WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are doing something 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:06.019 a little different today. Usually when we talk 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:08.980 about the medieval period, specifically that 00:00:08.980 --> 00:00:11.939 really gritty, dark stretch of the late 14th 00:00:11.939 --> 00:00:14.599 century, we're looking at it through the eyes 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:18.100 of the guys with the swords, the kings, the knights. 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.059 the military strategist. Standard blood and mud 00:00:22.059 --> 00:00:25.000 narrative. Exactly. It's the Hundred Years' War. 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:27.239 It's the aftermath of the Black Death. It is, 00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:29.519 by all accounts, a terrible time to be alive 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:31.739 in France. It's a truly awful time. But today 00:00:31.739 --> 00:00:34.880 we are looking at this exact same period through 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:37.539 a lens that, well, it feels like it shouldn't 00:00:37.539 --> 00:00:39.380 exist. We are looking at it through the eyes 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:41.840 of a woman who didn't just survive this chaos, 00:00:41.979 --> 00:00:44.140 but actually shaped the political and intellectual 00:00:44.140 --> 00:00:46.640 landscape of Europe. And she's a complete anomaly. 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:48.560 I mean, if you look at the sociological data 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.899 of the 1400s, Christine de Pizan is a statistical 00:00:51.899 --> 00:00:54.780 impossibility. A statistical impossibility. I 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:56.820 love that. Yes. She's the first woman in Europe 00:00:56.820 --> 00:00:59.320 to make a living solely by her pen. We aren't 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:01.140 talking about a nun writing in a cloister for 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:04.079 the glory of God. And we aren't talking about 00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.379 a queen writing letters. We are talking about 00:01:06.379 --> 00:01:09.739 a working mother, an immigrant, a widow, who 00:01:09.739 --> 00:01:12.480 built what was essentially a freelance publishing 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:14.870 empire. In the middle of a civil war. In the 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:17.189 middle of a civil war. It's insane. That is the 00:01:17.189 --> 00:01:19.810 hook for me, the freelancer angle. Because when 00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:22.109 you dig into these sources, the biographies, 00:01:22.109 --> 00:01:24.810 the analysis of her manuscripts, you realize 00:01:24.810 --> 00:01:28.049 she feels incredibly modern. So modern. She's 00:01:28.049 --> 00:01:30.030 dealing with the gig economy. She's dealing with 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:32.230 mansplaining. She's dealing with the glass ceiling. 00:01:32.609 --> 00:01:34.469 And she's doing it while the king of France is 00:01:34.469 --> 00:01:36.870 going mad and the English are invading. It is, 00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:40.390 at its core, a survival story. We often categorize 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:44.989 her as a feminist writer. And she certainly was 00:01:44.989 --> 00:01:47.590 that, perhaps the very first. For sure. But before 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:50.409 she was an ideologue, she was a survivor. She 00:01:50.409 --> 00:01:52.469 used her intellect as a weapon because, well, 00:01:52.569 --> 00:01:54.750 it was the only thing she had left. So our mission 00:01:54.750 --> 00:01:57.730 today is to unpack that weapon. We have a massive 00:01:57.730 --> 00:02:00.510 stack of notes here covering her entire bibliography, 00:02:00.549 --> 00:02:03.469 from her poetry to her military manuals and the 00:02:03.469 --> 00:02:06.230 historical records of her life. It's a lot. It 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:08.169 is a lot. We're going to figure out how she pulled 00:02:08.169 --> 00:02:10.509 this off, how she managed to tell knights how 00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:14.289 to fight wars, and why in 2024 she was literally 00:02:14.289 --> 00:02:16.810 dipped in gold, rising out of the Seine at the 00:02:16.810 --> 00:02:19.729 Olympic opening ceremony. It is quite the journey. 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.569 And to understand how she ends up as a gold statue, 00:02:22.870 --> 00:02:25.289 you have to understand where she started, because 00:02:25.289 --> 00:02:27.710 she wasn't actually French. Right. She was an 00:02:27.710 --> 00:02:30.330 outsider from day one. Right. Let's get into 00:02:30.330 --> 00:02:32.449 the origin story. She was born in Venice, is 00:02:32.449 --> 00:02:35.689 that correct? Yes. In 1364, born Cristina de 00:02:35.689 --> 00:02:39.069 Pizzano, her father, Tommaso di Benvenuto de 00:02:39.069 --> 00:02:41.530 Pizzano, was, I mean, he was a very big deal 00:02:41.530 --> 00:02:43.870 in Venice. Okay. He was a physician, a counselor 00:02:43.870 --> 00:02:47.150 of the Republic, and crucially, a court astrologer. 00:02:47.229 --> 00:02:49.629 And being an astrologer back then wasn't like 00:02:49.629 --> 00:02:51.969 writing horoscopes for the Sunday paper. This 00:02:51.969 --> 00:02:53.689 was serious science, wasn't it? Oh, absolutely. 00:02:53.889 --> 00:02:55.530 It was intertwined with medicine and governance. 00:02:55.669 --> 00:02:58.289 In the medieval worldview, the microcosm of the 00:02:58.289 --> 00:03:01.219 human body, was directly linked to the macrocosm 00:03:01.219 --> 00:03:03.319 of the stars. So it's all connected. It's all 00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:06.000 connected. Kings relied on astrologers to make 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.659 major political decisions to determine the health 00:03:08.659 --> 00:03:10.819 of the state, even to time their military campaigns. 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:14.800 And Tommaso, her father, was so good at it that 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.159 he got headhunted. Headhunted by kings. That's 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:18.960 a good resume builder. He was a bidding war, 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:20.939 actually. The King of Hungary and King Charles 00:03:20.939 --> 00:03:24.639 V of France both wanted him. And he chose France. 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.879 Camus chose France. So in 1368, when Christine 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.300 was just a toddler, maybe four years old, the 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:32.919 family packs up and moves to Paris. Talk about 00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:35.680 a career upgrade, but also a massive culture 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:37.879 shock, I'd imagine. Moving from the Venetian 00:03:37.879 --> 00:03:40.879 Republic to the Kingdom of France. It was a completely 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:43.819 different world. But this move is crucial for 00:03:43.819 --> 00:03:45.939 understanding Christine. She grows up in the 00:03:45.939 --> 00:03:48.139 royal court of Charles V. And this wasn't just 00:03:48.139 --> 00:03:50.960 any court. No, this was an environment of intense 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:53.879 intellectualism. Charles wasn't just a warrior 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:56.159 king. He was known as Charles the Wise for a 00:03:56.159 --> 00:03:59.060 reason. He founded the Royal Library at the Louvre. 