Curious details of the protracted lawsuits and other troubles by which she was harassed during the next few years are given in several of her works; but it is enough to say that her tenacity and force of character carried her safely through until she made for herself a literary position which for one of her sex was probably without precedent. Excepting a few short pieces anterior perhaps to her husband’s death, she appears to have begun writing poetry as a solace in her widowhood. Such pathetic effusions as “Seulete suy et seulete vueil estre” and “Je suis vesve, seulete et noir vestue,”[[12]] with others in a similar strain, could hardly fail to excite sympathy, and she was thus encouraged to utilize her pen for procuring more material support. At the end of the 14th century all that an author struggling with poverty had to depend upon was the patronage and munificence of the great, and it may therefore have been mainly to suit the taste of those to whom she looked for favour and assistance that she composed the lighter and more amatory of the “Ballades,” “Lais” and “Virelais,” “Rondeaux” and “Jeux à vendre,” which were the earliest, and not the least charming, of her poems. Besides Charles VI. and his queen, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Orleans, and other princes, nobles, and great ladies of the French court, it is interesting to find among her warmest patrons the English Earl of Salisbury,[[13]] who came on an embassy to Paris in December, 1398. The theory that it was for him that she made the collection of her “Cent Ballades” rests on little, if any, foundation, but his friendly regard for her is shown by his having taken her elder son Jean du Castel, then thirteen, to England, in order to educate him with a boy of his own of similar age. By her own account, as it appears,[[14]] this was at the time of the marriage of Isabella, daughter of Charles VI., to Richard II., which took place at Calais on 4th November, 1396, so that she may have become acquainted with the earl during a previous visit to Paris, or while he was in France with Richard, who crossed over for the marriage as early as 27th September. If he had not met a tragic fate on 7th January, 1400, in an abortive attempt in favour of his deposed sovereign, Christine herself might have followed her son. At the same time Salisbury was not the only nor most influential admirer of her talent on this side of the Channel. After his death the usurper Henry IV. himself took charge of the boy and tried to induce her to settle in England, and it is to her credit that loyalty to the earl’s memory among other reasons made her obdurate. In order, however, to get back her son she feigned compliance until he was sent to fetch her, when she kept him with her and remained in France.[[15]]
Before this she had entered on the second stage of her literary career, to which the “Épître d’Othéa” most probably belongs. In 1399 she resolved to attempt longer and more serious poems, animated by a more or less definite moral purpose, and she began by preparing herself for this task by a strenuous course of study, as nearly encyclopædic in character as was then possible, though there is no reason to suppose that she was acquainted with Greek authors except through Latin translations. But her earliest poems of any length, issued between 1399 and 1402, were still of the nature of “Dits d’Amour.” Such, for example, were the “Épître au dieu d’amour” and the “Dit de la Rose,” the “Débat de deux amants,” the “Dit de Poissy,” with its lively account of her visit in 1400 to Poissy Abbey, where her daughter was a nun, and the idyllic “Dit de la pastoure.”[[16]] The first two of these poems were written in defence of women against the aspersions of Jean de Meun in the “Roman de la Rose” and his school, and they involved her in a protracted controversy, in which with the valuable support of Jean Gerson she fully held her own. The moralizing element is much more strongly developed in the “Chemin de long estude,”[[17]] and the “Mutation de Fortune,”[[18]] which were composed in 1402 and 1403. In the earlier of these somewhat prolix, but withal extremely interesting, works Christine is conducted by the Sibyl Amalthea through the known world,[[19]] and then ascends with her as far as the fifth heaven. After recounting these experiences she proceeds to inculcate doctrines of right and justice by means of an elaborate allegory, in which Raison, Sagesse, Noblesse, Chevalerie, and Richesse play the leading parts, room being also found for a glowing eulogy of Charles V. In the “Mutation de Fortune” she again indulges her taste for allegory, but in place of geography and astronomy other sciences have their turn. The introduction, which is rich in personal interest, deals with her father’s life and her own and then leads up to her dream or vision of the great “Chastel de Fortune.” This castle is in fact the world, and those who lodge in it are the various classes of mankind, who from pope and king downwards are vividly characterized; while the subjects painted on the walls of the hall give occasion for summaries of philosophy and of universal history to the birth of Christ, followed by allusions to more recent events and by another tribute to the virtues of Thomas de Pisan’s royal patron. On 1st January, 1403–4, Christine presented this poem as a new-year’s gift to Philip, Duke of Burgundy, brother of Charles V. The immediate result was a commission to write the late king’s life, and although the duke himself died on 27th April following, she completed this task within the year, sending a copy to his elder brother John, Duke of Berry, on 1st January, 1404–5.
