Perhaps due to its seemingly straightforward religious nature, the Second Nun's Cecelia Legend in The Canterbury Tales is often dismissed by scholars and readers alike. However, through analyzing Chaucer's earlier analogues, it becomes apparent that Chaucer has left out key pieces of the Life of Saint Cecelia. These omissions can be explained as attempts to illustrate the humanistic beliefs of both St. Augustine and Christine de Pizan. Further, the etymology of key words which appear in the "Second Nun's Prologue and Tale" help to reinforce the satire which Chaucer creates. Chaucer has deleted the humanism from the Saint Cecelia Legend in order to illustrate the potential for the corruption of female virtue.

Sept manuscrits du Chemin de longue étude produits par Christine de Pizan, poète et productrice de manuscrits, nous donnent un texte standardisé et des images variées. Une étude de la place et de la nature de ces miniatures offre une compréhension de leurs rôles dans un œuvre du genre de songe. Par le moyen d’un examen systématique, nous cherchons la fonction et la signification de ces miniatures représentant des lieux courtois. Comprenant les miniatures de présentation, une image des Influences et Destins et celles de la Cour de Raison céleste, cet ensemble est rempli d’éléments symboliques. Dans cette thèse, nous cherchons la signification de ces éléments, soit héraldiques soit personnels, et des idées de l’auteur transmises par les deux supports, l’écrit et le visuel. Leur réception dépend, en partie, d’une connaissance de leur contexte historique, et les six derniers siècles peuvent limiter la compréhension actuelle des intentions de Christine. Seven manuscripts of the poem Le Chemin de Longue Étude, written and produced by Christine de Pizan, provide a combination of standardized text and varied imagery. Within this corpus, miniatures relating to courtly settings are systematically examined to determine their function and their significance. A study of the placement and nature of miniatures allows an understanding of their roles in a work of the dream-vision genre. Presentation miniatures are examined, as well as images relating to the Influences and Destinies and to the celestial Court of Reason. These miniatures are rich in representational elements including heraldic and personal symbols, and this thesis examines possible meanings intended for Christine’s audience through both written and visual media. Comprehension is gained, in part, by understanding the historical context of the production of the manuscripts, and the intervening six centuries may limit a full understanding to current readers and viewers. / Graduate

A limited variable editioned artist book, by measure of depicts an allegorical conversation between medieval author Christine de Pizan and a contemporary woman. It is, in essence, an exploration of edges in which the characters examine the parameters of identity, both personally and societally designated–how to define/re-define/emphasize/blur them, and what happens in the space where they meet.

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and discuss the relationship between the images and texts concerning Amazons and warrior-women in the collected works of Christine de Pizan. It evaluates Christine's interpretation of the ancient story in light of her career as an author and publisher, and it compares her imagery to other representations of Amazons and warrior-women. This study indicates that Christine reworked the myth in a way that reflects her positive of women and her desire to influence the queen of France, Isabeau de Baviere, who was the original owner of the manuscript.

This thesis focuses on the ways in which cloth and clothwork are represented in Old French romance in order to highlight how they relate to feminine voice, expression, and identity. By focusing mainly on medieval romance from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the field of research is narrowed to a period in which vernacular literature was redefining literacy. On the basis that literacy is not confined to the ability to read and write in Latin, clothwork is presented as a medium of literate expression, that being a form of readable knowledge or communication not codified in written word or language, and in the works of such authors as Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, and Jean Renart, amongst others, the presentation of clothwork fits this classification. My research focuses on gendered performance and gendered objects highlighting the divide between masculinity and femininity in materiality. Beginning with a contextualised and historical understanding of feminine clothwork, authority, and gendered biases in the Middle Ages in France, the Virgin Mary's associations with clothwork leads into an exploration of how the identities of women are tied to the cloth that they work or possess. From this basis, feminine voice in clothwork comes to the forefront of discussion as seemingly inaudible women make themselves heard through the use of needles and thread, telling their stories in cloth and tapestry. Throughout this study, an exploration of mother-daughter relationships is highly significant to the comprehension of feminine education and tradition in clothwork. The chansons de toile included in Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart underline the dichotomy and tension between oral and written culture, tying feminine voice to feminine clothwork and exploring the representation of this in the written text. Finally, Christine de Pizan's intimation of the importance of feminine tasks and brilliance concludes this study in order to better understand the ways in which the literature of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance departs from the medieval presentation of clothwork as a typically feminine activity underlying and encapsulating a woman's identity and expressive power.