00:03:59.259 --> 00:04:01.659 He surrounded himself with translators, philosophers, 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:04.740 scientists. So she's growing up privileged, surrounded 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:07.599 by books. But she's still a girl in the 14th 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:09.659 century. Usually that means learning to sew, 00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:11.620 not learning to read Latin. And this is where 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:14.939 her father comes in. Tommaso was surprisingly 00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:18.319 progressive for his time. We have records that 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.300 suggest a bit of tension in the household about 00:04:20.300 --> 00:04:23.439 this. Oh, really? Yeah. Christine's mother thought 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:26.279 she should focus on the distaff duties, you know, 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:29.579 spinning, weaving, managing a household, the 00:04:29.579 --> 00:04:32.079 traditional female curriculum. The expected path. 00:04:32.339 --> 00:04:35.959 The expected path. But Tommaso, he saw she was 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:39.379 bright. He saw this spark in her. And he decided 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:41.079 to give her access to the intellectual life of 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:43.839 the court. He wanted her to have a real education. 00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:47.399 That specific detail really stands out. The parent 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:50.350 who breaks the mold. If Thomas hadn't insisted 00:04:50.350 --> 00:04:52.089 on that education, we wouldn't be having this 00:04:52.089 --> 00:04:53.689 conversation. Not at all. She would have just 00:04:53.689 --> 00:04:56.569 been another anonymous medieval wife. Precisely. 00:04:56.970 --> 00:05:00.589 That education was a dormant asset. She didn't 00:05:00.589 --> 00:05:02.490 need it immediately. She was being groomed for 00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:04.889 marriage after all, but it was being banged for 00:05:04.889 --> 00:05:06.550 later. She was reading the classics. She was 00:05:06.550 --> 00:05:08.970 learning Italian and French. She was just absorbing 00:05:08.970 --> 00:05:11.230 the political conversations of the court. So 00:05:11.230 --> 00:05:14.029 she has this idyllic intellectual childhood. 00:05:14.149 --> 00:05:17.240 And then, as was the custom. She gets married. 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:21.879 Yes. In 1379, she was 15 years old. She marries 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:24.699 a man named Etienne du Castel. And usually in 00:05:24.699 --> 00:05:26.699 these historical deep dives, this is where we 00:05:26.699 --> 00:05:29.120 hear about the terrible arranged marriage to 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:32.240 a much older grumpy guy. Yeah. But that wasn't 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:34.660 the case here, was it? Surprisingly, no. By all 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:36.800 accounts, it was a happy marriage, a love match 00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:39.639 even. Wow. Etienne was a royal secretary and 00:05:39.639 --> 00:05:42.079 notary, so he was also an educated man. He was 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:44.540 on the rise at court. Christine writes about 00:05:44.540 --> 00:05:46.779 him later with genuine affection, calling him 00:05:46.779 --> 00:05:49.199 her sweet friend. They had three children together. 00:05:49.379 --> 00:05:51.699 It was good. So at this point, her life seems 00:05:51.699 --> 00:05:54.040 set. She's a damoiselle of the court, comfortable, 00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:57.240 happy, married to a man she actually likes, with 00:05:57.240 --> 00:05:59.819 a father who is the king's right -hand man. It 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:02.519 was the dream. But as we know, the late Middle 00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:05.000 Ages rarely lets anyone stay comfortable for 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:08.639 long. No. The 1380s arrive, and the wheel of 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:12.110 fortune turns downward. Sharply. We call it the 00:06:12.110 --> 00:06:14.110 triple tragedy in the outline. Let's walk through 00:06:14.110 --> 00:06:16.449 this because it's just hit after hit. It really 00:06:16.449 --> 00:06:19.610 is. It starts in 1380 when King Charles V dies, 00:06:19.930 --> 00:06:22.750 her father's patron. Okay, so that's a big deal 00:06:22.750 --> 00:06:25.790 for the family. Huge deal. This is bad for Tommaso 00:06:25.790 --> 00:06:28.009 because he loses his primary protector and his 00:06:28.009 --> 00:06:30.769 source of income. The new king, Charles VI, is 00:06:30.769 --> 00:06:32.949 young and the court dynamics change completely. 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:36.129 Tommaso loses influence and his salary becomes 00:06:36.129 --> 00:06:38.689 irregular. The money starts drying up. It does. 00:06:39.149 --> 00:06:42.689 Then, in 1388, Tommaso himself dies. So the patriarch 00:06:42.689 --> 00:06:44.870 is gone. And apparently Tommaso was great at 00:06:44.870 --> 00:06:47.350 science but bad at finance. He was terrible with 00:06:47.350 --> 00:06:49.649 money. He lived large while the money was coming 00:06:49.649 --> 00:06:51.569 in, you know, the big intellectual at court. 00:06:51.910 --> 00:06:54.569 But he left very little savings. So suddenly, 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:57.410 the safety net is fraying. Christine and her 00:06:57.410 --> 00:06:59.870 husband Etienne are now responsible for the whole 00:06:59.870 --> 00:07:02.149 extended family. And then the knockout blow, 00:07:02.290 --> 00:07:06.290 1389. 1389. Etienne de Castel goes on a mission 00:07:06.290 --> 00:07:08.750 to Beauvais with the king. An epidemic breaks 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:11.329 out. It's likely the plague or similar fever. 00:07:11.490 --> 00:07:13.290 It's always the plague. It's always the plague. 00:07:13.350 --> 00:07:16.230 He contracts it and dies within days. Just gone. 00:07:16.550 --> 00:07:20.730 Gone. Suddenly, at age 25, Christine is a widow. 00:07:21.209 --> 00:07:23.970 But she's not just a widow. She is now the head 00:07:23.970 --> 00:07:26.310 of a household. She has three small children. 00:07:26.629 --> 00:07:29.670 She has her own widowed mother to support. And 00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:31.829 she has a niece living with them. And no financial 00:07:31.829 --> 00:07:34.310 safety net. Nothing. This is where the story 00:07:34.310 --> 00:07:37.209 shifts from privileged court life to legal nightmare. 