ELIS SA: see DIDO.
ELIZABETH (Saint Elizabeth): cousin of the Virgin Mary and mother of John the Baptist. II.4.
EPHESUS: Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor. I.16, I.41.
EPHIGENIA: according to legend, Egyptian woman who became a follower of Saint Matthew and built a church in his honour. III.18.
ERYTHREA: see SIBYLS.
ESAU: son of Isaac and brother of Jacob in the Old Testament. II.39.
ESDRAS (Ezra): Hebrew prophet and leader. III.19.
ESTHER: (5th century BC) Old Testament Jewish heroine and wife of Ahasuerus. II.32.
ETEOCLES: elder son of Oedipus and Jocasta; brother of Polynices with whom he fought for control of the city of Thebes. II.17.
ETHIOPIA: ancient empire of eastern Africa, also known as Abyssinia. I.12, I.15, II.5, III.4.
EULALIA (Saint Eulalia): (4th century AD) virgin and martyr born in Merida and killed in Barcelona by the judge Dacian. III.8.
EUPHEMIA, SAINT: (4th century AD) virgin and martyr persecuted and killed in Chalcedon by Priscus, governor of Bithynia. III.8.
EUPHROSYNA (Saint Euphrosyna): (?5th century AD) according to legend, a virgin of Alexandria who disguised herself as a monk (Brother Smaragdus). Her story is probably based on that of Saint Pelagia of Jerusalem, a fourthcentury AD virgin and martyr. III.13. See also MARINA, SAINT.
EUROPA: daughter of King Agenor of Phoenicia; abducted by Jupiter, who had disguised himself as a bull. II.61.
EVANDER: son of Nicostrata and the god Hermes (Mercury). According to Roman legend, the first person to build a settlement on the site of the future city of Rome. II.5.
EVANGELISTS: the authors of the four Gospels, i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 1.29, III.18.
EVE: the first woman, created from one of Adam’s ribs; often cited by misogynist writers in the Middle Ages as the ultimate proof of women’s inherent sinfulness and disobedience. I.9.
FAITS DES ROMAINS: (c. 1213) anonymous French compilation of tales of exemplary deeds from Roman history in the period up to Caesar. Extremely popular source for writers in the later Middle Ages. II.67.
FAUSTA, SAINT: (d. early 4th century AD) a fourteen-year-old virgin tortured by the magistrate Evilasius at Cyzicus in Pontus during the persecution of Diocletian, not Maximian as Christine suggests. III.7.
FAYEL, DAME DE: tragic heroine of a late thirteenth-century French romance. II.60. See COUCY, CHTELAIN DE.
FELICITY (Saint Felicity): (2nd century AD) according to legend, a martyr who was persecuted and killed in Rome, along with her seven sons, by the prefect Publius. III.11.
FEMININIA, REALM OF: another name for Amazonia. II.12.
FERANT, SEÑOR: Catalan merchant who befriended Sagurat da Finoli (Decameron II, ix). II.52.
FLORENCE OF ROME: according to legend, empress of Rome wrongfully condemned to death by her husband. II.51.
FORTUNE: personification often used in medieval literature to symbolize the capricious nature of human affairs. I.19, I.20, I.32, I.34, I.46, I.47, II.58, II.59.
FOY, SAINT: (late 3rd to early 4th century AD) virgin and martyr who died in Agen during the persecution of Dacian. III.8.
FREDEGUNDE: (d. AD 597) wife of Chilperic I and mother of Clotar II. I.13, I.23.
GAIA CIRILLA (Tanaquil): (late 7th to early 6th century BC) wife of the Roman king Tarquinius Priscus. I.45.
GALATIANS: a Celtic people who invaded Macedonia in 279 BC. II.45. See also ORTIAGON.
GALBA (Servius Sulpicius Galba): (3 BC–AD 69) Roman emperor, one of the three whose reigns only lasted a few months each in AD 69. II.49. See also OTHO and VITELLIUS.
GALLIENUS (Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus): Roman emperor who reigned AD 253–68 and was a contemporary of Zenobia. I.20.
GENEVIEVE, SAINT: (c. AD 420–512) patron saint of France. II.35.
GENOA: northern Italian city on the Tyrrhenian coast. II.52.
GEORGICS: see VIRGIL.
GERMANICUS (Germanicus Julius Caesar): (15/16 BC–AD c. 19) Roman general and husband of Agrippina. II.18.
GHI SMONDA: daughter of Tancredi, Prince of Salerno (Decameron IV, i). II.59.
GIANNUCOLO: father of Griselda (Decameron X, x). II.11, II.50.
GOLDEN FLEECE: mythical ram guarded by a fierce dragon; object of the quest undertaken by Jason, leader of the Argonauts, at the behest of King Pelias of Iolcus who wanted to rid himself of Jason as legitimate heir to the Iolcan throne. I.32, II.24, II.56.
