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Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan or Pisan (, ; born Cristina da Pizzano; September 1364 – c. 1430), was an Italian-born French poet and court writer for King Charles VI of France and several French dukes.

Christine de Pizan served as a court writer in medieval France after the death of her husband. Christine's patrons included dukes Louis I of Orleans, Philip the Bold of Burgundy, and his son John the Fearless. Considered to be some of the earliest feminist writings, her work includes novels, poetry, and biography, and she also penned literary, historical, philosophical, political, and religious reviews and analyses. Her best known works are The Book of the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies, both written when she worked for John the Fearless of Burgundy. Her books of advice to princesses, princes, and knights remained in print until the 16th century.

In recent decades, Christine's work has been returned to prominence by the efforts of scholars Charity Cannon Willard, Earl Jeffrey Richards, Suzanne Solente, Mathilde Laigle and Marie-Josephe Pinet.

Personal life
Christine de Pizan was born in 1364 in the Republic of Venice, Italy. She was the daughter of Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano. Her father became known as Thomas de Pizan, named for the family's origins in the village of Pizzano (currently part of the municipality of Monterenzio), southeast of Bologna. Her father worked as a physician, court astrologer and Councillor of the Republic of Venice. Thomas de Pizan accepted an appointment to the court of Charles V of France as the king's astrologer and in 1368 Christine moved to Paris. In 1379 Christine de Pizan married the notary and royal secretary Etienne du Castel.

She had three children. Her daughter became a nun at the Dominican convent of Poissy in 1397 as a companion to the King's daughter Marie. Christine's husband died of the plague in 1389, a year after her father had died. This left Christine to support her mother and her children. When she tried to collect money from her husband's estate, she faced complicated lawsuits regarding the recovery of salaries still owed to her husband. On 4 June 1389, in a judgment concerning a lawsuit filed against her by the archbishop of Sens and François Chanteprime, councillors of the King, Christine was called "damoiselle" and "widow of Estienne du Castel".

Writing career
To support herself and her family, Christine became a court writer. By 1393, she was writing love ballads, which caught the attention of wealthy patrons within the court. Christine became a prolific writer. Her involvement in the production of her books and her skillful use of patronage in turbulent political times has earned her the title of the first professional woman of letters in Europe. Although Venetian by birth, Christine expressed a fervent nationalism for France. Affectively and financially she became attached to the French royal family, donating or dedicating her early ballads to its members, including Isabeau of Bavaria, Louis I, Duke of Orléans, and Marie of Berry. In 1402 she described Queen Isabeau as "High, excellent crowned Queen of France, very redoubtable princess, powerful lady, born at a lucky hour".

France was ruled by Charles VI who experienced a series of mental breakdowns, causing a crisis of leadership for the French monarchy. He was often absent from court and could eventually only make decisions with the approval of a royal council. Queen Isabeau was nominally in charge of governance when her husband was absent from court but could not extinguish the quarrel between members of the royal family. In the past, Blanche of Castile had played a central role in the stability of the royal court and had acted as regent of France. Christine published a series of works on the virtues of women, referencing Queen Blanche and dedicating them to Queen Isabeau.

Christine believed that France had been founded by the descendants of the Trojans and that its governance by the royal family adhered to the Aristotelian ideal. In 1400 Christine published L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector (Letter of Othea to Hector). When first published, the book was dedicated to Louis of Orléans, the brother of Charles VI, who was at court seen as potential regent of France. In L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector Hector of Troy is tutored in statecraft and the political virtues by the goddess of wisdom Othéa. Christine produced richly illustrated luxury editions of L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector in 1400. Between 1408 and 1415 Christine produced further editions of the book. Throughout her career she produced rededicated editions of the book with customised prologues for patrons, including an edition for Philip the Bold in 1403, and editions for Jean of Berry and Henry IV of England in 1404. Patronage changed in the late Middle Ages. Texts were still produced and circulated as continuous roll manuscripts, but were increasingly replaced by the bound codex. Members of the royal family became patrons of writers by commissioning books. As materials became cheaper a book trade developed, so writers and bookmakers produced books for the French nobility, who could afford to establish their own libraries. Christine thus had no single patron who consistently supported her financially and became associated with the royal court and the different factions of the royal family – the Burgundy, Orleans and Berry – each having their own respective courts. Throughout her career Christine undertook concurrent paid projects for individual patrons and subsequently published these works for dissemination among the nobility of France.

In 1402, Christine became involved in a renowned literary controversy, the "Querelle du Roman de la Rose". Christine questioned the literary merits of Jean de Meun's popular Romance of the Rose, which satirizes the conventions of courtly love while critically depicting women as nothing more than seducers. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War between French and English kings, Christine wrote the dream allegory Le Chemin de long estude in 1403. Writing in the first-person, she and the Cumaean Sibyl travel together and witness a debate on the state of the world between the four allegories – Wealth, Nobility, Chivalry and Wisdom. Christine suggests that justice could be brought to earth by a single monarch who had the necessary qualities.

In 1404, Christine chronicled the life of Charles V, portraying him as the ideal king and political leader, in Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V. The chronicle had been commissioned by Philip the Bold of Burgundy and in the chronicle, Christine passed judgment on the state of the royal court. When praising the efforts of Charles V in studying Latin, Christine lamented that her contemporaries had to resort to strangers to read the law to them. Before the book was completed, Philip the Bold died, and Christine offered the book to Jean, Duke of Berry in 1405 in an attempt to find a new patron. She was paid 100 livres for the book by Philip the Bold's successor John the Fearless in 1406 and would receive payments from his court for books until 1412.

In 1405, Christine published Le Livre de la cité des dames (The Book of the City of Ladies) and Le Livre des trois vertus (Book of Three Virtues, known as The Treasure of the City of Ladies). In Le Livre de la cité des dames Christine presented intellectual and royal female leaders, such as Queen Zenobia. Christine dedicated Le Livre des trois vertus to the dauphine Margaret of Nevers, advising the young princess on what she had to learn. As Queen Isabeau's oldest son Louis of Guyenne came of age Christine addressed three works to him with the intention of promoting wise and effective government. The earliest of the three works has been lost. In Livre du Corps de policie (The Book of the Body Politic), published in 1407 and dedicated to the dauphin, Christine set out a political treatise which analysed and described the customs and governments of late medieval European societies. Christine favoured hereditary monarchies, arguing in reference to Italian city-states that were governed by princes or trade guilds, that "such governance is not profitable at all for the common good". Christine also devoted several chapters to the duties of a king as a military leader and she described in detail the role of the military class in society.

Civil war
In the beginning of 1405, France was on the verge of a full-scale civil war. In 1407 John I of Burgundy, also known as John the Fearless, plunged France into a crisis when he ordered the assassination of Louis of Orléans. The Duke of Burgundy fled Paris when his complicity in the assassination became known, but was appointed regent of France on behalf of Charles VI in late 1408 after his military victory in the Battle of Othee. It is not certain who commissioned Christine to write a treatise on military warfare, but in 1410 Christine published the manual on chivalry, entitled Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie (The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry). In early 1411, Christine was paid 200 livres from the royal reasury for the book. In the preface Christine explained that she published the manual in French so that it could be read by practitioners of war not well versed in Latin. The book opened with a discussion of the just war theory advanced by Honoré Bonet. Christine also referenced classical writers on military warfare, such as Vegetius, Frontinus and Valerius Maximus. Christine discussed contemporary matters relating to what she termed the Laws of War, such as capital punishment, the payment of troops, as well as the treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war. Christine opposed trial by combat, but articulated the medieval belief that God is the lord and governor of battle and that wars are the proper execution of justice. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that in a war "many great wrongs, extortions, and grievous deeds are committed, as well as raping, killings, forced executions, and arsons". Christine limited the right to wage war to sovereign kings because as head of states they were responsible for the welfare of their subjects. In 1411 the royal court published an edict prohibiting nobles from raising an army.

After civil war had broken out in France, Christine in 1413 offered guidance to the young dauphin on how to govern well, publishing Livre de la paix (The Book of Peace). Livre de la paix was to be Christine's last major work and contained detailed formulations of her thoughts on good governance. The period was marked by bouts of civil war and failed attempts to bring John the Fearless to justice for assassinating his cousin. Christine addressed Louis of Guyenne directly, encouraging him to continue the quest for peace in France. She argued that "Every kingdom divided in itself will be made desolate, and every city and house divided against itself will not stand". Christine was acquainted with William of Tignonville, an ambassador to the royal court, and referenced Tignonville's speeches on the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War. Christine drew a utopian vision of a just ruler, who could take advice from those older or wiser. In arguing that peace and justice were possible on earth as well as in heaven, Christine was influenced by Dante, whom she had referenced in Le Chemin de long estude. Christine encouraged the dauphin to deserve respect, by administering justice promptly and living by worthy example. Christine urged young princes to make themselves available to their subjects, avoid anger and cruelty, to act liberally, mercifully and truthfully. Christine's interpretation of the virtuous Christian prince built on the advice to rulers by St Benedict, Peter Abelard and Cicero.

