Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration: Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800

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VIRTUE, LIBERTY, AND TOLERATION

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The New Synthese Historical Library Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy VOLUME 63

Managing Editor: Simo Knuuttila, University of Helsinki Associate Editors: Daniel Elliot Garber, Princeton University Richard Sorabji, University of London Editorial Consultants: Jan A. Aertsen, Thomas-Institut, Universität zu Köln Roger Ariew, Virginia Polytechnic Institute E. Jennifer Ashworth, University of Waterloo Michael Ayers, Wadham College, Oxford Gail Fine, Cornell University R. J. Hankinson, University of Texas Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University Paul Hoffman, University of California, Riverside David Konstan, Brown University Richard H. Kraut, Northwestern University, Evanston Alain de Libera, Université de Genève John E. Murdoch, Harvard University David Fate Norton, McGill University Luca Obertello, Università degli Studi di genova Eleonore Stump, St. Louis University Allen Wood, Stanford University

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of the volume.

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VIRTUE, LIBERTY, AND TOLERATION Political Ideas of European Women, 1400–1800

Edited by JACQUELINE BROAD AND KAREN GREEN Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

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A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4020-5894-3 (HB) ISBN 978-1-4020-5895-0 (e-book)

Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

List of Illustrations

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Acknowledgements and Note on the Text

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Notes on Contributors

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Introduction Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green

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I. Political Thought as Improvisation: Female Regency and Mariology in Late Medieval French Thought Earl Jeffrey Richards II. Phronesis Feminised: Prudence from Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I Karen Green III. Catherine d’Amboise’s Livre des Prudents et Imprudents: Negotiating Space for Female Voices in Political Discourse Catherine M. Müller IV. “Machiavelli in Skirts.” Isabella d’Este and Politics Carolyn James V. Liberty and the Right of Resistance: Women’s Political Writings of the English Civil War Era Jacqueline Broad VI. Margaret Cavendish and the False Universal Hilda L. Smith VII. The Social and Political Thought of Damaris Cudworth Masham Regan Penaluna

1 23

39 57

77 95 111

VIII. “Our Religion and Liberties”: Mary Astell’s Christian Political Polemics 123 Michal Michelson IX. Virtue, God, and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay Sarah Hutton X. Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will Martina Reuter v

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

XI. Keeping Ahead of the English? A Defence of Jews by Cornélie Wouters, Baroness of Vasse (1790) Carrie F. Klaus

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Bibliography

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Index

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L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S

I.1 Blanche de Castille and her son Louis

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II.1 A manuscript illumination of Prudence

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II.2 Louise of Savoy holding a compass and the scales of justice

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II.3 Elizabeth I by Quentin Metsys the Younger

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IV.1 The Parnassus by Andrea Mantegna

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IV.2 The Expulsion of the Vices by Andrea Mantegna

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IV.3 Coronation of a Lady by Lorenzo Costa

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Australian Research Council: the editorial work on this volume was completed as part of an ARC-funded project on the history of women’s political thought. We would also like to thank the participants at our ARC-funded conference, “Towards a History of Women’s Political Thought, 1400–1800,” hosted by the School of Philosophy and Bioethics, Monash University, in July 2005. Many of the essays in this volume were first presented at this conference. We are particularly grateful to our key-note speakers on that occasion, Sarah Hutton, Catherine Müller, Hilda Smith, and Patricia Springborg. We are also grateful for the generous financial assistance of the French Government in funding Catherine Müller’s participation, and for the use of the Alliance Française de Melbourne, organised by Edouard Mornaud. For her terrific work in organising the conference, we are greatly indebted to Lisa Curtis–Wendlandt, and for their help on the day, to Jeremy Aarons and Tamsin Green. For their kind permission to use illustrations in this volume, we thank the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Pinacoteca Nationale, Siena; the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; and the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Thanks are also due to our editors at Springer, Floor Oosting and Ingrid van Laarhoven, as well as the anonymous reader of the original manuscript. For their meticulous and invaluable work on this volume, we are especially grateful to our editorial assistants, Nicole Kouros and Patrick Spedding. Jacqueline Broad Karen Green

NOTE ON THE TEXT Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of foreign language quotations within the text are the authors’ own.

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N O T E S O N C O N T R I B U TO R S

Jacqueline Broad is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her main research area is the history of early modern women’s philosophy. She is the author of Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and journal articles on Mary Astell, Damaris Masham, and other early modern women. Together with Karen Green, she is currently completing an Australian Research Council-funded project on the history of women’s political thought. Karen Green is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She was educated at Monash University and Oxford University, where she took the BPhil in 1977, and at the University of Sydney where she completed her PhD in 1983. She is the author of two books, Dummett: Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge Polity Press, 2001) (Key Contemporary Thinkers Series) and The Woman of Reason: Feminism, Humanism and Political Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press; New York: Continuum, 1995). She has recently edited, with Constant J. Mews, Healing the Body Politic: The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2005). Sarah Hutton is Professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in the United Kingdom. She has recently published Anne Conway. A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). She has edited, with Anna Baldwin, Platonism and the English Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and, with Lynette Hunter, Women, Science and Medicine 1550–1700 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997). She has also edited Ralph Cudworth’s Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and a revised version of Marjorie Hope Nicolson’s The Conway Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Carolyn James is Cassamarca Lecturer in the School of Historical Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of two books on the late fifteenthcentury literary figure, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti: A Literary Career (Florence: L S Olschki, 1996) and The Letters of Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, 1481–1510 (Florence: L S Olschki/The University of Western Australia, 2002). She is presently working on an Australian Research Council funded project on the role of elite women in the early modern Italian state. Carrie F. Klaus is an Associate Professor of Modern Languages (French) at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in the United States. She earned a PhD in French from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. A recipient of a Bourse xi

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Chateaubriand, she has recently published an English-language translation of Jeanne de Jussie’s Short Chronicle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). Her current research project is an investigation of the works of pre-Revolutionary writer Cornélie Wouters, Baroness of Vasse (Wasse). Michal Michelson teaches at Bar-Ilan University and Talpiot College in Israel and is currently writing on theology, identity, and authority in the works of early modern women writers. She is co-editor with William Kolbrener of Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Catherine M. Müller is an independent Swiss scholar who is currently the beneficiary of a Swiss national research fellowship. She is the author of Marguerite Porete et Marguerite d’Oingt de l’autre côté du miroir (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), and the editor of Catherine d’Amboise, Poésies (Montréal, Quebec: CERES, 2002). She has published more than thirty articles, including studies of the poetry and patronage of Marguerite d’Écosse, Marie de Clèves, and Marguerite d’Autriche, and of the translations of Anne de Graville and Antoinette de Loynes. Regan Penaluna is an instructor of philosophy at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, in the United States, where she specialises in the history of philosophy and social and political thought. She is a PhD candidate at Boston University and her dissertation is a comparative study of Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham, and Catharine Trotter Cockburn on their arguments for women’s education. In the summer of 2006, she received a grant from the Lily Foundation to fund research on the concept of duty in early modern English thought. Martina Reuter is an Academy Research Fellow attached to a research project on the history of the philosophy of mind financed by the Academy of Finland, and she teaches history of philosophy and feminist studies at the University of Helsinki. She received her doctorate at the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, in 2000 with a dissertation on the role of the body, sexual difference, and equality in Cartesian philosophy. She has published articles on Descartes’conception of the body, feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and most recently Mary Wollstonecraft’s moral psychology. Earl Jeffrey Richards has been Professor of Romance Literatures at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, since 1995. He has published a translation of Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (New York: Persea Books, 1982; second edition, 1998), and edited Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1992), and Christine de Pizan and Medieval French Lyric (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998). He has also published a critical edition of Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (Milan: Luni Editrice, 1997). Hilda L. Smith is Professor of History and former Director of the Center for Women’s Studies at the University of Cincinnati, in the United States. Her publications include Reason’s Disciples: Seventeenth-Century English Feminists (Urbana,

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Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982), and “All Men and Both Sexes”: Gender and the False Universal in England, 1640–1832 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002). She has published, with Susan Cardinale, Women and the Literature of the Seventeenth Century: An Annotated Bibliography Based on the Wing Short Title Catalogue (New York: Greenwood, 1985). She has also edited Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) and, with Berenice Carroll, Women’s Political and Social Thought: An Anthology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000).

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JACQUELINE BROAD AND KAREN GREEN

INTRODUCTION

It has sometimes been observed that the textbook history of political thought is, figuratively speaking, a hall of mirrors in which our present political concerns and preoccupations are reflected back at us, albeit in a slightly distorted form. Several scholars have challenged this traditional kind of history: if we propose to understand the true origins of modern political thought, it is argued, then it is a mistake to search for the present in the past, or to identify purely contemporary ideas in the works of historical figures.1 The true historian of political thought looks not for individual originators of modern concepts such as liberty, equality, and toleration— individuals who may turn out to be imaginary, in any case—but rather the complex historical-intellectual processes out of which those concepts emerged. It is rarely observed that the traditional hall of mirrors also reflects a male image or an exclusively male perspective on political concepts and political issues. Yet the historian of philosophy who focuses on male political ideas alone also makes the mistake of failing to take into account the precise historical circumstances of pre-modern political thought. This is because women were also active participants in the conflict of opinions that shaped and defined modern political philosophy as we know it. The essays in this volume highlight the fact that in addition to influencing the development of ideas through their practical support and patronage, women themselves discussed political ideas and wrote influential political works. The historical evidence suggests that the phenomenon of the female political thinker was not an isolated one, but a recurring feature across the centuries and in different regions of Europe. The history of women’s political ideas in Europe before the French Revolution still awaits recognition. Although a number of women’s political works have been reprinted, translated, and discussed in print,2 there is still a common perception that women simply have no history of political thought. A number of reasons for this persistent view suggest themselves. The first can be traced to that traditional approach to the history of political thought in which the historian only ever looks for the present in the past. Following this approach, scholars tend to blind themselves to those texts that do not fit easily into the modern paradigm of the political treatise. Because women often develop their ideas in works that are unusual vehicles for political philosophy—“unusual” according to our modern sensibilities, that is—their political commentaries are not recognised as such. Women’s political texts, as the essays in this volume show, range from petitions, speeches, memoirs, and letters, to fictional narratives, prayers, plays, and poetry. Yet they are still obviously political in the sense that they engage with questions about what legitimises political authority, the political obligations of subjects and sovereigns, the attributes of a good ruler, the xv J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, xv–xxii. © 2007 Springer.

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connection between the church and ruling authorities, the best way to uphold civil peace and harmony, and the nature of power relations between the sexes—among other subjects. A second possible reason for the invisibility of female political thought is that, without a long history of interpretation to wrest their ideas for a modern audience, some of their ideas still appear to be rather strange and inaccessible. Women writers often focus on party political debates that have now passed into oblivion, as well as topical matters to do with well-known figures in their own time—so much so that (we might think) a modern philosopher unfamiliar with the historical details could not hope to appreciate all the nuances or to derive any widely applicable lessons from their political observations. Although these women use the concepts of liberty and toleration, they do not appear to use them in the popular liberal sense of these words; and their concern for the virtues of rulers and citizens, and the cultivation of prudence, temperance, courage, and so on, is no longer something we associate with mainstream political thought. Thus, according to that approach in which the history of ideas is one long, progressive march toward modern enlightenment, these women might appear as hopelessly alien or conservative—and subsequently not worth the bother. There is, perhaps, one further reason why female political thinkers of the past remain largely invisible in the standard intellectual histories. In the seventeenth century, Gilbert Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury (1643–1715), observed that there are two sorts of person that ought not to meddle in “public affairs”—these are churchmen and women. The clergy ought to be above it, he said, and women are below it.3 This common perception of women, as somehow unqualified to engage in political affairs, or outside of the sphere of theory altogether, seems to have persisted well into the twentieth century. In some circles there has been an assumption, encouraged even by feminist thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, that women have been the other, that they have been objects of the male gaze, or have circulated as objects of exchange, but have not been subjects who have their own political agendas.4 In light of this pessimistic view of women’s contribution to the political tradition, it may have appeared pointless to attempt to chart the history of a subjectivity that did not exist. In Women in Western Political Thought (1979), Susan Moller Okin offered one of the first feminist critiques of the western political tradition. But even Okin focused exclusively on famous male theorists—Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill—charging them with the systematic subordination of women in their political philosophies. Despite the promising title, Okin did not examine women’s own unique contributions to western political thought and so, to some extent, her work conformed to the general trend of women being talked about, rather than doing the talking. The problem, of course, is that women of the past did not subscribe to the view that they had no business with political theory. Far from seeing themselves as having no role in public affairs, many pre-modern female writers have a strong conception of women as political commentators or political agents, gaining encouragement from

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powerful women depicted in the Old and New Testaments, as well as female political leaders in their own time. The essays in this collection arose out of an attempt to rectify the absence of women’s political thought in the standard textbooks. Although this selection offers only a partial and disjointed glimpse of the development of women’s political ideas, we hope that it provides a set of points from which the outlines of a more complete image can be inferred. In our approach, we aim to strike a middle path between specialist historical study, on the one hand, and purely modern philosophical analysis, on the other—we intend for these women’s political ideas not only to be situated in their historical-intellectual context, but also to be accessible and relevant to the contemporary reader. The modern political philosopher, for example, might be able to discern that women made a small but significant female-centred contribution to the development of modern political ideals. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, women’s political thought grounds itself in a meditation on the virtues. The virtues of a good ruler are the staple of most medieval political writing, whether it is by men or women, and for many women establishment of their claim to participation in the virtues—and in particular the virtue of prudence—marks the first step in an argument that progresses through the centuries towards the demand for full female citizenship in the eighteenth century. It is but a small step from the claim to possess virtue to the demand for spiritual liberty, given that during the medieval period the exercise of the virtues had come to be seen as necessary for salvation. Women’s status as members of a Christian community implied their access to salvation and the need to cultivate the virtues necessary in order to attain it. Increasingly, education and autonomy came to be seen as prerequisites for the cultivation of virtue and the attainment of salvation. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, much of women’s political writing therefore focuses on women’s spiritual liberty and women’s higher education. The value placed upon liberty and autonomy inevitably led to questions about the relationship between patriarchal authority and the individual’s conscience, as well as the toleration of different religious viewpoints. The themes of virtue, liberty, and toleration thus unite this partial snapshot of the development of women’s political ideas in early modern Europe. The more historically inclined reader might recognise that these women use the concepts of virtue, liberty, and toleration in a different, more nuanced, sense than we do today. By placing women’s texts in their historical-intellectual context, we can see that the terms “prudence” and “liberty,” for example, do not always have the same connotations that they do in post-twentieth-century political philosophy. While the modern philosopher tends to regard prudence in the Hobbesian sense, as rational self-interest, writers such as Christine de Pizan and Catherine d’Amboise use prudence with an awareness of its Aristotelian connotations as phronesis or practical wisdom—a decision-making capacity that is absolutely vital in a virtuous ruler. Likewise, Katherine Chidley (act. 1616–53) and the women petitioners of the civil war era in England (c. 1642–60) tend to promote a conception of liberty as freedom

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from arbitrary domination—a conception that is quite distinct from the modern liberal sense of liberty as freedom from interference. The reader will also see that these early women thinkers do not observe a strict division between religion and politics. For these women, as for the men of their time, appeals to God and the Bible carry a certain amount of weight and authority in political argument: with their appeals to the political significance of the Virgin Mary as “queen,” and their repeated references to women’s political involvement in the Bible, it is hard to ignore the fact that these women do not have a modern, secular understanding of political argumentation. Yet, by seeing women’s political ideas in such an historical light—as different rather than similar to our modern political outlook—we hope that we might not only avoid anachronism, but uncover unique concepts and philosophical ideas. All the essays in this volume, in various ways, endeavour to shed light on the original and historically significant aspects of women’s political ideas, with particular reference to the themes of virtue, liberty, and/or toleration. Our collection begins with Christine de Pizan (1364–1430), one of the earliest and most significant female political thinkers in France. In the opening essay on the political and legal context of Christine’s Book of the City of Ladies (1405), Earl Jeffrey Richards examines Christine’s response to the exclusion of women as inheritors of the French crown. Richards demonstrates how Christine opposes that exclusion by exploiting the tradition of medieval Mariology to establish a politicised image of the Virgin Mary as queen of justice. In this way, Christine provides strong theoretical foundations in support of female political power: as head of the female sex, Mary not only underscores women’s status as virtuous inhabitants of the “city of ladies,” but as both regent and queen, she represents an important precedent for female rule. This argumentative aspect of Christine’s text remains obscure if we fail to acknowledge the political significance of Mariology in her work. In “Phronesis Feminised: Prudence from Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I,” Karen Green’s analysis of prudence as a political virtue underscores the political character of Christine de Pizan’s writing. Prudence is the medieval counterpart of Aristotle’s phronesis, a virtue that Aristotle describes as necessary in a ruler, but lacking in women. Green argues that in the first part of her Book of the City of Ladies, Christine responds to Nicole Oresme’s glossed translation of Aristotle’s Politics (c. 1374). Christine asks Reason whether women have prudence, and receives the expected positive reply, thus helping to clear the way for Christine’s endorsement of women’s right to govern in certain circumstances. The centrality of a claim to possess the virtue of prudence in later ideological campaigns in support of women’s capacity to govern is demonstrated by a glance at illuminated manuscripts prepared for Louise of Savoy in the late fifteenth century. Grounding her argument on features of the allegorical representation of prudence in a number of medieval manuscripts, Green argues that in the famous Elizabethan sieve portraits we also see Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) represented as the incarnation of this primary political virtue. In “Catherine d’Amboise’s Livre des Prudents et Imprudents: Negotiating Space for Female Voices in Political Discourse,” Catherine Müller also highlights the central importance of prudence in a little known work titled Le Livre des Prudents