00:07:37.610 --> 00:07:40.990 I read that she spent years in court just trying 00:07:40.990 --> 00:07:42.829 to get the money her husband was owed. That's 00:07:42.829 --> 00:07:45.529 right. For years, Etienne was a royal secretary, 00:07:45.629 --> 00:07:48.930 which meant the crown owed him back wages. Significant 00:07:48.930 --> 00:07:50.670 amounts of money. So there's money out there 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:54.160 that's technically hers? Technically. But trying 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:56.639 to collect that money as a widow was a bureaucratic 00:07:56.639 --> 00:07:59.360 hellscape. She was hit with lawsuits from people 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:02.240 claiming Etienne owed them money. She talks about 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.220 this in her writings, the sheer humiliation of 00:08:04.220 --> 00:08:06.800 having to navigate this male -dominated legal 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:09.399 system where nobody took her seriously. There's 00:08:09.399 --> 00:08:12.279 this specific imagery she uses later, describing 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:15.160 herself waiting in ante rooms, being sneered 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:17.899 at by clerks, being given the runaround. It sounds 00:08:17.899 --> 00:08:20.699 absolutely exhausting. She calls it a labyrinth. 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:24.149 She had to learn property law on the fly. She 00:08:24.149 --> 00:08:26.610 was being cheated by asset managers who saw a 00:08:26.610 --> 00:08:29.790 young widow and thought, easy target. She writes 00:08:29.790 --> 00:08:32.730 about having to play the damsel in distress to 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:35.169 get anyone to listen to her while privately she 00:08:35.169 --> 00:08:37.029 was hardening into steel. She had to become her 00:08:37.029 --> 00:08:39.490 own lawyer. There's a specific detail in the 00:08:39.490 --> 00:08:42.490 records where the way she is addressed in documents 00:08:42.490 --> 00:08:46.409 changes. Yes, it's so telling. In June 1389, 00:08:46.750 --> 00:08:48.990 there's a judgment concerning a lawsuit against 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:52.070 her by the Archbishop of Sens. In it, she is 00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:54.669 formally called demoiselle and widow of Estienne 00:08:54.669 --> 00:08:57.169 du Castel. So her identity is now defined by 00:08:57.169 --> 00:08:59.730 loss. It marks this stark transition. She is 00:08:59.730 --> 00:09:01.549 no longer defined by her father or her living 00:09:01.549 --> 00:09:04.169 husband. She is a woman alone facing financial 00:09:04.169 --> 00:09:06.210 ruin. And this is the catalyst. This is the moment 00:09:06.210 --> 00:09:08.450 where she decides, I have to do something. She 00:09:08.450 --> 00:09:09.950 didn't start writing because she just had so 00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:12.169 many creative ideas bursting out of her, right? 00:09:12.350 --> 00:09:15.230 She wrote to eat. Exactly. It was a hustle, a 00:09:15.230 --> 00:09:17.629 desperate hustle. She needed income. Yeah. And 00:09:17.629 --> 00:09:20.330 she took stock and realized that the one asset 00:09:20.330 --> 00:09:23.190 she had, thanks to her father and her upbringing, 00:09:23.389 --> 00:09:26.549 was her education. She could write. So let's 00:09:26.549 --> 00:09:28.970 talk about that hustle. Because becoming a professional 00:09:28.970 --> 00:09:31.889 writer in 14th century Paris isn't like uploading 00:09:31.889 --> 00:09:35.169 an e -book to Amazon. Not even close. How did 00:09:35.169 --> 00:09:37.559 the book trade actually work back then? It was 00:09:37.559 --> 00:09:39.700 a very transitional period for books. We were 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:43.899 moving from the era of continuous rolls to the 00:09:43.899 --> 00:09:46.340 bound codex books as we recognize them today. 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.440 So actual books with pages. Right. And there 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:51.259 was a rising demand for these books among the 00:09:51.259 --> 00:09:53.480 nobility. They were building private libraries 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.559 as status symbols. But there were no publishers 00:09:56.559 --> 00:09:58.779 in the modern sense. You needed a patron. You 00:09:58.779 --> 00:10:00.980 needed a rich duke to pay you to write the book. 00:10:01.179 --> 00:10:03.340 Precisely. It was a gift economy. You would write 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:05.279 a book, have it beautifully bound and illustrated, 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:08.129 and present it to a prince or a duke. In exchange, 00:10:08.529 --> 00:10:10.629 they were expected to give you a gift of money. 00:10:10.850 --> 00:10:14.110 Oh, expected. Expected. It wasn't a salary. It 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.730 was a reward. That sounds incredibly unstable. 00:10:17.129 --> 00:10:19.970 What if the duke didn't like it or just forgot 00:10:19.970 --> 00:10:23.570 to pay you? That happened constantly. And Christine 00:10:23.570 --> 00:10:26.509 was incredibly savvy about this. She didn't just 00:10:26.509 --> 00:10:29.250 attach herself to one person. She realized the 00:10:29.250 --> 00:10:32.289 political landscape was volatile, so she maneuvered 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:34.470 between different factions. So she didn't put 00:10:34.470 --> 00:10:37.259 all her eggs in one basket. No way. She wrote 00:10:37.259 --> 00:10:38.899 for the Duke of Orleans. She wrote for the Duke 00:10:38.899 --> 00:10:40.679 of Burgundy. She wrote for the Duke of Barrie. 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:43.080 She diversified her client base. She was a freelancer. 00:10:43.340 --> 00:10:46.039 She was the ultimate freelancer. And she knew 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:49.580 how to market herself. This part is genius. She 00:10:49.580 --> 00:10:51.740 would take a work she had written, write a new 00:10:51.740 --> 00:10:54.559 prologue dedicating it to a specific duke, and 00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:57.620 present it to him as a gift. And then? Then she 00:10:57.620 --> 00:11:00.080 might take the very same text, write a different 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.639 prologue for a different noble, and present it 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:04.799 to them. That is brilliant. Here you go, Duke 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:06.950 Philip. I wrote this just for you. Just, you 00:11:06.950 --> 00:11:08.870 know, ignore the fact that I gave a copy to Duke 00:11:08.870 --> 00:11:11.250 Louis last week. Essentially, yes. It was about 00:11:11.250 --> 00:11:13.870 maximizing her intellectual property. And she 00:11:13.870 --> 00:11:17.389 started with what was popular. In 1393, she began 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:19.870 writing love ballads. OK, so she starts with 00:11:19.870 --> 00:11:22.529 the pop hits. Exactly. These are trendy. They 00:11:22.529 --> 00:11:24.230 were emotional. They caught the attention of 00:11:24.230 --> 00:11:27.389 the court. Her collection, St. Balad's, was a 00:11:27.389 --> 00:11:30.389 hit. It was about a grieving widow, which was 00:11:30.389 --> 00:11:33.049 obviously autobiographical, but it's stylized 00:11:33.049 --> 00:11:35.250 enough to be entertaining. So she gets her foot 00:11:35.250 --> 00:11:37.590 in the door with the romance stuff, but she doesn't 00:11:37.590 --> 00:11:40.809 stay there. She quickly pivots to much more serious 00:11:40.809 --> 00:11:45.129 subjects. Philosophy, history, politics. She 00:11:45.129 --> 00:11:48.070 realized that to be taken seriously and to secure 00:11:48.070 --> 00:11:50.490 the bigger payouts, she needed to write serious 00:11:50.490 --> 00:11:53.269 books. One of the works that really stands out 00:11:53.269 --> 00:11:55.649 from this early period is The Letter of Othea 00:11:55.649 --> 00:12:00.960 to Hector. Yes, this came out around 1400. And 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.139 it's a fascinating text. It's a mix of mythology 00:12:03.139 --> 00:12:06.139 and statecraft. What's the premise? The premise 00:12:06.139 --> 00:12:09.120 is that Othea, the goddess of wisdom, is tutoring 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:11.960 the Trojan hero, Hector. Okay, I see what she's 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:13.720 doing there. It's a Trojan horse, unintended. 