The “Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V.” is the best known and in many respects the most valuable of all her writings,[[20]] and it also marks the beginning of the period when she practically abandoned verse in favour of prose. Though full of interesting details, the work is not so much a regular biography as an appreciation of the king’s character from the point of view of an enthusiastic partisan. To some extent Charles V. realized Christine’s ideal of chivalry, and in her discursive way she seized her chance to enforce by his example the paramount necessity to a ruler of a sound education and virtuous principles, with covert reflections no doubt upon the political rivalries and dissolute morals which under the unhappy circumstances of his successor’s mental disease were bringing ruin upon France. Of her remaining works “La Vision,”[[21]] which appeared later in 1405, is of peculiar interest for its self-revelation. It was apparently meant as a reply to those who, on the ground of her sex and foreign origin, questioned her right to pose as an authority on French history and morals; but with a frank recital of her chequered fortunes and a defence of her position she mixes up a curious allegory on the mighty power of “Dame Opinion” and a discussion on the comfort to be derived from philosophy. To quote a simile which she more than once applies to herself,[[22]] “petite clochete grant voix sonne”; and this may certainly be said of two ambitious treatises written seemingly about 1407. One of them is the well-known “Livre des faits d’armes et de chevalerie,”[[23]] which is nothing less than an attempt to teach the whole art of war, grounded largely upon Vegetius and other authorities, but not without shrewd and pertinent observations of her own; while in the other, entitled “Le Corps de Policie,” she takes up the subject of civil government, more particularly with regard to the education of princes and the duties and mutual relations of the several orders in the state. The “Cité des Dames”[[24]] and its complement the “Livre des Trois Vertus”[[25]] deal on the contrary with subjects which fell less disputably within her natural sphere. As we have seen, she had already championed her sex in verse. In coming forward again in its defence, but this time in prose, she went further, taking upon herself to lay down rules of guidance for women of all ranks, which she effectively did by allegory as well as by precepts and by historical examples.
In all these works her aims were moral rather than political. But although, considering her relations with the leaders of the contending factions, it is not surprising that she abstained from decisively taking a side, there is no doubt that she was profoundly moved by the growing miseries of her adopted country. As early as 1405 she addressed to the queen, Isabella of Bavaria, a letter[[26]] strongly advocating peace, and five years later she returned to the subject in a passionate appeal[[27]] to the princes generally and the Duke of Berry in particular. The “Livre de la Paix,” the different parts of which were composed respectively in 1412 and 1413 in connexion with the transient pacifications of Auxerre and of Pontoise, is of less restricted scope.[[28]] It was dedicated by Christine to the youthful Dauphin, Louis, Duke of Guienne, and after an earnest exhortation to harmony it is expanded into a formal treatise on the virtues that go to form the perfect prince, Charles V. providing her as usual with an ever ready example. This appears to have been the latest, as it is one of the most important, of her prose works; for although possibly some of her religious verses were composed in the interval, so far as is known she maintained an unbroken silence until 1429, when the triumphs of the Maid of Orleans drew from her a poem ringing with patriotic fervour,[[29]] her joy at the approaching deliverance of France being no doubt all the greater because its promised saviour was a woman. What her feelings were when these hopes were again deferred can only be imagined, for nothing more is heard of her. In the opening lines of her poem she states that she had then been eleven years in a convent,[[30]] but she omits to give its name, and the date and the place of her death thus alike remain unidentified.