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et Imprudents (1509), by the French writer Catherine d’Amboise (1482–1550). This history of prudent and imprudent figures, written from a perspective which is avowedly biased towards women, includes an early criticism of women’s exclusion from higher education, and shows another female author claiming to speak with the authority of Prudence. In the opening scenes of d’Amboise’s work, this virtue appears to the authorial persona Katherine, encouraging her to write her revisionist history. D’Amboise takes a strong stance on the question of power relations between the sexes, by showing that women are not naturally inferior to men, but equally capable of acting with prudence and authority in the public sphere. In “‘Machiavelli in Skirts.’ Isabella d’Este and Politics,” Carolyn James discusses the various ways in which Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), the marchioness of Mantua, promotes herself as a prudent and virtuous ruler. In her numerous letters, and in the paintings she commissioned for her studiolo, Isabella strongly endorses the notion that, as queens and regents, women can possess all the virtues necessary for the exercise of political power. Isabella adheres to the common fifteenth-century belief that governors ought to protect the spiritual well-being of subjects, but at the same time she upholds the rather uncommon view that women have the requisite virtues to be such spiritual leaders. In “Liberty and the Right of Resistance: Women’s Political Writings of the English Civil War Era,” Jacqueline Broad examines the key political themes in women’s writings of the English civil war era, with particular emphasis on the transition in their arguments from the spiritual liberty of souls to the political liberty of subjects. In the past, scholars have claimed that the civil war women might be seen as natural predecessors to Catharine Macaulay (1731–91) and her republican contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97). Recent commentators take the comparison a step further: they argue that the civil war women make an early and significant contribution to the liberal feminist tradition. But in this paper, Broad critically examines these claims about the significance of these women’s writings for the history of liberal feminism or liberalism more generally. She demonstrates that these women do not develop a fully fledged theory of women’s rights, they do not espouse a modern liberal concept of “liberty,” and nor do they develop a thorough-going critique of the marriage/social contract analogue. Yet the political ideas of the civil war women are philosophically interesting for what they tell us about the non-liberal origins of radical thought in the period. In “Margaret Cavendish and the False Universal,” Hilda L. Smith focuses on one of the most prolific and original women philosophers of the seventeenth century, Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623–73). Smith reveals that Cavendish’s political thought is much more complex and unique than scholars have previously acknowledged. She highlights Cavendish’s positive remarks on religious toleration and freedom of conscience in her collection of speeches, Orations of Divers Sorts (1662). There is reason to think that these views form part of a consistently utilitarian approach in Cavendish’s political philosophy—an approach that sets her apart from her royalist contemporaries and her husband, William. But, as Smith shows, nowhere is Cavendish more original than in her comments about the political status

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of women in her Sociable Letters (1666). In terms of the history of political thought, Cavendish is remarkable for her potentially seditious observation that women are not, properly speaking, subjects of the commonwealth and are not therefore bound by oaths of allegiance to the government. In “The Social and Political Thought of Damaris Cudworth Masham,” Regan Penaluna examines the political thought of Masham (1659–1708), a close companion and correspondent of the great political philosopher, John Locke (1632–1704). During the many years that Masham lived with Locke, from 1691 till his death, political issues were undoubtedly a common topic of conversation between the two friends. Yet while there have been several scholarly accounts of Masham’s philosophy (and its debt to Locke), there have been no intellectual studies of Masham as a political thinker in her own right. Here Penaluna points to evidence that Masham intended her Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705) to be a reflection upon the good government of the commonwealth. This paper is one of the first analyses of Masham’s two works, the Discourse concerning the Love of God (1696) and the Occasional Thoughts, as continuous and complementary texts: the one an account of the significance of a social and political life for the good Christian, the other an argument for the view that a Christian commonwealth can flourish only if all of its citizens—both men and women—are taught to be wise and virtuous. In “‘Our Religion and Liberties’: Mary Astell’s Christian Political Polemics,” Michal Michelson demonstrates how Astell’s political thought radically diverges from the “new orthodoxy” of Whig liberalism in the early modern period. An ardent feminist, Astell was also an active participant in party polemical debates about occasional conformity and religious toleration in early eighteenth-century England. In this paper, Michelson emphasises that we can properly understand Astell’s political thought only if we acknowledge the biblical references and Anglican doctrine inherent in her political texts. Against this religious backdrop, it is apparent that Astell interprets “liberty” as a purely spiritual concept—in terms of the individual’s freedom, that is, to cultivate the virtues necessary for salvation. For Astell, liberty for women consists in the intellectual freedom to choose their own spiritual destiny, regardless of the restrictive social and material circumstances that they might experience in life. But she does not rule out women’s equal social and political involvement in principle, even though she does not advocate it in practice. Astell’s appeals to biblical precedent show that women might legitimately be active participants in public life and political affairs. In “Virtue, God, and Stoicism,” Sarah Hutton examines the moral-theological basis of the political views of two late eighteenth-century English women: Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806) and Catharine Macaulay. Until recently, the ethical and theological dimensions of women’s political philosophy—or their views on virtue and religious duty—have been overlooked in favour of the modern emphasis on Lockean civil and political rights. But Hutton demonstrates that if we examine the theological assumptions behind women’s political ideas, then we might be able to identify a common female strand in the history of political thought. In particular, Hutton examines parallels between the views of Macaulay and Carter. Although these women seem to have little in common politically speaking, both uphold a conception of

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God as a deity who is bound to exercise his power in accordance with his supreme benevolence, justice, and wisdom. Hutton shows how Carter and Macaulay’s discussions of Stoicism are informed by their ethico-theological outlook—an outlook that has significant implications for their political approaches, and especially their views on women’s role in society. These views echo not only the philosophies of their seventeenth-century predecessors, Damaris Masham and Mary Astell, but anticipate the feminist ideas of their immediate successor, Mary Wollstonecraft. In “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will,” Martina Reuter presents one of the first analyses of the conception of the will underlying Wollstonecraft’s notion of political liberty. Reuter shows that, in terms of her conception of freedom, Wollstonecraft shares much in common with her republican contemporary, Macaulay. In her Letters on Education (1790), Macaulay maintains that human freedom and necessity are compatible because freedom is the ability to act in accordance with reason. Though our reason might necessitate us to act in a particular way—according to the eternal and immutable principles of morality, for example—we are nevertheless free provided that our actions are not determined by any external causes or physical impulses. In some of her works, Wollstonecraft seems implicitly to support Macaulay’s rationalist compatibilism. But under the influence of Rousseau, Wollstonecraft places greater emphasis on both the passions and the imagination as motivational forces in moral development. This, in turn, has implications for Wollstonecraft’s views about freedom and necessity: for Wollstonecraft, reason does not always have the compelling force that it has for Macaulay; the will is sometimes free to choose what we should do. In the final paper, “Keeping Ahead of the English? A Defence of Jews by Cornélie Wouters, Baroness of Vasse (1790),” Carrie Klaus examines a little-known pamphlet addressed to the National Assembly in late eighteenth-century France. The author of this nine-page pamphlet, Cornélie Wouters, Baroness of Vasse (1737–1802), is the only woman known to have contributed to a topical political debate on the status of Jews in Revolutionary France. Like other tolerationists in this debate, she calls for the recognition of full civil and political rights for Jews as French citizens. She bases her arguments upon an impartial application of the principles of justice, equality, and liberty to all human beings. But unlike her peers, she does not suggest that Jews must ultimately give up their religious beliefs in order to become integrated into French society. She also appeals to national pride, urging the Assembly to show their greatness as a nation by beating the English to the political emancipation of Jews. Finally, there is some suggestion that Wouters might have had women in mind when she calls for recognition of politically excluded social groups. Like her contemporary, Olympe de Gouges (1745–93), it is possible her work was inspired by a desire to see equality and liberty extended to all human beings, women as well as men. In a selective work of this nature, it is inevitable (and unfortunate) that there will be gaps in terms of the chronological-geographical focus. We aim to acknowledge a number of neglected women thinkers from the medieval period to the enlightenment, from a number of different regions in Europe, and from many different social classes. But we have had to omit figures of equal, if not greater, significance than the thinkers

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discussed here—women such as Marguerite de Navarre, Marie le Jars de Gournay, the Quaker pamphleteers, Queen Kristina of Sweden, Aphra Behn, Queen Anne of England, Judith Drake, Mary Chudleigh, Madeleine de Scudéry, Gabrielle Suchon, Olympe de Gouges, Jeanne Marie Roland de la Platiere, and Mary Hays—to name but a few. It is to be hoped, however, that our volume will have a positive impact upon the future academic study of such women. By showing that women’s political ideas are worth the bother—that women thinkers can open our minds to new and interesting interpretations of intellectual history—we hope that their marginalisation might become a thing of the past. NOTES 1 The classic example of this approach is Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London:

G. Bell and Sons, 1931). 2 There are a few anthologies of women’s political writings: Lynn McDonald, ed., Women Theorists

on Society and Politics (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998); Hilda L. Smith and Berenice A. Carroll, eds., Women’s Political and Social Thought: An Anthology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000); and Hilda L. Smith, Mihoko Suzuki, and Susan Wiseman, eds., Women’s Political Writings in England, 1610–1740, 3 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, forthcoming). The Cambridge University Press series, Texts in the History of Political Thought, includes Margaret Cavendish, Political Writings, ed. Susan James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Mary Astell, Political Writings, ed. Patricia Springborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Christine de Pizan, The Book of the Body Politic, ed. and trans. Kate Langdon Forhan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). There have also been a few collections of essays on women’s political thought: Hilda L. Smith, ed., Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), and Tjiske Akkerman and Siep Stuurman, eds., Perspectives on Feminist Political Thought in European History from the Middle Ages to the Present (London: Routledge, 1998). Thus far, however, there has been no book-length scholarly overview of the history of women’s political thought from 1400 to 1800. 3 On Gilbert Burnet’s attitudes to women, see Myra Reynolds, The Learned Lady in England, 1650–1760 (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1964), 350. 4 Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1949); and Luce Irigaray, Speculum de l’Autre Femme (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1974).

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EARL JEFFREY RICHARDS

I P O L I T I C A L T H O U G H T A S I M P R O V I S AT I O N : F E M A L E R E G E N C Y A N D M A R I O L O G Y I N L AT E M E D I E VA L FRENCH THOUGHT Since regency per se implies the temporary exercise of power, it represents at best an instable institution that perhaps dare not even speak its name in searching for its own legitimacy. Standard reference works for French from Du Cange to von Wartburg claim that the first example in Old French for regentacion [regency] is found in Christine de Pizan’s biography of Charles V.1 A closer inspection of this text itself reveals important terminological hesitations. Twenty years after the fact, Christine describes how Charles’s oldest brother, Louis I de Valois, Duc d’Anjou, relinquished the regency to his brothers: “after the death of his brother king Charles, although the regency of the realm of France belonged to him until the child was of the age to be crowned, he left everything in the hands of the other princes, his brothers.”2 Christine knew that the story was more complicated: between Charles V’s death on September 16, 1380, and Charles VI’s accelerated coronation on November 4, 1380, in over twenty letters Louis d’Anjou called himself “Louis, son of the king of France, ruling the kingdom, Duke of Anjou, of Touraine and Count of Maine,” sealing documents with the formula “We have had our seal—which we used before this regency—to these letters.”3 The hesitation between the present participle “regent le royaume” [ruling the kingdom] and the substantive “regence” points to the term’s novelty. While the details of Louis’ regency of sixteen days are still open to comment, Christine avoids Louis’ medieval French term regence, and coins a new word based on the rare medieval Latin verb regentare, meaning “to teach, to profess.”4 The coinage implies that the uncles acted not as rulers in a regence, but as counsellors in an advisory and teaching capacity in a regentacïon. This brief philological excursion into the origin of the term regency should serve as a thread through the labyrinth of early attempts to designate, define, and justify this institution founded on political expediency, and how issues raised by regency touched upon the precarious political and legal ambiguity of women’s legal position during the middle ages.5 Even if women exercised political power, they remained beholden to men: they ruled within a situation of a classic double-bind. While the standard linguistic reference works incorrectly claim Christine as the first author to use the term regency, she is arguably the first to formulate, using subtle classical theological allegoresis, one of the most profound and indeed systematic vindications of female regency based on a solid knowledge of conflicting legal traditions and medieval theology, in particular Mariology. In order to appreciate Christine’s use of the Virgin as an exemplum of female political power, it is important first to examine how the term regent was actually used. Second, one must understand how legal traditions were abused to invent a specious tradition excluding women. Third, one must study two specific catalogues of contemporary women in government that Christine gives in the 1 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 1–22. © 2007 Springer.

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City of Ladies [Cité des Dames] which function as alternative female councils of state. And fourth, it is helpful to consider Christine’s innovative Marian solution because the Virgin Mary was the exception to legal restrictions applied to women, whence her fitness to rule with her Son. What emerges from this examination will demonstrate the hitherto neglected political significance of the Virgin Mary for Christine and for women’s political thought in general.6 Christine’s re-inventing of political power for women on a Mariological basis flies in the face of a juggernaut of legal opinion. Christine turns to sacred history for a two-fold solution: she argues for the legitimacy of female co-rule (not her term) based on the co-rule of the Virgin as both mater Dei and sponsa Dei who, like Esther, the Old Testament allegorical or more correctly, figural, anticipation of Mary, ruled half of her husband’s kingdom. The City of Ladies is filled with a series of women who ruled with their sons, beginning with Semiramis, who all function as allegories of the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven. The Virgin Mary, as Christine presents her, refutes Hostiensis’s claim that the Apostles rather than Mary received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. She does not exploit the argument in favour of matrilineal inheritance advanced in 1339 by Edward III in a letter to the Pope that Jesus as King of the Jews descended from David through Mary.

I. L E G A L P R E C E D E N T S A N D L I N G U I S T I C P R A C T I C E

The terminological confusion starts with the medieval Latin word tutela, the Roman law term for inheritance, borrowed in chancery texts in Latin as ballia et tutela, and into French as “la tutelle des enfants du Roi de France” [the tutelage of the children of the King of France]. Latin texts speak of the regimen regni or regnans regnum—whereas the term employed in 1316 by Philippe V, Regens regnum, was a new coinage, since regens, although found in classical Latin authors with the meaning “ruler, commander,” had become the title for the head master of a college. The other fixed formula in chancery documents is regimen regni, found also in Thomas Aquinas and in Ptolemy of Lucca. The term regentia (whence “regency”) is extremely rare in Latin sources. Regent and regence in fourteenth-century French connoted possible usurpation, and appear at critical moments in royal succession in chancery documents from 1316, 1327, 1360, 1380, and 1390. The Valois regency tradition excluded women from succession, and thus Christine did not associate female government with the usurpation camouflaged by the term regent. As Paul Viollet explains in a classic essay from 1893,7 the future Philippe V received the homage of the nobles, interested in a weak monarchy, as gouverneur, not as king.8 Gouverneur, a conventional term, corresponds to the Latin phrase, gubernacula regni tenenda. Philippe, to further his own future claims to the throne, introduced the title regent.9 To gauge how the Valois exclusion of women entailed a radical departure from previous tradition, one might recall that in 1314, after ascending the throne, Louis X cited natural law to justify female inheritance, reversing an earlier judgment of

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Philippe IV: “Reason and natural law grant that, lacking male heirs, the females must quite rightly inherit and succeed to the goods and possessions of their father by whom they were procreation and descend in loyal marriage as do the males.”10 This principle concurred with customary law in the Parisian region which permitted noble inheritances to be divided equally among sisters when a male heir was absent,11 but it also corresponds to the principle, in Gratian, that “established usage and custom cannot overcome law and reason.”12 When Philippe V took over the crown by force, he established an inexorable iron rule for the Valois dynasty: “in the realm of France women must not succeed.”13 The next generation of Valois legists spared no effort at creating a fraudulent legal basis for excluding women by invoking customary law found in the Consuetudines feudorum. The importance of establishing the exclusion of women as a consuetudo stemmed from the fact that Gratian and Thomas Aquinas, both citing St. Augustine,14 maintained that customary law prevailed over Roman and Canon law.15 The legal arguments for excluding women, all cited decades after the fact, depended on the one hand on passages in Roman law which restricted women from exercising tutela and officia publica, and on the other hand on a passage from Canon law, “a cleric may give his own property to whomever he wishes,”16 applied by analogy to the election of Philippe V. Since these arguments were hardly cogent, the next Valois tack was to claim customary law excluded women. In 1340, Benedict XIII declared Philippe VI legitimate on the basis of a consuetudo not quite twenty-five years old. In 1374, the same year when Charles V issued an edict on royal majority,17 an anonymous legist at the court of Charles V compiled the legal arguments excluding women in the Somnium Viridarii. This compilation manipulates legal texts to falsify French historical practice. The high point of this seventy-year-old propaganda blitz by the Valois chancery came in 1390 when Jean Montreuil—later Christine’s opponent in the Rose quarrel—cited a passage from Salic Law and proclaimed it French custom.18 Christine, taking her cue from Gratian’s remark that “non potest usus et consuetudo legem et rationem vincere” [established usage and custom cannot overcome law and reason], offers an implicit correction to the use of customary law to exclude women. Her innovative response is to employ in her City of Ladies the allegories Raison and Droiture—Reason and Law (droiture had the specific sense of contract law and charter rights and privileges).19 Striking is that the misogynous arguments by the late thirteenth-century commentator on Canon law, Hostiensis (d. 1271) (cited in the Somnium Viridarii), were the opinions that Christine systematically refuted. A review of the history of the terms regent and regence shows that there was no institution of regency in the narrow sense in France, but that it was a tradition initiated by the Valois.20 Regent first occurs in two 1316 documents in French issued by Philippe V before he assumed the throne,21 and then again in the first decree issued by Philippe VI in 1327 during his short interregnum, before he simply took over the throne, with the title Philippe, Comte de Valois et Anjou, Regent. By contrast, the two best-known late medieval French regents, Suger and Blanche de Castille, never used the term regent to describe the office they exercised. When Eudes IV, Duke of Burgundy (1295–1349), raised objections in July 1316 to the succession of Philippe V,

