The Book of the City of Ladies

by Christine Pizan

  BARTHOLOMEW, SAINT: (1st century AD) one of the Apostles, traditionally thought to have been martyred by being flayed alive. II.62.

  BASILISSA (Saint Basilissa): (?4th century AD) Egyptian noblewoman chastely married to Saint Julian. Both are of doubtful existence but were thought to have been martyred. III.18.

  BASINE: (5th century AD) wife of the Merovingian king Childeric I and mother of Clovis. II.5.

  BELISARIUS: (AD 500–565) bodyguard and general of the Emperor Justinian; husband of Antonia. Defeated Gelimer, king of the Vandals, in AD 533–4. II.29.

  BELUS: Phoenician king of Tyre and father of Dido. I.46.

  BENEDICTA, SAINT: (?3rd century AD) daughter of a Roman senator. Instrumental in spreading Christianity, she was thought to have been martyred by her own father in Origny, France. III.7.

  BERENICE: Christine follows Boccaccio in conflating two different characters: Laodice, the second-century BC sister of Mithradates Eupator, King of Pontus, who was married first to Ariarathes VI, King of Cappadocia, and then to Nicomedes, King of Bithynia; and Berenice, the third-century BC daughter of Ptolemy II, King of Egypt, and wife of Antiochus II, ruler of the Seleucid empire in Asia Minor. I.25.

  BERNABO THE GENOESE: Lombard merchant (Decameron II, ix). II.52.

  BERRY, DUCHESS OF (Jeanne of Boulogne and Auvergne): (d. 1423/4) second wife of John, Duke of Berry, whom she married in 1389. An important patron of the arts. II.68.

  BLANCHE (of Castile): (1188–1252) daughter of Alphonse VIII of Castile and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Married to King Louis VIII of France in 1200 and became regent in 1226 during the minority of her son, the future Saint Louis (Louis IX). I.13, II.65.

  BLANCHE (of Navarre): (d. 1398) daughter of Count Philip of Evreux, King of Navarre, and Jeanne of France. Married King Philip VI of France in 1349, not King John II as Christine erroneously states. I.13.

  BLANDINA (Saint Blandina): (2nd century AD) slave converted to Christianity; thought to have been martyred in Lyons during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius. III.11.

  BOCCACCIO (Giovanni Boccaccio): (1313–75) famous Tuscan author whose Latin text De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning Famous Women) (c. 1375) was one of Christine’s main sources for the City of Ladies, though she never cites it by name. She may have read this text in an early fifteenth-century French translation, known as the Des Cleres et Nobles Femmes. I.28, I.29, I.30, I.34, I.37, I.39, I.41, II.2, II.14, II.15, II.16, II.17, II.19, II.36, II.43, II.52, II.59, II.60, II.63.

  — Decameron: (c. 1350) Italian prose work comprising a hundred stories told by ten different narrators over ten days. II.52, II.59, II.60.

  BOLOGNA: large town in northern Italy. II.50.

  BOOK OF THE MUTATION OF FORTUNE: see CHRISTINE.

  BOURBON, DUCHESS OF (Anne of Auvergne): (d. after 1416) married to Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, in 1371. II.68.

  BOURBON, DUKE OF (Louis II): (1337–1410) husband of Anne of Auvergne and father of John of Clermont. II.68.

  BRUNHILDE: (c. AD 545/50–613) Visigoth princess and wife of the Merovingian king Sigibert of Metz. She later married her own nephew, Merovech, the son of Sigibert’s brother, Chilperic I. II.49.

  BRUTUS (Marcus Junius Brutus): (c. 85–42 BC) Roman statesman and republican; principal assassin of Julius Caesar; husband of Portia. II.25, II.28.

  BRYAXIS: (4th century BC) sculptor who worked on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. II.16.

  BUCOLICS: see VIRGIL.