00:12:14.100 --> 00:12:15.820 On the surface, it's a collection of mythological 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:18.279 stories, very entertaining, very visual. But 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:21.179 deeply, it's a treatise on how to be a good leader. 00:12:21.620 --> 00:12:24.679 And the gender dynamics are key here. She's using 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:27.919 a female goddess to teach a male hero how to 00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:31.259 be a leader. Exactly. And the subtext is clear. 00:12:31.980 --> 00:12:35.500 Christine is Othea. She is the woman with the 00:12:35.500 --> 00:12:38.460 wisdom, teaching the men of the court how to 00:12:38.460 --> 00:12:42.519 govern. And she didn't just write the text. She 00:12:42.519 --> 00:12:44.879 managed the entire production. Let's touch on 00:12:44.879 --> 00:12:46.679 that production aspect, because she wasn't just 00:12:46.679 --> 00:12:48.480 sitting alone in a room writing. She was running 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:51.440 a business. She was. By this point, she had scribes 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:54.720 working for her to copy her texts. She hired 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:57.100 illuminators. the artists who painted the gold 00:12:57.100 --> 00:12:59.100 leaf in the miniatures in the margins. So she's 00:12:59.100 --> 00:13:02.019 like a general contractor for luxury goods. That's 00:13:02.019 --> 00:13:03.879 a perfect way to put it. We know she employed 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:06.480 a specific illuminator who art historians now 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.919 call the master of the apetra dosea. Wow. She 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:12.139 was incredibly particular about how the books 00:13:12.139 --> 00:13:14.580 looked because she knew the visual appeal was 00:13:14.580 --> 00:13:16.919 what sold them to the Dukes. That is such a boss 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.419 move. She's running a production house. But while 00:13:19.419 --> 00:13:21.480 she's building this business, she also starts 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:23.299 getting involved in some pretty heated literary 00:13:23.299 --> 00:13:26.809 beefs. We have to talk about the Romance of the 00:13:26.809 --> 00:13:30.029 Rose controversy. Oh, yes. This is a defining 00:13:30.029 --> 00:13:33.549 moment for her. So, for context, the Romance 00:13:33.549 --> 00:13:35.830 of the Rose was the blockbuster of the Middle 00:13:35.830 --> 00:13:38.549 Ages. Like the Harry Potter of its day. Bigger, 00:13:38.549 --> 00:13:41.590 probably. It was started by Guillaume Deloris 00:13:41.590 --> 00:13:44.690 and finished by Jean Domen. It had been around 00:13:44.690 --> 00:13:46.980 for over a century. Everyone read it. But it 00:13:46.980 --> 00:13:49.340 wasn't exactly respectful toward women, was it? 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:51.139 Not at all. Especially the second half written 00:13:51.139 --> 00:13:54.240 by Jean de Moon. It was a satire, yes. But it 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:56.799 depicted women as seducers, as manipulative, 00:13:56.860 --> 00:13:59.840 as objects. It was deeply, deeply misogynistic. 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:01.620 It used coarse language. And the establishment 00:14:01.620 --> 00:14:03.940 loved it. The intellectual elite defended it. 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.440 It was a classic. It was an allegory. Until Christine. 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:09.379 In 1402, she basically calls it out. She says 00:14:09.379 --> 00:14:12.679 it's vulgar, immoral, and slanderous. And she's 00:14:12.679 --> 00:14:14.720 not just complaining to her friends. She takes 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:17.299 this public... She engages in a letter -rating 00:14:17.299 --> 00:14:20.340 campaign against some of the most powerful intellectuals 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:23.460 in Paris, including royal secretaries like Jean 00:14:23.460 --> 00:14:25.539 Montreuil and Gontier Cole. So these are the 00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:28.320 big dogs? These were the literary bros of the 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.960 15th century. They were defending the book, saying 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:34.100 it was satire, it was high art, and they... Christine 00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:36.019 just didn't get it. And they must have loved 00:14:36.019 --> 00:14:38.039 that, a woman telling them their favorite book 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:40.860 is trash. Oh, they were furious. Their responses 00:14:40.860 --> 00:14:42.980 are preserved and they are so condescending, 00:14:43.059 --> 00:14:45.200 they basically pat her on the head and say, oh, 00:14:45.220 --> 00:14:47.139 you sweet little woman, you just don't have the 00:14:47.139 --> 00:14:49.460 intellect to understand Master Jean de Moon. 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:52.860 But she didn't back down. No, she doubled down. 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:56.019 She used this brilliant rhetorical strategy called 00:14:56.019 --> 00:14:58.860 antiphrasis. Okay, what's that? She would start 00:14:58.860 --> 00:15:01.600 by belittling her own style, saying, oh. I'm 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:03.779 just a woman of small understanding. My pen is 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:06.360 clumsy. Disarming them? Totally disarming them. 00:15:06.460 --> 00:15:08.600 And then she would dismantle their arguments 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:11.779 with surgical precision. She cited the church 00:15:11.779 --> 00:15:14.620 fathers. She cited classical philosophy. She 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:17.340 asked a very simple, cutting question. Does this 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:19.679 book make men better? Does it make them more 00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:23.120 moral? No. It encourages them to treat women 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.639 like cattle. It's the Columbo method. Just one 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:27.960 more thing, and then she destroys you. It is. 