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he was told point-blank that women did not succeed to the throne of France. In his Memoriale historiarum, the chronicler Jean de St. Victor records the event but takes note of the precarious legality of the exclusion of women: after his (the infant king, Jean I’s) death, the Count of Poitou received the realm, but the Duke of Burgundy objected and said that his niece [Jeanne, daughter of Louis X and his first wife, Marguerite de Bourgogne, whose legitimacy was in question because of the affaire de la Tour de Nesle], although the daughter of the king and closer [to the throne] with her brother being dead, should succeed by her own right. Response was made to Eudes that in the realm of France women should not succeed. However it was not possible to demonstrate this cogently.22

That the coronation of Philippe in January 1317 was marred by an uproar or turbatio is recorded in detail by different chroniclers.23 Jean de St. Victor was intellectually honest enough to observe, and his observation bears repeating, that a traditional exclusion of women from succession to the crown could not be cogently proven, “Hoc tamen probari non poterat evidenter” [However it was not possible to demonstrate this cogently]. Since the publication in 1900 of the now classic article by Élie Berger on the use of the term regent in chancery records, scholars have applied the term regent retrospectively to prominent individuals exercising power on behalf of the French king before 1316, even if they did not use this title. This practice projects Valois procedure and terminology retrospectively onto Capetian custom and is contradicted by linguistic usage. Medieval Latin chancery sources show extraordinary terminological precision in delimiting ruling powers. In his entry on the Latin term regens (“regni gubernator”), Du Cange implies that the anonymous continuations of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis took the term as a neologism, requiring glossing, and that it was associated with two specific events: the accession of Philippe V to the throne in 1316/17 and of Philippe VI in 1327.24 Du Cange cites the chronicle. In both cases, the term regens was used in a non-traditional manner. The linguistic hesitation found in the continuation of Guillaume de Nangis is even more apparent in the chronicle of Bernard Gui, who described Philippe V’s ascension to the throne in his Flores chronicorum, taking special note of the unusual or unprecedented title employed by Philippe V. He observes that Philippe ruled under the title of regent until the majority of Jean I “holding however the rudders of both realms, France and Navarre . . . under the title of ‘regent’” and says that he assumed power “not with title of king but with the title of regent,” the implication being that the concept sub nomine regentis was indeed something new,25 and as though the term regent were largely confined to chancery documents and not a commonly used term in political treatises.26 On September 19, 1356, at the Battle of Poitiers, Edward the Black Prince took the French king Jean II, Le Bon, prisoner. His capture prompted his son, the future Charles V, to change his title seven months later from lieutenant (literally, “placeholder”) to regent.27 On March 18, 1357, he begins a decree with a new formula regent le royaume, and then speaks of the title of regent itself, showing that the original hesitation in usage found forty years earlier had not yet been resolved: “We, Charles, oldest son of the king, ruling the kingdom of France, Duke of Normandy

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and Dauphin of France and Viennois, have taken, for the obvious necessity and profit of this kingdom, the title of the ruling one (regent) and government of the same until it so please God that our Lord can return here and be outside of the hands of his enemies.”28 On October 14, 1360, Jean II, after his release, confirmed everything his son had done during his captivity, but refers to him pointedly as “nostre très-chier & ainznez Filz” [our very beloved and oldest son] and studiously avoids the title regent.29 By contrast, 190 years earlier, when Louis VII left for the Second Crusade in 1147, he handed over to the Abbé Suger “the care and administration of the commonwealth,”30 with the phrase “administration” which later recurs formulaically.31 In 1190, during his absence on the Third Crusade, Philippe-Auguste conferred power on his mother Adèle de Champagne and his mother’s brother (i.e., his uncle) Guillaume, Archbishop of Reims, but avoided the term of his predecessor.32 When Louis VIII died on November 8, 1226, he conferred tutelage on his wife in a death-bed testament announced by Archbishop Gautier III of Sens, and Bishops Walter of Chartres and Milo of Beauvais: “Louis, our King of France, of blessed memory in his sickbed willed and ordered in careful deliberation and of a sane mind, with us being present and hearing, that his son, who will succeed him, with this kingdom and with his other sons, shall be in the tutelage of our most beloved Lady Queen Blanche, their mother, until they reach the age of majority.”33 Three prominent barons refused to accept the king’s testament and Blanche resorted to arms.34 In his Speculum historiale, Vincent de Beauvais, who was a close advisor and friend to Louis IX, used the term tutela, noting that the barons were envious of the royal house because the Queen had tutelage of her son and the kingdom.35 Blanche’s co-rule is the most important precedent of female rule for Christine, for she ruled France three times on her son’s behalf: during Louis IX’s minority (1226–36), during an extended illness in 1245, and during his participation in the Crusades from 1248 to 1252. During her son’s minority, Blanche issued four decrees in Louis’ name with no mention of the Queen.36 In June 1248, Louis IX went much farther than his grand-father Philippe-Auguste, granting his mother plenary power. His decree begins: “We Louis, by the grace of God King, greet all those reading these present letters. We announce that we have ordained and desired that in the absence of our pilgrimage that our most beloved Queen Mother have plenary power.”37 It is fair to assume Louis IX, in granting his mother plenariam potestatem was describing her earlier power during his minority.38 When, years later, he appointed Mathieu, Abbé de Saint-Denis, and Simon de Nesle as administrators in 1270, he uses different terminology and exhorts them to punish blasphemy as “our lieutenants, along with bailiffs, deputies and others holding judicial office from us.”39 This document is specific in its commissions, and suggests that the king’s earlier wording, plenariam potestatem, was well considered. The precision of Louis IX’s choice of words stems in part from the fact that he ordered a systematic compilation of customary law (published under the title, Établissements de Saint Louis) to facilitate comparisons between Canon, Roman, and local law throughout his kingdom, and he knew that customary law did not prohibit women from ruling.

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Choosing his words carefully, Louis IX took the phrase plenariam potestatem from descriptions of the power of the Papacy, current since Leo I who originated the phrase, which allude to the belief, as explained in a later sermon by Pope Innocent III (d. 1216), that the dowry given by the Roman church as the sponsa to Peter as sponsus was “a plenitude of power.”40 This borrowing should not be surprising, for the great blossoming of Marian literature began in the early thirteenth century, with the composition of the Mariale by Adam de Perseigne (d. 1221), and found its expression in stone in the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris (dated 1230/40, i.e., during the early years of St. Louis’ reign). In the 1240s, the two most influential Marian texts were the De laudibus Beatæ Virginis Mariæ (composed by Richard de Saint-Laurent) and the anonymous Mariale, sive CCXXX Quæstiones super Evangelium, certainly from the pen of a Cistercian writer. Both works were attributed until 1950 to Albertus Magnus and are available only in a late nineteenth-century edition of his works.41 Blanche de Castille was conscious of Marian parallels to her own position as queen. Mary Stroll has identified the Marian iconography evident in the depiction of Blanche de Castille in the so-called St. Louis Bible [Biblia de San Luis] (a Bible moralisée), now at the Pierpont Morgan Library (see Figure I.1).42 The Capetian kings of France ruled by the grace of God, and so did their queens, and identifying Blanche with the Virgin Mary enhances the status of the French queen, and if anything, erases boundaries between sacred and secular. Little wonder that the St. Louis Bible is contemporary with the portal of the Virgin on the west façade of Notre-Dame de Paris. Normally coronations of the Virgin, such as Veneziano’s from 1358, show Jesus crowning Mary.43 In the portal of the Virgin, an angel brings the Crown, clearly reminiscent of the chrism which an angel brought to Reims for the coronation of the French king. The contemporary depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin, in the north portal of the west façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, the tympanum of the Virgin, is the closest analogy to the St. Louis Bible portrayal of Blanche and Louis.44 The same motif of the Virgin being crowned by an angel is preserved in the Très Riches Heures de Jean de Berry.45 Furthermore, the only manuscript illumination of Christine’s Epistre à la Reine (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 580) seems to allude visually to the portrayal of blessed Queen Blanche and St. Louis, whereby the unnamed woman assumes the Virgin’s role as mediatrix, which is precisely what Christine recommends to Queen Isabeau in the text itself, and the unnamed petitioner begs for death or mercy, mort ou merci, which alludes most probably to the quality of the Virgin as Queen of Mercy, regina misericordiae.46 Christine lived at the royal court and knew the royal library: she must have known the tympanum of the Virgin on the west façade of Notre Dame. But to return to 1248, Louis IX clearly followed the Marian pattern which his mother had initiated in the magnificent St. Louis Bible when he transferred power to her during his absence. The Marian tradition of a heavenly transfer of power to women rulers is the exception to the standard Roman legal terminology preferred in chancery documents. On October 2, 1270, Philippe III decreed that his younger brother Count Pierre d’Alençon, Blois and Chartres, together with a council, should have the tutelage over his sons.47 The wording here comes straight from Roman law. Philippe IV, in

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Figure I.1. Blanche de Castille and her son Louis (both seated above) in the “St. Louis Bible” [Biblia de San Luis] (c. 1227–34); The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.240, fol. 8r.

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October 1294, using a somewhat similar wording, named his wife Jeanne as administrator.48 Since Philippe IV assembled experts in Roman law in order to create a new royal absolutism, it is remarkable that he did not take the occasion to exclude women from ruling. He had no reason to do so, for customary practice allowed the queen to participate in the affairs of state, even if it did not allow succession through the female line. Why after over a half-century of chancery-sanctioned female rule on behalf of the king, did the legal situation change so dramatically? Frequently cited is the crisis caused by the affair of the Tour de Nesle, in which the three sisters-in-law of the king were convicted of adultery with Gautier and Philippe d’Aunay. The d’Aunay brothers were convicted of lèse-majesté, and then castrated before they were drawn and quartered.49 The adultery of Marguerite, the first wife of the future Louis X, was used to cast doubt on the legitimacy of her daughter Jeanne. This affair is not even half the story: more likely, I would suggest, is that the barons were alarmed at the rise of royal power shown by Philippe IV’s seizing the wealth of the Knights Templar and his plundering the Jews of France and used the affair of the Tour de Nesle as a pretext to weaken all three sons of Philippe IV.50 The term regent reappears in 1327 with the accession of Philippe VI and then disappears again until Charles V as dauphin employed it during his father’s imprisonment in England. In the absolute flurry of decrees regarding succession during the reigns of both Charles V and Charles VI, the term regence reappears only in a 1390 decree issued by Charles VI which certainly looks back to his own minority: “we order and decree with our certain knowledge, full power and royal authority that this our oldest son . . . succeed to our kingdom and be crowned king as soon as this can be done and to employ all rights as king, without anyone else, no matter how closely related by blood, to undertake the tutelage, regency or government of this our kingdom.”51 By contrast, when Charles was incapacitated during 1417 and 1418, Isabeau, exercising de facto regency, issued letters beginning: “Isabeau, Queen of France by the grace of God, having the government and administration of this kingdom because of the indisposition of our Lord.”52

I I. ‘‘ C R E AT I V E A N D I N V E N T I V E J U R I S P R U D E N C E ’’: C R E AT I N G T H E M E D I E VA L L E G A L J U G G E R N A U T R E S T R I C T I N G W O M E N I N G O V E R N M E N T

Christine’s position on female regency is best understood in its contemporary legal context. The opinions held by contemporary legists attached to the court regarding female succession were summarised in the Somnium Viridarii (1374), which was immediately translated into French, perhaps by Evrart de Trémaugon.53 The Songe du Vergier compiles pro and contra arguments on a vast range of topics, focused on issues of royal and papal power. Here, as part of the discussion of English claims to the French throne, is found one of the most implacable condemnations of women in government. Christine undoubtedly knew it. The work presents arguments in favour of women’s succession to political office (in I.141), and then systematically refutes each one in the following chapter (I.142). After reviewing various opinions, the author

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concludes, citing sections of the Corpus Iuris Romani and Consuetudines feudorum in rapid succession: It is common law that a male son succeed to the kingdom, a law which is also approved by custom in the kingdom of France, and so neither the wives nor their sons can succeed to a duchy, county or barony, and as a result, to a kingdom, as is written in Concerning fiefdoms and who may grant fiefdom, in the first and only chapter, in the paragraph beginning, ‘on this same topic, the grades of inheritance’ and in the paragraph ‘Daughters: tenth analogy,’ the paragraph beginning And on this same matter, and on the degrees of succession and Daughters. This law, thus, must remain firm and stable because we do not find that it has been corrected by any other law or custom as in the Digests or Codices. And we can therefore confirm, as it is written in one law: ‘Who is born follows in the family of the father, not the mother.’ And for this reason, it is more reasonable that as for the government of the kingdom and commonwealth he who descends from the male succeed to the kingdom rather than he who descends from the female side.54

Charles V had assembled legal advisers including Nicole Oresme, Raoul de Presles, and Philippe de Mézières, and the latter two have often been suggested as the authors of the work. In any event, at the beginning of her biography of Charles V, Christine mentions obliquely this legal “dream team” from whose consultations came the Songe du Vergier.55 The case against women in government was hardly as cut and dried as the Songe du Vergier depicts it. That Roman law did not exclude female regency is evident in a commentary by Bartolus de Saxoferrato (d. 1357) whose works were known by Charles V’s legists: “I ask whether a woman can be an executrix for a testament? From the foregoing it seems that this is a duty, private in utility and authority and if then it were to be explained in court, it is impossible, and if it is explained out of court, it is.”56 Put otherwise, women had political leeway extra judicium, they exercised power de facto if not always de jure. The Songe du Vergier appeals to the Consuetudines feudorum. Customary law was hardly uniform, and indeed, when Louis IX in France ordered a written compilation of French customary law, his intent was to preserve regional differences. Significantly, unlike customary law in the Paris region and in Tourangeau, Germanic customary law (Book One, Title VIII, §2) excluded women from inheriting fiefdoms except jointly with a surviving brother.57 The same text can be found in Lombard customary law.58 One early thirteenth-century commentator, Karolus de Tocco, explained that even though no law could be found expressly excluding women from inheriting, the practice was recognised in “the most general custom, which is the best interpreter of laws.”59 In his commentary on this passage, Baldus de Ubaldis (1327–1400) wrote: “If one possessing a fief dies, leaving behind both sons and daughters, only the males will succeed to the fief, and not the daughters or women.”60 Male descendants through the female line were also barred from inheriting.61 This practice in German lands differed, however, from the various traditions in France. Canon law takes a paradoxical position regarding women’s succession. Under the topic De maioritate & obedientia, Hostiensis considers the case of a monastery where both sexes lived side by side, under an abbess, an unusual situation which corresponds to a Germanic custom, secundam consuetudinem theutonicorum. Hostiensis notes that the Roman prohibition of women as judges does not apply to noblewomen, such as queens, countesses, and others having lordship over land or inheritance from men,

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but argues that this same rationale does not apply to a female prelate, who because she does not have full spiritual authority, cannot hear confessions or absolve sins. She also cannot exercise other high and noble things which pertain to the keys of the Church. Hostiensis makes an argumentative leap: here is the reason why Her Son did not wish to give his keys to the most blessed Virgin but to the Apostles, even though she may be more excellent than all of them. He adds that woman is not made in the image and likeness of God, as is man, whence she is his handmaiden, since (quoting Paul, Ephesians 5:22–23) the man is the head of the woman. Christine spends a lot of time in the City of Ladies devoted to refuting this last position. One significant point can be overlooked because of the misogynist blast here: Hostiensis is arguing against a consuetudo which allowed women to rule hominum ex successione, that is, he concedes the point that the Consuetudines feudorum were not applied in the case of noblewomen, “This is not observed for noblewomen, such as queens, countesses, and such others having dominion over lands and from inheritances from men.”62 Hostiensis’s sentence actually speaks volumes about the complexity of historical practice regarding queens’ rights and privileges in the Holy Roman Empire. Just as French queens prior to Philippe V exercised more rights, queens and empresses in the Empire exercised considerable power.63 The other legal author against whom Christine was reacting was Aegidius Romanus (d. 1316), whose De regimine principum (written in 1280 and an important source for Christine’s biography of Charles V) argues rigidly against female succession. While not a commentator on Canon law, he did advise Pope Boniface VIII. His writings, whose erudition earned him the title doctor fundissimus, were carefully read and respected by Canon lawyers. Aegidius devoted an entire chapter to male inheritance, “Whether it is better that the rule of the kingdom and principality descend through the inheritance and succession of sons than through any choice”: “For if royal dignity is transferred to survivors, it should be transferred to the children who according to the child’s blood line are linked most to the parents; however it is necessary that this dignity be transferred more to the males than to the females, since the male is superior in reason to the female, stronger at heart and less likely to fall prey to passions.”64 Aegidius does not argue on the basis of consuetudo but rather on the basis of the alleged male superiority, and introduces misogynist slander into the legal debate. Aegidius’s views influenced the exchange between Edward III and Pope Benedict XII. When Canon and Roman law contradicted each other, customary law applied, which of course begs the question: which custom? In 1340, Benedict XII invoked the term consuetudo to support the claims of the Valois against Edward III and set a legal and propaganda juggernaut in motion. In 1339, the English king Edward III wrote to the Pope that while female weakness justified prohibiting women from ruling, their male descendants were not automatically excluded. Edward III’s claim to the French throne could be construed from the lines of inheritances laid out in Roman law (Digest 39.9). His legal advisers certainly knew that Consuetudines feudorum, Book Two, Tit. XI, excluded male descendants

