Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France

In Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France, Tracy Adams offers a reevaluation of Christine de Pizan’s literary engagement with contemporary politics. Adams locates Christine’s works within a detailed narrative of the complex history of the dispute between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, the two largest political factions in fifteenth-century France. Contrary to what many scholars have long believed, Christine consistently supported the Armagnac faction throughout her literary career and maintained strong ties to Louis of Orleans and Isabeau of Bavaria. By focusing on the historical context of the Armagnac-Burgundian feud at different moments and offering close readings of Christine’s poetry and prose, Adams shows the ways in which the writer was closely engaged with and influenced the volatile politics of her time.

“This book makes a valuable contribution to Christine studies and related fields in its convincing presentation of many exhilarating ideas and approaches to familiar but underquestioned material while introducing new sources. The careful notes, bibliography, and detailed index are all attractively produced. A pleasure to read, it is highly recommended for levels ranging from undergraduates to specialists in French history and literature.”—Nadia Margolis, Renaissance Quarterly, “This clear and thorough narrative of Christine's engagement with the conflict will be of value to historians and literary scholars alike.”—Charlotte E. Cooper, French Studies, “A short review does not do justice to the significance of this work. Adams successfully situates (’rehistoricizes’) a multifaceted literary figure into an extraordinarily complex period in French history, and does so with clarity and sensitivity, providing a most helpful and stimulating resource for scholars and students.”—Kate L. Forhan, American Historical Review, “This book is very much one to keep at one’s elbow in any undertaking concerned with the closing phases of the Hundred Years War; it compels the reader to consider alternate ways of thinking. Adams’s latest contribution to the field will appeal to Christinian scholars and others interested in French history, the politics and literature of political crisis, rumour and propaganda, monarchy, queenship, gender and gendered discourse.”—Zita Eva Rohr, Gender & History, “[Tracy] Adams has given us a sophisticated presentation that in turn happily gives us a much more complex Christine, but one that could be more complex still by integrating the political Christine back into the humanist and poet Christine. Readers, nonetheless, will find much in this little volume of value that integrates Christine’s writings into her fraught and troubled world, and shows us how integrated this world was with Christine’s mind.”—Gary W. Jenkins, Sixteenth Century Journal

Tracy Adams is Associate Professor of French at the University of Auckland.