In 1414, Christine presented Queen Isabeau with a lavishly decorated collection of her works (now known as British Library Harley 4431). The bound book contained 30 of Christine's writings and 130 miniatures. She had been asked by the queen to produce the book. The work is noted for its quality miniature illuminations; Christine herself and her past royal patrons are depicted. As a mark of ownership and authorship the opening frontispiece depicts Queen Isabeau being presented with the book by Christine.

In 1418, Christine published a consolation for women who had lost family members in the Battle of Agincourt under the title Epistre de la prison de vie Humaine (Letter Concerning the Prison of Human Life). In it, Christine did not express any optimism or hope that peace could be found on earth; instead, she expressed the view that the soul was trapped in the body and imprisoned in hell. The previous year she had presented the Epistre de la prison de vie Humaine to Marie of Berry, the administrator of the Duchy of Bourbon whose husband was held in English captivity.

Historians assume that Christine spent the last ten years of her life in the Dominican convent of Poissy because of the civil war and the occupation of Paris by the English. Away from the royal court her literary activity ceased. However, in 1429, after Joan of Arc's military victory over the English, Christine published the poem Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc (The Tale of Joan of Arc). Published just a few days after the coronation of Charles VII, Christine expressed renewed optimism. She cast Joan as the fulfilment of prophecies by Merlin, the Cumaean Sibyl and Saint Bede, helping Charles VII to fulfill the predictions of Charlemagne.

Christine is believed to have died in 1430, before Joan was tried and executed by the English. After her death the political crisis in France was resolved when Queen Isabeau's only surviving son Charles VII and John the Fearless' successor as Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, signed the Peace of Arras in 1435.

Works
Christine produced a large number of vernacular works, in both prose and verse. Her works include political treatises, mirrors for princes, epistles, and poetry. Christine's book Le Dit de la Rose (The Tale of the Rose) was published in 1402 as a direct attack on Jean de Meun's extremely popular book Romance of the Rose which was a continuation of the version by Guillaume de Lorris and characterised women as seducers. Christine claimed that Meun's views were misogynistic, vulgar, immoral, and slanderous to women. Christine sparked a debate over the literary merits of the work when she confronted the royal secretary, Jean de Montreuil, who had written a short treatise praising the work. The debate continued between Christine and two other male royal secretaries who defended Jean in a heated exchange. At the height of the exchange Christine published Querelle du Roman de la Rose (Letters on the Debate of the Rose). In this particular apologetic response, Christine belittles her own writing style, employing a rhetorical strategy by writing against the grain of her meaning, also known as antiphrasis.

By 1405, Christine had completed her most famous literary works, The Book of the City of Ladies (Le Livre de la cité des dames) and The Treasure of the City of Ladies (Le Livre des trois vertus). The first of these shows the importance of women's past contributions to society, and the second strives to teach women of all estates how to cultivate useful qualities.

In The Book of the City of Ladies Christine created a symbolic city in which women are appreciated and defended. She constructed three allegorical figures – Reason, Justice, and Rectitude – in the common pattern of literature in that era when many books and poetry used stock allegorical figures to express ideas or emotions. She enters into a dialogue, a movement between question and answer, with these allegorical figures that is from a completely female perspective. Together, they create a forum to speak on issues of consequence to all women. Only female voices, examples and opinions provide evidence within this text. Through Lady Reason in particular Christine argues that stereotypes of women can be sustained only if women are prevented from entering into the conversation.

In City of Ladies Christine deliberated on the debate of whether the virtues of men and women differ, a frequently debated topic in late medieval Europe, particularly in the context of Aristotelian virtue ethics and his views on women. Christine repeatedly used the theological argument that men and women are created in God's image and both have souls capable of embracing God's goodness. Among the inhabitants of the City of Ladies are female saints, women from the Old Testament and virtuous women from the pagan antiquity as portrayed by Giovanni Boccaccio. Within her allegorical city of illustrious ladies, she reimagines the mythological figure, Medusa. Christine de Pizan's Medusa, in stark contrast to the typical portrayal in classical texts, is not a monstrous and deadly creature, but a woman deserving of safety from male harm. De Pizan is the first to provide a feminist revisionist perspective of the ancient myth.

In The Treasure of the City of Ladies Christine addressed the "community" of women with the stated objective of instructing them on the means of achieving virtue. She took the position that all women were capable of humility, diligence and moral rectitude, and that duly educated all women could become worthy residents of the imaginary City of Ladies. Drawing on her own life, Christine advised women on how to navigate the perils of early 15th-century French society. With reference to Augustine of Hippo and other saints Christine offered advice on how the noble lady could achieve the love of God. Christine speaks through the allegorical figures of God's daughters – Reason, Rectitude and Justice – who represent the Three Virtues most important to women's success. Through secular examples of these three virtues, Christine urged women to discover meaning and achieve worthy acts in their lives. Christine argued that women's success depends on their ability to manage and mediate by speaking and writing effectively.

Christine specifically sought out other women to collaborate in the creation of her work. She makes special mention of a manuscript illustrator we know only as Anastasia, whom she described as the most talented of her day.

Influence
Christine published 41 known pieces of poetry and prose in her lifetime and she gained fame across Europe as the first professional woman writer. She achieved such credibility that royalty commissioned her prose and contemporary intellectuals kept copies of her works in their libraries.

After her death in 1430, Christine's influence was acknowledged by a variety of authors and her writings remained popular. Her book Le Livre de la cité des dames remained in print. A Dutch edition of it exists from the 15th century, and French editions were still being printed in 1536. In 1521 The Book of the City of Ladies was published in English. Christine's Le Livre des trois vertus (The Treasure of the City of Ladies) became an important reference point for royal women in the 15th and 16th centuries. Anne of France, who acted as regent of France, used it as a basis for her 1504 book of Enseignemens, written for her daughter Suzanne Duchess of Bourbon, who as agnatic heir to the Bourbon lands became co-regent. Christine's advice to princesses was translated and circulated as manuscripts or printed books among the royal families of France and Portugal. The City of Ladies was acknowledged and referenced by 16th century French women writers, including Anne de Beaujeu, Gabrielle de Bourbon, Marguerite de Navarre and Georgette de Montenay.

Christine's political writings received some attention too. Livre de la paix was referenced by the humanist Gabriel Naudé and Christine was given large entries in encyclopedias by Denis Diderot, Louis Moréri and Prosper Marchand. In 1470 Jean V de Bueil reproduced Christine's detailed accounts of the armies and material needed to defend a castle or town against a siege in Le Jouvence. Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie was published in its entirety by the book printer Antoine Vérard in 1488, but Vérard claimed that it was his translation of Vegetius. Philippe Le Noir authored an abridged version of Christine's book in 1527 under the title L'Arbre des Batailles et fleur de chevalerie (The tree of battles and flower of chivalry).

Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie was translated into English by William Caxton for Henry VII in 1489 and was published under the title The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry as print one year later, attributing Christine as author. English editions of The Book of the City of Ladies and Livre du corps de policie (The Book of the Body Politic) were printed in 1521 without referencing Christine as the author. Elizabeth I had in her court library copies of The Book of the City of Ladies, L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector (Letter of Othea to Hector) and The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry. Among the possessions of the English queen were tapestries with scenes from the City of Ladies. However, when in the early 19th century Raimond Thomassy published an overview of Christine's political writings, he noted that modern editions of these writings were not published and that as a political theorist Christine was descending into obscurity. Suzanne Solente, Mathilde Laigle and Marie-Josephe Pinet are credited with reviving the work of de Pizan in the 20th century, as a writer who had been forgotten in France but noted elsewhere. Laigle noticed for instance that Spanish writers had borrowed extensively from de Pizan's work, even though it had not been translated into that language.

While de Pizan's mixture of classical philosophy and humanistic ideals was in line with the style of other popular authors at the time, her outspoken defence of women was an anomaly. In her works she vindicated women against popular misogynist texts, such as Ovid's Art of Love, Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose and Matheolus's Lamentations. Her activism has drawn the fascination of modern feminists. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1949 that Épître au Dieu d'Amour was "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defence of her sex".

