A Medieval Woman's Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of Ladies

The extraordinary Book of the City of Ladies (Persea 1982) by the 15th-century French widow and professional writer is a didactic exchange between de Pizan and the virtues Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who urge her to construct a utopia for worthy women. This City of Ladies serves as a literary device for a revisionist history of Western civilization from the female perspective. In this companion classic--a pedagogical treatise that advises women on their role in society--the three allegorical interlocutors reappear, impelling the prefeminist de Pizan to explain to her contemporaries how they might develop those qualities that would qualify them for the visionary locale. As she addresses royalty, nobility, commoners, nuns, servants and prostitutes, de Pizan opens a rare window on medieval women's culture. She has harsh words for lazy, ostentatious clotheshorses but recommends ``justifiable hypocrisy'' to prevail over schemers; she demonstrates that while their position in society was a precarious one due to lack of civil rights for women and political instability, it was not unusual for women to responsibly rule large estates in males' absence or control their own vast inheritances. Cosman directs the Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at City University of New York. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)