University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2013 Women's Historiography in Late Medieval European Literature: Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan Eva M. Jones University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Jones, Eva M., "Women's Historiography in Late Medieval European Literature: Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan" (2013). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 24. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/24 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WOMEN’S HISTORIOGRAPHY IN LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN LITERATURE: GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, GEOFFREY CHAUCER, AND CHRISTINE DE PIZAN BY EVA M. JONES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF EVA M. JONES APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: Major Professor: KATHLEEN DAVIS CAROLYN BETENSKY JOËLLE ROLLO-KOSTER NASSER H. ZAWIA DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 ABSTRACT Women’s Historiography in Late Medieval European Literature: Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan considers the ways in which the textual generation of women’s historiography correlated with women’s social access in late medieval Europe, 1361-1405. I examine Boccaccio's authoritative and Latin Famous Women (1361) and its reworkings in Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women (1386-1394) and Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). I argue that Chaucer’s and de Pizan’s vernacular versions revise Boccaccio’s exclusive Latin, which demonstrates a correlation between the consistent documentation of women and possibilities for women’s social opportunities. Moreover, de Pizan’s participation in the production of women’s historiography demonstrates the ways in which the possession of a documented past promotes the recognition of female social contributions and counters perspectives in previous, male authored accounts. Although divisions of periodization and national literatures have separated de Pizan from Boccaccio and Chaucer, this project employs literary and historiographic analyses in order to allow de Pizan’s accomplishments to stand beside those of her male contemporaries. Such a pairing not only confronts disciplinary inaccuracies, but also seeks to advance studies of women's historiographies, to appropriate de Pizan's accomplishments for women today and to further an understanding of the ways in which the politics of language affect socio-political gains, especially for women. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation project was possible with support from the English Department and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island. I would like to thank Professor Michelangelo LaLuna, Professor Peter Covino, Professor Carolyn Betensky, and Professor Joëlle Rollo-Koster for their comments, guidance, and instruction throughout this project. Lastly, I cannot thank Professor Kathleen Davis enough for her role as Major Professor. Professor Davis’s patience, experience, advisement, and dedication facilitated the completion of this project and my development as an academic. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE - FAILURE TO BOND WITH A BROTHER: BOCCACCIO’S DE MULIERIBUS CLARIS AND THE DEDICATION TO ANDREA ACCIAIUOLI .....21 CHAPTER TWO - REMEMBERING ALCESTE: CHAUCER’S LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN AND A CRITIQUE OF MEDIEVAL WOMEN’S HISTORIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................50 CHAPTER THREE - 44 YEARS OF MEDEA: BOCCACCIO, CHAUCER, CHRISTINE DE PIZAN, AND THE CORRECTION OF WOMEN'S LITERARY HISTORY ....................................................................................................................79 CHAPTER FOUR - WRITING WOMEN INTO MALE GENEALOGICAL PROGRESSION: VALENTINA VISCONTI’S HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE IN CHRISTINE DE PIZAN’S LE LIVRE DE LA CITÉ DES DAMES ...........................122 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................147 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................151 iv INTRODUCTION Although authors Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and France’s first professional woman of letters, Christine de Pizan, all share biographical and textual overlaps, traditional scholarship separates all three authors by language and generation. Vittore Branca’s extensive work on Boccaccio set the stage for later scholars such as David Wallace, Piero Boitani, and others to draw shared connections between Boccaccio and Chaucer.1 Christine de Pizan studies draw attention to her use of Boccaccio as a source and the fact that she and Chaucer participated in some of the same social circles, but these studies still hold Chaucer as de Pizan’s predecessor rather than her contemporary.2 Recently, however, Teresa Coletti’s “Paths of Long Study': Reading Chaucer and Christine de Pizan in Tandem” (2006) considers Chaucer and Christine de Pizan as contemporaries. There is no concrete evidence that Chaucer knew of de Pizan, or vice versa, but the two shared many courtly and literary ties. For example, the French poet Eustache Deschamps wrote poems celebrating the literary prowess of both Chaucer and de Pizan.3 Following these common ties, Coletti's article points out that 1 Vittore Branca (1913 – 2004) spent his career studying the works of Giovanni Boccaccio and produced several foundational works on Boccaccio’s works, especially The Decameron (1349- 1351), during the years of 1936 – 1997. While there is no direct proof that Chaucer read the works of Boccaccio, both De mulieribus and Genealogia were very popular. Versions of several stories in The Canterbury Tales, such as “The Knight’s Tale,” can be found in Boccaccio’s vernacular masterpiece, Decameron. Furthermore, Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (written after 1380, but before 1388, see Riverside Chaucer, 471) follows Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (1339). For other studies that provide information on the pairing of Chaucer and Boccaccio, see Wallace, Boitani, Thompson, Edwards, Ginsburg, Hagedorn, and Clarke. 2 Charity Canon Willard’s (1914-2005) work on Christine de Pizan serves as a foundation for Christine de Pizan studies and English translations of de Pizan’s work. See Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works and The Writings of Christine de Pizan. 3 Deschamps, documented his acquaintance with both Chaucer and de Pizan in his poetry. See Œuvres Complètes d’Eustache Deschamps, Volume 2 for Chaucer (138-140) and Volume 6 for de Pizan 1 “The texts and careers of Geoffrey Chaucer and Christine de Pizan crisscross each other with dizzying complexity” and her article provides a “provisional map” of these crisscrosses (2). My study seeks to expand Coletti's map by adding the Boccaccian element in order to yield further studies. More specifically, this project, Women’s Historiography in Late Medieval European Literature: Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan, focuses on women’s historiographic literature and the ways in which each author’s version of such historiography highlights a correlation between women’s social access and women’s historiographic literature. For late medieval Europe, historiographies, or historiographic literature, provided information about past people, places, or events. The specific genre that engaged the textual documentation of women was the encyclopedic compendium.4 The encyclopedic compendium genre provides a collection of narratives from mythology or history and biographies of exemplary people in one thematically driven volume. Such collections defined patterns regarding the people or events that formulated a social history. As I use it here, the term “women’s historiographic literature” refers to collections that provide tales or biographies focused on the lives of women throughout time. Within forty-four years, conceivably one person’s lifetime, (251-252). 4 The term encyclopedia in the Middle Ages covers a large body of works, primarily any work that has to do with education. Giuseppe Mazzotta, in a lecture series entitled Dante in Translation, explains the implications of Dante’s Commedia being an encyclopedia, as he states, “the aim of the encyclopedia is really to educate the reader” (“Introduction”). In fact, the Middle English Dictionary reflects that the verb, compilen, in its second and third definitions refers to the act of compiling sources for the purposes of education. These definitions are, “To collect and present information from authentic sources, as in an encyclopedia or a comprehensive treatise; compile; ~ togeder; (b) to codify (statutes)”