SYMHC Classics: Christine de Pizan

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: SYMHC Classics – Christine de Pizan

Hosts: Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson
Release Date: January 25, 2025
Podcast: Stuff You Missed in History Class
Hosted by: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction to Christine de Pizan

In this special Saturday Classic episode, hosts Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the life and works of Christine de Pizan, a pioneering female writer of the late medieval period. Recognized not just as a writer, Christine was a versatile intellectual whose contributions spanned poetry, military manuals, biographies, and feminist literature.

Early Life and Education

Christine de Pizan was born in Venice, Italy, in 1364. Her father, Tommaso di Benvenuto di Pisano (Thomas of Pisan), was a government advisor and a professor. Shortly after her birth, the family relocated to the court of Charles V of France, where Thomas served as the king's medical advisor and astrologer.

"Growing up in the court of Charles V gave Christine and her siblings access to extensive libraries and numerous prominent scholars."
― Holly Fry [04:13]

Thomas was a humanist who ensured that all his children, including Christine, received the same education as his sons. By her early teens, Christine was well-read across various disciplines, which laid the foundation for her diverse literary endeavors.

Marriage and Widowhood

At around age 15, Christine married Etienne du Castel, a court notary who was about ten years her senior. Their marriage was described as happy, and Etienne encouraged Christine to continue her studies and writing after their union.

"Despite her youth and the significant age difference, Christine described her marriage as a very happy one."
― Tracy V. Wilson [05:00]

However, tragedy struck when Charles V died in 1380, and his son, Charles VI, ascended to the throne at just 11 years old. This led to political instability, and the family faced financial hardships following the deaths of both Christine's father and husband by 1390. Left a widow at 26 with children to support and entangled in complex legal disputes over inheritance, Christine made the bold decision to pursue writing as a means of livelihood.

Christine's Literary Career

Christine de Pizan was not merely a writer; she was an intellectual force who navigated a male-dominated literary world with remarkable skill and determination. Her writing career began in earnest as she sought commissions from the French nobility, leveraging her connections from the royal court.

"Her first commissions were short pieces for members of the French nobility, or she would dedicate a poem to someone who would then give her a gift as a gesture of thanks."
― Holly Fry [09:10]

Poetry and Early Works

Christine's early work included lyric poems and allegories, often reflecting her personal grief over her husband's death. In 1403, she compiled her poems into a collection titled "100 Ballades, Rondeaux, et Virelais". Additionally, she engaged in transcribing and illustrating manuscripts, demonstrating her multifaceted talents.

Letters of Cupid (1399)

In May 1399, Christine authored "Letters of Cupid", an 860-verse poem formatted as a letter to Cupid during a spring festival. This work featured women from various social strata describing the insults and degradations they faced, both from societal expectations and literary works like "Roman de la Rose".

"Letters of Cupid seems to have spawned a literary quarrel... written two years before the quarrel started in 1401."
― Holly Fry [11:18]

The Quarrel of the Rose

Christine's critique of the "Roman de la Rose", a popular medieval poem on love, ignited a significant literary debate known as the Quarrel of the Rose. She condemned the poem's bawdy and violent ending, particularly its negative portrayal of women.

"…this work should more fittingly be engulfed in a shroud of flame than crowned with laurel."
― Tracy V. Wilson [18:51]

Her opposition was met with support from figures like Jean Garcon, Chancellor of the University of Paris, and Jeanne de Montreuil, although the latter defended the original poem's controversial ending. This debate not only highlighted Christine's literary prowess but also her commitment to advocating for women's dignity and representation.

Book of the City of Ladies (1405)

Christine's most renowned work, "The Book of the City of Ladies", served as a comprehensive defense of women, countering widespread negative stereotypes. Presented as a dream allegory, the book features Christine building a symbolic city with the help of three virtuous women—Reason, Rectitude, and Justice.

"The Book of the City of Ladies was created intentionally to offer a positive portrayal of women and to offset widespread depictions of women as weak, deceptive, and immoral."
― Holly Fry [23:38]

In this work, Christine highlights notable women from history, mythology, and literature, advocating for equal education and recognition for women. It was a groundbreaking feminist text that laid the groundwork for future discussions on gender equality.

