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Review of Christine De Pizan: a Casebook September 2005 NOTES AND QUERIES 387 second chapter she draws on her research Speculum Virginum that assumes women as the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/52/3/387/1091570 by University of Toronto Libraries user on 14 January 2019 from the edition to examine the transmission instructed and the scholastic imagery in the history of manuscript L, now London, BL Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Hohenbourg Arundel MS 44 and what its provenance that places women in the role of instructor. reveals about the identity of the treatise’s In the final chapter, Urban Ku¨ sters, in an essay author. Julie Hotchin, in chapter three, extends translated by Adrian Anderson, discusses the work of Urban Ku¨ sters and her own the Middle Dutch translation of the Speculum research to explore the varied facets of the Virginum as Spieghel der Maechden. He argues religious life for women in the houses founded that the Speculum Virginum provided women by the monks of Hirsau, the monastery from involved in the Devotio moderna with a which the Speculum Virginum is believed to sanctioned way to practise their religion with- have originated. Next, Kim Power explores out official attachment to an institutionalized the patristic sources used by Peregrinus to religious order. instruct Theodorus on the Virgin Mary, This book succeeds in its goal of furthering specifically Ambrose’s De institutione Virginis scholarly knowledge of the Speculum Virginum and Paschasius Radbetus’ view of the and twelfth-century female religious culture Assumption. through its well organized and detailed selec- The auditory elements of the Speculum tions that bring much needed attention to Virginum are examined in chapters five and a significant medieval text. The Speculum six as Morgan Powell argues that it was Virginum’s importance for understanding how composed with the intention of being read men perceived women’s roles in medieval aloud by a male preacher to an audience of religious culture and how women, in turn, female religious. She notes that the text could conceived of themselves is brought to the have been used to instruct one listener or a forefront through the different perspectives large group of women. Caroline Jeffreys brought to bear on the text. This book will be (chapter six) examines the Epithalamium,or most useful to those pursuing research on Bridal Song that appears in the earliest manu- pastoral care of religious women, medieval scripts of the Speculum Virginum. Jeffreys pedagogy, spirituality in the Middle Ages, and deftly handles the material and provides the monastic and religious reform. The volume very useful musical settings for the songs at the provides an important addition to the scholar- end of her essay. ship on the twelfth-century spiritual treatise, The remaining five essays take up the theme its background and audience as well as the of the culture of female religious life and broader field of female religion, literacy, and practice. Janice Pinder, in chapter seven, deals education. with the issue of enclosure by comparing the PAUL J. PATTERSON Speculum Virginum to the De claustro animae University of Notre Dame of Hugh of Fouilloy and the anonymous doi:10.1093/notesj/gji371 De modo bene vivendi by pointing out that the ß The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Speculum Virginum, in contrast to these two Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] works’ communal examples, presents a solitary mode of religious life. The Speculum Virginum is examined within the broader context of twelfth-century dialogue literature by Sabina BARBARA K. ALTMANN and DEBORAH L. Flanagan in the eighth essay where she MCGRADY (eds), Christine de Pizan: relates the literary elements of the Speculum A Casebook. Pp. xiii þ 296 (Routledge Virginum that were uncommon in contempo- Medieval Casebooks). New York and rary religious works. Chapter nine, by Elisabeth London: Routledge, 2003. £65.00 (ISBN Bos, takes up the extensive tradition of 0 415 93909 7). spiritual instruction in the twelfth century by ALTHOUGH it may seem hard to believe, considering the differences between teaching there was a time when the works of Christine for men and women. Fiona Griffiths looks at de Pizan were not widely read. These days, the distinct shift from the bridal imagery in the any survey of medieval literature that omits her 388 NOTES AND QUERIES September 2005 works would be considered conspicuous and Pizan as Translator and Voice of the Body Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/52/3/387/1091570 by University of Toronto Libraries user on 14 January 2019 unusual. At least to some degree, the awaken- Politic’ begins promisingly with an overview ing of interest in the writings of Christine is the of translatio studii and translatio imperii that result of a desire, which developed first during provides a useful context for late medieval the early 1970s, to seek out women writers views of translation. However, since Christine who might afford a different perspective on tended