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:30.659 And Simone de Beauvoir later credited this moment, 00:15:30.779 --> 00:15:33.860 this debate, as the first time a woman publicly 00:15:33.860 --> 00:15:37.740 took up her pen in defense of her sex. Wow. It 00:15:37.740 --> 00:15:40.460 was the birth of the querelle des femmes, the 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:43.000 woman question. And this leads directly into 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:45.539 her most famous work, The Book of the City of 00:15:45.539 --> 00:15:49.419 Ladies, published in 1405. This book is incredible. 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:52.419 This is essentially a response to all that misogyny 00:15:52.419 --> 00:15:55.019 she was fighting. It is. If the Romance of the 00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:57.519 Rose controversy was the battle, the City of 00:15:57.519 --> 00:15:59.340 Ladies was the fortress she built afterwards. 00:15:59.559 --> 00:16:01.620 I love that analogy. The concept is brilliant. 00:16:01.860 --> 00:16:04.059 Christine describes herself sitting in her study, 00:16:04.220 --> 00:16:07.899 just depressed. She's read so many books written 00:16:07.899 --> 00:16:10.440 by men saying that women are wicked and flawed. 00:16:10.659 --> 00:16:12.480 And she starts to internalize it. She wonders, 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:14.799 is God a mistake maker? Why are women so terrible? 00:16:15.129 --> 00:16:16.570 Which is heartbreaking, honestly, that feeling 00:16:16.570 --> 00:16:18.590 of the weight of the culture just crushing her 00:16:18.590 --> 00:16:22.110 self -esteem. It is. But then, three allegorical 00:16:22.110 --> 00:16:24.950 figures appear to her. Reason, rectitude, and 00:16:24.950 --> 00:16:27.509 justice. The dream team. The dream team. These 00:16:27.509 --> 00:16:30.090 three luminous ladies tell her, Christine, wake 00:16:30.090 --> 00:16:32.610 up. These men are wrong, and we are going to 00:16:32.610 --> 00:16:35.450 help you build a city. A literal city. A symbolic 00:16:35.450 --> 00:16:38.309 city. A fortress built to protect and appreciate 00:16:38.309 --> 00:16:41.590 women. And the building blocks of this city are 00:16:41.590 --> 00:16:43.950 the stories of great women from history. So she's 00:16:43.950 --> 00:16:46.250 building it out of stories. Yes. She goes through 00:16:46.250 --> 00:16:49.710 history, biblical, classical, contemporary, and 00:16:49.710 --> 00:16:52.149 pulls out every example of a strong, virtuous, 00:16:52.289 --> 00:16:54.509 intelligent woman she can find. She brings in 00:16:54.509 --> 00:16:59.090 everyone, saints, queens, warriors. And she engages 00:16:59.090 --> 00:17:01.470 in some amazing revisionist history. My favorite 00:17:01.470 --> 00:17:03.970 example is Medusa. Oh, the Medusa bit is crucial. 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:06.980 Because usually Medusa is the monster, right? 00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:10.519 Snakes for hair, turns men to stone. Right. A 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:12.940 villain to be slain by Perseus, the ultimate 00:17:12.940 --> 00:17:16.599 monster. Christine reimagines her. She portrays 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:18.960 Medusa not as a monster, but as a beautiful woman 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:21.519 who was harmed by men and whose story was twisted 00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:23.480 by them. How does she explain the whole turning 00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.220 men to stone thing? She argues that her power 00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:28.640 was actually just her incredible beauty and intellect 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:31.000 that stunned men into silence. They were petrified 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.019 by her brilliance. She completely flicks the 00:17:33.019 --> 00:17:36.119 script. Completely. She argues that the only 00:17:36.119 --> 00:17:38.720 reason negative stereotypes about women persist 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:41.259 is because women have been excluded from the 00:17:41.259 --> 00:17:43.420 conversation. If you don't write your own history, 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:45.500 someone else will write it for you. Exactly. 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:47.460 And she uses theological arguments, too. She 00:17:47.460 --> 00:17:49.779 says men and women are both created in God's 00:17:49.779 --> 00:17:52.980 image, so they both have souls capable of goodness. 00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.079 It was a systematic dismantling of sexism using 00:17:57.079 --> 00:17:59.839 the very religious and logical tools that men 00:17:59.839 --> 00:18:02.150 use to enforce it. And she didn't just leave 00:18:02.150 --> 00:18:04.130 it at high -level allegory. She also wrote a 00:18:04.130 --> 00:18:07.029 sequel, right? A more practical guide. Yes. The 00:18:07.029 --> 00:18:09.509 Treasure of the City of Ladies, also known as 00:18:09.509 --> 00:18:11.430 the Book of Three Virtues. And what was that 00:18:11.430 --> 00:18:14.069 one about? This is the practical guide. If city 00:18:14.069 --> 00:18:16.589 ladies was the theory, treasure was the practice. 00:18:16.869 --> 00:18:20.170 It was advice for women of all estates. Princesses, 00:18:20.170 --> 00:18:22.509 merchants' wives, peasants. All estates. So not 00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:24.789 just for the nobility. No, that's what's so important. 00:18:24.869 --> 00:18:26.910 She's talking to everyone. What kind of advice? 00:18:27.170 --> 00:18:29.799 How to survive. How to manage your money, how 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:31.900 to deal with your husband, how to navigate the 00:18:31.900 --> 00:18:35.039 social perils of the 15th century. She was very 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:38.039 pragmatic. For example, she told wives of merchants 00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:40.339 to understand their husband's business accounts. 00:18:40.579 --> 00:18:42.839 Oh, that's smart. She said, don't just leave 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.059 it to him. If he dies, you need to know where 00:18:45.059 --> 00:18:48.200 the money is. She was speaking from her own traumatic 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:51.220 experience. Of course. And she was a huge advocate 00:18:51.220 --> 00:18:54.700 for education. A massive advocate. She explicitly 00:18:54.700 --> 00:18:57.380 argued that if you sent little girls to school 00:18:57.380 --> 00:19:00.420 and taught them the same subjects as boys, they 00:19:00.420 --> 00:19:02.900 would learn just as fully. Which was a radical 00:19:02.900 --> 00:19:06.259 statement in 1405. Hugely radical. She was arguing 00:19:06.259 --> 00:19:08.759 for nurture in a world that believed everything 00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:11.190 was about nature. She also practiced what she 00:19:11.190 --> 00:19:13.990 preached regarding female competence. In the 00:19:13.990 --> 00:19:16.789 text, she mentions a female manuscript illustrator 00:19:16.789 --> 00:19:19.730 named Anastasia. Yes, this is such a great detail. 00:19:19.829 --> 00:19:22.150 She describes Anastasia as the most talented 00:19:22.150 --> 00:19:25.450 illustrator of her day, specifically for painting 00:19:25.450 --> 00:19:27.430 flower borders and backgrounds in manuscripts. 00:19:27.789 --> 00:19:29.509 She's giving another professional woman a shout 00:19:29.509 --> 00:19:31.910 out. It's a lovely moment of professional solidarity. 