The 1979 artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Christine de Pizan. In the 1980s Sandra Hindman published a study of the political events referenced in the illuminations of Christine's published works.

List of works

 * Enseignements moraux (1395)
 * L'Épistre au Dieu d'amours (1399)
 * L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector (1399–1400)
 * Dit de la Rose (1402)
 * Cent Ballades d'Amant et de Dame, Virelays, Rondeaux (1402)
 * Le Chemin de long estude (1403)
 * Livre de la mutation de fortune (1403)
 * La Pastoure (1403)
 * Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V (1404)
 * Le Livre de la cité des dames (1405)
 * Le Livre des trois vertus (1405)
 * L'Avision de Christine (1405)
 * Livre du corps de policie (1407)
 * Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie (1410)
 * Livre de paix (1413)
 * Epistre de la prison de vie humaine (1418)
 * Les sept psaumes allégorisés
 * Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc (1429)

title: Christine de Pizan


text:
Talk:Christine de Pizan

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Untitled
is considered by scholars to be the first women writer

This is obviously wrong as written: Sappho predated her by something like 2000 years. Would the original author care to expand on what he meant? -- Paul Drye

Yep, entirely incorrect. She might be the first European woman to have made a living from writing, though even that is contested. We're not sure what Marie de France did for a living. --MichaelTinkler

Very true. What was meant by the statement, was that de Pizan was the first women author of note, in Europe to make a living from being a writer. This came directly from my humanities instructor -- although I myself find such statements hard to believe without rigid substantiation. I agree with the change. -- Maveric149

 * Just to continue this discussion - are we aware of any writers that earned a living by writing, before Christine? I was fairly certain that Edmund Spenser was the first European to do so. Atorpen 22:18 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't know about authors prior to Christine, but she did earn a living by her pen for most of her adult life. This would mean that Spenser certainly wasn't the first — he was born a full century after she died. — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 16:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

 * What evidence is there that Christine de Pizan earned a living by writing? Are her household accounts available? The primitive printing technology of the time would not have allowed mass distribution of her works so who purchased them and at what price? Xxanthippe (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC).

Sorry - I love the picture; Christine might even have overseen it (she did for some of her books produced in her lifetime), but it's an image from a book owned by a library or museum. They hold copyright - and tend to protect them jealously. --MichaelTinkler

What's with all the references to her via her first name? Is this conventional? Loren

 * I'm not certain if "Pizan" or "de Pizan" can really be thought of as a last name in the modern sense and thus saying "Pizan" instead of "Christine" would be wrong. --mav
 * I've also seen her referred to as "Christine de Pisan" (with an S instead of a Z). — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 20:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed, in writing about the Middle Ages, scholarly convention is to refer to people whose names have the "____ de ____" construction by their first names, for, at that stage, the "de ____" was often actually identifying where a person was from, and wasn't yet equivalent to a modern last name. I do not know exactly when that changes, so I can't say with 100% certainty that it has not changed by Christine's day, which is the main reason I don't edit it back.  But given the scholarly conventions I've been taught regarding writing about the Middle Ages, this "Pizan"/"de Pizan" feels very wrong.  I'll see if I can pursue further information and settle the question. --Paulbee 04:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Convention had not changed by Christine's day, I am certain of this. I'm not certain of the timeline for that change either, but I'd guess closer to the age of print (though even then, spellings and appellations weren't always rigid). It is conventional to refer to anyone -- male or female -- with an "of somewhere" by primary name. So in the same way we discuss Mary Queen of Scots as "Mary" so we discuss Christine de Pizan or Jean de Meun as "Christine" or "Jean." Mys46637 18:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

She also wrote about the victory of Joan of Arc at the Battle of Agincourt

If this statement is correct, it should be clarified that this is Alternative history. (Joan was 3 at the time, and the French lost.) --Townmouse 08:38, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually, the the idea's right but not the battle. Christine wrote about Joan's most famous victory, the lifting the Siege of Orléans. — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 13:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC); edited 15:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

POV
Some parts of this article read more like a persuasive paper than an encyclopedic article. --Fang Aili 17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The text overall isn't that bad. The references are cited in that ugly parenthetical way, but there's nothing too POV in there. Some uncited weasel phrasing ("Overall, de Pizan and her writings have been celebrated and embraced" By whom? We don't even have a "Influence" section.) crops up now and again, but it's nothing a rigorous copy-edit couldn't fix. The headings, though, are terrible. "Establishing her literary reputation" "Making her mark" "an authoritative rhetorician". The whole article seems like it would do well to receive a division into "Life" and "Work", without all the high-flown pop biographical phrasing. Geuiwogbil 18:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Done. Hope no one minds. Geuiwogbil 00:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, I reread it. Indeed, it seems too much like a essaye with aims at persuasion. Something more serious need be done. Geuiwogbil 18:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Pizan or Pisan
I know that her name is a transliteration of French, but is it correctly Pisan or Pizan? The article is inconsistant as to which is preferred or correct.
 * Indeed. I've only ever seen it as Pisan elsewhere, although Pizan seems to have some mentions in the literature.   We at least need to be consistent throughout our article.  I've changed all Pisans to Pizans.  JackofOz 10:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I, too, have seen it written almost exclusively as "Pisan" but would rather have a consistant spelling. Where I do see variation (in a fairly even split) is in calling her "of Pisan" or "de Pisan," though given Wikipedia's preference for calling everything by their English names — Mary Queen of Scots married François II of France, here called Francis II of France — I think it's setteled on an "of." — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 19:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Christine's name comes from her father's city of origin: Pizzano. So technically, Pizan is probably more accurate, but Pisan is a French phonetic spelling of the proper sound to her name (but it promotes the misunderstanding that she was from Pisa). Understandably French speakers tend to use Pisan, Italian speakers Pizan. I'm not sure if there is a "correct" spelling that Anglophones should adopt; consistency is the best best. Mys46637 18:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Her name: the city of origin, as noted above, is Pizzano. Until a decade or two ago, it was often given as "Pisan" in French AND English, but that's both incorrect and conceivably misleading: as noted above, some readers and students assumed that she or her father came from Pisa. More important, she herself should not be referred to as "Pizan" or "de Pizan," as in the article; that is the equivalent of referring to Guillaume d'Orange/William of Orange as "Orange." The poet in question is either "Christine" or "Christine de Pizan," but definitely not Pizan. I edited the article to correct that.
 * In that regard, since it's not a true surname, she also ought not to be referred to (as she is in the article, repeatedly) as just "De Pizan" but as "Christine." -- Michael K Smith Talk 17:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Her work: there is a contradiction in the article, and I have left it. In the 2nd par., we read that she completed 41 pieces, but later we read that she wrote over 300 ballades as well as other poems. How to reconcile these statements? Njl2 (talk) 14:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * As with the date discrepancies (I mentioned some below on the talk page), there's a lot of issues with things not matching up in the article--she was an extremely prolific writer and one source (I admit I forget whom, but I'll dig it up) quoted one of her works, which stated roughly that in six years, between 1397 and 1403, she wrote fifteen important books (disregarding minor essays) and that her collected works from that time, compiled, would fill seventy large copy-books. It doesn't seem to agree with the article's statement in the second paragraph unless they're only counting major works or books? It more closely agrees with the "over 300" number, but at the same time I don't know of any concrete statistics of that, either. I'll keep looking. Tehae (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Her Husband?
I could have sworn Etienne du Castel was a castle not a man's name. Are the writer's of this page sure that was his name?

Heri Larien 01:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Heri Larien

 * No, Etienne du Castel is/was not a castle, though it would seem like a logical assumption if you haven't taken any French. Étienne is the French form of the name "Stephen," and du translates as "of the" when preceeding masculine nouns (de, "of", + le, "the").  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 22:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC), tweaked 15:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Date conflicts?
Been poking around in researching her life and it seems her date of birth is somewhat contested (even on the French Wikipedia it's given as both 1363 and 1364, in different places; there was at least one source that I found that suggested 1365 instead), as is her date of death (as nothing was heard from her after her work on Joan of Arc, published in July of 1429). Not sure if anyone has any more concrete sources for any of these topics? I'll keep looking and see if I can amend the article as necessary.

