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Senior Honor's Thesis in the Department of History Sweet Briar College Defended and Approved 17 April 2006 The Politics of Virtue: Christine de Pizan's Gendered Body Politic and its Practical Applications Margaret E. Loebe Professor Lynn Laufenberg, Thesis Professor Tracy Professor Chapman Hamilton Andrew Walkling Project Faculty Advisor Date ' _ . Date Date Senior Honor's Thesis in the Department of History Sweet Briar College Defended and Approved The 1 7 April 2006 Politics of Virtue: Christine de Pizan's Gendered Body Politic and its Practical Applications Margaret E. Loebe Professor Lynn Laufenberg, Thesis Professor Tracy Professor Project Faculty Advisor Chapman Hamilton Andrew Walkling 8 LOEBE Table of Contents Introduction 2 Chapter I: 1 Chapter II: Chapter III: Virtue as a foundation of Christine's gendered pohtical theory The Queen's Power in the High and Late Middle Ages The Application of Political Theory to Politics 36 49 Conclusion 58 Works Cited 61 Appendix: Key Political Figures 66 LOEBE Medieval women are Because men had fathers. most commonly described however, scholars are finding that pawns of the this portrait apply, as can be seen in the case of the husbands and and economic power over them, legal, political frequently seen as having been the in relation to their two late men in their lives. women are More and more, of weakness and malleability does not medieval women discussed in this paper; Christine de Pizan (1365-1430), a fifteenth century writer, and Isabeau de Baviere (1370- 1435), the French queen in Had would have enjoyed. due it whcse court Christine wrote. not been for a confluence of circumstance, both Christine and Isabeau lived out their lives in the relative obscurity that Both clearly intelligent to the support of encouraged her and politically adept, they only and then absence of intellectual most of their husbands. their contemporaries became unusual figures Christine's husband and father study and early exposure to humanism. Their influence, along with Christine's early widowhood, prompted her writing career, which constitutes perhaps the first instance of a family through writing. woman in Western Europe supporting herself and her Similarly, the effective absence of Charles VI of the Valois (r. 1380-1422), caused Isabeau's unusual position. Charles empowered his wife's control of the French government in his stead. While it is difficult to say how much the royal court had over Christine's political theory, one can see how the influence Christine applied her political theory to the