00:19:32.490 --> 00:19:34.950 Christine is making sure that another talented 00:19:34.950 --> 00:19:37.750 woman's name is recorded in history. So she's 00:19:37.750 --> 00:19:40.509 firmly established as this intellectual heavyweight. 00:19:40.569 --> 00:19:43.609 She's the voice of women in Europe. But the world 00:19:43.609 --> 00:19:46.170 outside her study is getting worse. Much worse. 00:19:46.289 --> 00:19:50.150 France is sliding into chaos. It was. And you 00:19:50.150 --> 00:19:52.130 really have to understand the political context 00:19:52.130 --> 00:19:56.309 to get her later work. King Charles VI, the son 00:19:56.309 --> 00:19:58.849 of the wise king she grew up with, was suffering 00:19:58.849 --> 00:20:01.670 from severe mental health crises. This is the 00:20:01.670 --> 00:20:05.009 king who thought he was made of glass. Yes. He 00:20:05.009 --> 00:20:06.849 would have these breakdowns where he didn't know 00:20:06.849 --> 00:20:08.609 who he was or he thought he was made of glass 00:20:08.609 --> 00:20:11.670 and would shatter if touched. A glass king. That 00:20:11.670 --> 00:20:13.609 is a terrifying metaphor for the state of the 00:20:13.609 --> 00:20:16.970 nation. It created a massive power vacuum. And 00:20:16.970 --> 00:20:19.269 when there's a vacuum, people rush to fill it. 00:20:19.829 --> 00:20:22.109 Specifically, two rival factions of the royal 00:20:22.109 --> 00:20:24.829 family. The Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Exactly. 00:20:25.009 --> 00:20:27.990 It was essentially a civil war between the king's 00:20:27.990 --> 00:20:30.950 brother, Louis of Orleans, and the king's cousin. 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:33.480 John the Fearless of Burgundy. And Christina's 00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:35.039 right in the middle of this. She knows these 00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:37.519 men. They are her patrons. She was terrified. 00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:40.819 She viewed France as this sacred entity founded 00:20:40.819 --> 00:20:44.160 by Trojan descendants. She wanted stability above 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:47.140 all else. She believed in a strong monarchy. 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:50.039 So she pivots again. She pivots again. She stops 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:52.079 writing just about women and starts writing political 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:55.240 theory. In 1407, she writes The Book of the Body 00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:57.740 Politics. Right. And here she uses that classic 00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:00.160 medieval metaphor of the body to explain society. 00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.279 The king is the head, the nobles are the arms, 00:21:03.420 --> 00:21:05.519 the people are the legs. And the message is? 00:21:05.740 --> 00:21:07.619 The message is that for the body to function, 00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:11.259 every part needs to do its job. If the arms attack 00:21:11.259 --> 00:21:14.829 the head, the body dies. She favored hereditary 00:21:14.829 --> 00:21:16.730 monarchy because she looked at the Italian city 00:21:16.730 --> 00:21:18.910 -states, which were more Republican or run by 00:21:18.910 --> 00:21:22.069 guilds, and she thought, that's chaotic. That's 00:21:22.069 --> 00:21:24.130 not profitable for the common good. She wanted 00:21:24.130 --> 00:21:26.690 order above all else. She was desperate for order. 00:21:26.970 --> 00:21:30.549 In 1407, things got much worse. John the Fearless 00:21:30.549 --> 00:21:32.990 had Louis of Orleans assassinated in the streets 00:21:32.990 --> 00:21:35.750 of Paris. Oh, just out in the open. Out in the 00:21:35.750 --> 00:21:39.690 open. The Cold War turned hot. So Christine wrote 00:21:39.690 --> 00:21:42.950 the Book of Peace in 1413, addressing the Dauphin, 00:21:43.150 --> 00:21:45.250 the heir to the throne, urging him to end the 00:21:45.250 --> 00:21:48.849 civil war. She quotes the Bible, every kingdom 00:21:48.849 --> 00:21:51.589 divided in itself will be made desolate. But 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:54.109 the peace didn't hold. And this leads to what 00:21:54.109 --> 00:21:56.029 I think is the most surprising part of her entire 00:21:56.029 --> 00:21:59.109 bibliography. She writes a manual on warfare. 00:21:59.569 --> 00:22:02.210 The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry, published 00:22:02.210 --> 00:22:06.240 in 1410. A woman. Writing a manual on how to 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.079 wage war. In 1410, that seems wildly out of her 00:22:09.079 --> 00:22:11.900 lane. It is audacious. So audacious. And she 00:22:11.900 --> 00:22:14.099 acknowledges that in the preface. She apologizes 00:22:14.099 --> 00:22:17.339 to Minerva, the goddess of war, basically saying, 00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:19.539 I know I'm a woman, but I have to do this because 00:22:19.539 --> 00:22:21.720 the men are doing it wrong. I love that. So how 00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:23.160 did she even know this stuff? He's never held 00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:25.799 a sword. She was a researcher, a meticulous researcher. 00:22:25.940 --> 00:22:28.259 She interviewed knights. She read the classical 00:22:28.259 --> 00:22:31.579 texts, specifically Vigisius' De Re Militari, 00:22:31.660 --> 00:22:33.900 which was the standard Roman military text. So 00:22:33.900 --> 00:22:36.680 she did her homework. She did. But she didn't 00:22:36.680 --> 00:22:39.099 just translate Vigisius. She updated him for 00:22:39.099 --> 00:22:42.259 her time. She wrote about modern siege warfare, 00:22:42.579 --> 00:22:44.839 about the use of cannons, about logistics and 00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:47.019 supply lines. What kind of stuff is she covering? 00:22:47.140 --> 00:22:49.359 Is it just hit them with the pointy end? Oh, 00:22:49.380 --> 00:22:51.940 no, it's sophisticated. Yeah. She discusses the 00:22:51.940 --> 00:22:54.599 just war theory, the idea that war should only 00:22:54.599 --> 00:22:57.380 be waged by sovereign kings to protect their 00:22:57.380 --> 00:23:00.079 subjects or execute justice. So not for personal 00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:02.759 gain. Right. It cannot be for personal gain or 00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:05.059 vengeance. Yeah. And she talks about the laws 00:23:05.059 --> 00:23:07.339 of war, how to treat prisoners, why you shouldn't 00:23:07.339 --> 00:23:10.250 kill noncombatants. She even had opinions on 00:23:10.250 --> 00:23:13.369 trial by combat, right? She hated it. She opposed 00:23:13.369 --> 00:23:15.369 trial by combat because she didn't believe that 00:23:15.369 --> 00:23:17.430 winning a fight proved you were right. It just 00:23:17.430 --> 00:23:19.289 proved you were stronger or luckier. That's a 00:23:19.289 --> 00:23:21.849 very logical modern take. It is. She was very 00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:24.650 practical. She admitted that war involves, and 00:23:24.650 --> 00:23:27.690 I'm quoting here, raping, killings, forced executions, 00:23:27.710 --> 00:23:30.869 and arsons. She didn't romanticize it, even though 00:23:30.869 --> 00:23:33.210 she was writing about chivalry. She saw it as 00:23:33.210 --> 00:23:35.509 a grim necessity that needed strict regulation. 