Treasure of the City of Ladies (1405)

Following her seminal work, Christine published "Treasure of the City of Ladies" (also known as "The Book of the Three Virtues"). This conduct manual offered advice on marriage, gender roles, and self-sufficiency, emphasizing women's ability to improve their lives within societal constraints.

"The Book of the Three Virtues is steeped in a sense of Christian virtue and piety, which likely offered Christine some protection as an outspoken advocate for women's rights."
― Tracy V. Wilson [26:17]

Book of Deeds and Arms of Chivalry (1410)

In 1410, Christine broke new ground by authoring the "Book of Deeds and Arms of Chivalry", a military manual that detailed tactics, strategy, and the ethical conduct of war. This work was so innovative that later editors attempted to obscure her authorship, attributing it to male writers instead.

"This was Christine's own original work, a product of her extensive study of history and strategy."
― Holly Fry [33:24]

The book addressed concepts of just war and the moral responsibilities of both soldiers and rulers, reflecting Christine's deep engagement with the political and military issues of her time.

Biography of Charles V and Work on Joan of Arc

Christine was commissioned by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to write a biography of his brother, Charles V. Additionally, in 1429, she authored the only contemporary work celebrating Joan of Arc, underscoring her ongoing commitment to notable female figures.

Advocacy for Women and Society

Throughout her extensive body of work, Christine de Pizan championed education for women, justice, and peace. She was strategic in her writings, often embedding her feminist ideals within the accepted literary forms of her time to mitigate backlash and broaden her influence.

"She advocated for girls to get the same education as their brothers and promoted integrity, honesty, and virtue among women."
― Tracy V. Wilson [24:06]

Her efforts not only provided a counter-narrative to misogynistic literature but also laid the intellectual foundations for future feminist movements.

Legacy and Conclusion

Christine de Pizan's prolific output—over 12 major works spanning more than 1,000 pages—established her as a formidable intellectual force in medieval Europe. Her strategic advocacy, combined with her literary talents, ensured that her contributions had a lasting impact on the portrayal and perception of women in literature and society.

"By the time Christine de Pizan wrote the Book of the City of Ladies, she had become well known enough that she was getting commissions for work that were well outside of those popular poetic forms."
― Tracy V. Wilson [31:31]

Christine retired to the convent in Poisy following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, where she continued to influence through her final work on Joan of Arc. She passed away around 1431, leaving behind a legacy of intellectual bravery and literary excellence.

"I find the whole idea of building a whole city where the ladies can find comfort and refuge to be very comforting, and I am glad that Christine did it."
― Tracy V. Wilson [36:37]

Christine de Pizan remains a beacon of early feminist thought and a testament to the enduring power of the written word in shaping societal values.

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Notable Quotes:

• Holly Fry [04:13]: "Growing up in the court of Charles V gave Christine and her siblings access to extensive libraries and numerous prominent scholars."
• Tracy V. Wilson [05:00]: "Despite her youth and the significant age difference, Christine described her marriage as a very happy one."
• Tracy V. Wilson [18:51]: "…this work should more fittingly be engulfed in a shroud of flame than crowned with laurel."
• Holly Fry [09:10]: "Her first commissions were short pieces for members of the French nobility, or she would dedicate a poem to someone who would then give her a gift as a gesture of thanks."
• Tracy V. Wilson [24:06]: "She advocated for girls to get the same education as their brothers and promoted integrity, honesty, and virtue among women."

Timestamp References:

• Early Life: [02:02] – [06:23]
• Literary Career: [07:43] – [34:08]
• Advocacy and Legacy: [34:42] – [36:51]

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Transcript

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. One of our previous episodes that got a very quick name drop in our most recent installment of Unearthed was Christine de Pizan, so I thought we would bring out our episode on her as today's Saturday Classic.

[Holly Fry]

This originally came out September 5th, 2018. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Christine De Pizan pretty much frequently summed up as a late medieval writer, but the word writer just does not encompass everything that she did at all. She wrote all kinds of verse. She wrote military manuals and treatises on war and peace and the just governance of a nation. She wrote an autobiography in the form of an allegory. She was the official biographer of King Charles V of France, and she wrote the only popular piece of writing that praised Joan of Arc. While Joan of Arc was still living. She also wrote the Book of the City of Ladies, which is a compilation of notable women from history, literature and mythology. That was one part of her very active participation in an ongoing debate in medieval France about the nature of women and their representation in history and literature, something we still discuss today. And until Christine got involved, this argument had mostly been or exclusively really been going on among men. So she was pretty great. We're going to talk about her today.