GORGON: I.34. See MEDUSA.
GREGORY, SAINT (Gregory the Great, Pope Gregory I): (c. AD 540–604) son of a senator, he became prefect of Rome and later pope, in AD 590. I.28, III.19. See also DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH.
GRISELDA: the long-suffering marchioness of Saluzzo (Decameron X, x). II.11, II.50, II.51.
GUALTIERI: marquis of Saluzzo and husband of Griselda (Decameron X, x). II.50.
GUESCLIN, BERTRAND DU: (c. 1320–80) Constable of France and famous knight during the Hundred Years War. Married to Jeanne of Laval, daughter of John of Laval, Lord of Châtillon, and Isabeau of Tinteniac, in 1374. II.22.
GUISCARDO: courtier to the prince of Salerno and lover of Ghismonda (Decameron IV, i). II.59.
HALICARNASSUS: Greek coastal city and capital of Caria; reputed to be one of the most spectacular cities in the ancient world. I.21.
HAMAN: (5th century BC) chief minister of Ahasuerus and would-be persecutor of the Jews. II.32.
HANNIBAL: (born 247 BC) Carthaginian general who attacked Rome in 218 BC. II.67. See also CANNAE.
HECTOR: son of Priam and Hecuba and husband of Andromache; greatest of the Trojan heroes during the war with Greece. I.19, II.5, II.28.
HECUBA: wife of Priam and queen of Troy. I.19.
HELEN (Helen of Troy): beautiful wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Her abduction by the Trojan prince Paris caused the war between Greece and Troy. II.61.
HELEN, QUEEN OF ADIABENE: (1st century AD) ruler of the district of the two Zab rivers in northern Mesopotamia, Assyria; converted to Judaism and went to live in Jerusalem. III.18.
HELLESPONT: narrow strait dividing Europe from Asia, at the point where the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara meet the Aegean; i.e. the modern Dardanelles. II.1, II.58.
HELLESPONTINA: see SIBYLS.
HERCULES: greatest of the Greek heroes and companion of Theseus; husband of Deianira. I.18, I.41, I.46, II.60.
HERO: beautiful priestess of Aphrodite at Sestus, on the opposite side of the Hellespont from Abydos, home of her lover Leander. II.58.
HEROD: (3rd century AD) son of Odenaethus and stepson of Zenobia. I.20.
HEROD ANTIPATER: (c. 73–4 BC) king of the Jews and governor of Galilee; husband of Mariamme. Christine mistakenly refers to him by the name of his father: he is traditionally known as Herod the Great. II.42.
HEROPHILE: see SIBYLS.
HIPPOLYTA: a queen of the Amazons who married Theseus. I.18.
HIPPOLYTUS: son of Hippolyta and Theseus. I.18.
HOLLAND, DUCHESS OF, AND COUNTESS OF HAINAULT (Marguerite of Burgundy): daughter of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and Marguerite, Countess of Flanders. Sister of John the Fearless and wife of William VI of Bavaria, who became duke of Holland in 1404. II.68.
HOLOFERNES: general of the Assyrian army who besieged the Jews and was killed by the Old Testament widow Judith. II.31.
HOMER: date uncertain. Greek poet traditionally regarded as the father of the epic; author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I.29, II.1.
HORACE (Quintus Horatius Flaccus): (65–8 BC) Roman poet famous for his Odes, Satires and a treatise known as On the Art of Poetry. I.30.
HORTENSIA: Roman noblewoman and daughter of Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. In 42 BC, she pleaded successfully against the Triumvirate’s proposal to levy a special tax on the property of wealthy women. II.36.
HYPPO: according to Christine, who follows Boccaccio, a Greek woman captured by pirates who drowned herself rather than be raped. II.46.
HYPS
ICRATEA: (2nd century BC) wife of Mithradates Eupator and queen of Pontus. II.13, II.14, II.15.
HYPS IPYLE: daughter of Thoas, King of Lemnos, who became queen after her father was deposed. II.9.
IDMONIUS OF COLOPHON: father of Arachne. I.39.
ILIUM: name of the citadel of Troy. II.1.
INACHOS: river-god and ancestor of the kings of Argos; father of Io (see ISIS). I.36.
INDIA, KING OF: according to legend, ruler who commissioned Saint Thomas to build a palace. I.7.
IRENE: (?2nd century BC) according to Christine, who follows Boccaccio, a Greek painter and pupil of the artist Cratinus. I.41.
IRENE (Saint Irene): (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.
ISAAC: son of Abraham and an Old Testament patriarch. Husband of Rebecca and father of Jacob. II.39.
ISABEAU OF BAVARIA: (c. 1370–1435) Bavarian princess married to Charles VI, King of France, in 1385. II.68.