00:23:36.200 --> 00:23:38.400 Now, here is a detail that made me angry when 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:41.680 I read it. This book was good. It was useful. 00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:44.700 It was so useful that it was printed and used 00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:48.019 for a long time, but her name didn't always stay 00:23:48.019 --> 00:23:50.960 on it. This is a classic example of erasure. 00:23:51.099 --> 00:23:53.960 It's infuriating. The book was printed later 00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:56.559 in the 15th century by a publisher named Antoine 00:23:56.559 --> 00:23:59.339 Verar, and in some editions, Verar just stripped 00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:02.279 her name off it. Or, even worse, he would claim 00:24:02.279 --> 00:24:04.880 it was a translation of a male author. Because, 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:07.359 God forbid, a knight takes military advice from 00:24:07.359 --> 00:24:10.519 a woman. Exactly. Even William Caxton, the famous 00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:13.359 English printer, published it in 1489 for King 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:15.720 Henry VII. It was considered a standard manual. 00:24:16.220 --> 00:24:18.140 But the fact that a woman wrote it was often 00:24:18.140 --> 00:24:19.880 obscured because it undermined the authority 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:22.180 of the text in the eyes of men. They wanted the 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:25.980 knowledge, but not the author. Ugh. So she tries 00:24:25.980 --> 00:24:28.130 to save France with her pen. She writes about 00:24:28.130 --> 00:24:30.470 peace. She writes about war. But the situation 00:24:30.470 --> 00:24:32.230 in France just keeps getting worse. It does. 00:24:32.289 --> 00:24:34.690 It gets much, much worse. In 1415, the French 00:24:34.690 --> 00:24:36.750 suffer a devastating defeat at the Battle of 00:24:36.750 --> 00:24:39.390 Agincourt against the English. Agincourt. A generation 00:24:39.390 --> 00:24:42.109 of French nobility is wiped out by English longbows. 00:24:42.670 --> 00:24:46.190 The mud, the blood. It was a national catastrophe. 00:24:46.609 --> 00:24:48.769 And Christine is getting older at this point. 00:24:48.869 --> 00:24:52.529 She's seen decades of this endless war and chaos. 00:24:52.869 --> 00:24:54.650 She's tired. You can feel it in her writing. 00:24:54.750 --> 00:24:57.630 In 1418, she published his letter concerning 00:24:57.630 --> 00:25:00.960 the prison of human life. The tone here is very 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:03.380 different from her earlier work. How so? It's 00:25:03.380 --> 00:25:06.140 pessimistic, deeply pessimistic. She views the 00:25:06.140 --> 00:25:08.480 soul as being trapped in the body, trapped in 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:10.759 this hellish existence on Earth. It was written 00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:12.900 as a consolation for women who had lost family 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:15.440 members in the war. But you can feel her own 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:18.259 despair bleeding through. And then the war comes 00:25:18.259 --> 00:25:21.779 to her death step, literally. In 1418, the Burgundians 00:25:21.779 --> 00:25:24.079 capture Paris. It's a bloodbath in the streets. 00:25:24.539 --> 00:25:26.599 Christine flees. Where does she go? Historians 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:28.500 believe she retreated to the Dominican convent 00:25:28.500 --> 00:25:31.640 of Procy. Her daughter was a nun there. And she 00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:33.940 effectively retires from public life. She stops 00:25:33.940 --> 00:25:36.339 writing. She just goes silent. For 11 years, 00:25:36.579 --> 00:25:39.599 Paris is occupied by the English. The Burgundians 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:41.200 have taken over. It seems like everything she 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:44.440 fought for is lost. Silence for 11 years. She's 00:25:44.440 --> 00:25:46.460 in the convent watching her country fall apart. 00:25:47.079 --> 00:25:49.920 The king of Bourges, the disinherited Dauphin, 00:25:50.099 --> 00:25:52.869 is hiding in the south. It looks like the end 00:25:52.869 --> 00:25:56.529 of France. It really does. But then, 1429. A 00:25:56.529 --> 00:25:59.390 miracle happens. Or at least what Christine perceives 00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:02.029 as a miracle. A young peasant girl from nowhere 00:26:02.029 --> 00:26:05.049 named Joan of Arc appears. Joan of Arc. She claims 00:26:05.049 --> 00:26:08.089 to hear voices from God. She convinces the Dauphin 00:26:08.089 --> 00:26:11.109 to give her an army. She lifts the siege of Orléans. 00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:14.680 It's an unbelievable turn of events. And Christine 00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:17.380 picks up her pen one last time. She does. After 00:26:17.380 --> 00:26:19.940 11 years of silence, she breaks it to write The 00:26:19.940 --> 00:26:22.859 Tale of Joan of Arc, or Didier de Chahand Arc. 00:26:22.980 --> 00:26:25.339 And she gets it published just days after Charles 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:28.740 VII's coronation in Rheims, which Joan made happen. 00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:30.960 What's the vibe of this last work? Is she still 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:33.440 pessimistic? Not at all. The optimism is back 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:36.859 with a vengeance. She is ecstatic. She sees Joan 00:26:36.859 --> 00:26:39.730 as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. From 00:26:39.730 --> 00:26:42.769 Merlin the Sibyl Bede. She sees her as a destined 00:26:42.769 --> 00:26:45.690 savior. Yes. But more importantly, she sees Joan 00:26:45.690 --> 00:26:48.309 as the ultimate validation of her life's work. 00:26:48.529 --> 00:26:50.970 It's poetic, isn't it? The first professional 00:26:50.970 --> 00:26:53.230 woman writer ends her career by celebrating the 00:26:53.230 --> 00:26:55.789 first female military leader to save France. 00:26:56.009 --> 00:26:58.109 It is the perfect bookend to her life. It's almost 00:26:58.109 --> 00:27:00.690 too perfect, she writes. What honor for the female 00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:03.250 sex. It is perfectly obvious that God has especially 00:27:03.250 --> 00:27:06.890 chosen her. She felt vindicated. All those arguments 00:27:06.890 --> 00:27:09.130 she made in the city of ladies about women being 00:27:09.130 --> 00:27:12.809 capable of greatness. Joan was the living proof. 