: or the Romance of the Rose. Romando la Rose was

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Speaker 1: a very long, incredibly popular and widely read him about love,

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Speaker 1: according to the Letters of Cupid, was one of the

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Speaker 1: things that was causing offense to women. The conclusion of

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Speaker 1: this poem wasn't about love at all. It was about

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Speaker 1: deception and unscrupulous men taking advantage of women's trust. Letters

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Speaker 1: of Cupid seems to have spawned a literary quarrel, or

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Speaker 1: if it didn't start that quarrel, it was at least

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Speaker 1: written two years before the quarrel started, in fourteen oh one.

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Speaker 1: And we're gonna get to that after we first paused

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Speaker 1: for a little break from one of the sponsors that

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Speaker 1: keeps us going. When Gilmed and Laurie started writing Romando

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Speaker 1: la Rose in the late twelve thirties, it was supposed

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Speaker 1: to explore the whole art of love. It's a poem

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Speaker 1: that was deeply connected to the traditional poetic forms and

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Speaker 1: the themes of courtly love that were a huge part

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Speaker 1: of medieval European literature. If you have read medieval European literature,

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Speaker 1: you will recognize these things. This poem is a dream

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Speaker 1: allegory that tells the story of a man in a

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Speaker 1: walled garden who's trying to get to a rose, and

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Speaker 1: that rose symbolizes love. Along the way, he meets characters

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Speaker 1: like beauty and generosity, and honesty and chastity. He's also

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Speaker 1: shot by Cupid's arrows, and the rose is given more

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Speaker 1: and more protection, and those allegorical characters like beauty and

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Speaker 1: generosity coach him in a very courtly way in the

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Speaker 1: pursuit of love. Gium died around twelve seventy eight, and

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Speaker 1: about forty years later Geen de Muine decided to add

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Speaker 1: to the poem, and it's this additional material that was

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Speaker 1: at the heart of the quarrel of the Rose, written

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Speaker 1: in a very body suggestive style. In gen de Muine's addition,

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Speaker 1: the narrator goes on a lengthy battle before calling on Venus,

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Speaker 1: who represents carnal love, to set fire to the castle

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Speaker 1: where the rose is being sheltered and then pluck it.

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Speaker 1: There is a lot of violence and deception involved, and

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Speaker 1: it is basic the opposite of the tone in the

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Speaker 1: first part of the poem Jen de muns ending to

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Speaker 1: the Roman de la Rose was at the heart of

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Speaker 1: a multi year literary quarrel among the French court. Two

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Speaker 1: years after Christine de Pizzan criticized it in her Letters

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Speaker 1: of Cupid, another Geen Jehan de Montroy wrote an essay

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Speaker 1: praising the body violent ending. So it's not a hundred

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Speaker 1: percent clear whether he had read the Letters of Cupid,

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Speaker 1: but she definitely made this point before he wrote his

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Speaker 1: defense of this poem. The text of the essay has

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Speaker 1: not survived until today, but concurring with his opinions were

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Speaker 1: Gontier Cole and his brother Pierre. Jean de Montroy and

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Speaker 1: Gantier Cole were both secretaries to Charles the sixth and

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Speaker 1: Pierre was the canon of Notre Dame. After reading this

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Speaker 1: essay in fourteen o one, Christine wrote Jean a lengthy

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Speaker 1: letter taking apart all of his points. She pointed out

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Speaker 1: not only the poems graphic, fake, suggestive language, and its

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Speaker 1: violence and deception, but also the fact that a lot

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Speaker 1: of the most negative allegorical characters were depicted as women.

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Speaker 1: She made it very clear that she did not think

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Speaker 1: that the second part of ramand de la Rose was

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Speaker 1: worth the giant heaps of praise that he had given

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Speaker 1: it in this essay. Really, she did not pull any

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Speaker 1: punches with this. Here is something she wrote in this letter. Quote,

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Speaker 1: it truly seems to me that, in view of the

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Speaker 1: aforementioned arguments and many others, this work should more fittingly

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Speaker 1: be engulfed in a shroud of flame than crowned with laurel.