Regardless, the math doesn't add up--if she was born in 1363 and married at age fifteen to Etienne, then she would be married in 1378, not 1380 (since Charles died late 1380, I suppose they would have married earlier in the year... Even if she was born late in 1363 it would still mean 1378 or early 1379 as a wedding year if she was fifteen at the time of marriage). Similarly if she was born in 1364, her marriage would have been in 1379 instead (as French Wikipedia suggests)... Although again I've got no concrete sources on that other than consensus that she was married at fifteen, although Willard suggests they married in 1980. If she was widowed at the age of 24 in 1390, then that would mean she was born in 1366; some sources argue her husband died in 1389 instead (meaning a birthdate of 1365, should she have been widowed at age 24), although French Wikipedia concurs with the date of 1390.

I don't suppose anyone could shed some light on this matter? Or would it be something that should be smoothed out in the article (eg: remove vague age references if concrete dates are available that conflict with said age references)? Tehae (talk) 19:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested resources
Hi all,

A possibly useful resource - there was a five-year academic project to produce a digital edition of the Queen's Manuscript (BL Harley MS. 4431), a comprehensive collected work prepared for Isabeau of Bavaria under de Pizan's supervision, c. 1414. (The "presents her book" illustration here is taken from the MS). As well as many smaller works, it includes a full (?) copy of Le livre de la cité des dames.

 * Manuscript gallery
 * Transcriptions of individual works

I'm currently working with the BL and the AHRC (the funders of the project), hence why I'm leaving this note here rather than just adding the links; any objection to my adding one or both to the external links? Andrew Gray (talk) 13:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible Sources
In trying to understand more about Christine's life and works, I have come across the following resources. Would these be a good place to get information about her?

Laennec, Christine Moneera. “Unladylike Polemics: Christine De Pizan's Strategies of Attack and Defense.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 12, no. 1, 1993, pp. 47–59., www.jstor.org/stable/463756.

Rigby, S. H. “The Wife of Bath, Christine De Pizan, and the Medieval Case for Women.” The Chaucer Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 2000, pp. 133–165., www.jstor.org/stable/25096124.

Willard, Charity Cannon. Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works. New York, NY: Persea, 1990. Print.

Jeanettegome72 (talk) 02:36, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

 * Yes, those absolutely look like good sources. I would consider using the Cite journal, Cite book, & Cite web citation templates when you reference those. Here's some examples:
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 * I also recommend you check out these three links for sources:
 * http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3a%22Christine%2C--de+Pisan%2C%22
 * https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1,48&q=Christine+de+Pizan
 * https://academic.microsoft.com/#/search?iq=Composite(AA.AuN%253D%253D%27christine%2520de%2520pizan%27)&q=christine%20de%20pizan&filters=&from=0&sort=0

 * Peaceray (talk) 04:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Christine's name
This (generally excellent) article contains one significant error that I noticed: it repeatedly refers to Christine de Pizan as "Pizan." This would of course be correct with a modern author, for example Michel Foucault would shorten to "Foucault" rather than "Michel." However, the convention among scholars of the Middle Ages is to refer to medieval authors by their given names only, since "Pizan" expresses nothing other than a place (Pizanno), and creates confusion with sentences of the type "Pizanno is a beautiful place." One can see an example of this usage on the Wikipedia page for another famous medieval author, Chrétien de Troyes, who is correctly named as "Chrétien": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chr%C3%A9tien_de_Troyes

If editors of this page do not object, I will make the change. My apologies if it is not the usual protocol to make a note like this first, I have never edited Wikipedia before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ReinardusVulpes (talk • contribs) 20:08, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

 * Your argument is correct, so I suggest you go ahead and make the change – see WP:BOLD. (On the other hand, if you're uncertain of a change, it's always a good idea to raise the issue on the Talk page first, so you have done the right thing.) Another well-known name of this type, incidentally, is Leonardo da Vinci, and I see that his article has a hatnote explicitly making the point that he is properly referred to as Leonardo; but it's supplied by a special template which wouldn't work here, and I'm not sure if there's a counterpart that would. If anyone knows anything more about this, could you let us know. 01:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

reverenced or referenced?
Last sentence "...the political events reverenced in the illuminations..." Either would have some meaning! Incidentally, this Google preview text is described as the 2010 book (ISBN 0-271-04557-4), but the copy part-reproduced appears to be a 2008 version (ISBN 0-271-03397-6), which has an Introduction, but no Preface - apparently a different text. Davidships (talk) 01:11, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Christine and Jean
Under the Works heading, the second paragraph states, "Christine claimed that Meun's views were misogynistic, vulgar, immoral, and slanderous to women. The exchange between the two authors involved them sending each other their treatises, defending their respective views. At the height of the exchange Christine published Querelle du Roman de la Rose (Letters on the Debate of the Rose)."

According to Jean de Meun's Wikipedia page, he lived from 1240-1305. Christine de Pizan lived from 1364-1430, according to her page. Unless I'm missing something, I'm not sure how they would have exchanged views with one another since Christine was born 60 years after Jean's death. 205.236.56.99 (talk) 19:47, 4 February 2020 (UTC) Extonare

 * Thank you for spotting the error. That's a paraphrase from a source ("Center for Feminist Art") which, I suspect, was written by someone who isn't a historian and therefore shouldn't have been used in this article. There seem to be many bad sources in this article, which is in need of a thorough cleaning to bring it in line with history. AgeOfPlantagenet (talk) 20:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

First feminist writer
This edit was reverted - first because ostensibly it did not include sources. But when sources were added, it suddenly became a "political interpretation" that does not belong in the intro section. It seems that the fact that de Pizan has become a pretty major topic in academia these past few decades AS the first feminist writer is relevant, certainly more so than a couple of names of patrons, which somehow passed muster. The topic is spread throughout the article, and is in the sources (basically all articles from the past two decades about de Pizan refer to her this way) but is not addressed directly. It probably should have its own section, or at least a paragraph... in which case it would also belong in the summary. But in no case should the information be eliminated. KikuTheKat (talk) 13:11, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Age of death
Born in 1364, lived into the 1430s, yet she died at age 15-16. Doesn't quite agree, does it? 2A02:AA1:162A:DA5C:9D79:EFB1:8373:7640 (talk) 19:59, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

 * You're correct. Someone messed up with the date of death. As it happens, 1380-1364 is 16 indeed. Fixed, thanks. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Christine de Pizan


text:
Catharism

Catharism (from the καθαροί, "the pure ones") was a Christian quasi-dualist or pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burnt at the stake, sometimes without regard for "age or sex."

Followers were known as Cathars or Albigensians, (after the French city Albi where the movement first took hold), but referred to themselves as Good Christians. They famously believed that there were not one, but two Gods—the good God of Heaven and the evil god of this age. According to tradition, Cathars believed that the good God was the God of the New Testament faith and creator of the spiritual realm; many Cathars identified the evil god as Satan, the master of the physical world. The Cathars believed that human souls were the sexless spirits of angels trapped in the material realm of the evil god. They thought these souls were destined to be reincarnated until they achieved salvation through the "consolamentum," a form of baptism performed when death is imminent. At that moment, they believed they would return to the good God as "Cathar Perfect." Catharism was initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines, leading some Catharist practices and beliefs to vary by region and over time.

The first mention of Catharism by chroniclers was in 1143, four years later the Catholic Church denounced Cathar practices, particularly the consolamentum ritual. From the beginning of his reign, Pope Innocent III attempted to end Catharism by sending missionaries and persuading the local authorities to act against the Cathars. In 1208, Pierre de Castelnau, Innocent's papal legate, was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars. Pope Innocent III then declared de Castelnau a martyr and launched the Albigensian Crusade in 1209. The nearly twenty-year campaign succeeded in vastly weakening the movement; the Medieval Inquisition that followed ultimately eradicated Catharism.

The lack of any central organisation among Cathars, regional differences in beliefs and practices, as well as the lack of sources from the Cathars themselves, has prompted some scholars to question whether the Church exaggerated its threat, and others to wonder whether it even existed.

Term Cathar
Though the term Cathar has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether it identified itself with the name is debated. In Cathar texts, the terms Good Men (Bons Hommes), Good Women (Bonnes Femmes), or Good Christians (Bons Chrétiens) are the common terms of self-identification.

In the testimony of suspects who were put to the question by the Inquisition, the term 'Cathar' was not used amongst the group of accused heretics themselves. The word 'Cathar' (aka. Gazarri etc.) is coined by Catholic theologians and used exclusively by the inquisition or by authors otherwise identified with the Orthodox church--for example in the anonymous pamphlet of 1430, Errores Gazariorum (Re: Errors of the Cathars). The full title of this treatise in English is, "The errors of the Gazarri, or of those who travel riding a broom or a stick."