00:27:13.269 --> 00:27:16.849 A woman doing what all the men could not. Sadly, 00:27:16.869 --> 00:27:19.029 Christine didn't live to see the end of Joan's 00:27:19.029 --> 00:27:23.329 story. No. Christine died around 1430. Joan was 00:27:23.329 --> 00:27:26.269 captured and executed in 1431. So Christine likely 00:27:26.269 --> 00:27:28.230 died believing that Joan had won and that France 00:27:28.230 --> 00:27:30.829 was saved. It seems so. She missed the tragic 00:27:30.829 --> 00:27:33.289 ending, which is perhaps a small mercy. She died 00:27:33.289 --> 00:27:36.089 with hope. So Christine passes away, but her 00:27:36.089 --> 00:27:37.809 books did die with her. Let's talk about her 00:27:37.809 --> 00:27:39.950 legacy. She wasn't just forgotten, was she? Not 00:27:39.950 --> 00:27:42.109 immediately, no. Her advice books remained in 00:27:42.109 --> 00:27:44.829 print until the 16th century. Powerful women 00:27:44.829 --> 00:27:47.150 read them. Like who? Anne of France, who was 00:27:47.150 --> 00:27:50.640 regent, used Christine's work as a guide. Queen 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:53.099 Elizabeth I of England, one of the most powerful 00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:55.720 women in history, had copies of the City of Ladies 00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:58.380 and Feats of Arms in her library. I read that 00:27:58.380 --> 00:28:01.700 Elizabeth I even had tapestries featuring scenes 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:04.460 from the City of Ladies. She did. Imagine that. 00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:07.579 Visuals of a city built by women hanging on the 00:28:07.579 --> 00:28:10.559 walls of the Virgin Queen. That is direct influence. 00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:13.660 Christine helped shape the queens who came after 00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:15.859 her. But then as time goes on, the erasure starts 00:28:15.859 --> 00:28:18.380 to happen. It does. As we moved into the 17th 00:28:18.380 --> 00:28:20.799 and 18th centuries, the Enlightenment, the literary 00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:23.599 canon, narrowed, and women were pushed out of 00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:25.299 the history of political thought. So how was 00:28:25.299 --> 00:28:27.839 she remembered? Christine was dismissed. She 00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:29.940 was labeled a blue stocking, a minor poet, or 00:28:29.940 --> 00:28:32.619 just a curiosity. You know, oh, look, a medieval 00:28:32.619 --> 00:28:35.180 woman who could write. How quaint. Her political 00:28:35.180 --> 00:28:37.099 and military insights were completely ignored. 00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:39.809 Until the modern era. The revival really kicks 00:28:39.809 --> 00:28:42.269 off in the 20th century. You have scholars like 00:28:42.269 --> 00:28:44.910 Mathilde Legle and later, of course, Simone de 00:28:44.910 --> 00:28:47.349 Beauvoir rediscovering her. And Judy Chicago? 00:28:47.730 --> 00:28:51.029 Yes. Judy Chicago, in her famous artwork The 00:28:51.029 --> 00:28:54.630 Dinner Party in 1979, gave Christine a place 00:28:54.630 --> 00:28:57.329 setting at the table. Scholars started to realize, 00:28:57.450 --> 00:28:59.970 wait, this isn't just a poet. This is a political 00:28:59.970 --> 00:29:02.509 theorist. This is a military strategist. And 00:29:02.509 --> 00:29:05.430 we have to mention the 2024 Paris Olympics because 00:29:05.430 --> 00:29:07.910 that felt like a huge mainstream moment for her. 00:29:08.069 --> 00:29:10.109 It was. That was such a huge moment. During the 00:29:10.109 --> 00:29:12.029 opening ceremony, there was that segment honoring 00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:15.849 10 pioneering French women with gold statues 00:29:15.849 --> 00:29:18.230 rising out of the sand. And Christine de Pizan 00:29:18.230 --> 00:29:21.069 was one of them, holding her books. From a convent 00:29:21.069 --> 00:29:24.089 in Poissy to a gold statue in front of the whole 00:29:24.089 --> 00:29:27.299 world, that is quite a journey. It is. And it 00:29:27.299 --> 00:29:29.819 validates her mission in a way. She wanted to 00:29:29.819 --> 00:29:31.640 be remembered. She wanted women to be remembered. 00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:34.039 She built the city of ladies so that women wouldn't 00:29:34.039 --> 00:29:36.480 be forgotten. And in the end, she became the 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:38.940 cornerstone of that city. So let's unpack this. 00:29:39.119 --> 00:29:41.279 What does all this mean for us today? What's 00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:43.299 the big takeaway? I think the biggest takeaway 00:29:43.299 --> 00:29:46.519 is her resilience and her use of intellect as 00:29:46.519 --> 00:29:49.240 a weapon. She was in a hostile world, legally, 00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:51.740 financially, culturally. She didn't have a sword. 00:29:51.900 --> 00:29:53.759 She didn't have political office. She had a pen. 00:29:54.190 --> 00:29:56.470 And she wasn't afraid to use it. And she used 00:29:56.470 --> 00:29:59.210 it to carve out a space for herself and for other 00:29:59.210 --> 00:30:01.890 women. She forced the men of her time to listen 00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:04.769 to her. She engaged them on their own turf theology, 00:30:05.170 --> 00:30:08.670 law, military strategy. And she beat them at 00:30:08.670 --> 00:30:11.049 their own game. And she recognized the power 00:30:11.049 --> 00:30:14.019 of storytelling. She understood that if you let 00:30:14.019 --> 00:30:16.519 a culture tell you that you are less than for 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:19.099 long enough, you start to believe it. The way 00:30:19.099 --> 00:30:21.339 she almost did at the start of City of Ladies. 00:30:21.500 --> 00:30:23.380 Exactly. So she created a counter -narrative. 00:30:23.660 --> 00:30:26.359 The City of Ladies was a safe space for the female 00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:28.980 mind. She showed that representation matters. 00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:31.220 It really makes you think about the stories we 00:30:31.220 --> 00:30:33.460 tell today. It absolutely does. Okay, I have 00:30:33.460 --> 00:30:35.099 a thought experiment for you and for everyone 00:30:35.099 --> 00:30:37.839 listening. Christine built her city of ladies 00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:41.440 using the figures of her time saints, mythological 00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:44.769 queens, Amazons. Right, her heroes. If we were 00:30:44.769 --> 00:30:47.730 to build a modern city of ladies today, an allegorical 00:30:47.730 --> 00:30:49.730 city to protect and validate the contributions 00:30:49.730 --> 00:30:52.829 of women, or really any marginalized group, who 00:30:52.829 --> 00:30:55.049 would be our architects? Who are the modern reason, 00:30:55.289 --> 00:30:58.569 rectitude, and justice? That is a powerful question. 00:30:58.809 --> 00:31:02.410 And, you know, to build on that, does the fact 00:31:02.410 --> 00:31:05.250 that she had to reimagine Medusa to... take a 00:31:05.250 --> 00:31:07.769 figure known as a monster and reveal her as a 00:31:07.769 --> 00:31:10.509 survivor. Does it sound familiar? It sounds incredibly 00:31:10.509 --> 00:31:12.390 familiar. We are still having these cultural 00:31:12.390 --> 00:31:14.789 conversations today about how we treat women 00:31:14.789 --> 00:31:17.569 in media, how we interpret their stories. Think 00:31:17.569 --> 00:31:21.150 of movies like Wicked or Maleficent telling the 00:31:21.150 --> 00:31:24.240 story from. The witch's perspective. Christine 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:26.539 de Pizan started that conversation 600 years 00:31:26.539 --> 00:31:29.240 ago. She certainly did. And that is where we 00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:31.259 are going to leave it for today. Thank you for 00:31:31.259 --> 00:31:33.680 joining us on this deep dive into the life of 00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:35.720 the incredible Christine de Pizan. Keep reading. 00:31:35.799 --> 00:31:37.400 Keep questioning. See you next time.