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Speaker 1: Even though you call it quote a mirror of the

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Speaker 1: good life, an example to all classes for political self

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Speaker 1: conduct and for living religiously and wisely. On the contrary,

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Speaker 1: begging your pardon, I say that it is an exhortation

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Speaker 1: to vice that encourages a dissolute life, a doctrine of deceit,

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Speaker 1: a path to damnation, a purveyor of public defamation, a

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Speaker 1: cause suspicion and distrust, a source of shame to many people,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps a seed of heresy. This led to a

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Speaker 1: whole series of exchanged essays and letters, Lejon Chancellor of

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Speaker 1: the University of Paris, taking Christine's side in the debate.

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Speaker 1: Although a lot of the debate was about the poems

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Speaker 1: more graphic content and its treatment and depiction of women,

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Speaker 1: it was also connected to overall concerns of poetic style

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Speaker 1: and language and whether it was appropriate for a formal

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Speaker 1: work of verse to include that kind of subject matter.

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Speaker 1: Christine's argument also connected to the idea that gen de

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Speaker 1: mun had a responsibility as a writer with an audience,

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Speaker 1: and that was a responsibility not to go sneaking a

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Speaker 1: bunch of misogyny into a work under the trappings of

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Speaker 1: formal poetry and courtly love. Christine also thought that writers

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Speaker 1: should be creating work that would improve society, not make

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Speaker 1: it worse, and they especially shouldn't be making society worse

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Speaker 1: by using respectable poetic forms to degrade women. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I have lived through this exact same argument on

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Speaker 1: the Internet over and over for the last entire history

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Speaker 1: of the Internet. Yeah, that seems that seems accurate to me.

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Speaker 1: By the time this was all said and done, Christine

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Speaker 1: had written almost as much on this subject as all

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Speaker 1: of the other people involved combined. She wrote in a

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Speaker 1: very self deprecating, self effacing way, and as with her

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Speaker 1: other works, she wrote in Middle French while the men

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Speaker 1: were writing in formal Latin. Her tone was often like,

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm only a woman, and I'm not nearly

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Speaker 1: so learned as you, sir, but I think I have

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Speaker 1: some experience with this, and here is why the end

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Speaker 1: of Romando la Rose is sexist garbage, deserving no praise

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Speaker 1: at all. She also collated all the exchange letters in

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Speaker 1: fourteen o two, and she delivered them to the Provost

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Speaker 1: of Paris and Charles the sixth wife Isabella of Bavaria,

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Speaker 1: asking for their support. She brought the receipts directly there

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Speaker 1: she did. The qua Earl of the Rows also led

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Speaker 1: to Christine writing her most famous work, The Book of

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Speaker 1: the City of Ladies. Like Romando la Rose, this is

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Speaker 1: a dream allegory. It's one with Christine as a character.

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Speaker 1: It begins with the character Christine studying and she finds

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Speaker 1: book after book, all of them written by men. Describing

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Speaker 1: women as wicked and full of vice. The character Christine

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Speaker 1: finally becomes convinced if so many great and educated men

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Speaker 1: have written so many negative things about women, then surely

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Speaker 1: those things must be true. She goes so far as

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Speaker 1: to ask God how he could have made something as

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Speaker 1: terrible as women, and to wish that she had instead

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Speaker 1: been a man, since, according to all this literary evidence

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Speaker 1: in front of her, women were worthless and men were great.

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Speaker 1: The character Christine is then visited by three ladies Reason, Rectitude,

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Speaker 1: and Justice, who offer her comfort and reassurance that all

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Speaker 1: these things she has been reading against women are indeed false.

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Speaker 1: They say that they have been charged with traveling the

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Speaker 1: earth to help people get back on the right path.

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Speaker 1: They charge Christine with building a city quote so that

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Speaker 1: from now on, ladies and all valiant women may have

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Speaker 1: a refuge and defense. Christine and the three ladies go

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Speaker 1: on to build a city together, along the way, picking

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Speaker 1: apart various attacks on women and pointing out hypocrisies, like,

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Speaker 1: for example, how Ovid's portrayal of women was degrading, but

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Speaker 1: the man himself was a vain philanderer. And while building

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Speaker 1: this city, Christine and the three Ladies talk about a

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Speaker 1: long list of mythical and historical women, including the Amazon's Zenobia, Sappho,

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Speaker 1: and the biblical figures of Sarah, Rebecca, and Ruth. The