However the presence of a variety of beliefs and spiritual practices in the French countryside of the 12th and 13th centuries that came to be seen as heterodox relative to the Church in Rome is not actually in question, as the primary documents of the period exhaustively demonstrate.

Several of these groups under other names (e.g. the Waldensians or Valdeis etc.) bear a close similarity to the 'creed' or matrix of beliefs and folk-traditions pieced together under the umbrella of the term 'Catharism.' The fact that there was clearly a spiritual and communal movement of some sort can scarcely be denied since legions of people were willing to part with their lives to defend it. Whether they acted in defense of the doctrine or in defense of the human community who held these beliefs, the fact that many gave themselves up willingly to the flames when the option to recant was given to them in many or most cases is significant. As the scholar Claire Taylor puts it, "[This issue] matters at an ethical level, because by being cleverly iconoclastic and populist in suggesting that those using 'Cathar' have made 2+2=5, Pegg and Moore [re: scholars questioning whether or not the Cathars exist] make 2+2=3 by denying the existence of the persecuted group. The missing element is a dissident religious doctrine, for which historians using a fuller range of sources believe thousands of people were prepared to suffer extreme persecution and an agonising death."

Origins
The origins of the Cathars' beliefs are unclear, but most theories agree they came from the Byzantine Empire, mostly by the trade routes and spread from the First Bulgarian Empire to the Netherlands. The movement was greatly influenced by the Bogomils of the First Bulgarian Empire, and may have originated in the Byzantine Empire, namely through adherents of the Paulician movement in Armenia and eastern Anatolia who were resettled in Thrace (Philippopolis).

The name of Bulgarians (Bougres) was also applied to the Albigensians, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the Bogomils ("Friends of God") of Thrace. "That there was a substantial transmission of ritual and ideas from Bogomilism to Catharism is beyond reasonable doubt." Their doctrines have numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils and the Paulicians, who influenced them, as well as the earlier Marcionites, who were found in the same areas as the Paulicians, the Manicheans and the Christian Gnostics of the first few centuries AD, although, as many scholars, most notably Mark Pegg, have pointed out, it would be erroneous to extrapolate direct, historical connections based on theoretical similarities perceived by modern scholars.

John Damascene, writing in the 8th century AD, also notes of an earlier sect called the "Cathari", in his book On Heresies, taken from the epitome provided by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. He says of them: "They absolutely reject those who marry a second time, and reject the possibility of penance [that is, forgiveness of sins after baptism]". These are probably the same Cathari (actually Novations) who are mentioned in Canon 8 of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325, which states "... [I]f those called Cathari come over [to the faith], let them first make profession that they are willing to communicate [share full communion] with the twice-married, and grant pardon to those who have lapsed ..."

The writings of the Cathars were mostly destroyed because of the doctrine's threat perceived by the Papacy; thus, the historical record of the Cathars is derived primarily from their opponents. Cathar ideology continues to be debated, with commentators regularly accusing opposing perspectives of speculation, distortion and bias. Only a few texts of the Cathars remain, as preserved by their opponents (such as the Rituel Cathare de Lyon) which give a glimpse into the ideologies of their faith. One large text has survived, The Book of Two Principles (Liber de duobus principiis), which elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some Albanenses Cathars.

It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable historical Catharism did not emerge until at least 1143, when the first confirmed report of a group espousing similar beliefs is reported being active at Cologne by the cleric Eberwin of Steinfeld. A landmark in the "institutional history" of the Cathars was the Council, held in 1167 at Saint-Félix-Lauragais, attended by many local figures and also by the Bogomil papa Nicetas, the Cathar bishop of (northern) France and a leader of the Cathars of Lombardy.

The Cathars were a largely local, Western European/Latin Christian phenomenon, springing up in the Rhineland cities (particularly Cologne) in the mid-12th century, northern France around the same time, and particularly the Languedoc—and the northern Italian cities in the mid-late 12th century. In the Languedoc and northern Italy, the Cathars attained their greatest popularity, surviving in the Languedoc, in much reduced form, up to around 1325 and in the Italian cities until the Inquisitions of the 14th century finally extirpated them.

Cosmology

Gnostic cosmology identified two creator deities. The first was the creator of the spiritual realm contained in the New Testament, while the second was the demiurge depicted in the Old Testament who created the physical universe. The demiurge, often called Rex Mundi ("King of the World"), was identified as the God of Judaism.

Some gnostic belief systems including Catharism began to characterise the duality of creation as a relationship between hostile opposing forces of good and evil. Although the demiurge was sometimes conflated with Satan or considered Satan's father, creator or seducer, these beliefs were far from unanimous. Some Cathar communities believed in a mitigated dualism similar to their Bogomil predecessors, stating that the evil god Satan had previously been the true God's servant before rebelling against him. Others, likely a majority over time given the influence reflected on the Book of the Two Principles, believed in an absolute dualism, where the two gods were twin entities of the same power and importance.

All visible matter, including the human body, was created or crafted by this Rex Mundi; matter was therefore tainted with sin. Under this view, humans were actually angels seduced by Satan before a war in heaven against the army of Michael, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm. The Cathars taught that to regain angelic status one had to renounce the material self completely. Until one was prepared to do so, they would be stuck in a cycle of reincarnation, condemned to suffer endless human lives on the corrupt Earth.

Zoé Oldenbourg compared the Cathars to "Western Buddhists" because she considered that their view of the doctrine of "resurrection" taught by Christ was similar to the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth.

Christology
Cathars venerated Jesus Christ and followed what they considered to be his true teachings, labelling themselves as "Good Christians". However, they denied his physical incarnation and Resurrection. Authors believe that their conception of Jesus resembled Docetism, believing him the human form of an angel, whose physical body was only an appearance. This illusory form would have possibly been given by the Virgin Mary, another angel in human form, or possibly a human born of a woman with no involvement of a man.

They firmly rejected the Resurrection of Jesus, seeing it as representing reincarnation, and the Christian symbol of the cross, considering it to be not more than a material instrument of torture and evil. They also saw John the Baptist, identified also with Elijah, as an evil being sent to hinder Jesus's teaching through the false sacrament of baptism. For the Cathars the "resurrection" mentioned in the New Testament was only a symbol of re-incarnation.

Most Cathars did not accept the normative Trinitarian understanding of Jesus, instead resembling nontrinitarian modalistic Monarchianism (Sabellianism) in the West and adoptionism in the East, which might or might not be combined with the mentioned Docetism. Bernard of Clairvaux's biographer and other sources accuse some Cathars of Arianism, and some scholars see Cathar Christology as having traces of earlier Arian roots.

Some communities might have believed in the existence of a spirit realm created by the good God, the "Land of the Living", whose history and geography would have served as the basis for the evil god's corrupt creation. Under this view, the history of Jesus would have happened roughly as told, only in the spirit realm. The physical Jesus from the material world would have been evil, a false messiah and a lustful lover of the material Mary Magdalene. However, the true Jesus would have influenced the physical world in a way similar to the Harrowing of Hell, only by inhabiting the body of Paul. 13th century chronicler Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay recorded those views.

Other beliefs
Some Cathars told a version of the Enochian narrative, according to which Eve's daughters copulated with Satan's demons and bore giants. The Deluge would have been provoked by Satan, who disapproved of the demons revealing he was not the real god, or alternatively, an attempt by the Invisible Father to destroy the giants. The Holy Spirit was sometimes counted as one single entity, but to others it was considered the collective groups of unfallen angels who had not followed Satan in his rebellion.

Cathars believed that the sexual allure of women impeded a man's ability to reject the material world. Despite this stance on sex and reproduction, some Cathar communities made exceptions. In one version, the Invisible Father had two spiritual wives, Collam and Hoolibam (identified with Oholah and Oholibah), and would himself have provoked the war in heaven by seducing the wife of Satan, or perhaps the reverse. Cathars adhering to this story would believe that having families and sons would not impede them from reaching God's kingdom.

Some communities also believed in a Day of Judgment that would come when the number of the just equalled that of angels who fell, when the believers would ascend to the spirit realm, while the sinners would be thrown to everlasting fire along with Satan.

The Cathars ate a pescatarian diet. They did not eat cheese, eggs, meat, or milk because these are all by-products of sexual intercourse. The Cathars believed that animals were carriers of reincarnated souls, and forbade the killing of all animal life, apart from fish, which they believed were produced by spontaneous generation.

The Cathars could be seen as prefiguring Protestantism in that they denied transubstantiation, purgatory, prayers for the dead and prayers to saints. They also believed that the scriptures should be read in the vernacular.