  BURGUNDY, DUCHESS OF (Marguerite of Bavaria): (d. 1423) daughter of Albert of Bavaria, Count of Hainault; married to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, in 1385. Both she and her husband were important patrons of Christine. II.68.

  BUSA (PAULINA): a rich woman of Apulia, southern Italy, who gave shelter to the Roman army after the defeat at Cannae. II.67.

  BYRSA: name of the citadel of Carthage. I.46.

  CADMUS: Phoenician founder and first king of the city of Thebes in the Boeotian region of Greece. I.4.

  CAMILLA: warrior-maiden and daughter of Metabus, king of the Volscians; appears in the Aeneid, where she fights like an Amazon and is finally killed by a cowardly archer, Arruns. I.24.

  CAMPANIA: region near Naples from which the Italian nobleman came who was briefly married to Ghismonda (Decameron IV, i). II.1, II.59.

  CANAAN: biblical name for Palestine. The king of Canaan from whom Deborah freed the Jews was called Jabin. I.10, II.4.

  CANDLEMAS: (2 February) traditional name for the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, now known as the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple. So-called because when the prophet Sime on recognized Christ as the Saviour, he referred to him as a light sent to illuminate the Gentiles. II.4. See also SIMEON.

  CANNAE: village in Apulia and site of Hannibal’s victory over the Romans in 216 BC. II.67.

  CAPPADOCIA: region of Asia Minor. I.25, III.9.

  CARIA: mountainous region of south-west Asia Minor, the ancient capital of which was Halicarnassus. I.21, II.16.

  CARMENTIS: see NICOSTRATA.

  CARTHAGE, CARTHAGINIANS: Phoenician colony and its people on the coast of north-east Tunisia, traditionally thought to have been founded by Dido, which later became a Roman colony. I.46, II.54, II.55, II.61.

  CASSANDRA: prophetess, daughter of Priam and Hecuba of Troy. II.5.

  CASSIUS (Gaius Cassius Longinus): (1st century BC) Roman military leader who took part in the assassination of Julius Caesar. II.25.

  CASTALIA: spring situated on Mount Parnassus, near Delphi; sacred haunt of Apollo and the Muses. I.30.

  CATANIA: large town near the eastern coast of Sicily. III.7.

  CATEGORIES: see ARISTOTLE.

  CATHERINE, SAINT: (d. ?early 4th century AD) virgin and martyr, traditionally thought to have been persecuted by the Emperor Maxentius, whose cult flourished from the ninth century. One of the most popular saints in the Middle Ages. III.3.

  CATO (THE ELDER) (Marcius Porcius Cato): (234–149 BC) Roman orator and censor who was thought in the Middle Ages to be the author of a collection of moral sayings. I.9.

  CATO UTICENSIS (THE YOUNGER) (Marcius Porcius Cato): (95–46 BC) Roman statesman and father of Portia; great-grandson of Cato the Elder, not his nephew, as Christine erroneously states. I.10, II.25.

  CATULLA: according to legend, pious Parisian matron who buried the bodies of Saint Denis and his companions after their martyrdom by Decius. II.35.

  CECILIA, SAINT: (?3rd century AD) according to legend, virgin and martyr of Rome whose husband and brother-in-law were also martyred along with her. Her cult flourished from the fifth century and she became one of the most popular saints in the Middle Ages. III.9.

  CERES: ancient Italo-Roman corn-goddess whose daughter, Proserpina, was kidnapped by and then married to Pluto, god of the underworld. I.35, I.38, I.39.

  CHALDAEANS: inhabitants of a region of Babylonia on the Persian Gulf who were famed for their knowledge of astrology. I.31.

  CHAMPAGNE, COUNT OF (Thibaut IV): (1201–53) king of Navarre and a trouvère (lyric poet). Traditionally thought to have been an ardent admirer of Blanche of Castile, mother of Saint Louis. II.65.