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of excluded female heirs. Nevertheless, his letter refers to the French exclusion of women from royal succession as a jus rather than as a consuetudo: The law of the aforesaid kingdom, taking into consideration the final cause, lest the kingdom itself fall down under the weak female governance, and for this reason excluding the person of a woman, does not exclude the person of a man descending from an excluded woman . . . And even for this reason, the fragility of women is excluded from the throne through this aforesaid law, so that the kingdom may be taken care of in a more healthy way, and the closer male, who should be admitted elsewhere, is admitted.65

In March 1340, Benedict XII tried to discourage Edward from calling himself King of France. The Pope was the first to maintain that French customary law did not admit succession to the throne through the female line, appealing to a consuetudo Francorum. His phrase goes back to the gloss of Karolus de Tocco on Lombard practice as being generalissima consuetudine approbatus [approved by the most general custom], and to Hostiensis’s phrase, secundam consuetudinem theutonicorum. Because Benedict’s legists knew that French customary law varied regionally, Benedict continues his argument by observing that while succession through the female line is not permitted, even if it were, there were closer female relatives in line of succession than Isabelle, Edward’s mother, daughter of Philippe IV: in this case the Pope refers to Joan II, Queen of Navarre, the daughter of Louis X with Marguerite de Bourgogne, to the three daughters of Philippe V and the four daughters of Charles IV. Since indeed it is declared to be certain and indubitable that this custom, hitherto constantly observed, does not admit succession to the kingdom of France through the female line, it is said that the succession is not due to you, who, as you know, have descended from the branch of the House of France through the female line. And even if this custom would also not prohibit a succession to the crown of this kingdom proceeding from the female line, there are in fact daughters and their children of the late kings of France who are closer by degree, as is reported, to their fathers the French Kings, than you and our most dear daughter, Queen Isabelle, your illustrious mother and daughter of the aforesaid Philippe, who could have succeeded your grand-father, the late Philippe [IV] King of France. But however, as set out before, this custom has been unquestionably observed in former times.66

Since provisions of Roman law regarding female tutelage partially contradict customary law, the Pope took the easy way out and declared French practice a consuetudo. Eighty years later, at the Treaty of Troyes (May 1420), it appears that Edward III’s grandson, Henry V, conceded the point, for he avoided claiming the French throne through the female line of his wife, Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI and Isabeau de Bavière. Rather he construed the Treaty of Troyes as an act of legal adoption, for the treaty says that he has been made the son of Charles and Isabel, and he calls his in-laws “father Charles and mother Isabel.”67 The treaty names him as Charles VI’s regent, and only with Charles’s death in 1422 did he have himself crowned King of France. These two framing examples from the Hundred Years’ War show that the arguments for regency, male or female, were at best precarious. Writing after Edward III’s death (June 21, 1377), the legist Baldus de Ubaldis commented on the first passage from the Digest cited above, devoted to De senatoribus. Baldus saw the prohibition of female succession in France as an example of

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the conflict between customary and Roman law and comments on the Franco-English dynastic claims in the Hundred Years’ War: And therefore if the daughter of the King of the French [Isabelle, daughter of Philippe IV] cannot succeed to the throne by reason of the rational custom of the French, her son, [Edward III] the lord King of England of blessed memory could not claim any right to the throne of the French, since it is impossible for there to be in a plea more validity than precedes from the force arising from the dispute.68

No jurist would have challenged Baldus. It remained for Jean Montreuil to identify this customary law with a long-forgotten passage in the Lex Salica, which he did in 1390 in Réponses au roi de France and again in the three versions of his Traité contre les anglais (1414/1416). This claim—correctly termed fraudulent by Sarah Hanley— bore directly on Christine’s reactions to the regency crisis in the early 1390s.69 I I I. C H R I S T I N E ’ S C ATA L O G U E O F W O M E N I N G O V E R N M E N T

Confronted with this legal juggernaut, Christine presents an allegory of female government sanctioned by the Virgin. Since every allegory must have a true literal historical level, Christine does not neglect the hic et nunc. At two narratively strategic points in City of Ladies, I.13 and II.58, Christine presents lists of contemporary queens and noblewomen who had shown their political fitness. At least six centuries later, these lists seem abbreviated, but they resemble the decrees naming members of councils of state to govern the realm during a king’s minority, found for instance in Philippe III’s decree from 1271, or in Charles V’s decree from 1374.70 The difference is that the noblewomen in Christine’s “alternative” female councils are genealogically close to the royal succession, unlike the members of the historical councils. Christine’s two lists, presented with tact and cunning,71 contain an implicit message about women in government. The noblewomen, close blood relatives of the royal house, have proven their fitness to govern well. The lists are inserted as structurally key chapters, that is, at the beginning of the City of Ladies and at the end of Book II, just before the Queen of Heaven will make her dramatic entrance in Book III in order to be proclaimed, but not crowned, queen. Christine links the power of the Virgin who rules together with her husband and her son to the fitness of contemporary women to govern. Chapter I.13 presents a catalogue of extremely well-connected mothers who ruled well, who exercised the regimen regni or who were regnans regnum. Christine says more here by saying less because she knew her contemporary readers knew the individuals. The first two, Fredegund and Blanche de Castille, ruled on behalf of their infant sons. The third woman is the widow of Charles IV, Jeanne d’Évreux, who bore her husband three daughters all barred from succeeding their father in 1328, thus opening the way for the ascension of Philippe VI to the throne. Jeanne died in 1371. Christine has Raison note that Christine as a child had personally known Jeanne: “you yourself saw in childhood the noble Queen Jeanne, widow of King Charles, the fourth of that name. As you recall her, remember this lady’s good deeds to which her fame attests.”72 The fourth is Marie de Châtillon, daughter of Charles de Châtillon, Comte de Blois, and Jeanne de Penthièvrem (c. 1343–November 12, 1404) who

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married Louis I de Valois, Duc d’Anjou (1339–84), the same Louis who renounced the regentacion of Charles VI. The fifth is a noblewoman whom Christine names “Blanche, queen of France, late wife of King John.”73 Some mistake in copying has occurred. Suzanne Solente argued that Christine probably meant Blanche de Navarre, second wife of Philippe VI. This explanation does not explain the phrase “feu femme du roy Jehan” [late wife of King John]. It is easy to see that a copyist could have mistakenly written Blanche for Bonne, considering that the next woman was Blanche d’Anjou and is identified only with her title. The identification here requires more study. The sixth woman is identified only by her title “duchess of Anjou,”74 and this woman was Blanche de France, who married Philippe d’Orléans, Duc d’Orléans (1336–75), the fifth child of Philippe VI and Jeanne de Bourgogne, herself the third and youngest daughter of King Charles IV and Jeanne d’Évreux. The seventh woman is identified only with her title: “The countess of La Marche, Lady and countess of Vendôme and of Castres, and a most great landownder, who is still alive—what can one say of her government?”75 This is Cathérine, daughter and heiress of Jean VI, Comte de Vendôme et de Castres, who married Jean I de Bourbon-La Marche in 1361, and died in 1412, who was alive at the time Christine wrote the City of Ladies. In 1402, Cathérine’s second-born child, Anne de Bourbon, married the brother of Isabeau de Bavière, Ludwig VIII von Bayern–Ingolstadt. The effect of this list is cumulative: here are contemporary women, some excluded by the prohibition of female succession, exercising gouvernement; different forms of gouverner, and not of regir, are hammered home in this chapter. Moreover, the prominence assigned here to Jeanne d’Évreux and to her daughter Blanche, Duchesse d’Anjou, cannot be overlooked, the message being that Jeanne d’Évreux showed her talent for government after her husband’s death, and her daughter had shown this talent as well. The mother–daughter model of tutelage, in other words, was just as viable as the mother–son model. The second catalogue of contemporary women in government comes in II.68, and I would venture that some of the unidentified noblewomen in the frontispiece dedication of Harley MS 4431 are included in this list. Fleshing out Christine’s short list shows the subtlety of her understanding of female political power. She precisely separates, for example, Cathérine’s married title, “La contesse de La Marche” [The countess of La Marche] from the title she brought into the marriage, “dame et contesse de Vandosme et de Castres” [Lady and countess of Vendôme and of Castres], in order to underscore the issues of heredity. All these women are paragons of government—as mothers, as widows, as wives—and governing so well that “a man could do no better.”76 These two “regency councils” correspond to the institution in 1407 by Charles VI of what Fanny Cosandey has called “une régence collégiale,”77 and is striking given the fact that the City of Ladies was completed only two years earlier. I V. T H E A P P E A L TO T H E V I R G I N

The Blessed Virgin is both regent and queen. A fifteenth-century manuscript now held at the Stiftsbibliothek in Melk has a sequence dedicated to the Virgin employing standard “regency” epithets and exemplifying Mary’s role as a heavenly

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regent: “the beautiful royal woman of the king,/ruling the ruler of all.”78 This sequence represents a contemporary development to Christine’s use of Marian lore. That Christine connected the Virgin Mary to issues of regency is apparent in her salutation of the Virgin at the beginning of Book Three of the City of Ladies as having administration and dominion: “she is not only their queen but has lordship and dominion over all created powers.”79 The first indication that Christine defines herself in Marian terms in the City of Ladies comes in her accepting the mission to build the City using the words which the Virgin had spoken at the Annunciation.80 This Marian allusion sets the tone for the work. Before Christine presents the first female council of state in I.12, Christine names as the first lady in Part I the Empress Nicaula, that is, the Queen of Sheba, whose entrance into Jerusalem to visit Solomon was taken in patristic lore as a figura of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Celestial Jerusalem. The chapter title, “Here she tells of Nicaula, Empress of Ethiopa, and afterwards about several queens and princesses of France,”81 links the Queen of Sheba and contemporary ruling women. The Queen of Sheba reappears at the beginning of II.4, as though Christine wanted to underscore that the first two parts anticipate the entrance of the Virgin in Part III. After introducing this allegory of the Virgin, Christine lays the first stone of the City, Semiramis, who was mother and spouse of her son, and as such a provocative pagan allegory of the Virgin as Mater Dei and Sponsa Dei. The Third Part of the City of Ladies, often regarded as somehow out of touch with the first two parts, actually makes explicit the Marian organising principle underlying the work. When Justice heralds the Virgin’s entry into the City in Part Three, the Virgin becomes implicitly the Queen of Justice.82 The only Patristic author who calls Mary the regina justitiae was Adam de Perseigne,83 and this epithet crucially and provocatively elevates Mary to the same level with Jesus, the rex justitiae, an epithet associated with the order of Melchisedech, the priest-king of Jerusalem cited by St. Paul (in Hebrews 7:6, based on Psalms 109:4) as the epitome of Old Testament prefigurations of the New, and used to justify the exclusion of women from the priesthood. The Virgin is the Queen of Heaven and the Queen of Mercy, but never, except in Adam’s Mariale, the Queen of Justice. Adam’s Mariale is a devotional, almost intimate work, whereas Richard’s Mariale is a massive, sometimes excessive, but always systematic compilation. It presents what had become by that time the standard Old Testament figuræ of Mary and these figuræ reappear in both the City of Ladies (Judith in II.31; Esther, II.32; Sarah, II.38; Rebecca, II.39; Ruth, II.40) and the Epistre à la Reine. Moreover, Richard identified the Virgin as the civitas Dei: Christine’s use of the term Cité des Dames is therefore not, as often assumed, including by myself, an allusion to St. Augustine, but an allusion to the Mariale.84 This anonymous Cistercian identifies Mary as the head of the female sex, who “according to her dignity is the head of all women.”85 This passage must be the source for what the Virgin says at the beginning of Part Three, “for I am and will always be the head of the feminine sex.”86 Isidore had said something nearly similar, and equally rare in patristic writing, but Christine goes further than Isidore and seems to be invoking the Cistercian tradition.

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The pragmatic tone of the Marian political philosophy implicit in the City of Ladies recalls the sober scholastic question and answer format of the Mariale.87 In the City of Ladies, the Virgin, appearing as advocata nostra and imperatrix, presents the theological “loophole” in the prohibition of women exercising political and civil functions. Question 101 of the Mariale asks whether Mary knew all civil rights, laws, and decrees, and concludes that she was the consummate jurist, and “thus the most blessed Virgin also knew all laws and rhetoric from top to bottom.”88 The anonymous author explains that Mary obtained half the kingdom of God because she offered Him shelter in her womb. Similar wording is found in Jean Gerson’s commentary on the Magnificat (1427). Gerson says that the Virgin, by giving birth to Christ, came into possession of half the Kingdom of God. While power remained with the Lord, the part of mercy was granted to his Mother and Ruling Spouse.89 Although Christine says she wrote her epistle to the queen in haste and late at night, she follows the same Marian philosophy elaborated in the City of Ladies. One Marian detail here, however, is not found in the City of Ladies. Christine appeals to Isabeau to assume the position of the Virgin mediatrix, to mediate between the rival factions at court, and points to the Virgin who is called the mere de chrestienté [mother of Christendom].90 Igino Giordani, writing in the Enciclopedia mariana, claims that the Virgin came to be regarded as the mother of Christians during the Crusades, but unfortunately gives no textual evidence for his observation.91 This designation is unusual, for normally the Church, not the Virgin, was called the mother of Christians. The salutation of the Virgin by St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), “Hail Lady, Holy Queen, Holy Mother of God, Mary/who, Virgin, has been made the Church”92 merges the art historical traditions and accompanying theological commentary regarding the Virgin and the Church. The Virgin was called, as in the Litany of Loreto, not the mater, but the auxilium Christianorum. In light of the other borrowings from Cistercian Marian writings in her work, I believe that this designation was prompted as well by the phrase Mater omnium hominum in the Mariale.93 Having shown that Christine posits the Queen of France as a figura of the Virgin Mary and that Christine resorted to Mariology because the Virgin was arguably the ultimate political model of female power, one must ask how innovative Christine’s vision of female political power really is. The problematic nature of Mary’s power comes back to the question of the double-bind: whether women can exercise political power without depending on men. The art historical traditions of the Coronation of the Virgin mirror this uneasiness: is the Virgin crowned by Her Son, or by an angel bearing the crown directly from heaven, or by the Trinity? Christine takes a different tack toward Mary’s power in the City of Ladies which avoids the double-bind haunting the exercise of political power even today,94 for the assembled ladies—whose nobility is founded on virtue rather than blood—proclaim the Virgin their sovereign. This kind of acclamation by an assembly of virtuous women, assembled under the aegis of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, is a stunning and still provocative vision of women’s political power.

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EARL JEFFREY RICHARDS NOTES

1 See, for example, Charles Dufresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, 10 vols. (Graz:

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3

4 5

6

7 8 9

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11 12

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Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1954; facs. repr. of 1883–87 edition); Fréderic Godefroy, Dictionnaire de lancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX e . au XVe siècle (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1969; facs. repr. of 1880–1902 edition); Paul Imbs, ed., Trésor de la langue française, Dictionnaire de la langue du XIX e et du XX e siècle (1789–1960) (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, vols. 1–10; Paris: Gallimard, vols. 11–16, 1971–1994); Adolf Tobler and Erhard Lommatzsch, eds., Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch: Édition electronique (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2002), 8:614–15; and Walther von Wartburg, Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Tübingen: Mohr, 1948ff), 10:204b. Christine de Pizan, Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles, ed. Suzanne Solente (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1936–40), 138: “après le trespassement du roy Charles, son frere, non obstant lui apertenist la regentacïon du reaume de France, tant que l’enfant fust en aage d’estre couronné, laissa tout es mains des autres [princes ses] freres.” Élie Berger, “Le titre du régent dans les actes de la chancellerie royale,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 61 (1900): 413–25 (420 n. 3 and n. 6): “Loys, filz de roye de France, regent le royaume, duc d’Anjou, de Touraine et conte de Maine,” and “Nous avons fait mettre nostre seel, duquel nous usions avant ladicte regence, à ces presentes.” Du Cange, Glossarium, 7:91b: “Regentare: Profitieri, docere, Gall. Régenter. Stat. Universit. Andegav. ann. 1409.” See the discussion of how customary law was occasionally used to justify female succession in Maïté Albistur and Daniel Armogathe, Histoire du féminisme française, du Moyen Age à nos jours (Paris: Editions des femmes, 1977), 21. As Albistur and Armogathe emphasise, however, even these examples underscore the ambiguity and precariousness of women’s legal status. For a general introduction to the political implications of Marian queenship, see Henri Barré, “La royauté de Marie pendant les neufs premiers siècles,” Recherches de sciences religieuses 29 (1939): 129–62, 303–34. Paul Viollet, “Comment les femmes ont été exclues, en France, de la succession à la couronne,” Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 34 (1893): 125–78. Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” 135. Philippe V and Philippe VI, both resolute in their exclusion of women from succession to the throne, used the term regent to describe themselves. That the Valois claim to the throne was legally precarious never escaped contemporaries. When Christine, for example, at the beginning of her biography of Charles V (I.v) turns to his genealogy, she speaks of the ancient Trojan descent of the French and skips the expected list of one king begetting another and passes over in silence the transition from the Capetians to the Valois. Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” 130: “Raisons et drois naturez donne que en deffautes de hoirs males, les femelles doivent aussi bien heriter et avoir successions es biens et possessions des peres de cui elles ont esté procréées et descendues en loyal mariage comme font li malle.” Ibid., 136. Gratian, Corpus Iuris Canonici, in Decretum magistri Gratiani (Concordia discordantium canonum), ed. Emil Friedberg (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879), 23 (Pars 1, Distinctio 11): “non potest usus et consuetudo legem et rationem vincere.” J.M. Potter, “The Development and Significance of the Salic Law of the French,” English Historical Review 52 (1937): 235–53, explains (236) the historical background in the following terms: “The Chronicler Jean de Saint Victor, although not in general hostile to Philip, calls attention to the legal weakness of his position, in the following words: ‘Cui [Eudes of Burgundy] in oppositum dicebatur quod in regno Franciæ mulieres succedere non debebant. Hoc tamen probari non poterat evidenter’ [It was said against him that in the realm of France women must not succeed. This however could not be clearly proven].” Potter’s source here is Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 21:665, cited by Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” 138. See below footnote 20 for further discussion of this point.