[Holly Fry]

Christine de Pizan was born in Venice, Italy, in 1364. Her father was Tommaso di Benvenuto di Pisano, or Thomas of Pisan, who was a government advisor and a professor there. And not long after Christine was born, though, he was appointed to the court of Charles V of France to serve as the king's medical advisor and astrologer, or his medical astrologer. These two things were pretty tightly connected at that point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When Christine was three or four, she and the rest of the family joined her father in France. Her father was a humanist and a highly educated man, and he made sure all of his children were educated. He gave Christine the same education that he gave to his sons.

[Holly Fry]

Growing up in the court of Charles V also gave Christine and her siblings access to extensive libraries and numerous prominent scholars. Charles V was nicknamed Charles the Wise, and he surrounded himself with cultured, educated people, and he assembled an incredible library at the Louvre. So by her early teens, Christine was well read and well educated, and the breadth of her reading was just incredible. It set her up to write about everything from love to military strategy. Later in her life, when she was.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

About 15, a marriage was arranged for Christine. It was to court notary Etienne du Castel, who was about 25. The same year that they got married, Etienne was appointed court secretary. In spite of her youth, when they got married and the difference in their ages, Christine described this marriage as a very happy one. They had three children together, two sons and a daughter, and Etienne encouraged Christine to continue her studies after she got married and became a mother.

[Holly Fry]

But things started going downhill for Christine and her previously happy family. In 1380, Charles V died of an abscess at the age of 42, and he was succeeded by his son, Charles VI. We actually did a podcast on Charles VI in August of 2017. He was the one who initially showed a lot of promise as a leader, but then developed cycles of terrifying and violent psychosis when he reached his early 20s.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When Charles V died, though, Charles VI was only 11. So his uncles were doing most of the actual rul and all the political back and forth in court. Christine's father lost his position. Etienne still had his post as secretary, but he was being paid a lot less. So the family fell into financial difficulty, and that was compounded when Christine's father died sometime in the late 1380s.

[Holly Fry]

Then Christine's husband died suddenly in 1390, possibly due to plague, while he was away from home on a mission for the crown. So at the age of 25 or 26, after 10 years of marriage, Christine was a widow with children to support. Because of her father's death, she also needed to support her elderly mother. And the family had taken in a niece as well.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It does appear that in all of this, Christine had inherited some property. She was entitled some of her late husband's salary as well. But actually getting any of this became this really complicated legal tangle. It was exacerbated by the fact that she was a woman, which made it a lot harder for her to advocate for herself in all of these matters. Was eventually resolved after about 15 years, but that did not help her at all in the meantime.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, 15 years is a long time to have financial struggles while you try to get what is due to you, right. That's a long time to to have to deal with that. Christine did have other family that she could have gone to live with or she could have remarried. Either of those would have been the typical course of action for a woman in her situation. But she didn't want to do that, in part because she was so heartbroken following the death of her husband. So she decided to try to earn a living as a writer.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Now, this is kind of a theme on the show. We've done a number of previous episodes about women who decided to earn a living by writing. This is because for big chunks of history, writing has been one of a very few available options for women from the more affluent social classes to try to earn their own money. At the same time, writing wasn't necessarily totally acceptable. And sometimes it was only possible while writing under the name of a man. But for a particular social class, it was one of a very, very few options.

[Holly Fry]

But There is a really big difference between Christine de Paizan and other women that we've talked about on the podcast who decided to earn their own money as writers. She lived before the invention of the printing press. There were multiple printing methods in use in Asia long before this, but in the West, Johann Gutenberg is credited with developing a press that used movable type sometime in the early to mid 1400s.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Christine died long before Gutenberg printed his Bible and long before the printing press revolutionized the way publishing worked in the West. So unlike the other women that we've talked about on the show who made their living by writing, she was not writing books to sell to the masses or through subscriptions. There wasn't a mass distribution method that was efficient at all. To sum it up, Christine de Pizan was going to try to make a living as a writer of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

[Holly Fry]

The very few people who earned a living writing at this point were doing so by writing commissioned works for wealthy patrons. It was virtually unheard of for a woman to go out seeking patrons, but Christine did. It definitely helped that she had so many connections, from having grown up connected to the royal court and from being the widow of a court secretary.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It also helped that she started out writing the kinds of pieces that were really popular at the time, including lyric poems and allegories. Love poems were especially popular, and Christine had a lot to draw from. She really channeled her grief over her husband's death into a lot of her early work. And she called her happier love poems written during this time, singing joyously with a sad heart.

