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  • The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes by Christine de Pizan
  • Karen Green
Christine de Pizan, The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes, ed. Hope Johnston, trans. Brian Anslay (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 457), Tempe, ACMRS, 2014; hardback; pp. lxvii, 622; 13 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US $90.00, £69.00; ISBN 9780866985086.

With this new edition of the Middle English translation of Christine de Pizan's Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, the purchaser gets two editions for the price of one, for the book incorporates both the text of Brian Anslay's English translation, published in 1521, and an edition, in Middle French, of an early exemplar of Christine's famous defence of women, London, British Library, MS Royal 19.A.xix (L), a manuscript that may have been consulted by the English translator (p. xxv). As the editor, Hope Johnson, notes, by printing both the French and English on facing pages, comparison of the two texts and the identification of places where they deviate is greatly facilitated. Since the only other easily available edition of the French text, that prepared by Earl Jeffrey Richards and Patrizia Caraffi (Luni Editrice, 1997), comes with an Italian translation, the inclusion of the French along with the Middle English significantly enhances the publication's usefulness for English speakers.

The introduction offers a brief account of the contents of Christine's defence of women, a short account of her life, with brief details of her other works, a biography of the translator, Brian Anslay, a discussion of the minor ways in which the translation deviates from the original, an account of the editorial history of the [End Page 155] Cité des Dames, some details concerning the printer, Henry Pepwell, and details of the signature irregularities, provenance, and marginalia of the five surviving copies of the English publication. There are extensive notes, which detail the ways in which the text of L diverges from British Library, MS Harley 4431 (R), the authoritative version prepared for the French queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, in 1414. A bibliography and selective glossary of Middle English words that are likely to cause trouble make up the volume.

An enormous amount of detailed work has gone into the preparation of this pair of texts, and I find the conjunction of the Middle French with the Middle English is an aid in reading both. When the French is obscure, the English helps, and vice versa. As others have noted, Ansley's translation follows the French almost word for word, so that someone with French, and whose Middle English is weak, could use the French to familiarize themselves with Middle English, or the other way around. I suspect that this will make the edition of use to students of both languages. The ease of comparison also promises 'multiple interpretative possibilities for future scholars to consider' (p. li).

This is a very careful, scholarly edition. If it has any fault, it is that it is so careful not to go beyond the available evidence that it offers no interesting new speculations concerning the circumstances of the translation or the influence of it and its French original on later English political debates concerning women's capacity to rule. We learn that the translator was a yeoman who attended Henry VII's funeral and the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Both events took place in 1509, and at the latter event he was assigned to the 'Queen's Chamber' (p. xl). He was a yeoman of the cellar, married to Anne Polsted, and lived in Kent not far from William Thynne, the 1532 editor of Chaucer's Works. Thynne's nephew, Sir John Thynne, acquired one of the surviving copies of the translation, that at Longleat, which bears the name of William Brereton, who was charged and executed on the grounds of adultery with Anne Boleyn' (pp. xliii, lxi). Given the timing of its production—when after eleven years of marriage, Catherine of Aragon had provided Henry VIII with only a female heir—, and in the light of Susan Groag Bell's discoveries relating to the contemporary 'city of ladies' tapestries', which are mentioned...

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