Christine de Pizan (1364/5-1430?) was, arguably, the first woman to support herself and her family as a professional writer and public intellectual. In recent decades, recognition of her importance for women's studies, political thought, art history, and literary criticism has prompted a boom in ""Christine studies."" Despite this proliferation of scholarly output, no manageable introduction to this important figure has appeared in more than a generation. Designed as an introduction for students as well as a convenient, one-volume resource for medievalists and specialists in related fields, this authoritative work is both concise and comprehensive. It includes a complete account of Christine de Pizan's life and times, summaries and commentary on all of her many works, and analyses of her sources and influences. This exhaustive yet accessible book is an essential reference for anyone interested in Christine studies, women's history, and late-medieval France.

The contributors to the present volume examine, from a wide variety of perspectives, the issues of war and peace in the Middle Ages and early modern time, probing the direction of the relevant discourse regarding the legitimacy and justification of military operations. Because man is a deeply aggressive and greedy creature, wars have been waged throughout times. Nevertheless, we can identify many voices in medieval literature, theology, philosophy, and in chronicle literature that questioned the validity and effectiveness of war, while many others argued for the traditional knightly ideals or called for crusades against the infidels. Those heroes who defend a people against an evil threat enjoyed profound respect, but there were also those figures calling for peace and the end of all fighting. As this volume demonstrates, war and peace have fundamentally determined medieval and early modern culture.

Christine de Pizan (1364/5-1430?) was, arguably, the first woman to support herself and her family as a professional writer and public intellectual. In recent decades, recognition of her importance for women's studies, political thought, art history, and literary criticism has prompted a boom in ""Christine studies."" Despite this proliferation of scholarly output, no manageable introduction to this important figure has appeared in more than a generation. Designed as an introduction for students as well as a convenient, one-volume resource for medievalists and specialists in related fields, this authoritative work is both concise and comprehensive. It includes a complete account of Christine de Pizan's life and times, summaries and commentary on all of her many works, and analyses of her sources and influences. This exhaustive yet accessible book is an essential reference for anyone interested in Christine studies, women's history, and late-medieval France. |Christine de Pizan (1364/5-1430?) was, arguably, the first woman to support herself and her family as a professional writer and public intellectual. In recent decades, recognition of her importance for women's studies, political thought, art history, and literary criticism has prompted a boom in ""Christine studies."" Despite this proliferation of scholarly output, no manageable introduction to this important figure has appeared in more than a generation. Designed as an introduction for students as well as a convenient, one-volume resource for medievalists and specialists in related fields, this authoritative work is both concise and comprehensive. It includes a complete account of Christine de Pizan's life and times, summaries and commentary on all of her many works, and analyses of her sources and influences. This exhaustive yet accessible book is an essential reference for anyone interested in Christine studies, women's history, and late-medieval France.

Christine de Pizan (ca. 1364-ca. 1430)-whether read as lyric poet, prose polemicist or historian, feminist or universal moralist-has over the past thirty years become more widely read than any other medieval French author. The attraction of her works continues to grow amongst the general public, as well as among critics and historians of literature, ideas, science and the visual arts, political scientists and philologists, and specialists in feminist theory. Christine intrigues readers by her intellectual paradoxes as much as by her prefiguration of modern attitudes by and toward women. This collection of essays honours Angus J. Kennedy, an illustrious scholar who has greatly contributed to fostering this modern growth in interest. The editors here present a significant sampling of varieties of inquiry on Christine: a broad range of contributors, from around the world, represent different approaches and levels of experience. The volume contains two indexes, and a bibliography structured to serve as an integrated and integral reference source to pertinent primary and secondary materials. This volume thus charts the progress of Christine de Pizan studies at the start of the new millennium. True to the spirit of its honoree, it also aims to serve as a gateway to future research.