[Holly Fry]

Her first commissions were short pieces for members of the French nobility, or she would dedicate a poem to someone who would then give her a gift as a gesture of thanks. In less than a year, her work was being passed around and read outside of France. By 1403, she had written enough poems to turn them into a collection. The that was 100 ballades viralais et rondeau, and those are three different poetic forms. She also made ends meet by doing transcriptions and illustrations of other people's work.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In May of 1399, while she was still writing the poems that would later become that first collection, she also wrote an 860 verse poem called the Letters of the God of Love, or the Letters of Cupid, written in the form of a letter to Cupid during a spring festival. Although sometimes it's translated as a letter from Cupid, there's a lot of variety in how people approach her work in translating it. In this work, women from a range of social classes, married and unmarried, describe a number of insults and degradations that they have experienced in their lives.

[Holly Fry]

And these insults and degradations are not just from knights and nobles and other real life men, or from the general expectations of society. They're from works of literature, including Roman de la Rose or the Romance of the Rose.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Roman de la Rose was a very long, incredibly popular and widely read poem about love, but according to the Letters of Cupid, was one of the things that was causing offense to women. The conclusion of this poem wasn't about love at all. It was about deception and unscrupulous men taking advantage of women's trust.

[Holly Fry]

Letters of Cupid seems to have spawned a literary quarrel, or if it didn't start that quarrel, it was at least written two years before the quarrel started in 1401. And we're going to get to that after we first pause for a little break from one of the sponsors that keeps us going.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

When Guillaume de Laurie started writing Roman de la Rose in the late 1230s. It was supposed to explore the whole art of love. A poem that was deeply connected to the traditional poetic forms and the themes of courtly love that were a huge part of medieval European literature. If you have read medieval European literature, you will recognize these things. This poem is a dream allegory that tells the story of a man in a walled garden who's trying to get to a rose. And that rose symbolizes love. Along the way he meets characters like beauty and generosity and honesty and chastity. He's also shot by Cupid's arrows, and the rose is given more and more protection. And those allegorical characters like beauty and generosity coach him in a very courtly way in the pursuit of love.

[Holly Fry]

Guillaume died around 1278, and about 40 years later, Jean de Meuin decided to add to the poem. And it's this additional material that was at the heart of the Quarrel of the Rose, written in a very bawdy, suggestive style. In Jean de Mohens edition, the narrator goes on a lengthy battle before calling on Venus, who represents carnal love, to set fire to the castle where the rose is being sheltered, and then pluck it. There is a lot of violence and deception involved and it is basically the opposite of the tone in the first part of the poem.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Jean de Meouin's ending to the Roman de la Rose was at the heart of a multi year literary quarrel among the French court. Two years after Christine de Pizan criticized it in her Letters of Cupid, another Jeanne, Jeanne de Montreuil, wrote an essay praising the bawdy, violent ending. So it's not a hundred percent clear whether he had read the Letters of Cupid. But she definitely made this point before he wrote his defense of this poem. The text of the essay has not survived until today. But concurring with his opinions were Gauntier Cole and his brother Pierre. Jean de Montreuil and Gauntier Cole were both secretaries to Charles vi and Pierre was the canon of Notre Dame.

[Holly Fry]

After reading this essay in 1401, Christine wrote Jean a lengthy letter taking apart all of his points. She pointed out not only the poem's graphic suggestive language and its violence and deception, but also the fact that a lot of the most negative allegorical characters were depicted as women. She made it very clear that she did not think that the second part of Romain de la Rose was worth the giant heaps of praise that he had given it in this essay.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Really, she did not pull any punches with this. Here is something she wrote in this Letter quote. It truly seems to me that in view of the aforementioned arguments and many others, this work should more fittingly be engulfed in a shroud of flame than crowned with laurel, even though you call it, quote, a mirror of the good life, an example to all classes for political self conduct and for living religiously and wisely. On the contrary, begging your pardon, I say that it is an exhortation to vice that encourages a dissolute life, a doctrine of deceit, a path to damnation, a purveyor of public defamation, a cause of suspicion and distrust, a source of shame to many people, and perhaps a seed of heresy.