Of all her works the one with which we are here specially concerned presents perhaps most difficulty with regard to date. In the best copies, as in Harley MS. 4,431,[[31]] it is headed “Ci commence lepistre Othea la deesse, que elle envoya a Hector de Troie quant il estoit en laage de quinze ans,” for which reason, coupled with its dedication to Louis, Duke of Orleans, it has been too hastily assigned to 1386,[[32]] when Louis himself was of that age. Against this date it is almost enough to urge that Christine was then only twenty-two years old, and from all that we know of her she was not in the least likely to have begun authorship so early with a long didactic treatise mostly in prose; but, apart from this, Louis was not made Duke of Orleans until 4th June, 1391, so that the work could not have been addressed to him, as it is, under that title five years before. Another theory, that, although dedicated to Louis, it was designed for the edification of his son and heir Charles[[33]] is not open to the same objections; for, as the future poet-duke was born in 1391, the date would then be 1406, at which time Christine was in full career as a moralist and prose-writer, with strong views, as may be seen in her “Fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V.”, on the subject of chivalrous qualities. On the other hand, if the facts were as supposed, in addressing the work to the father she would hardly have failed to make some explanatory reference to the son. Her omission to do so therefore makes this theory hardly less untenable than the other. It is more likely that the date lies between these two extremes. The significance of the dedication may easily be overrated. It was Christine’s habit to send her works with a separate dedicatory preface to her several patrons as new-year’s gifts for no other reason probably than the hope of a tangible acknowledgment, and we know in fact that other copies of the “Épître d’Othéa” were sent both to Charles VI. and the Duke of Berry.[[34]] If it is necessary to look for some particular youth of fifteen to whom she wished to play the part of a moral instructress, he may perhaps be found in her own son, for whom on another occasion she wrote the “Enseignemens Moraux.”[[35]] Jean du Castel was probably of the required age about 1400, so that in this case the work represents, as it well may, the first-fruits of the studies in which she immersed herself shortly before, and its date moreover exactly accords with its position in her own collections of her works, where it comes after the “Dit de Poissy” (1400) and before the “Chemin de long estude” (1402).[[36]]
Although without any claim to be reckoned among the best of her works, it is at least admirable in motive. Ostensibly it is addressed by the Goddess of Prudence or Wisdom to her protégé Hector with the object of inciting him to the attainment of true knighthood by the practice of virtue, the name of the goddess being clearly no more than the Greek vocative ὦ θεά, commonly used in Homer in speeches addressed to Athena.[[37]] The plan of the work is somewhat peculiar. The epistle proper, which purports to be Othea’s own, is in verse, and is divided into a hundred “textes,” each of which after the first five consists of a single quatrain. These hundred “textes” serve as a medium for instilling into the mind of the pupil as many moral precepts or rules of behaviour, wrapped up in an allusion to some story from mythology, from the history of Troy or, very rarely, from other sources, without the least regard for chronological propriety. Othea indeed anticipates the charge of anachronism by claiming at the outset (p. 6) the divine prerogative of prophecy, by which means she obviates the incongruity of drawing lessons for Hector from the circumstances of his own death (p. 105), from the story of Cyrus and Queen Tomyris (p. 63), and even from the vision of Christ shown by the Sibyl to the Roman emperor Augustus (p. 113). Perhaps the most glaring anachronism is the reference to the fate of “Thune” (p. 110). It has been suggested in a note on the passage that this is a corruption in the MSS. for “Thyre” or Tyre; but the rhyme both in the French and English versions requires “Thune,” and possibly the allusion is to the much vaunted expedition of Louis, Duke of Bourbon, against Tunis in 1391. If so, this is a single instance of a reference to an event in more recent times. The “textes,” however, are not left to stand alone, being invariably followed by a “glose” and an “allégorie,” both of which are in prose and often of some length. The bulk of the work therefore is really a commentary by Christine herself upon Othea’s supposed teaching. Thus, in the “glose” she amplifies and explains the allusion in the “texte,” and as a rule points its application by a maxim from an ancient philosopher; and, having done this to her own satisfaction, she next dilates in the “allégorie” on its more spiritual meaning, which she illustrates by a passage from one of the Fathers or some later theologian, and finally by a more or less appropriate verse from Scripture. These last citations are from the Latin Vulgate, and from the fact that the translator omits them it may be inferred that he was either ignorant of Latin or intended to supply them from the Wycliffite English version. In this way Christine works through the Virtues and Vices, the Articles of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the properties and influences of the seven planets, and so forth; and the whole forms a curious and ill-assorted medley, which is not without interest as a reflection of the taste of the time, but which contains, it must be confessed, little either to attract or to edify the modern reader.