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14 St. Augustine, Epistulae, ed. Alois Goldbacher (Vienna/Leipzig: Tempsky/Freytag, 1911; repr.,

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New York: Johnson, 1961), 1:32, Epist. 36 argued, “in his rebus, de quibus nihil certi statui scriptura divina, mos populi Dei vel instituta maiorum pro lege tenenda est” [in these matters, in which divine scripture has no certain status, the custom of the people of God or the established practices of the ancients should be considered as law]. Not only does Gratian cite this passage in Corpus Iuris Canonici, but Thomas Aquinas also uses it twice for his definition of consuetudo in the Summa (I-ii, 37,3 and II-ii, 79,2). Gratian, Corpus Iuris Canonici, 1:24–25 (Pars 1, Distinctio 11): “inviolabilis est consuetudo, quæ nec humanis legibus nec sacris canonibus obviare monstratur . . . ubi auctoritas deficit, mos populi et maiorum institute pro lege servantur” [Custom, which can be shown not to oppose human laws or sacred canons, is inviolable . . . where authority is lacking, the custom of the people and the ancients is used for established law]. Pope Gregory IX, Corpus Iuris Canonici, Pars Secunda: Decretalium Collectiones, Decretales Gregorii IX, ed. Emil Ludwig Richter and Emil Friedberg (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1959; repr. of 1881 edition), 2:546, lib. 3, tit. 27 (“De successionibus ab intestato”), cap. 1: “Clericus bona propria dare potest cui vult.” The implications of this, and of other edicts of the period, on regency and the position of the French queen have been examined judiciously by Fanny Cosandey, La reine de France, Symbole et pouvoir, XVe –XVIII e siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), especially 36–43. Jean de Montreuil, “Responses faites l’an 1390 a ce qui maintien le roy d’Angleterre,” in Opera omnia, ed. Ezio Ornato (Turin: Giappichelli, 1963), 3:76–83 (see esp. para. 2, 77, which invokes the Salic Law). See my two essays, “Le concept de Droiture chez Christine de Pizan et sa pensée politique,” L’analisi linguistica e letteraria 8, no. 1–2 (2000): 305–14, and “Christine de Pizan and Medieval Jurisprudence,” in Contexts and Continuities, Proceeding of the Fourth International Colloquium on Christine de Pizan (Glasgow, July 2000), ed. Angus J. Kennedy, Rosalind Brown-Grant, James C. Laidlaw, and Catherine M. Müller (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 2002), 747–66. I was unable to consult Félix Olivier-Martin’s often cited study Les régences et la majorité des rois sous les Capétiens directs et les premiers Valois (1060–1375) (Paris: Sirey, 1931). The standard works on this topic include, among others: Harriet L. Lightman, “Sons and Mothers: Queens and Minor Kings in French Constitutional Law” (PhD diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1981); John Carmi Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1993); James H. Burns, Lordship, Kingship and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy, 1400–1525 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994); Anne J. Duggan, ed., Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King’s College London, April 1995 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997); Thilo Offergeld, Reges pueri: das Königtum Minderjähriger im frühen Mittelalter (Hannover: Hahn, 2001); Marie-Luise Heckmann, Stellvertreter, Mit- und Ersatzherrscher: Regenten, Generalstatthalter, Kurfürsten und Reichsvikare im Regnum und Imperium vom 13. bis zum frühen 15. Jahrhundert (Warendorf: Fahlbusch, 2002); Bettina Elpers, Regieren, Erziehen, Bewahren, Mütterliche Regentschaften im Hochittelalter (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2003); and Katherine Crawford, Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). These documents are published in F.A. Isambert, A.J.L. Jourdan, and A. Decrusy, eds., Recueil general des anciennes lois françaises (Paris: Belin-Leprieur, 1829), 3:1308–27. See Martin Bouquet, ed., Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France (Paris: Victor Palme, 1738–1904), 21:665: “Post cujus mortem, comes Pictavensis regnum obtinuit. Sed dux Burgundiæ contradixit. Dicebat enim quod neptis sua, tamquam regis filia et fratre suo defuncto propinquior, debebat succedere ipso jure. Cui [Eudes] in oppositum dicebatur quod in regno Franciæ mulieres succedere non debebant. Hoc tamen probari non poterat evidenter” (cited in Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” 138). See Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, vols. 20 and 22. Du Cange, Glossarium, 7:91. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, 21:725–26: “gubernacula autem utriusque regni, videlicet Franciæ et Navarræ . . . sub nomine regentis tenenda”; and “non tamen sub Regis nomine, sed regentis.”

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26 One of the earliest attributions in French for regent in non-chancery documents is found in the Chapel

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des trois fleurs de lis, line 823, composed by the famous theoretician of medieval music Philippe de Vitry (d. 1361), who was prominent in the courts of Charles IV, Philippe VI, and Jean II. Eusèbe Jacob de Laurière and Denis F. Secousse, eds., Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisième race, recueillies par ordre chronologique avec des renvoys des unes aux autres, des sommaires, et des observations sur le texte (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1723–1849; repr., Farnborough: Gregg, 1967–68), 3:85. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 3:212: “Charles, Ainsnéz Filz du Roy, Regent le Royaume de France, Duc de Normandie & Dalphin de France de Viennois . . . Nous aions pris pour l’évident [sic] necessité & profit dudit Royaume, le nom de Regent & le gouvernement d’icelli, jusques à tant qu’il plaise à Dieu que Monseigneur puisse retourner en ycelli & estre ors de la main de ses ennemis.” de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 3:428. The phrase “reipublicæ amministrationem et curam” is cited by Berger, “Le titre du régent,” p. 414, from the necrology for Suger composed by the monks of St. Denis. As Heckmann (Stellvertreter 1:56, n. 5) notes, different surviving narrative sources record different, sometimes conflicting, details for the regency in the period between June 1147 and 1149. Linguistic usage is clearly not fixed at the point. The same necrology for Suger refers to this episode by saying that the king had commissioned him in particular to rule the realm, “regnum specialiter regendum commisit”; cited in Berger, “Le titre du régent,” 414. The fourth paragraph of this decree directs that the Queen Mother rule with the Archbishop and regularly hold court in Paris (see de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 1:19). de Laurière and Secousse Ordonnances, 11:323: “Noster rex Francie Ludovicus felicis recordationis in lecto sue egritudinis presentibus nobis et audientibus in bona deliberatione et sana mente voluit et disposuit, quod filius eius, qui ei in regno succederet, cum ipso regno et pueris ipsius aliis essent sub ballo sive tutela karissime domine nostre B[iancae] regine genitoris eorum, donec ad etatem legitimum pervenierent.” See also, Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:735. In the notes, all citations have been taken from the Ordonnances and, given the central importance of Heckmann’s study, when Heckmann cites the same document, a reference to her work has also been provided. R. Limouzin-Lamothe, “Blanche de Castille,” Dictionnaire de biographie française 6 (1954): 616–17. Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum historiale (Douai: 1624; repr., Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1965), book 30, chap. 130, 1277. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 1:50–56. Ibid., 1:60: “Ludovicus Dei gratia Rex universis presentes literas inspecturis saltuem. Notum facimus quod nos carissimaæ & matri Reginæ concessimus & voluimus, quod ipsa in hac nostræ peregrinationis absentiâ plenariam habeat potestatem.” Élie Berger, Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 70 (Paris: Thorin & Fils, 1895) remains the best survey. For a concise survey of the struggles involved in Blanche’s regency after Louis VIII’s death, see R. Limousin-Lamothe, “Blanche de Castille,” Dictionnaire de biographie française 6 (1954): 616–18. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 3:103: “tam vos qui nostrum locum tenetis, quam Baillivos, Præpositos, & alios justitias habentes a nobis.” Innocent III, Sermo III: “In consecratione Pontificis,” in Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris: Garnier, 1890), [Innocenti III opera omnia], vol. 217 col. 665. [Richard de Saint-Laurent], De laudibus B. Mariæ Virginis libri XII, vol. 36 of Albertus Magnus, Beati Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis episcopi, ordinis prædicatorum, opera omnia, ed. Auguste Borgnet (Paris: Vivès, 1898); and [Anonymous], Mariale, sive CCXXX quaestiones super Evangelium Missus est, vol. 37 of Albertus Magnus, Beati Alberti Magni Opera omnia. On Richard de Saint-Laurent, see Jean Châtillon, “L’héritage littéraire de Richard de Saint-Laurent,” Revue du moyen âge latin 2 (1946): 146–66; H. Omont, “Richard de St. Laurent et le Liber de laudibus beatæ Mariæ,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 42 (1881): 503–04; Aimé Solignac, “Richard de Saint-Laurent,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité 13 (1988): 590–93; Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi 5 (1955): 102–03; Johannes Baptist Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, 2nd ed.

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(Münster: Aschendorff, 1973), 5:161–202; J. Roten, “Richardus v. St. Laurentius,” in Marienlexikon, ed. R. Bäumer and L. Scheffczyk (St. Otillien: Eos, 1993), 5:486–88. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.240. The on-line Pierpont Morgan Library catalogue says it was “executed in France, ca. 1227–34 for Blanche of Castille and her son St. Louis, [i.e., during Blanche’s first regency and during Louis IX’s minority, whence its pedagogical and highly symbolic value] possibly as a gift to the Cathedral of Toledo, where the main portion of the manuscript now is; M.240 was removed from the Toledo portion by ca. 1400.” H.W. van Os, “Krönung Mariens,” Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum and Wolfgang Braunfels (Rome: Herder, 1968–76), vol. 2 (1970), 671–76. It might also be recalled that the subject of the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary is the Coronation of the Virgin. Blanche de Castille in the Pierpont Morgan Bible moralisée (1226–34), MS 240. Musée Condé, Chantilly, MS 1284, fol. 60v. Angus J. Kennedy, in his excellent “Editing Christine de Pizan’s Epistre à La Reine,” in The Editor and the Text, ed. Philip E. Bennett and Graham A. Runnalls (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 70–82, notes that “It is up to Isabeau herself to choose whether she wishes to follow in the footsteps of the great women whose role as mediator is recorded in scripture or history (e.g. the Virgin, Veturia, Esther, Bathsheba, Blanche de Castille) or to behave like a Jezabel or Olimpias and bequeath to posterity an unenviable reputation for excessive violence and cruelty” (ibid., 77). He sees the importance of the miniature in courtly rather than Marian terms (ibid., 75). I believe the Marian parallel is more convincing than a “courtly” one. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonannces, 11:295; Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:737; and in French in December 1271, de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 11:349–50; Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:738. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances 11:375; Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:741. The account given by Jean de St. Victor, in Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, 21:658–59, remains the best original source. The peers of the French realm confirmed the legality of Philippe V’s succession to the throne of France, but not his succession to the throne of Navarre. Subsequent agreements concluded regarding the succession of the Kingdom of Navarre (guaranteeing, for example, the succession of Queen Jeanne II to that throne) and of other fiefdoms, more or less to bribe the sceptics, show that he was not interested in the finer points of legal theory, like Philippe IV, but in the preservation of a strong monarchy. See the discussion of these complicated negotiations in Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” and in Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 1.94–95. Historians speculate that the testament of Philippe IV and the apanage decree of Louis X with regard to the duchy of Artois which excluded female ducal succession, formed the potential argumentative basis for the exclusion of women from the royal throne, but there are no documents to prove this thesis, and sufficient evidence from other customary practices to prove the contrary. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 8:518–83: “ordonnons et decernons de nostre certaine science, plaine puissance et auctorité royal que nostredit ainsné filz . . . succede a nostre royaume et soit couronné roy le plus tost que faire se pourra et user de tous droiz de roy, sanz ce que aucun autre, tant soit prouchain de nostre sang, entrepreigne le bail, regence ou gouvernement de nostredit royaume.” See also, Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:186–87; and Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, 6:53–56. de Laurière and Secousse, Ordonnances, 10:429–34: “Isabel, par la grace de Dieu, Royne de France, ayant pour l’occupation de Monseigneur, le gouvernement & administration de ce Royaume,” January 30, 1417, dealing with taxes. See also ibid., vol. 10, February 16, 1417, 436–43, abolishing the old and establishing a new Parlement de Paris; and ibid., 10:449–53, April 3, 1418, dealing with rights of assembly and taxes. Marion Schnerb–Lièvre, ed., Le Songe du Vergier, 2 vols. (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982). Schnerb–Lièvre, Le Songe du Vergier, 1:250: “c’est Droit comun que un filz malle succede ou royaume, lequel Droit est aussi, par coustume, ou royaume de France apprové, et si ne puent les fames ne leurs filz succeder en duchié, en conté ne en baronnie et par consequant, ne en royaume, conme il est escript De feudis et qui feudum dare possunt, capitalo unico, § Hoc quoque, et De gradibus succedendi,

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EARL JEFFREY RICHARDS § Filia, colacione decima. [Consuetudines feudarum II,11] Ceste loy, donques, doit demorer ferme et estable, puis que nous ne trovons qu’elle soit par aultre loy ou par coustume, corrigie, Digestis, De alimentis legatis, lege Alumpne, § Filias [Digesta 34.1.10, De alimentis vel cibariis legatis and Digesta,34.4.30, §3, De adimendis vel transferendis legatis vel fideicommissis]; Codice, De testamentis, lege Sanctimus. [Codices, 6.60.0. De bonis maternis et materni generis]. Et ce povons nous ainssi confermer, conme il est escript en une loy: Qui nascitur, patris non matris familiam sequitur: ‘celluy qui est né, si ensieut plus la condiction du pere que de la mere’ Instituta, De legitima agnatorum tutela, § primo [Institutiones, I.15, De legitima adgnatorum tutela]; lege Quisquis, Codice, Ad legem vililiam majestatis. [Codices, IX.8.5 §1]. Et, pour ce, c’est chose plus raysonable, pour le gouvernement du royaume et de la chose publique, que celluz qui descent du costé malle succede ou royaume, que celluy qui est du costé de la fame.” See Christine de Pizan, Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs de Charles V, ed. Suzanne Solente (Geneva: Slatkine, 1975), 1:16–17. See also Craig Taylor’s discussion of Raoul de Presles’ role in transmitting notions of the Salic Law to the court of Charles V, Craig Taylor, “The Salic Law and the Valois Succession to the French Crown,” French History 15 (2001): 358–77 (362–63). Bartoli a Saxoferr[ato], Commentary to Digest (In II. partem Digesti veteris commentaria), book 50, ch. 27, para. 2, in Bartoli a Saxoferr[ato], Opera quæ nunc estant omnia, ed. Simon Schard (Basel: Episcopius, 1588), 2:701: “quæro, an mulier possit esse executrix in testamento? Ex prædictis apparet, quod est officium privatum utilitate et auctoritate: et tunc si est explicandum in iudicio, non potest . . . aut est explicandum extra iudicium, et potest.” This six-volume edition contains both the complete text of Roman law and the commentary by Accursius and is the most accessible source to Accursius’s work. The law was clear, as Accursius’s comments on the Consuetudines feudorum show. They are found in the Fehe edition of the Corpus iuris civilis: Accursius, Commentary on Corpus iuris civilis Iustinianei, ed. Johann Fehe [Johannes Fehi] (Lyons, 1627; repr., Osnabrück: Zeller, 1965–66), 5.18: “filia vero non succeddit in feudo, nisi investitura fuerit facta in patre, vt filij, & filiæ succedant in feudam . . . tunc enim succedit filia filliis non estantibus” [a daughter in fact will not succeed to a fiefdom unless she was so invested by her father under the condition ‘as daughters and sons will inherit the fiefdom,’ and then, if the sons are no longer living, she can inherit]. The Consuetudines feudorum are published in volume five with separate pagination after the Authentica collatio, col. 1–648. K. Lehmann, ed., Consuetudo feudorum (Libri feudorum, Jus feudale Langobardorum) (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1892), 13, see also Karl Lehmann, Das Langobardische Lehnrecht (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1896), 94. See August Anschütz, ed., Summa legis Langobardorum, Landobardisches Rechtsbuch aus dem XII. Jahrhundert (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1870), 47: “generalissima consuetudine approbatus, que est optimus legum interpres.” Accursius, Commentary on De successione feudi, lib. 1, tit. 3, in Corpus iuris civilis, 5:16: “Si habens feudum decedat masculis, filiabus relictis, soli masculi succedunt in feudum, non filiæ, seu fœminæ.” The text of the Consuetudo states, 5.50: “Feudum acquiritur investitura et successione. Nam vasallo mortuo prima causa est liberorum masculorum, filiorum, nepotum, et aliorum descendentium: sed filiæ, neptes et proneptes non succendunt ipsæ, nec nati ex eis, nisi feudum sit fœmineum” [A fiefdom is acquired through investiture or inheritance. For when a vassal dies, this first concerns free men, their sons, nephews and other descendants, but daughters, nieces and great-granddaughters do not inherit, nor their male issue, unless the fiefdom was [in] female [possession]]. Accursius in turn comments, “Fœmina et earum filii regulariter a feudi successione removentur” [Women and their sons are removed as a rule from the inheritance of a fiefdom] (Accursius, Corpus iuris civilis, 5:51). Henricus de Segusia Cardinalis Hostiensis, In I–II Decretalium Librum Commentaria, Doctissimorum Virorum Quampluribus Adnotationibus Illustrata (Venice: Iuntas, 1581; repr., Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1965), 1:173r–173v: “Fallit in mulieribus nobilibus, sicut reginis, comitissis, & aliis similibus dominium terrae & hominum ex successione.” The most exhaustive survey is found in Amalie Fößel, Die Königin im mittelalterlichen Reich, Herrschaftsausübung, Herrschaftsrechte, Handlungsspielräume (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000).