Although the works of Christine de Pizan have been of interest to scholars for some time, technological advances and initiatives to make digital copies of manuscripts available online have only recently enabled close comparisons between the visual programmes of her works to be made. This thesis demonstrates that detail usually considered secondary or 'paratextual' in Christine's manuscripts actually formed a carefully-constructed part of the work itself that Christine explicitly asks her audience to read. Through 'reading' the text and image simultaneously, the visual programme proves to comprise additional layers of meaning that were woven into her didactic works. These meanings can serve to supplement the educational and moral aims of the works, or, conversely, can be inconsistent with the message conveyed in the text, leading the reader-viewer to contemplate further on the matters presented and form their own opinions on them. Sometimes, meaning is created by intervisual connections with pre-existing iconography, such that viewers may be creating associations between the miniatures seen in Christine's manuscripts and other imagery, leading them to make certain associations - this is notably the case in author-portraits of Christine. As manuscripts prepared under the author's supervision came to be copied, changes were made to the iconographic programmes, testifying to and enabling different types of readings to take place. The findings of this thesis have implications for editorial practices of medieval works in general, as these tend to circulate in editions without the visual programme, providing modern readers with only a partial view of the complete work.

The modern nation-state is the product of a gradual process in which the religiously concerned medieval political and ecclesiastical synthesis became more secular and centralized. Mirroring this external institutional development, the theoretical conception of the state changed from one of a natural organic unity of diverse corporate members to a consent-based compact among atomized individuals. This change can be traced in the Body Politic metaphor of four authors: John of Salisbury, Christine de Pizan, Johannes Althusius, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In this project, I argue that the Body Politic metaphor, particularly the inclusion or exclusion of a soul of the Body Politic, is uniquely appropriate for capturing the complexity of political life in general across differing levels of aggregation and for elucidating the political and religious commitments of the authors who employ it, as they critique their own contemporary political and religious institutions and describe their ideal societies. In the conclusion, I suggest that the loss of a strongly organic conception of the state has denied modern society and political theory a well established means for incorporating corporate entities and for explaining the existence of the modern nation-state in any kind of transcendental moral context, thus the lost soul of the Body Politic.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-03-03Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:07:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 assis_rfs_me_fran.pdf: 723653 bytes, checksum: 358c5a7dff4655ae2e11c2484cb75d39 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / À la fin du Moyen Âge, ont été formules des écris pédagogiques qui ont établi des normalisations de comportements pour une bonne gouvernance en plusieurs royaumes de l’Europe. Ces écris sont les connus Miroirs du Prince, traités normatifs dirigés spécifiquement aux gouvernants. La France, en spécial entre le XIVème et XVème siècles, a été un des plus importants scénario de cette modalité d’écriture, justement parce que Charles V, pendant son règne (1364-1380), a favorisé la présence d’innobrable gens de lettres dans sa cour et a stimulé cette production normative. Ainsi, la proposition de ce travail cherche à percevoir comment les hommes de cette période-là ont pensé le pouvoir et ont contribué pour le construire dans les modèles qu’ils croyaient idéaux. Donnés ses objectifs de reformuler toute la Chrétienté et de formuler l’image du prince à partir des mémoires du royaume de la France, les ouvrages de Philippe de Mézières (1327-1405), Le Songe du Vieil Pelerin, et de Christine de Pisan (1363-1430), Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, ont été prises comme base dans cette étude. Les deux auteurs pour avoir eu vécu et servi dans la cour du référé monarque, ils ont fait l’usage de leurs expériences et de l’héritage ancien et chrétien pour mettre en relief le rôle des rois dans la conduite du royaume et pour tracer les voies pour les pratiques politiques / No final da Idade Média, foram formulados escritos pedagógicos que estabeleceram normas de conduta para uma boa governação em muitos dos reinos da Europa. Estes escritos são os conhecidos Espelhos de Príncipe, tratados normativos dirigidos especificamente aos governantes. A França, em especial entre os séculos XIV e XV, foi um dos mais importantes palcos dessa modalidade de escrita, justamente por Carlos V, durante seu reinado (1364- 1380), ter favorecido a presença de inúmeros letrados na sua corte e ter estimulado esta produção normativa. Assim, a proposta deste trabalho gira em torno de perceber como os homens desse período pensaram o poder e contribuíram para construí-lo dentro dos moldes que julgavam ideais. Dados seus objetivos de reformar toda a Cristandade e de formular a imagem do príncipe a partir das memórias do reino da França, as obras de Philippe de Mézières (1327-1405), Le Songe du Vieil Pelerin, e de Christine de Pisan (1363-1430), Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, foram tomadas como base no presente estudo. Ambos os autores, por terem vivido e servido na corte do referido monarca, fizeram uso de suas experiências e dedicaram-se a destacar o papel dos reis na condução do reino e a traçar novos rumos para as práticas políticas

This thesis will posit that a query of the medieval trope, Fortune, can be read as a query into femininity. Fortune is depicted with many quintessentially medieval feminine traits, and women in texts that discuss Fortune often have Fortune's traits. While texts that link Fortune and femininity usually do so to censure women, some writers turned the trope to their advantage for just the opposite purpose. Both Chaucer in the "Monk's Tale" and Christine de Pizan personify Fortune to subtly point out the flaws in antifeminist medieval view of women. This thesis explores the ways in which these writers cleverly took advantage of genre and characterization to use Fortune to defend women and womanhood.