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Speaker 1: Three Ladies go on to tell Christine about queens and

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Speaker 1: princesses and women scholars and poets. The book's third section

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Speaker 1: is all about Sates and other holy women, and they

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Speaker 1: also talk over a lot of more general questions, like

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Speaker 1: why there aren't women arguing in the court of law

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Speaker 1: and whether a woman has ever invented anything new. The

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Speaker 1: Book of the City of Ladies was a work of

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Speaker 1: literature created intentionally to offer a positive portrayal of women

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Speaker 1: and to offset widespread depictions of women as weak, deceptive,

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Speaker 1: and immoral. To counteract depictions of women as deceptive and unfaithful,

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Speaker 1: it offers examples of chastity, constancy, and faithfulness in love.

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Speaker 1: To counteract depictions of women as deceptive and dishonest, it

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Speaker 1: offers examples of integrity, honesty, and good It also points

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Speaker 1: out in numerous places how there are fewer examples of

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Speaker 1: women as scholars and leaders because women had fewer opportunities

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Speaker 1: to get the education that they needed to become scholars

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Speaker 1: or the experience they needed to become leaders. Among other things,

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Speaker 1: the book explicitly advocates for girls to get the same

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Speaker 1: education as their brothers. The Book of the City of

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Speaker 1: Ladies wasn't the first book to compile the biographies of

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Speaker 1: real and mythical women into one volume. Giovanni Boccaccio's Concerning

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Speaker 1: Famous Women was written about thirty years before that and

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Speaker 1: was the only major work at the time to do so.

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Speaker 1: Concerning famous women was one of Christine Depaison's inspirations, but

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Speaker 1: The Book of the City of Ladies was Europe's first

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Speaker 1: book of this type to be written by a woman

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Speaker 1: from a woman's perspective. Christine de Pisan took a copy

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Speaker 1: of this book to Isabella of Bavaria, just like she

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Speaker 1: had all of those letters. There's an illustration of that

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Speaker 1: encounter of Christine delivering her book to Isabella. In fourteen

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Speaker 1: o five, Christine wrote a follow up to the Book

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Speaker 1: of the City of Ladies that was called The Treasure

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Speaker 1: of the City of Ladies, also sometimes known as the

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Speaker 1: Book of the Three Virtues. It's a conduct manual for women,

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Speaker 1: which in some ways it's really conventional as the Book

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Speaker 1: of the City of Lady was. When it comes to

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Speaker 1: things like the treatment of marriage and gender roles, it

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00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,200
Speaker 1: assumes that marriage and motherhood or how the world works

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Speaker 1: for women, and it advises women on how to get

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Speaker 1: the best and most satisfying lives for themselves within that world.

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Speaker 1: There is a lot about duty and virtue, but at

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Speaker 1: the same time, the Book of the Three Virtues also

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Speaker 1: points out that expectations placed on women were impossible to

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Speaker 1: live up to, and rather than being framed as this

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Speaker 1: is how you should conduct yourself because it's what God

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Speaker 1: wants and what your husband expects, it's more like, this

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Speaker 1: is how you should conduct yourself to get the best

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Speaker 1: possible place for yourself in the situation that you're in.

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Speaker 1: It's more about women improving their quality of life than

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Speaker 1: about women living up to social expectations. And there's also

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Speaker 1: a lot of encouragement for women to be self sufficient,

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Speaker 1: whether they are a widow pondering remarriage or a married

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00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 1: woman considering how much of a role to play in

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Speaker 1: the management of her household. So I read one description

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Speaker 1: of this book as I was researching this that called

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Speaker 1: it Machiavelli for medieval French women. Like Christine's other writing

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Speaker 1: The Book of Virtues is steeped in a sense of

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Speaker 1: Christian virtue and hiety. This probably offered her some protection

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00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,840
Speaker 1: as an incredibly outspoken woman who was pointing out and

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00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: contradicting sexism and misogyny over and over and over again.