[Holly Fry]

This led to a whole series of exchanged essays and letters with Jean Garcon, Chancellor of the University of Paris, taking Christine's side in the debate. Although a lot of the debate was about the poem's more graphic content and its treatment and depiction of women, it was also connected to overall concerns of poetic style and language and whether it was appropriate for a formal work of verse to include that kind of subject matter.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Christine's argument also connected to the idea that Jeanne de Muen had a responsibility as a writer with an audience, and that was a responsibility not to go sneaking a bunch of misogyny into a work under the trappings of formal poetry and courtly love. Christine also thought that writers should be creating work that would improve society, not make it worse. And they especially shouldn't be making society worse by using respectable poetic forms to degrade women. I feel like I have lived through this exact same argument on the Internet over and over for the last entire history of the Internet.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, that seems, that seems accurate to me. By the time this was all said and done, Christine had written almost as much on the subject as all of the other people involved combined. She wrote in a very self deprecating, self effacing way, and as with her other work, she wrote in Middle French while the men were writing in formal Latin. Her tone was often like, I know I'm only a woman and I'm not nearly so learned as you, sir, but I think I have some experience with this and here is why. The end of Romain de la Rose is sexist garbage deserving no praise at all. She also collated all the exchanged letters in 1402, and she delivered them to the Provost of Paris and Charles VI's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, asking for their support. She brought the receipts directly there.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She did. The Quarrel of the Rose also led to Christine writing her most famous work, the Book of the City of Ladies. Like Roman de La Rose. This is a dream allegory. It's one with Christine as a character. It begins with the character Christine studying, and she finds book after book, all of them written by men, describing women as wicked and full of vice. The character Christine finally becomes convinced. If so many great and educated men have written so many negative things about women, then surely those things must be true. She goes so far as to ask God how he could have made something as terrible as women, and to wish that she had instead been a man, since, according to all this literary evidence, in front of her, women were worthless and men were great.

[Holly Fry]

The character Christine is then visited by three ladies, Reason, rectitude, and justice, who offer her comfort and reassurance that all these things she has been reading against women are indeed false. They say that they have been charged with traveling the earth to help people get back on the right path. They charge Christine with building a city, quote, so that from now on, ladies and all valiant women may have a refuge and defense.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Christine and the three ladies go on to build a city together, along the way picking apart various attacks on women and pointing out hypocrisies like, for example, how Ovid's portrayal of women was degrading, but the man himself was a vain philanderer. And while building this city, Christine and the three ladies talk about a long list of mythical and historical women, including the Amazons, Zenobia, Sappho, and the biblical figures of Sarah, Rebecca and Ruth. The three ladies go on to tell Christine about queens and princesses and women scholars and poets. The book's third section is all about saints and other holy women, and they also talk over a lot of more general questions, like why there aren't women arguing in the courts of law, and whether a woman has ever, never invented anything new.

[Holly Fry]

The Book of the City of Ladies was a work of literature created intentionally to offer a positive portrayal of women and to offset widespread depictions of women as weak, deceptive, and immoral. To counteract depictions of women as deceptive and unfaithful, it offers examples of chastity, constancy, and faithfulness in love. To counteract depictions of women as deceptive and dishonest, it offers examples of integrity, honesty, and good.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It also points out in numerous places how there are fewer examples of women as scholars and leaders because women had fewer opportunities to get the education that they needed to become scholars or the experience they needed to become leaders. Among other things, the book explicitly advocates for girls to get the same education as their brothers.

[Holly Fry]

The Book of the City of Ladies wasn't the first book to compile the biographies of real and mythical women into one volume. Giovanni Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women was written about 30 years before that and was the only major work at the time to do so. Concerning Famous Women was one of Christine de Paizan's inspirations. But the Book of the City of Ladies was Europe's first book of this type to be written by a woman from a woman's perspective. Christine de Paizan took a copy of this book to Isabeau of Bavaria, just like she had to all of those letters.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There's an illustration of that encounter of Christine delivering her book to Isabel. In 1405, Christine wrote a follow up to the Book of the City of Ladies that was called the Treasure of the City of Ladies, also sometimes known as the Book of the Three Virtues. It's a conduct manual for women which in some ways is really conventional as the Book of the City of Lady was. When it comes to things like the treatment of marriage and gender roles. It assumes that marriage and motherhood are how the world works for women. And it advises women on how to get the best and most satisfying lives for themselves within that world.

