Background

The Book of the Queen is a manuscript owned by the British Library. It is a collection of the major works by the medieval author Christine de Pizan (1365-1434). Although Italian by birth, she grew up in France. The picture above shows Christine lecturing to a group of men.

Selected pages from the manuscript are included in this blog. In order to view the entire work in a larger size (thus allowing for more detail) the entire manuscript is available at the following website under the images tab: http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/index.html

Political Thought

In addition, to being a writer of poetry and a defender of equality for women, one area that is sometimes overlooked is her thoughts on politics. She had personal contact with many of the major historical personalities of the time. They included kings, queens, and other prominent individuals. So, some of her writing involved her opinions on the political state of affairs in France. She reflected deeply on political life, including questions of legitimacy, authority, liberty, justice and rights (Forhan, p. 167, 2002).

Summary

Christine's accomplishments are considerable when you take into account that she did not begin to write until she was thirty-five years old (with shorter life expectancy this would have been considered middle age). Much of her energy, following her husband's death, was spent in educating herself. This was a necessity for enabling herself to write at the level she did. Her major works were written between 1400-1418. The Book of the Queen was produced towards the end of this time period in 1414. The manuscript was begun with a request by Queen Isabeau for "copies of all that she had written" (McLeod, p.136, 1976). Since this was a request by the Queen it was actually more of a royal command. It is very fortunate that the book was commissioned by the queen because it has enabled generations of book lovers, artists, and historians to appreciate both Christine as an exceptional woman and to display the talents of the craftsmen and artists personally involved in its production. When one takes into account all of the manuscripts lost through the years due to wars, religious disagreements, and ordinary ignorance, it is miraculous that this manuscript was able to survive.

What perhaps helped in the survival of the manuscript, given the setting of the Hundred Years' War between England and France (1337-1453), was the appreciation of her work in both the English and French royal circles. At one time she was even asked to join the English royal court(Henry IV of England sent ambassadors pleading with her to go and live at his court), though she would never have done so. Christine might have been Italian by birth, but she was very much a French nationalist.

Another gift that Christine gave future generations was her glimpses into the lives of women around 1400. They did not include solely the court circles she was familiar with, but they gave portraits of ordinary women whether they were a peasant, a servant, or even the wife of a merchant.

Christine's surviving son had three children, two sons and one daughter. Descendants of one of her grandsons became one of her modern biographers.

References

Avrin, L. (1991). Scribes, Script and Books The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Chicago: The American Library Association.

Brabant, M. (Ed.). (1992). Politics, Gender, and Genre The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan. Colorado: Westview Press.

British Library. Research project on The Book of the Queen manuscript (n.d.). Retrieved on March 1, 2010. Web site: http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/context.html

Brown, M.P. (1994). Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts A Guide to Technical Terms. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Dinshaw, C. & Wallace D.(Eds.).(2003). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Farber, A.S. (n.d.). Considering a Marginal Master: The Work of an Early Fifteenth Century Parisian Manuscript Decorator. Retrieved on March 5, 2010, from State University of New York College at Oneonta, Web site:
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth214_folder/Amaster_considering.html

Forhan, K.L. (2002). The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan. England: Ashgate Publishing.

Katz, B. (1995). Dahl's History of the Book. New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press.

Kilgour, F.G. (1998). The Evolution of the Book. New York: Oxford University Press.

McLeod, E. (1976). The Order of the Rose The Life and Ideas of Christine de Pizan. London: Chatto & Windus.

Pizan, C.D. (1982). The Book of the City of Ladies (E.J. Richards, Trans.). New York: Persea Books.

Willard, C.C. (1984). Christine de Pizan Her Life and Works. New York: Persea Books.

Ilumination

As evidenced by this and other manuscript pages, The Book of the Queen is beautifully illustrated and is a good example of the art of illumination. Although the gold has faded from its original state, it is still quite incredible. The intricacy of these border designs, miniatures, and initials are one of the reasons that many medieval manuscripts are such works of art.

One theory is that at least some of the artwork done in the manuscript was completed by a famous woman artist of the time period named Anastaise. In Christine's own words can be found her praise for the artist:

"... Regarding what you say about women expert in the art of painting, I know a woman today, named Anastaise, who is so learned and skilled in painting manuscript borders and miniature backgrounds that one cannot find an artisan in all the city of Paris -- where the best in the world are found -- who can surpass her, nor who can paint flowers and details as delicately as she does, nor whose work is more highly esteemed, no matter how rich or precious the book is. People cannot stop talking about her. And I know this from experience, for she has executed several things for me which stand out among the ornamental borders of the great masters" (Farber, n.d.).

The illuminations in The Book of the Queen are polychromatic illustrations versus the grisaille technique (painting in shades of brown or grey) used in Christine's earlier manuscripts. Obtaining the pigments used in illuminated manuscripts could be a complex task and the recipes for them were carefully guarded secrets handed down from a craftsman to his apprentice. Some of the most favored colors were red and blue, but gold was highly valued as well. For example, blue was originally from lapis lazuli, later it was extracted from plants like woad or indigo. Gold leaf was used in many illuminations and a single coin would be pounded by the craftsman to create the tissue thin gold leaf. Of course, gold was a very important part of the classic illuminated manuscript.

Scribes

There were probably several scribes who helped produce this manuscript (although without a colophon one can only notice the variations in the writing style). Christine supervised a scriptorium in Paris and these scribes were responsible for producing the work she did for patrons. However, she did act as scribe on some of her own work as well. The British Library website states that The Book of the Queen was copied by one or more scribes along with Christine herself.

In the Middle Ages scribes would be seated at a steeply sloped desk. This was necessary when using a quill pen (they work best when used at a right angle). It also prevented the hand of the scribe from resting on the parchment, thus preventing any smearing of wet ink. Before the scribe began writing he would often give the parchment a final rub with fine pumice, followed by smoothing of the surface with chalk.

Scribes would have their quill in one hand and in the other they would hold a knife. This knife was used for several functions. First, it was used to sharpen the quill pen, next it was used for erasing mistakes (this had to be done very quickly, before the ink had soaked in), and the final use was to hold down the parchment. A knife was also preferable to using a finger for holding down a page because there was no risk of grease from the scribe's skin. A professional scribe would write the text itself and the artists decorated the borders and painted the miniatures.

Rubrication

As can be seen in the top right column of this manuscript page, the rubric is written in red ink and appears to have been added in after the original writing. This is typical of rubrication and it generally follows the laying out and writing of the text (Brown, p.111,1994).

Red was frequently a part of the medieval manuscript. It was most typically used for headings, titles and initials, in addition to rubrics. The use of red ink goes back to the fifth century and continued until the fifteenth century. The invention of the printing press changed the customary use of red and black ink in medieval manuscripts.