Texts
The alleged sacred texts of the Cathars, besides the New Testament, included the Bogomil text The Gospel of the Secret Supper (also called John's Interrogation), a modified version of Ascension of Isaiah, and the Cathar original work The Book of the Two Principles (possibly penned by Italian Cathar John Lugio of Bergamo). They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan, except for a few books which they accepted, and considered the Book of Revelation not a prophecy about the future, but an allegorical chronicle of what had transpired in Satan's rebellion. Their reinterpretation of those texts contained numerous elements characteristic of Gnostic literature.

Sacraments
Cathars, in general, formed an anti-sacerdotal party in opposition to the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, protesting against what they perceived to be the moral, spiritual and political corruption of the Church. In contrast, the Cathars had but one central rite, the Consolamentum, or Consolation. This involved a brief spiritual ceremony to remove all sin from the believer and to induct him into the next higher level as a Perfect.

Many believers would receive the Consolamentum as death drew near, performing the ritual of liberation at a moment when the heavy obligations of purity required of Perfecti would be temporally short. Some of those who received the sacrament of the consolamentum upon their death-beds may thereafter have shunned further food with an exception of cold water until death. This has been termed the endura. It was claimed by some of the church writers that when a Cathar, after receiving the Consolamentum, began to show signs of recovery he or she would be smothered in order to ensure his or her entry into paradise. Other than extreme cases, little evidence exists to suggest this was a common Cathar practice.

The Cathars also refused the sacrament of the eucharist, saying that it could not possibly be the body of Christ. They also refused to partake in the practice of Baptism by water. The following two quotes are taken from the Inquisitor Bernard Gui's experiences with the Cathar practices and beliefs:

"Then they attack and vituperate, in turn, all the sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrament of the eucharist, saying that it cannot contain the body of Christ, for had this been as great as the largest mountain Christians would have entirely consumed it before this. They assert that the host comes from straw, that it passes through the tails of horses, to wit, when the flour is cleaned by a sieve (of horse hair); that, moreover, it passes through the body and comes to a vile end, which, they say, could not happen if God were in it.

Of baptism, they assert that the water is material and corruptible and is therefore the creation of the evil power, and cannot sanctify the spirit, but that the churchmen sell this water out of avarice, just as they sell earth for the burial of the dead, and oil to the sick when they anoint them, and as they sell the confession of sins as made to the priests."

Social relationships
Killing was abhorrent to the Cathars. Consequently, abstention from all animal food (sometimes exempting fish) was enjoined of the Perfecti. The Perfecti avoided eating anything considered to be a by-product of sexual reproduction. War and capital punishment were also condemned—an abnormality in Medieval Europe, despite the fact that the sect had armed combatants prepared to engage in combat and commit murder (the Papal Legate, Pierre de Castelnau, was assassinated in January 1208 in Provence ) on its behalf.

To the Cathars, reproduction was a moral evil to be avoided, as it continued the chain of reincarnation and suffering in the material world. Such was the situation that a charge of heresy levelled against a suspected Cathar was usually dismissed if the accused could show he was legally married.

Despite the implicit anti-Semitism of their views on the Old Testament God, the Cathars had little hostility to Jews as people and Jews probably had a higher status in Cathar territories than they had anywhere else in Europe at the time. Cathars appointed Jews as bailiffs and to other roles as public officials, which further increased the Catholic Church's anger at the Cathars.

Despite their condemnation of reproduction, the Cathars grew in numbers in southeastern France; by 1207, shortly before the murder of the Papal Legate Castelnau, many towns in that region (i.e. Provence and its vicinity) were almost completely populated by Cathari, and the Cathari population had many ties to nearby communities. When Bishop Fulk of Toulouse, a key leader of the anti-Cathar persecutions, excoriated the Languedoc Knights for not pursuing the heretics more diligently, he received the reply, "We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection."

Hierarchy
It has been alleged that the Cathar Church of the Languedoc had a relatively flat structure, distinguishing between the baptised Perfecti (a term they did not use; instead, bonhommes) and ordinary unbaptised believers (credentes). By about 1140, liturgy and a system of doctrine had been established. They created a number of bishoprics, first at Albi around 1165 and after the 1167 Council at Saint-Félix-Lauragais sites at Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen, so that four bishoprics were in existence by 1200. In about 1225, during a lull in the Albigensian Crusade, the bishopric of Razès was added. Bishops were supported by their two assistants: a filius maior (typically the successor) and a filius minor, who were further assisted by deacons. The Perfecti were the spiritual elite, highly respected by many of the local people, leading a life of austerity and charity. In the apostolic fashion, they ministered to the people and travelled in pairs.

Role of women

Catharism has been seen as giving women the greatest opportunities for independent action, since women were found as being believers as well as Perfecti, who were able to administer the sacrament of the consolamentum.

Cathars believed that a person would be repeatedly reincarnated until they committed to self-denial of the material world. A man could be reincarnated as a woman and vice versa. The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless. Because of this belief, the Cathars saw women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders.

Women accused of being heretics in early medieval Christianity included those labelled Gnostics, Cathars, and, later, the Beguines, as well as several other groups that were sometimes "tortured and executed". Cathars, like the Gnostics who preceded them, assigned more importance to the role of Mary Magdalene in the spread of early Christianity than the church previously did. Her vital role as a teacher contributed to the Cathar belief that women could serve as spiritual leaders. Women were found to be included in the Perfecti in significant numbers, with numerous receiving the consolamentum after being widowed. Having reverence for the Gospel of John, the Cathars saw Mary Magdalene as perhaps even more important than Saint Peter, the founder of the church.

Catharism attracted numerous women with the promise of a leadership role that the Catholic Church did not allow. Catharism let women become a Perfect. These female Perfects were required to adhere to a strict and ascetic lifestyle, but were still able to have their own houses. Although many women found something attractive in Catharism, not all found its teachings convincing. A notable example is Hildegard of Bingen, who in 1163 gave a rousing exhortation against the Cathars in Cologne. During this discourse, Hildegard announced God's eternal damnation on all who accepted Cathar beliefs.

While women Perfects rarely travelled to preach the faith, they still played a vital role in the spreading of Catharism by establishing group homes for women. Though it was extremely uncommon, there were isolated cases of female Cathars leaving their homes to spread the faith. In Cathar communal homes (ostals), women were educated in the faith, and these women would go on to bear children who would then also become believers. Through this pattern, the faith grew exponentially through the efforts of women as each generation passed.

Despite women having a role in the growth of the faith, Catharism was not completely equal; for example, the belief that one's last incarnation had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle. This belief was inspired by later French Cathars, who taught that women must be reborn as men in order to achieve salvation. Toward the end of the Cathar movement, Catharism became less equal and started the practice of excluding women Perfects. However, this trend remained limited; for example, later on, Italian Perfects still included women.

Suppression

In 1147, Pope Eugene III sent a legate to the Cathar district in order to arrest the progress of the Cathars. The few isolated successes of Bernard of Clairvaux could not obscure the poor results of this mission, which clearly showed the power of the sect in the Languedoc at that period. The missions of Cardinal Peter of Saint Chrysogonus to Toulouse and the Toulousain in 1178, and of Henry of Marcy, cardinal-bishop of Albano, in 1180–81, obtained merely momentary successes. Henry's armed expedition, which took the stronghold at Lavaur, did not extinguish the movement.

Decisions of Catholic Church councils—in particular, those of the Council of Tours (1163) and of the Third Council of the Lateran (1179)—had scarcely more effect upon the Cathars. When Pope Innocent III came to power in 1198, he was resolved to deal with them.

At first, Innocent tried peaceful conversion, and sent a number of legates into the Cathar regions. They had to contend not only with the Cathars, the nobles who protected them, and the people who respected them, but also with many of the bishops of the region, who resented the considerable authority the Pope had conferred upon his legates. In 1204, Innocent III suspended a number of bishops in Occitania; in 1205 he appointed a new and vigorous bishop of Toulouse, the former troubadour Foulques. In 1206 Diego of Osma and his canon, the future Saint Dominic, began a programme of conversion in Languedoc; as part of this, Catholic–Cathar public debates were held at Verfeil, Servian, Pamiers, Montréal and elsewhere.

Dominic met and debated with the Cathars in 1203 during his mission to the Languedoc. He concluded that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. The institutional Church as a general rule did not possess these spiritual warrants. His conviction led eventually to the establishment of the Dominican Order in 1216. The order was to live up to the terms of his rebuke, "Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." However, even Dominic managed only a few converts among the Cathars.