[Holly Fry]

There is a lot about duty and virtue. But at the same time, the Book of the Three Virtues also points out that expectations placed on women were impossible to live up to. And rather than being framed as this is how you should conduct yourself because it's what God wants and what your husband expects, it's more like this is how you should conduct yourself to get the best possible place for yourself in the situation that you're in. It's more about women improving their quality of life than about women living up to social expectations. And there's also a lot of encouragement for women to be self sufficient, whether they are a widow pondering remarriage or a married woman considering how much of a role to play in the management of her household.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I read one description of this book as I was researching this that called it Machiavelli for medieval French women. Like Christine's other writing, the Book of Virtues is steeped in a sense of Christian virtue and piety. This probably offered her some protection as an incredibly outspoken woman who was pointing out and contradicting sexism and misogyny over and over and over again. That made it kind of hard to criticize what she was doing without also looking like you were criticizing Christian values. I mean, she did get criticism, but the this buffered it a little.

[Holly Fry]

Christine de Paizan didn't only address women in her writing about Conduct. Her moral Teachings was a collection of advice written in verse for her son, Jean du Castell, as he was leaving to go to England to be fostered. And she also wrote a lot of advice meant for kings and nobility, and we're going to talk more about that after a quick sponsor break.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Holly Fry]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Holly Fry]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Katherine Legge]

Ever wonder what it's like to be on the phone with an NFL general manager as you finalize the biggest contract in NFL history? I'm A.J. stephens, vice president of client strategy at Athletes first, where we've negotiated $1.4 billion in current NFL quarterback contracts. Introducing the Athletes first family podcast, the Quarterback Series, along with my co host Brian Murphy, Athlete's first CEO, we're pulling back the curtain on how these historic deals come together. You'll hear directly from the agents who shaped the NFL's financial landscape, the ones who negotiated Justin Herbert's extension and Deshaun Watson's fully guaranteed contract that sent shockwaves through the league. This isn't just about the numbers, though. It's about the untold stories behind these massive negotiations and the relationships that NFL superstars like Dak Prescott, Tua Tungavaloa, and Jordan Love have with their agents at Athletes First. For the first time ever, the agents who orchestrate these deals are sharing the details of the negotiations and everything that led up to their clients signing on the dotted line. Listen to the Athletes First Family podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mike Galura]

I started to live a double life when I was a teenager, responsible and driven and wild and out of control. My head is pounding. I'm confused. I don't know why I'm in jail. It's hard to understand what hope is when you're trapped in a cycle of addiction. Addiction took me to the darkest places. I had an AK47 pointed at my head. But one night, a new door opened and I made it into the rooms of recovery. The path would have roadblocks and detours, stalls and relapses. But when I was feeling the most lost, I found hope with community, and I made my way back. This season, join me on my journey through addiction and recovery. A story told in 12 steps. Listen to Crumbs as part of the Michael Luda Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bobby Bones]

Hey, you guys, I'm Katherine Legg. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet, and I've got a new podcast. It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm gearing up to make history, competing in some of the world's most notorious racing events, starting at the Indy 500. Join me as I travel from racetrack to racetrack in my quest to continue a memorable career in racing. I'm also going to bring you inside stories with legends of sports, new faces from the next generation of auto racing, and conversations with the people who supported me throughout my career. We'll be getting into everything from karting to nascar, even Formula one. Whether you dream about being a pro athlete or an astronaut, we're talking about what it takes to make it. Listen to Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legge, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lexi Brown]

Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

By the time Christine de Pizan wrote the Book of the City of Ladies, she had become well known enough that she was getting commissions for work that were well outside of those popular poetic forms that we talked about earlier. Philip, Duke of Burgundy, commissioned her to write a biography of his brother, Charles V, in whose court she had grown up. He made that commission in 1404.