to adapt earlier literary works rather the familiar territory of medieval culture. The than translate them (as opposed to other publication of a modern English translation medieval writers such as Jean de Meun or of the Livre de la cite´ des dames in 1982 by Earl Chaucer), Walters necessarily confines her Jeffrey Richards was followed by something of discussion of translation in Christine’s works an explosion of Christine studies, many of to more figurative uses of the term. As a result, them deep and rewarding, but others seemingly Charles V is described as ‘the consummate driven by the desire to seek out medieval women human translator, who mirrors God the whose lives might prove exemplary (or counter- Father’s function as divine translator’ (31), exemplary) to modern women readers. while the autobiographical metamorphosis It is a virtue of the present volume that this from female to male recounted in Christine’s reception history is sketched out, albeit briefly, Livre de la mutacion de Fortune is ‘her own in a Foreword written by Charity Cannon personal translatio’ (33). Like Blumenfeld- Willard, the ground-breaking scholar of late Kosinski’s essay, Earl Jeffrey Richards’s medieval French literature who has worked contribution provides a mature view of a tirelessly for almost seven decades to bring topic the author knows well: in ‘Somewhere Christine’s works to a wider audience. A fuller between Destructive Glosses and Chaos: Introduction by Altmann and McGrady Christine de Pizan and Medieval Theology’, follows which explains the rationale behind however, Richards largely recycles arguments the volume’s four sections (‘Christine in he has published elsewhere. The thesis main- Context’, ‘Building a Female Community’, tained here – that Christine ‘defined herself ‘Christine’s Writings’, and ‘Christine’s as a poet-theologian’ in the terms laid out by Books’) and summarizes the fifteen essays Thomas Aquinas – is a bold one, perhaps that follow, all of which were commissioned useful more for the debate it might inspire for this publication. Many of the names here than as an authoritative pronouncement will be familiar to readers of Christine scholar- concerning Christine’s mastery of philosophy ship, though a few scholars who have made and theology. The final essay in this major contributions in this area (such as, section, ‘Memory’s Architect’ by Margarete for example, Kevin Brownlee, Eric Hicks, Zimmermann, surveys Christine’s use of and Maureen Quilligan) are unfortunately ekphrasis (a topic which has received a good absent. Several of the essays are excellent, deal of attention ever since the publication of and all of them offer insight into current trends Sandra Hindman’s perceptive study of the in the study of Christine’s work, making Epistre Othea) and explores how Christine’s this Casebook a very useful supplementary work reflects medieval theories of memory and text in undergraduate or graduate courses that practices of memorization. (The language of include Christine on the syllabus. this essay is at times a bit obscure, perhaps The first group of essays, which according to a weakness of the essay’s translator rather than the editors focuses on ‘historical approaches’ of the author.) to Christine’s work, is perhaps the least sharply Although the editors suggest that the second focused. The group begins strongly with an group of essays contains ‘feminist readings’ of authoritative essay on ‘Christine de Pizan and Christine’s writings, we seem to have hardly the Political Life in Late Medieval France’ by changed course from the first section, where Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, who has written the issue of gender was central to the argument widely on Christine’s work and has recently of three of the four essays. (The exception completed a major study of reflections of the is Blumenfeld-Kosinski, who concludes by Great Schism in late medieval French litera- asserting that there is ‘probably not’ a ture. Lori Walters’s essay on ‘Christine de ‘feminine style of writing history ...but there September 2005 NOTES AND QUERIES 389 certainly is a Christinian style’ (20).) Rosalind scholarship on Christine’s views of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/52/3/387/1091570 by University of Toronto Libraries user on 14 January 2019 Brown-Grant’s ‘Christine de Pizan as a feminine and the female sex. Defender of Women’ provides a useful assess- The volume’s third section is perhaps the ment of medieval misogyny and socially most cohesive of all, comprised of five studies determined gender roles; like her book of Christine’s major works. Since the Cite´ des Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of dames appears prominently in essays earlier Women, however, the essay is undercut by in the volume, it does not appear in this its unproblematic adoption of Richards’s section, which includes studies of Christine’s idiosyncratic view of Christine’s reading of ballade cycles (Tracy Adams); the Querelle Aristotle found in the Livre de l’advision de la Rose (Marilynn Desmond); the Chemin Cristine.
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