Albigensian Crusade

In January 1208, the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau, a Cistercian monk, theologian and canon lawyer, was sent to meet the ruler of the area, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Castelnau excommunicated Raymond for abetting heresy, following an allegedly fierce argument during which Raymond supposedly threatened Castelnau with violence. Shortly thereafter, Castelnau was murdered as he returned to Rome, allegedly by a knight in the service of Count Raymond. His body was returned and laid to rest in the Abbey of Saint-Gilles.

As soon as he heard of the murder, the Pope ordered the legates to preach a crusade against the Cathars, and wrote a letter to Philip Augustus, King of France, appealing for his intervention—or an intervention led by his son, Louis. This was not the first appeal, but some see the murder of the legate as a turning point in papal policy, which had hitherto refrained from the use of military force. Raymond of Toulouse was excommunicated, the second such instance, in 1209.

King Philip II of France refused to lead the crusade himself, and could not spare his son, Prince Louis VIII, to do so either—despite his victory against John, King of England, as there were still pressing issues with Flanders and the empire along with the threat of an Angevin revival. While King Philip II could not lead the crusade nor spare his son, he did sanction the participation of some of his barons, notably Simon de Montfort and Bouchard de Marly. The twenty years of war against the Cathars and their allies in the Languedoc that followed were called the Albigensian Crusade, derived from Albi, the capital of the Albigensian district (the district corresponding to the present-day French department of Tarn).

This war pitted the nobles of France against those of the Languedoc. The widespread northern enthusiasm for the Crusade was partially inspired by a papal decree that permitted the confiscation of lands owned by Cathars and their supporters. This angered not only the lords of the south, but also the King Philip II of France, who was at least nominally the suzerain of the lords whose lands were now open to seizure. King Philip II wrote to Pope Innocent in strong terms to point this out—but Pope Innocent refused to change his decree. As the Languedoc was supposedly teeming with Cathars and Cathar sympathisers, this made the region a target for northern French noblemen looking to acquire new fiefs.

The first target for the barons of the North were the lands of the Trencavel, powerful lords of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi, and the Razes. Little was done to form a regional coalition, and the crusading army was able to take Carcassonne, the Trencavel capital, incarcerating Raymond Roger Trencavel in his own citadel where he died within three months. Champions of the Occitan cause claimed that he was murdered. Simon de Montfort was granted the Trencavel lands by Pope Innocent, thus incurring the enmity of Peter II of Aragon who previously had been aloof from the conflict, even acting as a mediator at the time of the siege of Carcassonne. The remainder of the first of the two Cathar wars now focused on Simon de Monfort's attempt to hold on to his gains through the winters. Then, with a small force of confederates operating from the main winter camp at Fanjeaux, he was faced with the desertion of local lords who had sworn fealty to him out of necessity—and attempts to enlarge his newfound domain during the summer. His forces were then greatly augmented by reinforcements from northern France, Germany, and elsewhere.

De Montfort's summer campaigns saw the recapture of losses sustained in winter months, in addition to attempts to widen the crusade's sphere of operation. Notably he was active in the Aveyron at St. Antonin and on the banks of the Rhône at Beaucaire. Simon de Monfort's greatest triumph was the victory against superior numbers at the Battle of Muret in 1213 — a battle in which de Montfort's much smaller force, composed entirely of cavalry, decisively defeated the much-larger (by some estimates 5-10 times larger ) and combined-force allied armies of Raymond of Toulouse, his Occitan allies, and Peter II of Aragon. The battle also saw the death of Peter II, which effectively ended the ambitions and influence of the house of Aragon/Barcelona in the Languedoc.

Philip II's victory at Bouvines near Lille the following year not only ended the Anglo-French War of 1213-1214 and dealt a death blow to the Angevin Empire, but it also freed Philip II to concentrate more of his attentions to the Albigensian Crusade underway in the south of France. In addition, the victory at Bouvines was against an Anglo-German force that was attempting to undermine the power of the French crown; an Anglo-German victory would have been a serious setback to the crusade. Full French royal intervention in support of the crusade would not, however, occur until early 1226, when Louis VIII of France led a substantial force into southeastern France.

Massacre
The crusader army came under the command, both spiritually and militarily, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.

The Cathars spent much of 1209 fending off the crusaders. The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own". The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly, at least 7,000 men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces. Elsewhere in the town, many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice. What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud-Amaury wrote to Pope Innocent III, "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex." "The permanent population of Béziers at that time was then probably no more than 5,000, but local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls could conceivably have increased the number to 20,000."

After the success of his siege of Carcassonne, which followed the massacre at Béziers in 1209, Simon de Montfort was designated as leader of the Crusader army. Prominent opponents of the Crusaders were Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Carcassonne, and his feudal overlord Peter II of Aragon, who held fiefdoms and had a number of vassals in the region. Peter died fighting against the crusade on 12 September 1213 at the Battle of Muret. Simon de Montfort was killed on 25 June 1218 after maintaining a siege of Toulouse for nine months.

Treaty and persecution

The official war ended in the Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the House of Toulouse of the greater part of its fiefs, and the house of the Trencavels of the whole of their fiefs. The independence of the princes of the Languedoc was at an end. In spite of the wholesale massacre of Cathars during the war, Catharism was not yet extinguished, and Catholic forces would continue to pursue Cathars.

In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the Fourth Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent III; part of the agenda was combating the Cathar heresy.

The Inquisition was established in 1233 to uproot the remaining Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in crushing Catharism as a popular movement, driving its remaining adherents underground. Cathars who refused to recant or relapsed were hanged, or burnt at the stake.

On Friday 13 May 1239, in Champagne, 183 men and women convicted of Catharism were burned at the stake on the orders of the Dominican inquisitor and former Cathar Perfect Robert le Bougre. Mount Guimar, in northeastern France, had already been denounced as a place of heresy in a letter of the Bishop of Liège to Pope Lucius II in 1144.

From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne. On 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, wherein over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the prat dels cremats ("field of the burned") near the foot of the castle. Moreover, the Church, at the 1235 Council of Narbonne, decreed lesser chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars.

A popular though as yet unsubstantiated belief holds that a small party of Cathar Perfects escaped from the fortress prior to the massacre at prat dels cremats. It is widely held in the Cathar region to this day that the escapees took with them "the Cathar treasure". What this treasure consisted of has been a matter of considerable speculation: claims range from sacred Gnostic texts to the Cathars' accumulated wealth, which might have included the Holy Grail (see below).

Hunted by the Inquisition and deserted by the nobles of their districts, the Cathars became more and more scattered fugitives, meeting surreptitiously in forests and mountain wilds. Later insurrections broke out under the leadership of Roger-Bernard II, Count of Foix, Aimery III of Narbonne, and Bernard Délicieux, a Franciscan friar later prosecuted for his adherence to another heretical movement, that of the Spiritual Franciscans at the beginning of the 14th century. By this time, the Inquisition had grown very powerful. Consequently, many presumed to be Cathars were summoned to appear before it. Precise indications of this are found in the registers of the Inquisitors Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre, Geoffroy d'Ablis, and others. The perfects, it was said, only rarely recanted, and hundreds were burnt. Repentant lay believers were punished, but their lives were spared as long as they did not relapse. Having recanted, they were obliged to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing and to live apart from other Catholics, at least for a time.

Annihilation
After several decades of harassment and re-proselytising, and, perhaps even more important, the systematic destruction of their religious texts, the sect was exhausted and could find no more adepts. The leader of a Cathar revival in the Pyrenean foothills, Peire Autier, was captured and executed in April 1310 in Toulouse. After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars. The last known Cathar perfect in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in the autumn of 1321.

From the mid-12th century onwards, Italian Catharism came under increasing pressure from the Pope and the Inquisition, "spelling the beginning of the end." Other movements, such as the Waldensians and the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit, which suffered persecution in the same area, survived in remote areas and in small numbers through the 14th and 15th centuries. The Waldensian movement continues today; Waldensian ideas influenced other proto-Protestant sects, such as the Hussites, Lollards, and the Moravian Church.

Later history
After the suppression of Catharism, the descendants of Cathars were discriminated against; at times, they were also required to live outside towns and their defences. They retained their Cathar identity, despite their reintegration into Catholicism. As such, any use of the term "Cathar" to refer to people after the suppression of Catharism in the 14th century is a cultural or ancestral reference and has no religious implication. Nevertheless, interest in the Cathars and their history, legacy and beliefs continues.