[Holly Fry]

The hundred years War was going on during the entirety of Christine's life, and much of her work turned toward issues of war and peace. After the death of Philip The Bold in 1404, his son John, also known as John the Fearless, became the Duke of Burgundy, and his ongoing dispute with Louis, Duke of Orleans, prompted Christine to write to both of them to advocate for peace and to remind them to their duty to their people not to go to war at their expense. This, unfortunately, did not work. The Armagnac Burgundian Civil war started in 1407 and that lasted for almost 30 years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1410, she published a book on military leadership and tactics called the Book of Deeds and Arms of Chivalry. This was yet another totally unexpected thing for a woman to be doing, so much so that people thought she might have just copied an earlier military manual and other books of strategy to do it. A later editor even edited her name out of it and made it look like it was written by a man. But this was Christine's own original work. It was a product of her extensive study of history and strategy and tactics, and all of that extensive reading she had done in the court of Charles V. It covers all the military technology of the time, as well as tactics and strategy, and it makes a case that peace is preferable to war, but sometimes is only attainable through war. She fills out her discussion of all of this with examples from military history.

[Holly Fry]

She also walks through the idea of just war, a war fought to keep law and justice, to defend the people from injury or oppression, or to reclaim stolen land. The book discusses how the people fighting in the war should conduct themselves justly. And then, once the war was over, it was incumbent on the ruling class to rule the people in a just.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Way, in spite of the questions about whether Christine, who after all was a mere woman, had just copied this book from someone else. This book was translated into English and it became one of the first books printed in England. After William Caxton established a printing press in Westminster. He printed it as the Fate of Arms and chivalry in 1489.

[Holly Fry]

We haven't really touched on all of Christine's work because she was prolific. Between 1399 and about 1415, she wrote 12 major works totaling more than 1000 pages. She also worked directly with the scribes and illuminators who created the finished manuscripts of her work. Throughout, she was an advocate for women as well as for justice and for peace. She also paid careful attention to the need to improve the lives of the poor, while also trying to encourage a sense of charity among her readers, who were likely to be wealthy, since people in the lower class typically were not.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Literate outside of the world. Of her writing, she was also very savvy. She was invited to several royal courts outside of France, but she preferred to stay in her adopted homeland. And she also had to be very strategic to provide for her children in a world where money and family and political connections were extremely I mean, she was making the ends meet through all of her writing, but that's not the same thing as providing for the future of your children in this world. She had no dowry for her daughter, but was able to negotiate a place for her at the Royal Dominican Convent at Poissy, and as a companion to Charles VI's daughter Marie, she also negotiated for her son to be fostered with John Montague, the third Earl of Salisbury, with the hope of ensuring him a political future. This second part led to a whole complicated negotiation with King Henry IV to get her son back after John Montague was a co conspirator in an uprising against him, though, that's a whole huge drama of international intrigue in which she had this ongoing careful negotiation with a king to get her son to return to France.

[Holly Fry]

As we noted earlier, England and France were at war throughout Christine's entire life. The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 was a massive defeat for France, and not long afterward Christine joined her daughter at the convent in Poisy. She mostly stopped writing, at least for public view, around that same time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She did come out of retirement for one last work though. Christine's last known piece of writing was about Joan of Arc and it was written to honor her after the French victory at Orleans in 1429. Like we said at the top of the show, this is the only major work written to celebrate Joan of Arc during her lifetime, and we don't know.

[Holly Fry]

Exactly when Christine died, but it was sometime around 1431 in Poisy, France.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I find the whole idea of building a whole city where the ladies can find comfort and refuge to be very comforting, and I am glad that Christine did it.

[Holly Fry]

I want to make a joke, but I think it belittles things, so I'm going to refrain.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Okay, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Martin Luther King III]

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[Tech Stuff Host]

Want to see into the future? Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life? Do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human? On tech stuff, we travel from the mines of Congo to the surface of Mars, from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions about technology, from high tech to low culture and everywhere in between. Join Us Listen to tech stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lexi Brown]

I'm so sick of hearing men talk about women's basketball. This is Lexi Brown and Mariah Rose and we've got a new podcast, Full Circle. Every Wednesday. We're catching you up on what's going on in women's basketball. We've got you with analysis, inside stories, and a little bit of tea. Full circle is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to Full circle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to My Legacy. I'm Martin Luther King III and together.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

With my wife, Andrea Waters King, and.

[Martin Luther King III]

Our dear friends Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives.

[Mike Galura]

Join us for heartfelt conversations with remarkable guests like David Oyelo, Mel Robbins, Martin.

[Holly Fry]

Sheen, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Billy Porter.

[Katherine Legge]

Listen to my legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is my Legacy.