  CHARLES OF BLOIS, SAINT, DUKE OF BRITTANY: (c. 1319–64) younger son of Guy of Châtillon, Count of Blois, and Marguerite of Valois, sister of King Philip VI. Married to Jeanne, Countess of Penthièvre in 1337; father of Marie, Duchess of Anjou. Although Christine refers to him as a saint, he was not officially canonized, despite his reputation for piety and sanctity. I.13.

  CHARLES IV (The Fair): (1294–1328) king of France and youngest son of Philip IV. Married three times: to Blanche of Artois (marriage annulled in 1322 following an adultery scandal); Marie of Luxembourg (d. 1324); and Jeanne of Evreux in 1325. I.13.

  CHARLES V (THE WISE): (1338–80) son of John II and Bonne of Luxembourg; king of France who reigned 1364–80. Important patron of the arts and sciences who invited Christine’s father Tommaso da Pizzano to his court. Subject of a biography, Le Livre des Fais et des Bonnes Meurs du Sage Roy Charles V (T
he Book of the Deeds and Good Character of King Charles V the Wise), commissioned from Christine by his brother Philip the Bold, which she completed in 1404. Held up as the epitome of the good king in all of Christine’s political works. I.36, II.67, II.68.

  CHTELET: ancient fortress in Paris which served as a prison in the Middle Ages. II.67.

  CHILDERIC (Childeric I): (c. AD 436–82) Merovingian king of France; husband of Basine and father of Clovis. II.5.

  CHILPERIC (Chilperic I): (c. AD 537–84) king of the Franks and husband of Fredegunde. I.13, I.23.

  CHIONIA (Saint Chionia): (d. early 4th century AD) virgin and martyr, companion of Saint Anastasia; one of three sisters who were killed in Thessalonica during the persecution of Diocletian. III.14.

  CHRISTINE (de Pizan): (c. 1364–1430) author and narrator of the City of Ladies, passim.

  — The Letter of Othea to Hector: (c. 1400) courtesy book written for a young knight in the form of a commentary on episodes from classical mythology. I.17, I.36.

  — The Letter of the God of Love: (1399) narrative poem attacking clerks and knights who slander women. II.47, II.54.

  — Letters on the Romance of the Rose: (c. 1400–1402) correspondence about Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose exchanged between Christine and members of the royal chancellery, Jean de Montreuil, Gontier and Pierre Col, who defended the text against her claim that it was immoral, obscene and anti-feminist. II.54.

  — The Book of the Mutation of Fortune: (completed 1403) allegorical poem accounting for the role of Fortune throughout human history. I.17.

  CHRISTINE, SAINT: Christine de Pizan follows tradition in conflating two martyrs of the same name: a Phoenician virgin from Tyre, of doubtful existence and date unknown; and a fourth-century AD Italian virgin from Bolsena in Tuscany. III.9, III.10.

  CHRYSOGONUS, SAINT: (d. ?early 4th century AD) martyr of Aquileia, Italy, and spiritual guide of Saint Anastasia; traditionally thought to have been killed during the persecution of Diocletian. III.14.

  CICERO (Marcus Tullius Cicero): (106–43 BC) Roman statesman, orator, philosopher and poet. An important authority on rhetoric for medieval writers. I.9.

  CIMERIA: see SIBYLS.

  CIRCE: sorceress, daughter of the sun-god Helios and the ocean-nymph Perse. I.32.

  CLAUDIA (Claudia Antonia): (1st century AD) daughter of Claudius I and Aelia Paetina. Her husband, Faustus Cornelius Sulla, was killed by Nero. II.48.

  CLAUDIA (Claudia Quinta): (3rd century BC) Roman woman famed for her chastity during the period of the Second Punic War. II.63.

  CLAUDINE: (2nd century BC) daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, a Roman consul. II.10.

  CLAUDIUS (Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus): (5th century BC) Roman consul and decemvir who attempted to rape the maiden Virginia. II.46.