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Speaker 1: That made it kind of hard to criticize what she

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Speaker 1: was doing without also looking like you were criticizing Christian values.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she did get criticism, but this this buffered

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00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,960
Speaker 1: it a little. Christine de Pisan didn't only address women

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Speaker 1: in her writing about conduct. Her Moral Teachings was a

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Speaker 1: collection of advice written in verse for her son Jean

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Speaker 1: de Castel as he was leaving to go to England

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Speaker 1: to be fostered. And she also wrote a lot of

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Speaker 1: advicement for kings and nobility, and we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: more about that after a quick sponsor break. By the

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Speaker 1: time Christine de Pison wrote the Book of the City

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Speaker 1: of Ladies, she had become well known enough that she

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Speaker 1: was getting commissions for work that were well outside of

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Speaker 1: those popular poetic forms that we talked about earlier. Philip,

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Speaker 1: Duke of Burgundy, commissioned her to write a biography of

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Speaker 1: his brother Charles the Fifth in whose court she had

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Speaker 1: grown up. He made that commission in fourteen o four.

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Speaker 1: The Hundred Years War was going on during the entirety

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Speaker 1: of Christine's life, and much of her work turned towards

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Speaker 1: issues of war and peace. After the death of Philip

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Speaker 1: the Bold in fourteen o four, his son, John, also

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00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,440
Speaker 1: known as John the Fearless, became the Duke of Burgundy,

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Speaker 1: and his ongoing dispute with Louis, Duke of Orleans prompted

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00:21:31,119 --> 00:21:33,679
Speaker 1: Christine to write to both of them to advocate for

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Speaker 1: peace and to remind them to their duty to their

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Speaker 1: people not to go to war at their expense. This

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00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:44,719
Speaker 1: unfortunately did not work. The Armagnac Burgundian Civil War started

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Speaker 1: in fourteen oh seven and that lasted for almost thirty years.

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Speaker 1: In fourteen ten, she published a book on military leadership

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Speaker 1: and tactics called The Book of Deeds and Arms of Chivalry.

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Speaker 1: This was yet another totally unexpected thing for a woman

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Speaker 1: to be doing, so much so that people thought she

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00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 1: might have just copied an earlier military manual and other

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00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:09,400
Speaker 1: books of strategy to do it. A later editor even

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00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: edited her name out of it and made it look

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00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:13,959
Speaker 1: like it was written by a man. But this was

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00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: Christine's own original work. It was a product of her

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00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,360
Speaker 1: extensive study of history and strategy and tactics, and all

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00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,440
Speaker 1: of that extensive reading she had done in the Court

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00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: of Charles the Fifth. It covers all the military technology

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00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 1: of the time as well as tactics and strategy, and

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00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 1: it makes a case that peace is preferable to war,

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00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,400
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's only attainable through war. She fills out

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00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: her discussion of all of this with examples from military history.

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00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 1: She also walks through the idea of just war, a

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00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: war fought to keep law and justice, to defend the

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00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:51,639
Speaker 1: people from injury or oppression, or to reclaim stolen land.

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00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:54,480
Speaker 1: The book discusses how the people fighting in the war

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00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,120
Speaker 1: should conduct themselves justly, and then once the war was over,

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00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: it was incumbent on the ruling asked to rule the

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00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: people in a just way. In spite of the questions

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00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,439
Speaker 1: about whether Christine, who after all was a mere woman,

394
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: had just copied this book from someone else, this book

395
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,679
Speaker 1: was translated into English and it became one of the

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00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:18,199
Speaker 1: first books printed in England after William Caxton established a

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00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: printing press in Westminster. He printed it as The Fate

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00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: of Arms and Chivalry in fourteen eighty nine. We haven't

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00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: really touched on all of Christine's work because she was prolific.

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Speaker 1: Between thirteen and about fourteen fifteen, she wrote twelve major works,

401
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,160
Speaker 1: totally more than a thousand pages. She also worked directly

402
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 1: with the scribes and illuminators who created the finished manuscripts

403
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: of her work. Throughout she was an advocate for women

404
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: as well as for justice and for peace. She also

405
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: paid careful attention to the need to improve the lives

406
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: of the poor, while also trying to encourage a sense

407
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,479
Speaker 1: of charity among her readers who were likely to be wealthy,

408
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 1: since people in the lower class typically we're not literate.

409
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 1: Outside of the world of her writing, she was also

410
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:08,400
Speaker 1: very savvy. She was invited to several royal courts outside

411
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 1: of France, but she preferred to stay in her adopted homeland.

