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Date Created
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2024
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Contributor
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Pizan, de Christine
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Description
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My crafted object is a handsewn bag that depicts the instruments held by the allegorical characters Reason, Rectitude, and Justice as they guide Pizan through the construction of the City of Ladies and the corresponding deconstruction of the misogynistic teachings of male authorship. I first drew my design on standard printing paper, transferred it to a sheet of fabric, and spent many hours embroidering the symbols onto the bag. The mirror itself is crafted out of the shattered remains of a handheld cosmetic mirror that I clipped and embroidered into place. I then used a quill pen and pot of ink to hand-write the names of the 45 women who are raped or manipulated in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Written in 1353, it is a text that Pizan frequently cites in her work. This object thus highlights the importance of both deconstructing patriarchal conventions and recognizing the abuse of women in literary history.
The term "Philomel" comes from Philomela, a female figure in Greek mythology who turned to handicrafts as a means of regaining her voice after it had been taken from her. Instead of being silenced after Tereus—her sister’s husband—raped her and removed her tongue so that she was unable to speak, Philomela weaved an intricate tapestry that depicted exactly what he had done to her. She delivered this tapestry to her sister, who then sought revenge for Philomela, which in turn resulted in Philomela being transformed into a nightingale, or a “Philomel,” as they are often referred to in literature and poetry. Philomela’s story is symbolic of women who have been, or still are, unable to tell their stories, and is representative of the significance of women’s voices and the many ways that their voices can be reclaimed—handicrafts being one such means.
CARLY GOODMAN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:
In Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, the character Christine struggles with the conflict between the belief that “women [are] inclined to and full of every vice” (Pizan 5) and her lived experience as a woman. Appearing to her shortly after she has finished this lament, three allegorical figures recruit Christine in building the City of Ladies, a sanctuary for women where they will be defended from the criticisms of men. My final crafted object is a handsewn and embroidered pouch that depicts the instruments that Reason, Rectitude, and Justice hold in their right hands: a mirror, a ruler, and a chalice. Reason, the first of the ladies to both introduce herself to and instruct Christine, holds a mirror. She describes how her purpose is to “show both in thought and in deed to each man and woman his or her own special qualities and faults” (Pizan 9). Rectitude describes her instrument as “the straight ruler which separates right from wrong and shows the difference between good and evil” (13) and is embroidered subtly by the bottom right corner of Justice’s chalice. Justice describes her object as a “vessel of fine gold” through which she will “teach men and women of sound mind … to do to others what they wish to have done to themselves … to speak the truth … to reject all viciousness" (14).
Spilling out from the bag is a sheet of brown wrapping paper on which I have written the names of the 45 women who are raped and/or manipulated in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Written in 1353, The Decameron is a collection of 100 short stories that Boccaccio wrote to provide women with “distractions” (Boccaccio 29) from the difficult things that they might experience in their lives. Despite this claim to help and support women, 45/100 of Boccaccio’s stories depict assault in some manner. I’ve chosen to depict their names because Pizan frequently cites Bocaccio in her text, a decision that appears contradictory to her purpose given that The Book of the City of Ladies notably condemns both rape and the depiction of women that Boccaccio perpetuates. I speculate that Pizan’s decision to cite Boccaccio is due to the literary authority and acclaim that he possessed as a male writer, something that Pizan likely needed in order to add authority to her own voice as a female author.
The physical process of embroidery was simultaneously gratifying and painful. I found satisfaction in the push and pull of the needle through the fabric and enjoyed the challenge of finding the right depth of stitches and colour of thread. Each element of the embroidery demanded attention and conscious thought, each choice that I made regarding its construction was deliberate yet a complete shot in the dark. I had never tried embroidery before, and this project demanded trial and error. The push and pull of the needle turned into forcing the needle backwards into the fabric to remove stitches that had gone wrong, agonizing over threading thick embroidery thread through the tiny allowance of the needle, and pricking my fingers on the raw edges of the mirror. The progress of this project was not linear, an aspect that reminded me in a roundabout way of Christine’s process of healing from and unlearning patriarchal conventions and harmful misogynistic stereotypes. Throughout the text, Christine asks the allegorical ladies questions about the stories they’ve told her, imploring them to explain how if one thing is so widely said about women, then how can what they’re telling her be true? She asks them to clarify and offer examples, her attempt at deconstructing her learned experience taking them back occasionally to things the ladies have previously explained. Her learning, in The Book of the City of Ladies, is not without struggle and effort.