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64 Aegidius Romanus, De regimine principum libri III, ed. F.H. Samaritanus (Rome, 1607; repr.,

Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag, 1967), 461–62: “Quod melius est regimen regni & principatus ire per hæreditatem & successionem filiorum, quam per electionem aliquam,” and “Nam si dignitas regia per hæreditatem tranferatur ad posteros, oportet eam transferre in filios, qui secundum lineam consanguinitatis filij parentibus maxime sunt coniuncti: oportet autem talem dignitatem magis transferre ad masculos quam ad fœminas, quia masculus est fœmina ratione præstantior, corde animosior, passionum minus insecutor” (italics added). 65 Thomas Rymer and Robert Sanderson, eds., Fœdera (The Hague: Neaulme, 1739), vol. 2 (1327–45), ii.1086, col. 1: “Jus regni præfati favorem in viam causæ finalis attendens, ne regnum ipsum sub fœminea fragili gubernacione labatur, et propter hoc mulieris personam excludens, non excludit personam masculi, per sic exclusam fœminam descendentis . . . Ad hoc etiam per jus memoratum a regno fragilitas muliebris excluditur, ut regno salubrius consulatur, et proximior masculus admittendus alias admittatur.” 66 Rymer and Sanderson, Fœdera, vol. 2 (1327–45), iv.70:

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Siquidem certum & indubitatum asseritur quædam Consuetudo, hactenus inconcusse servata, Successionem ad Regnum Franciæ, per Fœmininam Lineam non admittat, Tibi (qui, ut Nosti, de Stirpe Domus Franciæ descendisti ex Fœmininâ Lineâ) dicitur Successio non deberi. Etsi etiam Consuetudo non prohiberet ad Coronam dicti Regni Successionem ex Fœmininâ Lineâ procedentem, sunt profecto, claræ memoriæ, Regum Franciæ, qui gradatim, inclitæ Recordationis, Philippo Regi Franciæ, Avo tuo successerunt, Filiæ et Proles earum, quæ (quo ad Successionem eandem) Proximiores, ut præfertur, existerent Regibus Patribus suis, quam existatis Tu & carissima Filia nostra Isabella Regina, Illustris Mater Tua, Nata Philippi prædicti. Sed adeo, ut præmittitur, observata est, præteritis temporibus, ipsa Consuetudo irrefragabiliter. The Latin original is in Rymer and Sanderson, Fœdera, vol. 4 (1417–33), iii.179; English translation in A.R. Myers, ed., English Historical Documents (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969), vol. 4 (1327–1485), 225–26. Baldus de Ubaldis, In primam digesti veteris partem commentaria (Venice: Iuntas, 1572), fol. 52v, col. 2. I cite the 1572 edition of Baldus, whereas both Viollet, “Comment les femmes,” 167–68 and Potter, “The Development and Significance of the Salic Law of the French,” 241, refer instead to the 1586 Venice edition of Baldus’s work also published by Luca Antonio Giunta (“Apud Iuntas”), fol. 47v, col. 1. The text in both editions is identical: “Et ideo si filia regis Francorum non succedit in regno, ex rationabili consuetudine Francorum, filius eius dominus rex Angliæ inclytæ recordationis in regno Francorum nullum jus pretendere potuit, qua in causato non potest esse plus virtutis, quæ præcedat ab influentia potentia causæ.” Sarah Hanley, “Identity Politics and Rulership in France: Female Political Place and the Fraudulent Salic Law in Christine de Pizan and Jean de Montreuil,” in Changing Identities in Early Modern France, ed. Michael Wolfe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 78–94. For a different interpretation of the legal controversies involved in the origin of Salic Law, see Craig Taylor, “The Salic Law and the Valois Succession to the French Crown.” Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2:738–40 and 763–73 respectively. Barbara Newman recently noted to me that often people assume that Christine was naïve but that her heart was in the right place and thus completely miss the cunning of her arguments. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea Books, 1998), I.13, 34; the original text is from Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, ed. Patrizia Caraffi (Milano & Trento: Luni Editrice, 1998), I.13, 98: “tu veys en ton enfance la noble royne Jehanne, vesve du roy Charles ·iiije de cellui nom. Se tu en as memoire, avises les grans biens que renommee tesmoigne de celle dame.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.13, 34; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.13, 98: “la royne de France Blanche, feu femme du roy Jehan.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.13, 34; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.13, 98: “duchece d’Anjou.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.13, 35; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.13, 100: “La contesse de La Marche, dame et contesse de Vandosme et de Castres et tres grant terrienne qui ancores est en vie, que peut on dire de son gouvernement?”

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76 Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.13.2, 34; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.13, 98: “oncques

mieulx par homme ne fu gouverné.” 77 Cosandey, La reine de France, 39. 78 Clemens Blume, ed., Sequentiae ineditae. Liturgische Prosen des Mittelalters aus Handschriften und

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Frühdrucken, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 42 (Frankfurt: Minerva, 1961; repr. of 1903 edition), 115: “Pulchra regis regia/regens regentem omnia.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, III.1, 217; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, III.1, 430: “celle qui est non pas seulement leur royne, mais qui a dominacion et seigneurie sur toutes puissances creés.” The most comprehensive art historical treatment of this problem is V.A. Kolve, “The Annunciation to Christine: Authorial Empowerment in The Book of the City of Ladies,” in Iconography at the Crossroads, ed. Brendan Cassidy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, Department of Art and Archaeology, 1993), 172–96. See also my essay “Where are the Men in Christine de Pizan’s City of Ladies? Architectural and Allegorical Structures in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la Cité des Dames,” in Translatio Studii: Essays in Honor of Karl D. Uitti, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Kevin Brownlee, Mary Speer, and Lori J. Walters (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), 221–44. Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.12, 32; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.12, 94: “Ci dit le l’empereris Nycole et apres d’aucunes roynes et princesses de France.” For more details on Mariology in Christine’s political thought, see my forthcoming article “Justice in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, in Late Medieval Marian Devotional Writings and in the Works of Christine de Pizan,” in the acts of the Liège conference (January 2005) devoted to Christine. Adam de Perseigne, Adami Abbatis Perseniæ Ordinis Cisterciensis Mariale, in Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris: Migne, 1855), vol. 211, col. 699–780, citation here from col. 605, 713. See [de Saint-Laurent], De laudibus, 36:539, and 36:545–46; these references are to the chapter entitled Maria civitas Dei [Maria as the City of God]. [Anonymous], Mariale, sive, 37:251: “secundum dignitatem est caput omnium fœminarum.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, III.1, 218; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, III.1, 432: “Si suis et seray a tousjours chief du sexe femenin.” By contrast, her later, and still unedited Heures de Contemplacion sur la Passion de Nostre Seigneur (which survives in Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, nouv. acq. 10059, with works by Jean Gerson and Guillaume de Tignonville) is closer to the better known tradition of devotional spirituality. [Anonymous], Mariale, sive, 37:160, quaestio CI [question 101]: “ergo et beatissima Virgo jura omnia et rhetoricam in summo scivit.” See Jean Gerson, L’Œuvre spirituelle et pastorale, vol. 8 of Œuvres complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux (Paris: Desclée & Cie, 1971), 8:233–34. Christine de Pizan, The “Epistle of the Prison of Human Life” with “An Epistle to the Queen of France and Lament on the Evils of Civil War,” ed. and trans. Josette A. Wisman (New York: Garland, 1984), 78. Igino Giordani, “Maria nella vita e nella civiltà dei populi,” in Enciclopedia mariana, ed. Raimondo Spiazzi, Cassiano da Langasco, and Giuseppe Bevilacqua (Milan: Editrice Massimo, 1954), 200–19 (206). François d’Assise, Écrits, ed. K. Esser, with T. Debonnets, J.F. Godet, T. Matura, and D. Vorreux (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1981), 271: “Ave Domina, sancta Regina, sancta Dei genetrix Maria/quae es virgo ecclesia facta.” [Anonymous], Mariale, sive, 37:205b, and 251b. See Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

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II PHRONESIS FEMINISED: PRUDENCE FROM CHRISTINE D E P I Z A N TO E L I Z A B E T H I

The political engagement of women has taken a number of forms. Under monarchical systems women, from time to time, ruled in their own right, governed in place of absent husbands, and acted as regents for infant sons.1 After the rise of democracy in the eighteenth century, and despite a brief revolutionary moment, women were for a while largely excluded from political power in democratic polities. It took more than one hundred years for the ideology of women’s equal participation, first achieved with the vote, and then at the level of participation in government, to take hold. We know that the current democratic situation is, at least partly, the result of the conscious activity of women political writers, backed up by sympathetic men. Without the ideological underpinning provided by Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor, the Pankhursts, and a host of others too numerous to mention, women would not have achieved the exercise of power within democracies that they now have. However, it is generally argued that women’s power under monarchy emerged as a consequence of monarchy’s emphasis on hereditary succession. Up to a point this is undeniable, and it is noteworthy that the elected rulers of the Holy Roman Empire were never women, while between 1100 and 1600, twenty queens reigned in monarchies where succession was based on inheritance.2 Yet, within the monarchical system, women’s right to rule was also often hotly contested. Like female participants in democracies, female monarchs required a countervailing ideology that upheld their authority in order for their exercise of power to be accepted. Much of the work that has examined the ideological underpinning of the successful female monarch has focused on the writings of men. Frances Yates, in particular, in her seminal discussion of the figure of Astraea, and its importance for the ideology surrounding Elizabeth I, focused on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and the influence of Petrarch and other male authors.3 But Yates’s study of men’s writing overlooks the existence of female ideologists of women’s authority. Of these, Christine de Pizan, and in particular her City of Ladies [Cité des dames], is the best known and most noteworthy. In this chapter, I argue for the continuing influence of Christine’s book, written 150 years earlier in support of another queen’s right to wield power, on images of Queen Elizabeth I constructed in the mid-sixteenth century. Susan Groag Bell has demonstrated that, at the age of fourteen when her father died, the future Queen Elizabeth had in her “Guarderobe” six panels of a tapestry called the “Citie of Ladies.”4 But Bell was unable to establish the images reproduced in these tapestries. Nor is it clear, from the fact that wall hangings illustrating scenes from the City of Ladies were owned by Elizabeth, how familiar the content of Christine’s book was to members of Elizabeth’s court. Certainly, the book had been translated 23 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 23–38. © 2007 Springer.

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into English in 1521, probably from a French manuscript of the text (now London, British Library, Royal 19, A XIX) which had been in the royal library since the time of Edward IV.5 Copies of Christine’s Letter of Othea [Epistre Othea] were also to be found in the royal library.6 But how influential were they? In this essay, by tracking images of the virtue of prudence from Christine de Pizan’s texts, to portraits of Elizabeth I, I hope to do three things: first, to explore a central but neglected aspect of an ideological campaign waged in the fifteenth and sixteenth century to support women’s capacity for political authority; second, to show that details of the content of Christine’s books were known and referred to in the Elizabethan milieu; and last, to offer a reinterpretation of the famous sieve portraits of Elizabeth I, which modifies the widely accepted hypothesis, developed by Frances Yates, according to which the sieve that Elizabeth holds refers to the vestal Tuccia and evokes Elizabeth’s virginity. I. P R U D E N C E I N T H E C I T Y O F L A D I E S

Prudence is the medieval descendent ofAristotle’s phronesis, and it is a central concept in Christine de Pizan’s political thought. In his Politics, Aristotle claims that phronesis is special to the ruler.7 Following Aristotle, Christine recognises prudence as the fundamental political virtue, and she says it is “mother and guide of all the virtues.”8 In the first of Christine’s works to have the character of a mirror of princes, the Letter of Othea from 1400, prudence is personified as the Goddess Othea. Christine spells out the teachings of prudence in this early work as well as in the Book of Prudence [Livre de Prudence also called the Livre de la Prod’hommie de l’homme], the Book of the Three Virtues [Livre des Trois Vertus], and in the Book of Peace [Le Livre de Paix].9 The Book of Prudence from 1406 to 1407 is a glossed translation of Martin of Braga’s De quattuor virtutibus (commonly attributed to Seneca), which was also, and independently, translated by John de Courtescue at about the same time. The Book of the Three Virtues is a mirror for princesses, which contains advice to women of other classes, in which the major elements of advice are represented as the teachings of prudence. The Book of Peace was written during 1412–14 and begun after the shaky peace agreed to at Auxerre, to advise Louis of Guyenne on the principles of good government and to encourage the continuation of peace, following “la virtue de prudence” [the virtue of prudence] and spelling out “ce que elle requiert en gouvernement de prince” [what it requires of princely government].10 Aristotle discussed phronesis at length in the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics where he made it clear that it was the central political virtue. Christine does not often quote Aristotle’s Ethics directly, for often what looks like a direct quotation in her work in fact comes from some intermediate source, but she is writing within a tradition of medieval political theory in which the fundamental concepts and vocabulary were derived from Aristotle.11 Phronesis is knowledge in an applied and practical sense, and to gain it requires experience. Aristotle distinguishes it from sophia the theoretical wisdom of an unworldly Anaximander or Thales, and represents it as an

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active virtue.12 The idea that prudence is the mother of the virtues, so often utilised by Christine, derives from the fact that according to Aristotle the possession of phronesis implies possession of all the virtues. For, “if a man have the one moral virtue of prudence he will also have all the moral virtues together with it.”13 By the time Christine was writing, the virtue of prudence had come to be summed up in a number of platitudes that Christine was happy to exploit. One such is repeated at the end of her Book of Prudence and derives from Alan of Lille. He characterises prudence as “the discernment of good and evil in the flight from evil and choice of good.”14 He then divides it into its “especes” [species]: understanding, providence, circumspection, receptivity, caution, intelligence, and memory. A similar division of the parts of prudence is illustrated in the illuminations accompanying a short treatise on the virtues which precedes a copy of the Letter of Othea that had belonged to John Fastolf and is now Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Laud Misc. 570 (see Figure II.1). Here we see Prudence surrounded by her “parts”: reason, intelligence, circumspection, receptivity, providence, and caution. Prudence holds a mirror in one hand and a sieve (to which I will return) in the other. She balances a coffin on her head and at her feet is a bag of coins. That this manuscript was executed in Rouen in the mid fifteenth century is suggested by the very similar depiction of prudence found in a manuscript of Nicole Oresme’s French translation of the Nicomachean Ethics executed in Rouen.15 It was a further commonplace that prudence involves memory, foresight, and the capacity to make use of what is available in the present. Christine concludes her chapter on prudence in the Book of Peace with the claim that prudence works by means of circumspection. With regard to this circumspection “three other points are pertinent: one is to take account of what happened in similar past cases by way of example; the second, what will come about in order to make provision for it and the third, how things are presently in order to make good use of them.”16 The same characterisation of prudence is found in the Italian Fiori di Virtu, a French translation of which Christine used for her Letter of Othea. Here we are told that “Prudence or providence, according to Cicero, consists of three parts. The first is memory of things past. The second is intelligence or capacity to discern that which one should do, truth from falsehood, good from evil, and to order all actions according to reason. The third part is providence, which is preparing oneself beforehand according to one’s needs.”17 Recognising the fundamentally political character of prudence which is involved, according to Aristotle, equally in governing a state, running a household, and pursuing what is good for the individual,18 helps to underscore the political character of the Book of the City of Ladies and The Book of the Three Virtues. In chapter 43 of the first book of the City of Ladies, hard on the heels of her accounts of historical female rulers, Amazons, poetesses, and philosophers, Christine asks Reason whether it is part of women’s intellectual nature to be prudent. “Are they equally prompt and clever in those matters which prudence teaches, that is can women reflect on what is best to do and what is better to be avoided, learning from the examples they have seen, are they wise in managing current circumstances, and do they possess foresight

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Figure II.1. A manuscript illumination of Prudence surrounded by her parts from a treatise on the virtues; Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Laud Misc. 570, fol. 9v.

