“I am a widow lone, in black arrayed,
With sorrowful face and most simply clad;
In great distress and with manner so sad
I bear this sorrow that’s now on me laid.

It’s only right that I should be dismayed,
Full of hot tears and with tongue of lead,
I am a widow lone, in black arrayed.

Since I lost my love, by foul Death betrayed,
Grief has struck me, which has to perdition led
All my good days, and so my joy has fled.
In this bitter state have my fortunes stayed –
I am a widow lone, in black arrayed.”

This sounds like a fairly commonplace folksong. In fact it is pretty close to the truth – the rondeau by Christine de Pizan describes her predicament when she was widowed in Paris at the age of 25 in 1390.

She came from a Venetian family which moved to France when her father became court astrologer, alchemist and doctor to Charles V. Married at 15 to a royal secretary, she apparently had the run of the king’s libraries until Charles died and the family fell into poverty.

With the death of her husband, she was bequeathed little but a string of nasty law suits, her three children, and an indigent mother. She set to, and became probably the first woman in Europe to make a living with her pen. She may even have been Christendom’s first professional writer.

Fortunately she lived in a world of hand-copied illuminated manuscripts, so her works have exquisite drawings. Becauser her illustrators happily drew her in the books, we actually have some idea what she looks like.

The illustration at the top shows her at work, with Justice outside, guarding her with a sword and a shield.

Below is a detail of Christina lecturing a group of men. She was a fierce polemicist for the portrayal of women in literature as human, so it is not surprising they are seen as hostile. Indeed, she made her reputation in 1401 after a fierce literary battle about the depiction of women in The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meun.

I like the way her image has simply migrated from scene to scene, complete with a frock which is virtually the same. Presumably there is some Ur-image which provided the template, which I imagine was drawn from life. The deftly inked faces of the men show us the illustrator cared about naturalistic accuracy. They are pretty true to life and emotionally complex.

There is more in Wikipedia, though it is fairly theoro-technical.

Ultimately via Early modern notes and Spinning Clio.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 10th, 2006 at 11:09 pm and is filed under history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.