Summary
One day in her study, Christine de Pizan picks up a book by an author named Mathéolus. She is dismayed and saddened to read that this Mathéolus finds all women morally reprehensible and evil.
Suddenly, a flash of light reveals three figures standing before her – allegorical women representing the virtues of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. These three women introduce themselves to Christine and tell her that she is to build a City of Ladies, which will serve as a refuge for women against the harsh accusations of men.
The women lead Christine to the site where the city will be built, called the Field of Letters.
Lady Reason tells Christine to use her pen to lay the foundation for the city.
While Christine works, Lady Reason details the lives of numerous women whose strength helps fortify the foundation for the city. Reason tells Christine about women who have ruled over their own kingdoms, as well as women who have developed themselves intellectually, like Christine. Reason concludes her catalogue by alluding to women who have exhibited profound prudence and soundness of mind in leadership roles.
By the time she is finished with her catalogue, Christine has completed the foundation for the city.
When Lady Reason is done speaking, she introduces her sister, Lady Rectitude.
Analysis
The Book of the City of Ladies is considered one of the earliest feminist texts, though the term "feminism" did not become operative until the 19th century. In the absence of an appropriate vocabulary, however, Christine de Pizan's text expresses a remarkably modern viewpoint on gender, fiercely defending women at a time when they were openly and erroneously criticized.
The beginning of The Book of the City of Ladies does not immediately reveal its proto-feminist intentions, however. Instead, the text begins by dramatizing an intellectual encounter between Christine (the author, and also the narrator of the text) and an male author named Mathéolus. Mathéolus was a thirteenth-century French cleric who authored the work, Liber lamentationum Matheoluli, a text that argues that marriage makes men's lives miserable. This is likely the text that Christine reads at the beginning of The Book of the City of Ladies.
However, rather than being enraged by the text or jumping to refute the author's arguments, Christine becomes completely distraught, believing fully that the arguments that Mathéolus lodges against women are true. In this way, the text begins on a note of internalized misogyny (also a term that did not exist during the Medieval period), portraying Christine as a sympathetic narrator rather than a hostile one.
De Pizan likely anticipated the criticism that would come her way in writing such a text, and as such she makes clever use of a popular literary genre to help bolster the goals of her project. Rather than portray herself as the person sent to defend women from men's critiques, Christine de Pizan uses the genre of allegory to help craft her broader argument. Allegory was a common genre in medieval literature; an allegory is a story or picture that uses symbols to convey a hidden meaning, usually one of moral or political significance.
In the case of The Book of the City of Ladies, de Pizan uses allegory to portray the "Ladies" that are actually the personified virtues of reason, rectitude, and justice. It is these virtues – and not Christine herself – who argue in defense of women and encourage Christine to build the City of Ladies in the first place. Indeed, the City itself is an allegory, as Lady Reason encourages Christine to use her pen to build the foundation (suggesting that the "city" is actually the book Christine is writing). In this way, de Pizan endorses her radical opinions with symbolic representations and portrays herself as simply the vehicle through which these virtues can be heard.