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concerning those to come?”19 Reason answers that of course women have prudence, and they demonstrate it in the way in which they manage their households. Her first example comes from the Bible and she quotes Proverbs 31:10 which praises the value of the prudent housewife. She then makes a seamless transition from the exercise of prudence in the household to its exercise in government by means of Gaia Cirilla, wife of Tarquin who exercised both roles of governor and housewife. From Gaia Cirilla she moves on to Dido. The story of Dido as Christine tells it in the first book of the City of Ladies is the story of a prudent princess whose husband is killed by her wicked brother, but who manages to outwit him and to become the founder of a new city, Carthage, far away over the sea from her original Phoenician home. Her foundation of this city was entirely due to her prudence, intelligence, foresight, and caution, both to her wit in asking for as much land as could be enclosed by a cowhide, which she famously cut into thin strips, and to her institution of just laws. Christine cuts the story of Dido into two parts. In the first book we are left with the image of Dido ruling her new city in peace on the foundation of just law. In the second book, Christine returns to Dido as an example of a woman constant in love.20 Christine explains that “Dido” means the same as “virago” in Latin and signifies a woman with the strength and force of a man. Here she touches on, but glides over the crux of the contemporary polemic over women’s prudence. For, as Christine was perfectly aware, it was often the lack of this manly virtue to which male authorities pointed in order to justify the exclusion of women from government. John of Salisbury, for example, had used the story of Dido to illustrate the claim that “the happiness of no body politic will be lasting unless the head is preserved in safety and vigor and looks out for the whole body.”21 He accuses Dido of a lack of prudence in offering Aeneas her hospitality. In his hands the story has quite a different moral to that drawn by Christine, for Dido becomes an exemplum of feminine weakness, lasciviousness, and consequent imprudence. And, so, smooth words led to the introduction of the man into the city, seductive flattery won for him the favor of hospitality, the captivated attentiveness of all spread an elaborate banquet, the banquet was followed by marvellous tales and accompanied by the frivolity of a hunt and various other wanton delights. These things brought forth fruit in fornication, in the burning down of the city and the desolation of its citizens, and bequeathed to future generations the seeds of undying enmity. This was the end of the effeminate rule of a woman, which, though it had a beginning and basis in virtue, could not find an issue into subsequent prosperity. It indicates lack of prudence to admit a man who, although the duty of hospitality forbade his exclusion, would none the less have been better allowed to enter as a stranger and not as a ruler.22

As we will see below, Jean Bodin in the sixteenth century was still citing lack of prudence as a justification for excluding women from the legitimate inheritance of a realm.23 Women’s purported lack of prudence, and hence incompetence as rulers, can be traced back to Aristotle. Although he does not say outright that women lack phronesis it is implicit in his claim that women’s capacity for deliberation is not authoritative, given the idea that phronesis involves deliberation. Indeed, it can be seen by turning to Nicole Oresme’s fourteenth-century glossed French translation of Aristotle, that

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Oresme understood the purport of Aristotle’s discussion of the weakness of women’s deliberative faculty to be that they lacked prudence. When we turn to Oresme’s text we also see that Christine’s discussion of women’s prudence can be read as a direct response to Oresme. In the first book of the Politics, Aristotle discusses who should rule, and he makes the observation that “the element that can use its intelligence to look ahead is by nature ruler and by nature master.”24 It is clear from Oresme’s wording that he reads Aristotle as saying that he who has prudence rules by nature.25 As a consequence, it follows almost deductively from Aristotle’s notorious assertion of the naturalness of man’s dominion over women, that women must be relatively deficient in prudence. Aristotle claimed that just as the soul naturally rules the body, so too do men naturally rule women: “The living creature consists in the first place of mind and body, and of these the former is ruler by nature, the latter ruled. . . . Again, as between male and female the former is by nature superior and ruler, the latter inferior and subject.”26 The inferiority, it can be deduced, is inferiority in those faculties necessary for prudence, and indeed, again notoriously, Aristotle diagnoses women’s inferiority as consisting in a less than fully authoritative faculty of deliberation. Oresme translates the key passage thus: “Car le serf ne a la vertu consiliative. Et la femme a ceste vertu, mes elle est fieble et de peu de valeur” [For the slave does not have the virtue of deliberation. And the woman has this virtue but it is feeble and of little value].27 In his gloss on this passage Oresme expands on this idea, and in the details of his expansion one can see both that he explicitly takes Aristotle to have been speaking of women’s prudence, and that Christine must have been familiar with this text. Oresme says: women’s deliberation is not fully mature and because of the softness of their nature their advice is not firm. Nevertheless, occasionally a woman is possessed of great prudence as is said of the queen Semiramis who governed and extended the realm of the Assyrians and built the city and walls of Babylon. But a woman who has great virtue and constancy is not often found. This is why the Scripture says: ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.’ [Proverbs 31:10].28

Christine was happy to exploit a male authority when it suited her purposes, and the story of Semiramis had been represented as the first stone set in the foundation of her city, in order to demonstrate, what even Oresme was prepared to admit, that women are capable of governing wisely.29 But when she used Proverbs 31:10, she omitted the implication that Oresme emphasises, that the virtuous, strong, or prudent woman is rare, and she reads the text simply as providing biblical authority for the existence of prudent women. Thus the discussion of prudence at the end of the first book of the City of Ladies implicitly rebuts the conclusion of the first chapter of Aristotle’s Politics and clears the ground for women’s rule both as regents and in their own right. Oresme returns to the example of Semiramis in a long gloss on the issue of the advantages and disadvantages of the election of kings over hereditary succession. With regard to hereditary succession, which he argues is the most expedient if not necessarily the best way of acquiring kings, he lays down certain rules. His rules endorse the political reality of France, and the exclusion of women from succession.30

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Bluntly he says “a woman should not inherit or hold government, for by nature women do not have princely virtue.” To justify this he refers back to the earlier discussion from Book 1, and to chapter 5 of Book 3, as well as to the Ethics, Book 8, chapter 14.31 In Book 3 of the Politics Aristotle asserts that “la vertu de prudence seule est propre au prince,” which we might translate as “only the virtue of prudence is definitive of the prince.”32 Just prior to this Aristotle had claimed that the virtues take different forms in men and women, and Oresme takes this to mean that a woman can’t have manly virtues and particularly not prudence.33 In his long gloss, Oresme notes that women have ruled, but he says, this happened as a matter of fact and not by right. Here Semiramis is represented as having managed to rule only by passing herself off as her son, and the Amazons who also ruled “were monsters and something outside nature.”34 Against this background we can see that Christine’s rehabilitation of the Amazons, who she represents as noble women of prowess driven to independence by the loss of their men-folk, explicitly challenges established male opinion.35 Christine’s account of the Amazons directly follows her rendition of the history of Semiramis in which she had argued that Semiramis’s actions in taking her son as her husband were not against the law of nature. Rather, women have natural prudence, and it is natural too for them to rule in certain circumstances where this is required. I I. P R U D E N C E A N D L O U I S E O F S AV O Y

Subsequent women were in a sense to go further and, exploiting the popular depiction of the virtues as women, did not merely claim to possess prudence, but had themselves depicted as Prudence. In the first years of the sixteenth century, propagandists for Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francis I, had exploited the potential offered by the feminine image of prudence, to create an identification between Louise and the virtue. Louise, the mother of the virtuous king, becomes, in these images, Prudence, the mother of the virtues.36 In the introductory illumination of the manuscript of The Dauphin’s Compass [Le Compas du Dauphin], presented to her in 1506, Louise is shown guiding the dauphin, a large compass in her hand, the compass being, as we will see, another of the contemporary symbols of prudence.37 She appears again, holding a compass and the scales of justice, in a treatise on the virtues by François Demoulins (see Figure II.2), which is not dissimilar to Laud 570, on the coverplate of which the traditional cardinal virtues are modified by replacing temperance with the theological virtue hope.38 Elizabeth McCartney has examined various works that were written with the purpose of upholding Louise’s authority and capacity as regent. She emphasises the importance placed by Louise on blood ties and lineage in order to support her right to authority, but it is noteworthy that as well as promoting Louise as one who possesses the virtue that derives from ancient lineage, Louise’s propagandists also emphasised her wisdom and prudence through a straightforward visual assimilation. It is difficult to give a direct proof of the influence of Christine on this ideological programme, yet its trajectory clearly takes up elements of Christine’s Letter of Othea and the first book of the City of Ladies. The latter is a work which was available in

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Figure II.2. Louise of Savoy holding a compass and the scales of justice in a treatise on the virtues by François Demoulins; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 12247, fol. 4r.

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Louise’s husband’s library at Cognac. From the age of seven, Louise was brought up under the guidance of Anne of France, who had inherited from her mother a considerable library which included Christine’s Letter of Othea, City of Ladies, and Book of the Three Virtues.39 Christine had used Blanche de Castille, mother of Saint Louis, as a pertinent example of women’s capacity for prudent government. She “governed the kingdom of France so nobly and prudently that it was never better ruled by any man.”40 Echoing this characterisation, the image of Blanche de Castille was used, during the period in which Louise exercised the powers of regent, both to underscore Louise’s dynastic heritage and women’s capacity for prudent rule.41 While it is impossible to say with certainty how great Christine’s direct influence on the defence of women genre was, it appears that in this milieu it was considerable. Prudence became a central topos in a number of texts praising women contemporary with Louise of Savoy. Symphorien Champier’s La nef des dames vertueuses first printed in Lyon in 1503 and then in Paris in 1515, was not dedicated to Louise but, in the first instance, to Anne of France, and in a later edition to her daughter, Suzanne of Bourbon.42 Nevertheless, the author knew Louise well. He offered her a manuscript version of his Regime et doctrinal d’un jeune prince and dedicated a history of the dukes of Savoy to her.43 Champier introduces his work with a “dream vision,” and here we encounter Prudence, for it is not Boethius’ Philosophy, nor Christine’s Reason, Justice, and Rectitude who instruct the author, but Prudence herself accompanied by seven ladies among whom are Providence, Understanding, and Reason. Champier’s work is far less innovative than Christine’s. It defends women from their critics, emphasising above all their modesty, and includes a text on marriage which asserts the need for wifely obedience.44 Nevertheless, by being introduced as written at the behest of Prudence, it implicitly recognises women’s possession of this virtue, and it is with a reference to Louise’s prudence, that Champier concludes the manuscript of his Regime et doctrinal d’un jeune prince.45 A little later, Jean Bouchet’s Triumphes de la noble et amoureuse dame et l’art de honnestement aymer was dedicated to Francis I’s second wife, Eleonor of Austria.46 This is an advice book, in which the soul is taught by the virtues, the first of which is prudence. Bouchet describes her appearance thus: Prudence places herself before the others richly dressed in a black velvet robe trimmed in fine martin falling to the ground without superfluity and closed at the neck. On her hair which hangs to her shoulders she has a veil of fine holland tissue scattered with jewels . . . in one of her hands she has a compass in the other an astronomical astrolabe in order to be able to encompass all matters and to know the times.47

Here we have the explicit association between the compass and prudence, alluded to above. Taken all together we see in these texts both the common understanding of the first virtue, and the blurred boundary between the allegorical figure and an actual prudent woman.48 Catherine d’Amboise, whose work is discussed by Catherine M. Müller in this collection, also represented herself as taught by Prudence, in her 1509 text, which also makes a case for women’s greater education.49 Thus the strategy of self-identification with Prudence, or as a subject taught by Prudence, was a well-established way in which

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women of the early sixteenth century attempted to represent themselves as having legitimate authority. I I I. P R U D E N C E A N D E L I Z A B E T H I

It is against this background that I wish to propose that the same identification is the central intention of the sieve portraits of Elizabeth I. The sieve that Elizabeth holds may involve some secondary allusion to the virgin Tuccia, following Frances Yates’s claim, but its most obvious purpose is to direct the audience to identify Elizabeth with prudence, the primary political virtue. Not only is this in accord with the common understanding of the significance of the sieve, it allows us to make far more sense of other elements of these pictures than is available on the hypothesis that the central virtue being celebrated is virginity. Indeed, in some versions of the portrait Elizabeth is dressed in an uncharacteristic, high-necked, black dress, suggesting that the painter may even have known of Bouchet’s description of the virtue, or another like it. Prudence was understood in Elizabethan times in very much the same way that it was represented by Christine. William Segar defines it as “a certain natural skill to distinguish the good from evill, to desire the one, and detest the other, to say that is fit to be spoken, and conceale that which is unfit to be uttered: to prosecute that which is worthy, and forsake that which is vicious and vile.”50 Indeed, it is in some ways not news that the sieve represents prudence or discernment. In his books on the portraits of Elizabeth I, Roy Strong points to the fact that the sieve in the earliest version of this image, the 1579 portrait by George Gower, has the words, “A terra il ben mal dimora insella” [the good falls to the ground while the bad remains in the seat].51 This saying is clearly a version of the definition of prudence quoted above from Alan of Lille, and echoed by Segar. Prudence is the discernment of good from evil, which sifts the good from bad. Moreover Strong cites two catalogues, Witney’s Choice of Emblems (1586) and Paradin’s Diuises Heroiques which list the sieve as an emblem of discernment. As in the Gower sieve portrait, the rim of the sieve in the Siena portrait, painted c. 1583, by Quentin Metsys the Younger (see Figure II.3), is inscribed with the same motto, making manifest its role as a symbol of prudent discernment. There is nothing, of course, to prevent this sieve from having an ambiguous import allowing the Queen to be imagined as both chaste and prudent. Yet overall the elements of the later version of the sieve portrait make most sense if one sees them as celebrating Elizabeth as a feminine phronimos, a possessor of phronesis and an all-seeing wise ruler. This is surely what is intended by the second motto in Italian, which can be read in both the Gower and the Siena portrait. On the globe where ships sail west are written the words, “Tutto vedo et molta mancha” [I see all and much is lacking]. As we saw above, it is the role of prudence to see what is needed in order to make good provision, so that, while it introduces a note of caution, the thought conveyed by this motto coheres with the inscription on the sieve. It is the third motto, found in these portraits, “Stancho riposo e riposato affanno” [Weary I am and, having rested, still am weary] which serves to forge a connection

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Figure II.3. The “Sieve” Portrait of Queen Elizabeth the First, by Quentin Metsys the Younger, c. 1583; Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Reproduced by permission of the Soprintendenza al Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico per le Province di Siena e Grosseto.

with Petrarch, and which provided Yates with the clue to connect Elizabeth’s sieve to Tuccia, for this motto has been identified as a line from Petrarch’s Triumph of Love [Triumphus Cupidinis]. Yates however takes a fairly large step when she concludes that the line really alludes to his Triumph of Chastity [Triumphus Pudicitie] and hence that the sieve evokes Tuccia, and the queen’s virginity. However, if chastity were the virtue being celebrated in the Siena portrait, certain other details become extremely obscure. Why does the column on Elizabeth’s right show the story of Dido and Aeneas? Yates interprets this as an allusion to Elizabeth’s Trojan ancestry, but while this is a possible reading, the presence of Dido jars with a celebration of virginity. Her appearance makes much more sense if we see here the Dido of the City of Ladies. Like Elizabeth she was a prudent imperialist whose ships sailed west to a new land. But she is also a victim of love. Since Petrarch’s Triumph of Love exposes the follies and failures of love, we might read John of Salisbury’s interpretation of Dido into this image as well. His Dido lost her prudence

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when beguiled by love. The motto expressing the wearisomeness of love suggests that Elizabeth will not be so beguiled, and makes this portrait a sophisticated summation of the outcome of the failed suit of the duke of Alençon. Another image supports the claim that, like Louise of Savoy before her, Elizabeth’s intention is to be identified with Prudence. This is the Rainbow portrait. Perplexingly, given its usual connotations, one sees here, on Elizabeth’s sleeve, a snake. The puzzle is removed when one recognises that by the late sixteenth century the snake had commonly come to replace the sieve as the most common signifier of prudence. In this picture the all-seeing wisdom of the queen is no longer expressed with a motto, but with the almost surreal device of strewing the queen’s gown with eyes. The two devices representing prudence are connected in William Camden’s comments on royal impresses. He says that Elizabeth “used so many heroicall devises, as would require a volume; but most commonly a Sive without a Motte, for her words, VIDEO, TACEO, and SEMPER EADEM, which shee as truly and constantly performed. Cardinal Poole shewd the terrestial glove incompassed with a Serpent, adding this out of Saint Mathew, ESTOTE PRUDENTES.”52 The queen’s motto, “VIDEO, TACEO, and SEMPER EADEM” [I see, I keep quiet, and am always so] alludes to an important feature of prudence, which is that it encompasses the knowledge of when to speak and when to keep quiet. The serpent alludes to Matthew 10:16: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves, Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” By reading “wise” as “prudent” the serpent is transformed into a biblical image of prudence. I V. C O N C L U S I O N

The fourteenth-century exclusion of women from princely power in France was initially effected by force rather than by right. But those who benefited from that exclusion felt the need to legitimise their actions. The reinterpretation of the Salic Law was one prong of that legitimation. Oresme’s glosses on Aristotle provided more general arguments for excluding women, not just from the government of France, but from government in general. Christine’s City of Ladies is placed on a foundation that rebuts the case for such exclusion, demonstrating women’s natural prudence through a suite of historical exempla. Her demonstration is taken up by later female rulers who understand that they must show in their actions, and in the imagery that represents them, the falsity of the philosopher’s slanders. But, despite the evidence of history, many learned men were unpersuaded. The witch-hunter Jean Bodin, in his long-winded Six Books of the Republic [Les six Livres de la République] printed in Paris in 1583, returns to the theme: “the monarchy should only ever be inherited by men, given that gynocracy is directly against the laws of nature, which have given force, prudence, arms and command to men and taken them from women.”53 He knows of the existence of the prudent queen on the other side of the channel, as well as of many other queens, whom he represents as having brought ruin to their countries. Despite his dislike of the election of kings, such a procedure he thinks preferable to female inheritance. And he shows in his

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tirade against the unnaturalness of “gynecocratie” where the true problem lies. If a woman rules in her own right without marrying, the majesty of the monarchy will be in danger. For an active populace will be impatient when subject to a woman, and a populace that is so cowardly as to suffer being ruled in public by a woman will soon be ruled by women in their own homes.54 If the queen marries, on the other hand, all the standard assumptions of patriarchal marriage will be put into question. Christine never questioned the subjection of wives in marriage. Yet her defence of women’s prudence and their capacity to rule undermined a logic which was more important for keeping women subject to their husbands than for keeping them off the throne. Men like Bodin saw the danger. The marriage contracts that Elizabeth envisioned in her negotiations with her various suitors overthrew all standard principles of wifely subordination.55 Thus a woman who ruled implicitly threatened every man’s dignity. As matters turned out, contemporary marriage was incompatible with Elizabeth’s prudent sovereignty, and virginity became her shield against subjection. But it was her prudence, rather than her virginity, which she primarily wished to advertise when she had herself painted, so oddly, holding a large flat domestic sieve.