  CLAUDIUS (Marcus Aurelius Claudius II Gothicus): Roman emperor who reigned AD 268–70 and was a contemporary of Zenobia. I.20.

  CLAUDIUS (Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus): (10 BC–AD 54) ineffectual and unpredictable Roman emperor. II.47.

  CLERMONT, COUNTESS OF (Marie of Berry): (d. 1434) daughter of John, Duke of Berry, by his first wife, Jeanne of Armagnac. Married to John, Count of Clermont, in 1400. II.68.

  CLOELIA: (end 6th century BC) Roman girl given as hostage to Lars Porsenna, king of the Etruscan city of Clusium. I.26.

  CLOTAR (Clotar II): (AD 584–629) son of Queen Fredegunde and King Chilperic. I.13, I.23.

  CLOTILDE (Saint Clotilde): (5th to 6th century AD) daughter of Chilperic, King of Burgundy, and wife of Clovis. II.35.

  CLOVIS (Clovis I): (c. AD 466–511) Merovingian king who founded the kingdom of the Franks; the first Christian king of France. II.35.

  COËMEN, COUNTESS OF: according to Christine, a beautiful lady of Brittany who was renowned for her devotion to her husband. II.20.

  COLCHIS: country at eastern end of the Black Sea, bounded on the north by the Caucasus. According to legend, home of Medea and the Golden Fleece. I.32, II.24, II.56.

  CONSTANTINE I (Flavius Valerius Constantinus): (AD 272/3–337) Roman emperor who established Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire. II.49, III.18.

  CONSTANTINOPLE: city founded by Constantine I on the site of Byzantium in AD 324. I.22, II.6, III.18.

  CORIOLANS: Volscian inhabitants of the ancient town of Corioli in Latium. II.34.

  CORIOLANUS: see MARCIUS.

  CORNELIA: (1st century BC) daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, a Roman consul; wife of Julius Caesar and mother of Julia. II.19.

  CORNELIA: daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, a Roman consul; married first to Publius Licinius Crassus in 55 BC and then to Pompey in 52 BC. She accompanied Pompey to Egypt after he was defeated at Pharsalus by Julius Caesar in 48 BC. II.28.

  CORNIFICIA: (1st century BC) well-educated daughter of Quintus Cornificius, the orator and poet who was a friend of Cicero. I.28.

  CORNIFICIUS: (1st century BC) Roman orator and poet; brother of Cornificia. I.28.

  COSTUS: (?4th century AD) king of Alexandria and father of Saint Catherine. III.3.

  COUCY, CHTELAIN DE (Guy de Thourotte): (d. 1203) early trouvère who died whilst on crusade. Immortalized as a great tragic lover by the late thirteenth-century French author Jakemes in the Roman du Castelain de Coucy et de la Dame de Fayel. II.60.

  CRATINUS: (2nd century BC) botanist, physician and painter; traditionally thought to have been the teacher of Irene. His correct name is Crateuas. I.41.

  CREON: king of Thebes after the deaths of Eteocles and Polynices. II.17.

  CUMAE: earliest Greek colony on the Italian mainland, situated c. 20 km north-east of Naples; home of the Cumaean Sibyl. II.1.

  CUMANA: see SIBYLS.

  CURIA (Turia): (1st century BC) virtuous and devoted wife of Quintus Lucretius Vespillo. II.26.

  CYPRIAN (Saint Cyprian): (d. ?early 4th century AD) according to legend, necromancer from Antioch who was converted by Saint Justine and became a bishop. Traditionally thought to have been martyred in Nicomedia during the persecution of Diocletian. III.8.

  CYRICUS (Saint Cyricus): (d. ?early 4th century AD) son of Saint Julitta, traditionally thought to have been martyred with his mother at Tarsus. III.11.

  CYRUS (The Great): (6th century BC) founder of the Persian empire. I.17, II.1.