ISIS: Christine follows classical mythology in conflating two different characters: Isis, an Egyptian goddess and an important deity in the Roman world, who married her brother Osiris (Apis); and Io, daughter of Inachos, who was a priestess of Hera at Argos. Zeus fell in love with Io and turned her into a cow to protect her from Hera’s jealousy. I.36, I.38.
ISOLDE: tragic heroine of a legend, first popularized in French in the twelfth century, whose doomed passion for Tristan, nephew of her husband, King Mark of Cornwall, leads to the lovers’ deaths. II.60. See TRISTAN.
JACOB: son of Isaac and brother of Esau; an Old Testament patriarch. II.39.
JASON: prince of Thessaly and leader of the Argonauts. Conqueror of the Golden Fleece and lover of Medea. I.32, II.24, II.56.
JEAN DE MEUN: (1235/40–1305) learned clerk who translated many Latin texts. Best known as the author of the continuation of Guillaume de Lorris’s Romance of the Rose. One of Christine’s main targets in her critique of misogynist writers. See her Letters on the Romance of the Rose. II.25.
JEANNE (of Evreux): (d. 1371) third wife of King Charles IV of France. She was married in 1325 and widowed two years later. I.13.
JEZEBEL: apostate queen of Israel who incited her husband Ahab to worship the idol Baal and who persecuted the Old Testament prophet Elijah. II.49.
JOACHIM: rich Jew of Babylon and husband of Susanna. II.37.
JOCASTA: wife of King Laius of Thebes and mother of Oedipus, whom she later unwittingly married after he had killed his father. Their two sons were Eteocles and Polynices. II.61.
JOHN, COUNT OF CLERMONT: (1381–1434) son of Louis II of Bourbon and Anne of Auvergne; husband of Marie of Berry. II.68.
JOHN, DUKE OF BERRY: (1340–1416) son of John II of France and Bonne of Luxembourg; married to Jeanne of Armagnac in 1360 and then to Jeanne of Boulogne and Auvergne in 1389. Important patron of the arts. II.68.
JOHN, DUKE OF BURGUNDY (John the Fearless): (1371–1419) son of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; an important patron of Christine. II.68.
JOHN, KING OF FRANCE (John II, The Good): (1319–64) married to Bonne of Luxembourg in 1332. Christine erroneously implies that he, not his father, Philip VI, was the husband of Blanche of Navarre. I.13.
JOHN, SAINT (The Evangelist): (1st century AD) one of the Apostles and author of the Fourth Gospel. Traditionally also the author of the Book of Revelation which he wrote during his exile on the Greek island of Patmos during the persecution of the Emperor Domitian. III.18.
JONAH: Old Testament prophet who was called upon by God to go to Nineveh and preach repentance. II.53.
JUDAS (Iscariot): apostle who betrayed Jesus. II.49.
JUDITH: Jewish heroine who delivered her people by killing the Assyrian general Holofernes. II.31, II.32.
JULIA: (c. 73–55 BC) daughter of Julius Caesar and Cornelia; married to Pompey in 59 BC and died in childbirth, not in grief at her husband’s supposed death as Christine suggests. II.19, II.28.
JULIA: (39 BC–AD 14) daughter of Octavian; third wife of Marcus Agrippa, whom she married in 21 BC; mother of Agrippina. II.18.
JULIAN: judge traditionally thought to have tormented Saint Christine. III.10.
JULIAN THE APOSTATE (Flavius Claudius Julianus): Roman emperor who reigned AD 361–3, called the Apostate because he renounced Christianity and attempted to restore the pagan gods. II.49.
JULIAN, SAINT: (d. ?early 4th century AD) husband of Basilissa. III.18.
JULITTA (Saint Julitta): (d. early 4th century AD) mother of Saint Cyricus, with whom she was traditionally thought to have been martyred in Tarsus. III.11.
JULIUS CAESAR (Gaius Julius Caesar): (c. 100–44 BC) Roman patrician, general and statesman; husband of Cornelia. After his defeat of Pompey, he became dictator, not emperor as Christine states. Later assassinated by Brutus and Cassius. II.19, II.25, II.28, II.49.
JULIUS SILVIUS (Silvius): son of Aeneas and Lavinia. I.48.
JUNO: early Italian goddess originally associated with women and childbirth; later identified in mythology with Hera, Greek goddess of the sky and wife of Zeus. II.61.
JUPITER: originally the Italian sky-god associated with rain, storms and thunder; later identified in mythology with the Greek god Zeus; husband and brother of Juno. I.15, I.36, I.41, I.46, I.47, II.42, II.61, III.10.
JUSTICE: third of the three Virtues who visit Christine. I.6, and Part III, passim.
JUSTIN: (6th century AD) eastern Roman emperor and adoptive uncle of Justinian. II.6.