Embroidery and similar needlework practices are historically women-dominated handicrafts, and, during the early to late middle ages, when Pizan was alive, such handicrafts were a means of accessing power. While needlework was practiced by women across social classes, much historically significant embroidery was produced by nobility. Queens and noble women were expected to produce rich and detailed textiles for their husbands that would be presented to outside parties as symbols of allegiance and peace, or “generosity and piety” (Diener 2). The skill and detail of one of these gifts could make the difference between wartime and peacetime, and the gifts of one queen during this period served to assure “residents … that the days of bloodshed were in the past,” establishing a positive repertoire between the people and their new king (12). Similarly, there is evidence in Europe that many “important embroideries were made in convents” (Young 1), as higher class women who remained unmarried were often sent to live as nuns. These women would send textiles to monks and priests that served to both forge and bolster friendships between “religious foundations” (Diener 2). Each textile produced by either a noblewoman or a nun held “gravity” (3), and queens specifically often had groups of women within their households to assist them in the production of such textiles. Embroidery for women was also a means of establishing a social reputation and protecting themselves; during the 12th century, communities of women who relied on the support of “male monasteries to survive” (19) created spiritual friendships and allegiances through their handicrafts. However, in the 17th century, the mindset regarding embroidery shifted from understanding it as a tool of power to considering it a means of women’s oppression; women were told to “stick to thy lace,” “burn your pens … and purchase wool,” and “darn your stockings” (King 2) rather than engage in the art of writing, for example. In modern days, feminist activists and groups of women have used embroidery as a critique against the oppressive domestic sphere, using embroidery not as a means of female subjugation but as a “resistance to male domination” (Emery 1) and a way to honour the importance of handicrafts in women’s history.
Pizan herself benefitted from a noble and privileged upbringing. Her father, Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano, was a municipal counselor who advocated for her education and encouraged her interest in literature (Pizan xix). After the death of her father and her husband, Pizan turned to writing for financial support (Malcolmson 2) and often wrote under the sponsorship of patrons and patronesses, making her written work largely intended for noble audiences. Her manuscripts were often beautifully illuminated, the production of which Pizan oversaw herself, making her “one of the first vernacular authors who supervised the copying and illuminating of her own books” (Pizan xxi). In 1402, Pizan wrote and published “Le dit de la rose,” a direct response to Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris’s text Le Roman de la Rose—a medieval poem that Pizan criticized for depicting misogynistic stereotypes of women. Such a response was received within the literary discussion of the “querelle des femmes” or “the woman question” (Pizan xiii), a popular literary debate regarding the “nature and status of women” (Malcolmson 4). For some, this discussion represented the voice of literate women who felt oppressed by misogynistic culture but who “were empowered by it at the same time to speak out in their defense” (Kelly 2). Originally published in France in 1405, The Book of the City of Ladies responds to the woman question, likely making it a prominent manuscript within royal courts at the time, though Pizan’s writing has been largely overlooked when it comes to significant medieval literature. As a result, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which her works were known and read in the 15th to 17th centuries (2); however, certain preserved manuscripts provide insight into the courtly significance of her Livre de la Cité des Dames. The Harley 4431 manuscript in the British Library was commissioned by Queen Isabeau de Baviere between 1410 and 1412 (Green, 1). This manuscript holds literary value because it likely “represents the ultimate form of the work as intended by Christine”; indeed, it is possible that she “corrected it in her own hand” (Pizan xliv-xlv). The manuscript is further proof of Pizan’s relationship to patrons and patronesses at the time and further solidifies her readership as members of the nobility and higher class.
In making this crafted object, I felt connected to both historical and modern women in their endeavor to speak out against the oppressive patriarchal culture, whether they used embroidery as a means of sending hidden messages to other women—as men were seldom “educated in the complex language of needlework symbology” (Emery 7)—or writing an allegorical city for women to be protected within. Crafting this object has highlighted the significance and power that physical objects can hold, be it a work of writing of a piece of embroidery. In depicting the instruments held by Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, I want to highlight the effort that goes into both recognizing and working to unlearn misogynistic conventions. According to Reason, “no one can look into [her] mirror, no matter what kind of creature, without achieving clear self-knowledge” (Pizan 9). The physical mirror shards that I have embroidered into the frame of the mirror invite the viewer to see themselves in relation to both the history of these women and the current issues we are facing today; viewers are invited to consider how they may be upholding—and, in some cases, endorsing—such conventions. In writing the names of the women from The Decameron, I aim to bring attention to the treatment of women in literary history. In honour of these women—fictional or otherwise—"Philomel" has been crafted as their own metaphorical City of Ladies.
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References
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Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Translated by Donald Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella, Broadview Press, 2017.
Diener, Laura Michele. “Sealed with a Stitch: Embroidery and Gift-Giving among Anglo-Saxon Women.” Medieval Prosopography, vol. 29, 2014, pp. 1–22. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44946967.
Emery, Elizabeth. “Subversive Stitches: Needlework as Activism in Australian Feminist Art of the 1970s.” Everyday Revolutions: Remaking Gender, Sexuality and Culture in 1970s Australia, edited by Michelle Arrow and Angela Woollacott, ANU Press, 2019, pp. 103–20. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvq4c17c.9
Green, Karen. “Isabeau de Bavière and the Political Philosophy of Christine de Pizan.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, pp. 247–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299372
King, Kathryn R. “Of Needles and Pens and Women’s Work.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 14, no. 1, 1995, pp. 77–93. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/464249
Malcolmson, Cristina. “Christine de Pizan’s City of Ladies in Early Modern England,” Debating Gender in Early Modern England, 1500–1700, Edited by Mihoko Suzuki. Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107540_2
Marder, Elissa. “Disarticulated Voices: Feminism and Philomela.” Hypatia, vol. 7, no. 2, 1992, pp. 148–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810003.
Pizan De, Christine. The Book of the City of Ladies. Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards, Foreword by Marina Warner, Persea Books, 1982.
Young, Bonnie. “Needlework by Nuns: A Medieval Religious Embroidery.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 6, 1970, pp. 263–77. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3258503