  DAGOBERT (Dagobert I): (AD 608–38/9) son of Clotar II; Merovingian king of Austrasia who later became king of Neustria and Burgundy. Founded the church of Saint Denis in Paris c. AD 624. II.35.

  DAMASCUS, FIELDS OF: according to Christine, who follows Boccaccio, the place from which God took the clay to make the body of Adam. This detail is not found in Genesis. I.9.

  DANIEL: one of the five major prophets of the Old Testament. II.37.

  DARIUS (Darius III): (4th century BC) king of Persia and father of Barsine (Stateira), Alexander the Great’s wife. II.29.

  DAVID: the second Old Testament king of Israel and a prophet. Traditionally venerated as the author of the Psalms. II.40, III.19.

  DEBORAH: Old Testament prophetess and a judge of Israel. II.4, II.32.

  DECAMERON: see BOCCACCIO.

  DEIANIRA: wife of Hercules. According to legend, she unwittingly poisoned her husband by giving him a shirt soaked with the blood of a centaur, Nessus, whom he had killed for trying to abduct her. Nessus had claimed that the shirt would act as a love charm to win back her husband if he was ever unfaithful to her. II.60.

  DEIPHEBE: see SIBYLS.

  DELPHI: city south of Mount Parnassus famed for its oracle dedicated to the god Apollo. II.1.

  DELPHICA: see SIBYLS.

  DENIS (Dionysius I): (c. 430–367 BC) brutal and ruthless tyrant of Sicily. II.49.

  DENIS, SAINT: (3rd century AD) patron saint of France. Bishop of Paris who was beheaded during the persecution of Decius. His cult flourished from the late fifth century. II.35.

  DIANA: Italian goddess originally associated with woods and the moon; later identified in mythology with the Gr
eek goddess Artemis, the virgin-huntress. I.41.

  DIDO (ELISSA): Phoenician princess who founded the city of Carthage and who later fell tragically in love with the Trojan prince Aeneas. I.46, II.54, II.55.

  DIOCLETIAN (Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus): Roman emperor who reigned AD 284–305; persecutor of Christians. III.14.

  DIOMEDES: king of Argos and Greek hero in the Trojan war. On his return to Greece, his companions were turned into birds by Venus, not by Circe, as Christine implies. I.32.

  DIONYSIUS: (1st century BC) according to Christine, who follows Boccaccio, a famous painter who was a contemporary of Marcia. I.41.

  DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH: the great theologians of the early Church, four Greek and four Latin. The latter group, to which Christine is probably referring here, comprised Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great and Jerome. I.2.

  DOROTHY, SAINT: (d. early 4th century AD) virgin and martyr traditionally thought to have been martyred in Caesarea, Cappadocia, during the persecution of Diocletian. III.9.

  DRUS IANA: lady of Ephesus who, according to legend, sheltered Saint John the Evangelist in her house and was later raised by him from the dead. III.18.

  DRUSUS TIBERIUS: (38 BC–AD 9) Roman general and husband of Antonia. Younger brother of the Emperor Tiberius, not Nero, as Christine erroneously suggests. She also confuses his name with that of his brother Tiberius: his correct name is Nero Claudius Drusus. II.43.

  DRYPETINA: (2nd century BC) daughter of Mithradates Eupator; queen of Laodicea in Asia Minor. II.8.

  DULCITIUS: according to legend, Roman prefect who tried to seduce the three sisters Agape, Chionia and Irene. III.14.

  DYON: judge traditionally thought to have tormented Saint Christine. III.10.

  EARTHLY PARADI SE: the Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve were expelled after the Fall. I.9.

  ELAGABALUS (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus): Roman emperor who reigned AD 218–22; cousin of the Emperor Alexander who persecuted Saint Martina. III.6.

  ELEUTHERIUS, SAINT: (3rd century AD) deacon and companion of Saint Denis in Paris who was beheaded during the persecution of Decius. II.35.