7 Christine of Pizan Here beginneth the book of the city of ladies, the which book is divided into three parts. The first part telleth how and by whom the wall and the cloister about the city was made. The second part telleth how and by whom the city was builded within and peopled. The third part telleth how and by whom the high battlements of the towers were perfectly made, and what noble ladies were ordained to dwell in the high palaces and high dungeons.
C
hristine of Pizan (1364 – 1430; she died the year before Joan of Arc) was not British, she was French, but her seminal work of literature by, about and in support of women, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1405, was translated into English, as The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes and published in London in 1521, ‘in Paul’s churchyard at the sign of the Trinity by Henry Pepwell.’ Pepwell’s printers in St Paul’s Churchyard published many of the new humanist works along with works of mysticism. In its English version, Christine’s message was well-timed and found a more receptive audience in Tudor Reformation England where printed books in English were leading to greater levels of education among women and creating in turn an appetite for books addressing women in English – Tyndale’s English language New Testament reached England in 1526. 41