Pays cathare

The term Pays cathare, French meaning "Cathar Country", is used to highlight the Cathar heritage and history of the region in which Catharism was traditionally strongest. The area is centered around fortresses such as Montségur and Carcassonne; also, the French département of the Aude uses the title Pays cathare in tourist brochures. The areas have ruins from the wars against the Cathars that are still visible today.

Some criticise the promotion of the identity of Pays cathare as an exaggeration for tourism purposes. Many of the promoted Cathar castles were not built by Cathars but by local lords, and many of them were later rebuilt and extended for strategic purposes. Good examples are the castles of Queribus and Peyrepertuse, which are both perched on the side of precipitous drops on the last folds of the Corbières Massif. They were for several hundred years frontier fortresses belonging to the French crown, and most of what is still there dates from a post-Cathar era. Many consider the County of Foix to be the actual historical centre of Catharism.

Interrogation of heretics
In an effort to find the few remaining heretics in and around the village of Montaillou, Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers, future Pope Benedict XII, had those suspected of heresy interrogated in the presence of scribes who recorded their conversations. The late 13th- to early-14th-century document, the Fournier Register, discovered in the Vatican archives in the 1960s and edited by Jean Duvernoy, is the basis for Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's work Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error.

Historical and current scholarship
The publication of the early scholarly book Crusade Against the Grail, by the young German and later SS officer, Otto Rahn in the 1930s, rekindled interest in the connection between the Cathars and the Holy Grail, especially in Germany. Rahn was convinced that the 13th-century work Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach was a veiled account of the Cathars. The philosopher and Nazi government official Alfred Rosenberg speaks favourably of the Cathars in The Myth of the Twentieth Century.

Academic books in English first appeared at the beginning of the 21st century: for example, Malcolm Lambert's The Cathars and Malcolm Barber's The Cathars.

Debate on the nature and existence of Catharism
Starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present day, historians like R. I. Moore have challenged the extent to which Catharism, as an institutionalised religion, actually existed. Building on the work of French historians such as Monique Zerner and Uwe Brunn, Moore's The War on Heresy argues that Catharism was "contrived from the resources of [the] well-stocked imaginations" of churchmen, "with occasional reinforcement from miscellaneous and independent manifestations of local anticlericalism or apostolic enthusiasm." In short, Moore claims that the men and women persecuted as Cathars were not the followers of a secret religion imported from the East; instead, they were part of a broader spiritual revival taking place in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Moore's work is indicative of a larger historiographical trend towards examining how heresy was constructed by the church.

Scholars since the 1990s have referred to the fearful rumours of Cathars as a moral panic. The crusade against Cathars as a possibly-imaginary enemy has been compared to European witch-hunts, anti-Semitic persecution, and the Satanic Panic.

In 2016, Cathars in Question, edited by Antonio Sennis, presented a range of conflicting views by academics of medieval heresy, including Feuchter, Stoyanov, Sackville, Taylor, D'Avray, Biller, Moore, Bruschi, Pegg, Hamilton, Arnold, and Théry-Astruc, who had met at University College London and the Warburg Institute in London in April 2013. Sennis describes the debate as about "an issue which is highly controversial and hotly debated among scholars: the existence of a medieval phenomenon which we can legitimately call 'Catharism.'"

Dr. Andrew Roach in The English Historical Review commented that "Reconciliation still seems some distance away [among the] distinguished, if sometimes cantankerous, scholars" who contributed to the volume. He said:

"The debate is a now familiar one which has been rehearsed for a number of periods and contexts, namely, given that the overwhelming majority of sources about medieval heresy come not from 'heretics' themselves but from their persecutors, is there any way historians can be sure that this classification is not just a result of mindsets driven by pre-conceptions of what is correct or the conscious 'fitting up' of opponents?"

Professor Rebecca Rist describes the academic controversy as the "heresy debate" – "some of it very heated" – about whether Catharism was a "real heresy with Balkans origins, or rather a construct of western medieval culture, whose authorities wanted to persecute religious dissidents." Rist adds that some historians say the group was an invention of the medieval Church, so there never was a Cathar heresy; while she agrees that the medieval Church exaggerated its threat, she says there is evidence of the heresy's existence. Professor Claire Taylor has called for a "post-revisionism" in the debate, saying that legacy historians assumed the heresy was a form of dualism and therefore a form of Bogomilism, whereas "revisionists" have focused on social origins to explain the dissent. Lucy Sackville has argued that while the revisionists rightly point to the Cathars' opaque origins and their branding as 'Manichaeans,' this does not mean we should disregard all evidence that their heresy had an organised theology.

In art and music
The principal legacy of the Cathar movement is in the poems and songs of the Cathar troubadours, though this artistic legacy is only a smaller part of the wider Occitan linguistic and artistic heritage. The Occitan song Lo Boièr is particularly associated with Catharism. Recent artistic projects concentrating on the Cathar element in Provençal and troubadour art include commercial recording projects by Thomas Binkley, electric hurdy-gurdy artist Valentin Clastrier, La Nef, and Jordi Savall.

In popular culture, Catharism has been linked with the Knights Templar, an active sect of monks founded during the First Crusade (1095–1099). This link has caused fringe theories about the Cathars and the possibility of their possession of the Holy Grail, such as in the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

Protestants
Protestants such as John Foxe, in the 16th century, and Jean Duvernoy, in the 20th century, argued that Cathars followed Proto-Protestant theology, though they were criticised by many historians. Foxe argued that they followed Calvinist soteriology. Such have argued that Cathars did not follow dualism but instead argued that such accusations were either misinterpretations of Cathar theology, wrongly attributed to Cathars or merely hostile claims.

Other historians have also argued that Cathars instead followed Protestant theology because the Reformation spread rapidly to the land in which Cathars mainly existed. They argued that the people "held Protestant ideas" well before the Reformation. However, such arguments are generally viewed as weak, for instance because of the need to downplay the dualism not present in Protestantism.

Baptists
Twentieth century Baptists have argued that the Cathars are part of Baptist successionism; placing the Cathars as forerunners of Baptist theology. James Milton Carroll claimed in his book The Trail of Blood that the Novatianists (or Cathari) were ascendants of Baptist groups. Writing for Catholic Answers, Dwight Longenecker, says there is no historical proof for Baptist successionism. Hisel Berlin, advocating for the Baptist successionist theory, argued that claims about the Cathars were mainly false and that they denied things such as infant baptism. Since the end of the 19th century, the trend in academic Baptist historiography has been away from the successionist viewpoint to the view that modern day Baptists are an outgrowth of 17th-century English Separatism.

General references

 * Brunn, Uwe (2006), Des contestataires aux "cathares" : Discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans les pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avant l'Inquisition, Paris, Institut d'études augustiniennes
 * Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts, many hitherto unpublished
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * Brunn, Uwe (2006), Des contestataires aux "cathares" : Discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans les pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avant l'Inquisition, Paris, Institut d'études augustiniennes
 * Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts, many hitherto unpublished
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts, many hitherto unpublished
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts, many hitherto unpublished
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts, many hitherto unpublished
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
 * AVSA9873 A+C
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 * AVSA9873 A+C
 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
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 * . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
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title: Catharism


text:
Talk:Cathars

There is a much better article under Albigensians that I plan to bring over here -- JHK

The two should be merged. The 1911 article on Albigensians is infected with the British variant of "medieval heretics were proto-protestants" problem - note paragraph 3 -- before the author explains (what little) is known about their beliefs, he sets them up as an anti-sacerdotal party protesting the corruption of the clergy. HMPH. The new article has its good points, but it suffers from a modern variant -- you know, "medieval heretics were proto-moderns", and thus we're told that the Cathars treated women as equals (though at least the author gives a good reason for it - the fact that they deprecated the real body). The evidence for 'equal treatment' is about as useful as the evidence for sacrificing babies - it comes from the inquisitorial processes, and has to be treated like all legal evidence. I think the explanation of what is known about Cathar theology isn't at all bad. --MichaelTinkler

I think you're right -- I was swayed a bit by the LeRoy Ladurie ref -- and the fact that this article is pretty weak... JHK

The article mentioned this was an outgrowth of neoplatonism, but shouldn't its similarity to gnosticism also be mentioned? Wesley 15:16 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

The Cathars originated with the followers of Novatian, and were originally excommunicated in 251. So the article starts off very badly. The movement was over a thousand years old when the CC exterminated it. the librarian

Is the text at the bottom: "Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed " still relevant???

kh7 Mar 23, 2003

title: Talk:Cathars