CHAPTER II
WOMAN'S CAPACITY FOR SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS
In a curious old black-letter volume entitled The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes, published in England in 1521 by Henry Pepwell, occurs the following passage: "I mervayle gretely of the opynyon of some men that say they wolde in no wyse that theyr daughters or wyves or kynnes-women sholde lerne scyences, and that it sholde apayre theyr condycyons. This thing is not to say ne to sustayne. That the woman apayreth by conynge it is not well to beleve. As the proverb saythe, 'that nature gyveth may not be taken away.'"
The book from which this remarkable quotation is taken is a translation of Christine de Pisan's La Cité des Dames, which was written early in the fifteenth century. It is a capital defence against the slanderers of the gentler sex and an armory of arguments for all time against those men who declare that "women are fit for nothing but to bear children and spin." It shows conclusively that conynge—knowledge—far from tending to injure women's character—apayre theyr condycyons—as was asserted by Christine's antagonists, contributes, on the contrary, to elevate and ennoble them and to render them better mothers and more useful members of society.
Notwithstanding that it was written five hundred years ago, and notwithstanding its "antiquated allegorical dress and its quaint pre-Renaissance notions of history," it is in many of its aspects a surprisingly modern production. The line of argument adopted by the writer is virtually the same as that which is adopted to-day in the discussion of the same questions which are so ably treated in this long-forgotten book[89] and show that Christine de Pisan was in every way a worthy champion of her sex.
No woman of her time was more competent to discuss the capacity of her sex for science as well as for other intellectual pursuits than was this learned daughter of Italy. She was not only a woman of profound and varied knowledge, but was also, as stated in the preceding chapter, the first woman to earn her living by her pen. Besides writing The City of Ladies and more verses—mostly ballads and virelays—than are contained in the Divina Commedia, she was also the author of many other works on the most diverse subjects. She is best known to historians as the author of Livre des Fais et Bonnes Meurs du sage Roy Charles V, which is a graphic account of the court and policy of this monarch, and of the Livre des Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie. The latter work is not, as might be imagined from its title, a collection of tales of chivalry, but, incredible as it may seem, a profound and systematic treatise on military tactics and international law. It deals with "many topics of the highest policy, from the manners of a good general and the minutiæ of siege operations to the wager of battle, safe-conducts and letters of marque," and was deemed so important by Henry VII that at his expressed desire it was translated into English and published by Caxton under the title of The Boke of Fayettes of Armes and Chyvalrye. Even so late as the time of Henry VIII it was regarded as an authoritative manual on the topics treated.
So great, indeed, was the extent and variety of Christine's attainments, so thoroughly had she studied the Latin and Greek authors, sacred and profane, and so profound was her knowledge of all the subjects which she dealt with in her numerous books that "one cannot but feel a certain astonishment when one finds in a woman in the fourteenth century an erudition such as is hardly possessed by the most laborious of men."
When we read the eloquent plea which this learned woman of five centuries ago makes in behalf of her sex, when we note the examples she quotes of women "illumined of great sciences," and consider the arguments by which she demonstrated the capacity of women for all scientific pursuits, we can easily fancy that we are reading the brief of some modern exponent of the woman's rights movement and are almost disposed to believe that La Bruyière was right when he declared, Les anciens ont tout dit. For so cogent is Christine's reasoning and so thoroughly does she traverse her subject from every point of view that she has left later writers little to add to the controversy except matters of detail which were not available in her time.