No critical edition of the original work has yet appeared, and the preface to a translation is hardly the place in which to enter minutely into its composition. Apart, however, from the Latin Vulgate and the theological writers whose names may be found in the index, there are three sources from which the matter appears to be mainly derived. Christine’s classical mythology, it is clear, comes almost entirely from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, but whether she had recourse to the original or to a moralized mediæval adaptation is a question not so easily determined. There is a work of the latter kind in French verse and of prodigious length, fourteen MSS. of which are known, including one in the British Museum (Add. MS. 10,324). By some misunderstanding it was formerly attributed to Philippe de Vitry, Bishop of Meaux (1351–1362). Modern criticism, however, has proved that it was really written by Chrétien Legouais, a Friar Minor, for the queen of Philip IV., Jeanne de Champagne, who died in 1305.[[38]] There was a copy in the library of Christine’s patron, the Duke of Berry,[[39]] but it was apparently acquired in 1403, after the “Épître d’Othéa” was written. Although it is quite possible that she had a direct knowledge of this poem, she is more likely to have used a moralized prose paraphrase of the Metamorphoses by the Benedictine Pierre Bersuire, who in his second edition, written at Paris in 1342, laid Legouais under contribution. Bersuire wrote in Latin, which language Christine certainly understood, and how soon his work appeared in French it is difficult to say. In the Berry Library there were three MSS. of the Metamorphoses apparently in vernacular prose,[[40]] any one, if not all, of which may have been Bersuire in a French version. There is also a French prose version in Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 17 E. iv. in company with the “Épître d’Othéa” itself, but the MS. is not earlier than the latter part of the 15th century. This version is closely connected with that printed at Bruges in 1484 by Colard Mansion, who supposed the original author to have been, not Bersuire, but Thomas Waleys or de Galles. The two are, however, not quite identical, and the former possibly represents an older version, which Mansion revised for printing. But whatever the particular form of Ovid’s Metamorphoses which Christine utilized, her naive interpretations of his mythological tales are no doubt largely her own. In this respect she was certainly not in advance of her age. In the usual euhemeristic fashion she regarded the classical deities and demigods as men and women who by the “prerogative of some grace” had raised themselves above their fellows and were for this reason accorded divine honours; or, on the other hand, they were mere inventions of the poets, who, for instance, by inverting the process by which the planets were named from the gods, made gods of the planets. A fair sample of her method may be seen in the story of Perseus (p. 15). This hero, whose name, by the way, our English translator changed into that of the better known Arthurian Sir Perceval, was a “moult vaillant chevalier,” his steed Pegasus was “bonne renommée” or fame, which carried his name into all lands, and his deliverance of Andromeda teaches the aspirant to knighthood the duty of relieving all women in distress. So much may be learnt from the “glose”; but in the “allégorie” Pegasus becomes the spiritual knight’s good angel, “qui fera bon rapport de lui au jour de jugement,” while Andromeda is his soul, which he frees from the power of the fiend.