JUSTINE, SAINT: (d. early 4th century AD) according to legend, virgin of Antioch who became an abbess. Traditionally thought to have been martyred in Nicomedia during the persecution of Diocletian. III.8.
JUSTINIAN (Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus): (AD 527–65) imperial bodyguard later chosen as the successor of the Emperor Justin; husband of Antonia. II.6, II.29.
LACEDAEMONIA: name of the Peloponnesian region ruled by the city of Sparta. Christine uses it as a synonym for Sparta itself. I.21, II.24, II.61.
LAMPHETO: a queen of the Amazons. I.16.
LATINUS: king of Latium, husband of Queen Amata and father of Lavinia. I.48.
LAURENTINES: ancient people of Italy who inhabited the coast of Latium. I.48.
LAVINIA: daughter of King Latinus; she was originally betrothed to Turnus but later given in marriage to Aeneas. I.48.
LEAENA: (6th century BC) Greek courtesan and mistress of Harmodius who, with his accomplice Aristogiton, planned to assassinate the Athenian tyrant Hippias and his younger brother Hipparchus. II.53.
LEANDER: youth of Abydos in love with Hero. II.58.
LEDA: wife of Tyndareos, King of Sparta, and mother of Helen of Troy. According to legend, it was the god Zeus, disguised as a swan, who courted and impregnated her. II.61.
LEMNOS: island in the Aegean between Mount Athos and the Hellespont. II.9.
LENTULUS CRUSCELLIO (Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus): (1st century BC) Roman praetor proscribed by the Triumvirate after 43 BC; husband of Sulpicia. II.23.
LEOCHARES: (4th century BC) sculptor who worked on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. II.16.
LEONTIUM: (3rd century BC) Greek scholar who took issue with the philosopher Theophrastus. Christine does not mention that Leontium was reputed to be a harlot. I.30.
LETTER OF OTHEA TO HECTOR: see CHRISTINE.
LETTER OF THE GOD OF LOVE: see CHRISTINE.
LETTER OF VALERIUS TO RUFFINUS: (c. 1180) Latin tirade against marriage, inspired by Theophrastus, which comes from the De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers’ Trifles) of Walter Map (1140–c. 1209), a member of the court of Henry II of England and later archdeacon of Oxford. As it was written under the pseudonym of Valerius, the text was frequently attributed in the Middle Ages to Valerius Maximus. II.13.
LETTERS ON THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE: see CHRISTINE.
LEUCATIUS: (4th century AD) Roman prefect who courted Saint Theodota. III.15.
LIBICA: see SIBYL
S.
LIBYA: traditionally, the coastal land west of Egypt, but often in the ancient and medieval worlds taken to represent the continent of Africa in its entirety. II.1.
LILIA: (5th century AD) mother of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. I.22.
LI SABETTA: girl from Messina whose brothers killed her lover (Decameron IV, v). II.60.
LOMBARDY: province of northern Italy. II.46, II.52.
LONGINUS (Cassius Longinus): (c. AD 213–73) eminent Greek rhetorician and philosopher who was a counsellor to Zenobia and her husband Odenaethus. I.20.
LORENZO: lover of Lisabetta (Decameron IV, v). II.60.
LOT: nephew of Abraham who settled in Sodom and was spared, along with his daughters, when the city was destroyed by God. II.53.
LOUIS, DUKE OF ORLEANS: (1372–1407) son of King Charles V of France; married to Valentina Visconti in 1389. An important patron of Christine. II.68.
LOUIS OF BAVARIA (Louis the Bearded): (c. 1368–1447) brother of Isabeau of Bavaria, Queen of France. Married first to Anne of Bourbon in 1402 and then to Catherine of Alençon in 1413. II.68.
LOUIS, SAINT (Louis IX): (1214–70) crusader-king of France who came to the throne as a child in 1226 under the regency of his mother, Blanche of Castile. Canonized in 1297. I.13, II.65.
LUCIUS VITELLIUS: (1st century AD) Roman consul, not emperor as Christine, following Boccaccio, erroneously states. Husband of Triaria and father of the Emperor Vitellius. II.15.
LUCRETIA: (6th century BC) wife of Tarquinius Collatinus. According to legend, she was raped by Sextus, son of Tarquin the Proud, and subsequently committed suicide. II.44, II.64.
LUCY, SAINT (Luceja): of doubtful existence and date unknown. According to legend, a Roman virgin and martyr who converted Aucejas, her barbarian captor. III.5.
LUCY, SAINT: (d. early 4th century AD) virgin and martyr killed in Syracuse during the persecution of Diocletian. III.7.
MACEDONIANS: inhabitants of mountainous country situated between the Balkans and the Greek peninsula, whose most famous ruler was Alexander the Great. I.41.
MACRA (Saint Macra): (d. 3rd century AD) virgin and martyr whose body was traditionally thought to have been buried near Rheims. III.8.
The Book of the City of Ladies Page 34