412
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 1: And she also had to be very strategic to provide

413
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 1: for her children in a world where money and family

414
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 1: and political connections were extremely important. I mean, she was

415
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: making the ends meet through all of her writing, but

416
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 1: that's not the same thing as providing for the future

417
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: of your children in this world. She had no dowry

418
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: for her daughter, but was able to negotiate a place

419
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: for her at the Royal Dominican Convent at Poissy and

420
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: as a companion to Charles the sixth daughter Marie. She

421
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: also negotiated for her son to be fostered with John Montague,

422
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 1: the third Earl of Salisbury, with the hope of ensuring

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00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: him a political future. This second part led to a

424
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: whole complicated negotiation with King Henry the Fourth to get

425
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,400
Speaker 1: her son back after John Montague was a co conspirator

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00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: and an uprising against him. Though that's a whole huge

427
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: drama of international intrigue in which she had this ongoing,

428
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: careful negotiation with a king to get her son to

429
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: return to France. As we noted earlier, England and France

430
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: were at war throughout Christine's entire life. The Battle of

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00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,640
Speaker 1: Agincourt in fourteen fifteen was a massive defeat for France,

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00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: and not long afterward Christine joined her daughter at the

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Speaker 1: convent in Pois E. She mostly stopped writing, at least

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Speaker 1: for public view. Around that same time, she did come

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Speaker 1: out of retirement for one last work. Though Christine's last

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Speaker 1: known piece of writing was about Joan of Arc and

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00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,679
Speaker 1: it was written to honor her after the French victory

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Speaker 1: at Orleans in fourteen nine. Like we said at the

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Speaker 1: top of the show, this is the only major work

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Speaker 1: written to celebrate Joan of Arc during her lifetime. And

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Speaker 1: we don't know exactly when Christine died, but it was

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Speaker 1: sometime around four thirty one in Poisi, France. I find

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Speaker 1: the whole idea of building a whole city where the

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Speaker 1: ladies can find comfort and refuge to be very comforting,

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Speaker 1: and I am glad that Christine did it. I want

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Speaker 1: to make a joke, but I think it's the little things,

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00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna refrain. Okay, do you have a spot

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00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: of listener mail for us? I do. This is from

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00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: Tim and Tim says Tracy and Holly. I enjoyed your

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Speaker 1: episodes on Dread Scott versus Sanford. As you mentioned, Dread

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00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: Scott is buried in St. Louis. Several years ago. I

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Speaker 1: had the opportunity to visit Calvary Cemetery to visit Scott's grave.

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Speaker 1: It has become a tradition for people to leave Lincoln

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Speaker 1: pennies on the headstone. I've attached photos of the front

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Speaker 1: and back of the headstone, complete with pennies It's also

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Speaker 1: worth noting that the same cemetery is the final resting

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Speaker 1: place of General William to comes to Sherman and Tennessee Williams. Tim.

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00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tim, so I had never seen this headstone before.

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Speaker 1: On one side, it says dread Scott, subject of the

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00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven in which denied citizenship to the negro

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00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: voided the Missouri Compromise Act, became one of the events

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00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,719
Speaker 1: that resulted Dennis Civil War. And then on the other

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00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: side says dread Scott born about seventeen nine, died September

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Speaker 1: sevent eighteen fifty eight, freed from slavery by his friend

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Speaker 1: Taylor Blow. And then there is also a smaller stone

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Speaker 1: set into the ground that says in memory of a

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00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: simple man who wanted to be free, dread Scott, dedicated

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Speaker 1: by the African Historical and Genealogical Research Society, donated by

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Speaker 1: the Eddie Randall and since funeral home. So thank you

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00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: so much for sending that note and those pictures. Tim.

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00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: You can write to us about this or any other

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00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: podcast at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,

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00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: and we're all over social media at Missed in History.

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00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find our Facebook or Twitter or Instagram

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00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: and our interest. If you come to our website, which

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00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: is missed in History dot com, you can find a

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00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: searchable archive of every episode that we have ever done

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00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: of the show, and show notes for all the episodes

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00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: that Holly and I have done together. And you can

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00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts and Google podcasts

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00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: and really anywhere else do you want to get a podcast.

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00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

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Speaker 1: how staff works dot com