With regard to the many personages and incidents from Trojan history introduced into the work, Christine’s authority was evidently a French prose romance which in a 15th century copy in the British Museum (Add. MS. 9,785) is entitled “La vraye ystoire de Troye.” Its origin has been traced in an instructive article by M. Paul Meyer entitled “Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne.”[[41]] It appears to be founded upon the well-known romance of Troy in French verse by Benoît de Ste. More and to have been composed before 1287, and it was employed, instead of Dares Phrygius as was previously the case, in the second edition of the compilation known as the “Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César.” There is, however, no reason to doubt that what Christine worked from was the “Vraye histoire” itself.
The third authority of which she habitually made use was of a different character, supplying her, not with mythological or legendary tales, but with moral maxims, one of which, as we have already remarked, she generally quoted at the end of each “glose.” These maxims are derived from a singular work known as “Dicta Philosophorum,” and consisting of long strings of apophthegms attached to the names of various ancient sages. They begin with Sedechias, of whom it is said “primus fuit per quem nutu Dei lex precepta fuit,” and besides Homer, Solon, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander of Macedon, and Ptolemy, they include Hermes Trismegistus and such strange and evidently corrupted names as Tac, Salquinus (or, as it is written in some MSS., Zaqualquin), Rabion (or Sabion), Assaron, Longinon, Magdarges, Texillus (or Thesillus) and others, some of which have a distinctly oriental appearance. The Arabic original in fact exists in a work written by Abu-’l-Wafá Mobasschir ibn-Fátik al Káïd, an emir of Egypt, in 1053.[[42]] Sedechias appears there as Adam’s son Seth, and some other of the above names may be dimly recognized in Sab, ancestor of the Sabæans, Lókman, Maháda Gis, and Basilius. From the heading of the Latin version in the MS. from which it has been published,[[43]] it seems that the work was first translated from Arabic into Greek, and then again from Greek into Latin, the last version being by John de Procida, famous for the prominent part he took in the revolution which freed Sicily from Charles of Anjou and the French in 1282. Christine de Pisan, however, apparently employed a popular French version made from the Latin for Charles VI. by one of his chamberlains, Guillaume de Tignonville, who was afterwards Provost of Paris (1401–1408) and died in 1414. As a copy of it at Paris was written in 1402,[[44]] it was certainly completed before then, and the probability is that it preceded the “Épître d’Othéa” by several years. It possesses a special interest from the fact that an English version of it had the honour of being the first book actually printed in this country. This was the famous Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophres, which Anthony Wydeville, second Earl Rivers, translated from a copy of De Tignonville’s work lent to him when he was going on a pilgrimage to Compostella in 1473, and which Caxton issued from his newly established press at Westminster in 1477.[[45]] Neither of them seems to have been aware that another English version was in existence, which dated from 1450.[[46]] This is still preserved in two MSS. in the British Museum, but has never been printed. The late 15th century copy in Add. MS. 34,193 (ff. 137–201) has the advantage of being complete, but it bears no evidence of origin, having neither title nor preface and ending merely with the words “Hic est finis libri moralium philosophorum.” Harley MS. 2,266, on the contrary, though it is mutilated at the beginning and elsewhere, fortunately has the following colophon:
“This boke byfore wretyn is callid in Frensh lettris Ditz de Philisophius and in Englysh for to sey the doctryne and þe wysedom of the wyse auncyent philysophers, as Arystotle, Plato, Socrates, Tholome and suche oþer, translatid out of laten in to frensh to (sc. for) kyng Charles the vite of Fraunse by Wyllyam Tyngnovyle, knyght, late provest of the cyte of Parys, and syth now late translatyd out of frensh tung in to englysh the yere of oure Lord mlccccl. to (sc. for) John Fostalf, knyght, for his contemplacion and solas by Stevyn Scrope, squyer, sonne in law to the seide Fostalle. Deo gracias.”