NOTES 1 The essays in John Carmi Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993)

provide a cross-section of the various ways in which medieval queens yielded power. 2 Armin Wolf, “Reigning Queens in Medieval Europe: When, Where and Why,” in Parsons, Medieval

Queenship, 169. 3 Frances A. Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan

Paul, 1975). 4 Susan Groag Bell, The Lost Tapestries of the “City of Ladies”: Christine de Pizan’s Renaissance

Legacy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), 2. 5 Maureen Cheney Curnow, “The Livre de la Cité des Dames of Christine de Pisan: A Critical Edition”

(PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 1975), 520–24. 6 British Library, London, MS Royal, 14 E II. 7 Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Trevor J. Saunders (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1981),

3.4.1277b25. In his French translation Oresme renders this, “Et la vertu de prudence seule est propre au prince” [The virtue of prudence only is proper to the prince]; see Albert Douglas Menut, ed., “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society n.s, 60, no. 6 (1970): 3–392 (123). 8 Christine de Pizan, Christine de Pizan’s Letter of Othea to Hector, trans. Jane Chance (Newburyport, MA: Focus Information Group, 1990), 38; Christine de Pizan, Epistre Othea, ed. Gabrielle Paruza (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1999), 201–02: “mere et conduisarresse de toutes vertus.” See also, Christine de Pizan, Prudence, Bibliothèque royale of Belgium at Brussels, ms. KBR 5698, fols. 236r and 238r; and Christine de Pizan, The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, trans. Sumner Willard (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 1: 59. For a more extended discussion of this trope, and a longer discussion of Christine’s understanding of prudence, see Karen Green, “On Translating Christine de Pizan as a Philosopher,” in Healing the Body Politic: The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan, ed. Karen Green and Constant J. Mews (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 109–28. 9 For discussion of the relationship between the Livre de Prudence and Livre de la Prod’hommie de l’homme, see Jean-Louis Picherit, “Le Livre de la Prod’hommie de l’homme et Le Livre de Prudence de Christine de Pizan. Chronologie, structure et composition,” Le Moyen Age 40 (1985): 380–413; and

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KAREN GREEN Christine M. Reno, “Le Livre de Prudence/Livre de la Prod’hommie de l’homme: nouvelles perspectives,” in Une femme de Lettres au Moyen Age, ed. Liliane Dulac and Bernard Ribémont (Orléans: Paradigme, 1995), 25–38. Christine de Pizan, The “Livre de la Paix” of Christine de Pisan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1958), 57. Angus Kennedy has shown, for example, that Christine relied heavily on a glossed translation of Valerius Maximus’s Memorable Words and Deeds produced by Nicholas Gonesse and Simon Hesdin for quotations from Aristotle, Cicero, and others; see Christine de Pizan, Le Livre du corps de policie, ed. Angus J. Kennedy (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998). Many commentators have assumed that Christine must have read the French translations of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics commissioned by Charles V from Nicole Oresme: Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” and Albert Douglas Menut, ed., Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de ethiques d’Aristote, Published from the Text of Ms 2902, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (New York: G.E. Stechart, 1940). Christine mentions these translations briefly in Christine de Pizan, Le Chemin de longue étude, ed. Andrea Tarnowski (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 2000), line 5020, and in greater detail in Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, ed. Suzanne Solente, 2 vols. (1936– 40; repr., Geneva: Slatkine, 1975), III.12, 2:43 and The “Livre de la Paix” of Christine de Pisan, III.18, 142. Christine’s familiarity with at least the Ethics has more recently been argued for in Kate Langdon Forhan, “Reading Backward: Aristotelianism in the Political Thought of Christine de Pizan,” in Au champ des escriptures, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000), 359– 81; and Sylvie Lefèvre, “Christine de Pizan et l’Aristote oresmien,” in Au champ des escriptures, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000), 231–50. Some doubts concerning the strength of this evidence are raised in Karen Green, “Philosophy and Metaphor: The Significance of Christine’s Blunders,” Parergon 22, no. 1 (2005): 119–36; and Green, “On Translating Christine de Pizan as a Philosopher.” Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham (London: Heinemann, 1982), 6.10.1141b8; Menut, Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de ethiques d’Aristote, 344. Menut, Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de ethiques d’Aristote, 360: “quiconque a prudence, toutes autres vertus morales sont ensemble avec elle.” See, Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, 6.10.1144b32. Christine de Pizan, Prudence, 268r: “discepcion de bonnes et mauvaises choses en la fuyte du mal et en l’election du bien.” The definition is repeated in Christine de Pizan, The “Livre de la Paix” of Christine de Pisan, 1.5, 66 where it is applied to discretion and it is claimed that discretion derives from prudence. Bibliothèque municipale, Rouen, MS 927, I.2, fol. 17v. Christine de Pizan, The “Livre de la Paix” of Christine de Pisan, I.5, 67: “convient trois autres poins: l’un est prepenser les choses passees es semblables cas et y prendre exemple; la iie le temps avenir pour y pourveoir; et le iiie l’estre du temps present pour bien se disposer.” [Anonymous], The Florentine fior di virtu of 1491, trans. Nicholas Fersin (Washington: Library of Congress, 1953), 50. See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, 1141b4, 1141b30; and Menut, Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de ethiques d’Aristote, 344. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (London: Picador, 1983), I.43, 87; Christine de Pizan, La Città della dame, trans. Patrizia Caraffi, ed. Earl Jeffrey Richards (Milan: Luni Editrice, 1997), I.43, 196: “Est autressi prompt et abile es choses qui prudence enseigne, c’est assavoir qu’elles ayent avis sur ce qui est meilleur a faire et ce qui doit estre laissié, par example que ont vue, sages ou gouvernment des choses presentes, qu’elles ont pourveance sur celles a avenir?” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, 188–89; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, II.55, 378–80. As in many other cases, Christine deviates from the version of Dido’s story told by Boccaccio in his Concerning Famous Women [De Claris Mulieribus], one of her main sources. Boccaccio does not follow the more usual story, according to which Dido has an affair with Aeneas, used by Christine. He attributes her suicide to the fact that she had been tricked into remarriage with a local king by her

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citizens and preferred to kill herself rather than to be unfaithful to her dead spouse. For Boccaccio she becomes a symbol of steadfast commitment to monogamy; see Giovanni Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women, trans. Guido Guarino (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964), 86–92. Patricia A. Phillippy, “Establishing Authority: Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus and Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la cité des dames,” in The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. Renate BlumenfeldKosinski (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997), 329–61, shows how Christine constantly reworks the stories from this source. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, trans. J.G. Dickinson (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), 6.22. Ibid. Cary Nederman and N. Elaine Lawson, “The Frivolities of the Courtiers Follow the Footprints of Women: Public Women and the Crisis of Virility in John of Salisbury,” in Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Carole Levin and Jeanie Watson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 82–96, argue that because John admits that Dido’s rule began virtuously he did not, in principle, exclude women from governing. However, the implication of the example is that a woman’s rule can never be sound and vigorous. Jean Bodin, Les six Livres de la République (Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1961), 1001. Aristotle, The Politics, 1.2.1252a32. See Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” 46: “celui qui peut devant veoir en sa pensee se que est a faire, il a de nature principauté et dominacion.” Aristotle, The Politics, 1.5.1254b13. See Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” 53: “Et de ces .ii. parties, une, ce est assavoir l’ame, tient par nature le princey et la seigneurie. Et l’autre, ce est assevoir le corps, est subjecte . . . Item, encor voions nous en ceste maniere se a le masculin ou resgart du feminin, car par nature le masle ou masculin et le melleur et le feminin est le moins bon, et par nature un a princey et l’autre est subjecte.” Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” 73. See Aristotle, The Politics, 1.13.1260a13. Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” 73: “la deliberation des femmes ne est faicte meurement, et pour la mollece de leur nature leur conseil est pas ferme. Toutesvoies, aucune fois est une femme plaine de grant prudence, si comme l’en dit de la reyne Semiramis qui bien gouverna et acreut grandement le royalme dez Assiriens et edifia la cité et murs de Babilone. Mes que femme ait grant vertue et constance il ne avient pas souvent. Et pour ce dit l’Escripture: ‘Mulierem fortem quis inveniet? Procul et de ultimis finibus.’ [Proverbs 31:10].” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.15, 38–40; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.15, 106–10. See Earl Jeffrey Richards, “Political Thought as Improvisation: Female Regency and Mariology in Late Medieval French Thought,” in this volume for the history of the Salic Law and women’s exclusion. Menut, “Le Livre des politiques d’Aristote de Nicole Oresme,” 155: “femme ne doit succeder ou tenir royaume, car naturelement femme ne a pas vertu principative.” Ibid., 123. Ibid. Ibid., 155: “fu .i. monstre et une chose hors nature.” Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.16, 40–1; Christine de Pizan, La Città delle dame, I.16, 110. See Anne-Marie Lecoq, François I re imaginaire (Paris: Macula, 1987), 74–117; and Elizabeth McCartney, “The King’s Mother and Royal Prerogative in Early Sixteenth-Century France,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 119–20. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 2285. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 12247, fol. 4r. This manuscript is discussed in Lecoq, François I re imaginaire, 85–95. Anne-Marie Legaré comments, “Christine was the most frequently represented fifteenth-century author in women’s libraries at the end of the Middle Ages,” in Legaré, “Charlotte de Savoie’s Library and Illuminators,” Journal of the Early Book Society 4 (2001): 42. See also Alexandre Tuetey, “Inventaire des biens de Charlotte de Savoie,” Bibliothèque de l’École de Chartes 26 (1865): 338–66, 423–42; and Léopold Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscripts de la Bibliothèque impériale (Paris: Imprimerie, impériale, 1868), 1.91–93.

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40 Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies, I.13, 34; La Città delle dame, I.13, 98: “tant noblement et prudement

gouverna le royaume de France . . . que onques mieulx par homme ne fu gouverné.”

41 McCartney, “The King’s Mother,” 122–35. 42 Symphorien Champier, La nef des dames vertueuses (Lyon: Jacques Arnoullet, 1503; repr., Paris: Jehan

de la Garde, 1515). 43 Symphorien Champier, Les Grans croniques des gestes et vertueux faictz des très-excellens catholicques

44 45

46 47

48 49 50

51 52 53

54 55

illustres et victorieux ducz et princes des pays de Savoye et Piémont (Paris: Jehan de la Garde, 1516). The manuscript of Regime et doctrinal d’un jeune prince is Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 1959. In fairness to Champier, it should be noted that he recognises that the wife’s subjection is political and conventional, and hence different from that of child or servant. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 1959, fol. 23v. Symphorien Champier’s La nef des dames concludes with a discussion of love. A modern edition of this text is available and is most interesting as an early example of a discussion of Plato’s theories about love in France: Symphorien Champier, Le livre de vraye amour, ed. James B. Wadsworth (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1962). Jean Bouchet, Triumphes de la noble et amoureuse dame et l’art de honnestement aymer (Poitiers: Jehan le Marnef, 1530). Bouchet, Triumphes de la noble et amoureuse dame, fols. 4v–5r: “Prudence se mist devant les autres richement vestue dune robe de veloux noir fouree de fines martres allant a fleur de terre sans supfluite et bien fermee au collet: Sur ses cheveux dendant sur ses espaules avoit ung lynumple de fine toille de hollande symbrie de riche orfauerie . . . En lune de ses mains tenoit une compas: en lautre ung astralabe de astronomye pour compasser tous les affaires et congnostre les temps.” Other texts in which Louise is identified with Dame Prudence are discussed in Lecoq, François I re imaginaire, in particular Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 1863, fols. 80–5. See Catherine M. Müller, “Catherine d’Amboise’s Livre des Prudents et Imprudents: Negotiating Space for Female Voices in Political Discourse,” in this volume. Sir William Segar, The Book of Honors and Arms (1590) and Honour Military and Civil (1602), ed. Diane Bornstein (Delmar: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1975), quoted in Debra Barrett-Graves, “ ‘Highly touched in honour’: Elizabeth I and the Alençon Controversy,” in Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman, ed. Carole Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 44. Roy Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 97; see also Roy Strong, Portraits of Elizabeth I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963). William Camden, Remains Concerning England, ed. R.D. Dunn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 182. Bodin, Les six Livres de la République, 1001: “La Monarchie doit seulement estre devolué aux males, attendu que la Gynecocratie est droitement contre les loix de nature, qui a donné aux hommes la force, la prudence, les armes, le commandement, & la osté aux femmes.” Ibid., 1002. Bodin railed against the unnaturalness of women rulers warning that it was the first step in the overthrow of women’s subordination in marriage. Ilona Bell suggests that Bodin’s perception was not simply paranoia; see Ilona Bell, “Elizabeth and the Politics of Elizabethan Courtship,” in Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman, ed. Carole Levin, J. Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 179–91.

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III CATHERINE D’AMBOISE’S LIVRE DES PRUDENTS ET IMPRUDENTS: NEGOTIATING SPACE FOR FEMALE VOICES IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE Catherine d’Amboise (1482–1550) deserves to be read as an important contributor to the history of European literature and spirituality, not only because her work is at the crossroad of major intellectual currents, but also because she has ventured as a female author to measure up to famous early modern writers while offering comments on auctoritates of the past. Her lyric verse (c. 1516–30), embedded in both profane and religious traditions, call upon courtly songs as much as marial and nuptial mysticism, allegorical dialogue, and epistolary poetry. Her famous royal song [chant royal] in honour of the Virgin is the only extant poem of the genre composed by a woman.1 D’Amboise’s two prose works, the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent [Livre des Prudents et Imprudents] (1509)2 and the Fainting Lady’s Complaint against Fortune [Complainte de la dame pasmee contre Fortune] (c. 1525) attest to a solid knowledge of biblical, liturgical, mythological, and historical sources, acquired most likely through compilations, although a direct reading (probably in French translation) of some major titles is not impossible. The author explicitly refers to the Bible, to Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy [Consolatio Philosophiae], Vincent de Beauvais’ Mirror of history [Speculum historiale], Paulus Orosius’s History, Paul the Deacon’s Roman History, Aristotle, Lucan, Flavius Joseph, and Boccaccio, as well as to “bestselling” compilations of her time like La Mer des histoires, Les Histoires romaines, Les Grandes Chroniques de France, and L’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César. She also mentions several of Cicero’s and Virgil’s masterpieces. Furthermore, her Fainting Lady’s Complaint against Fortune infers that her sources must have included allegorical pilgrimages, for example those authored by Guillaume de Diguleville, Philippe de Mézières, and Gabrielle de Bourbon. As a niece of the illustrious cardinal Georges d’Amboise, enlightened humanist and counsellor to the king of France, she most certainly received an education worthy of a noble lady. We know that after her uncle’s death in 1510, she inherited part of his vast book collection. Besides, she must have had access all along to the prestigious manuscripts found in the royal courts and convents she visited. Scholarly allusions gathered from her writings point to the fact that her spiritual readings were not limited to the pious works generally found in princesses’ libraries, but may have included more arduous theological treatises as well. The Book of the Prudent and Imprudent is Catherine d’Amboise’s first work, or to use her own words, “le myen primier coup d’essay” [my first shot at it].3 This new literary endeavour is presented as a very small work [“petite opusculle”] composed in a low style but,4 at the same time, as a sign of allegiance and gratitude to Lady Prudence, daughter of God, and thus as a book worthy of the highest readership. This conjunction of humility and assertiveness, deeply rooted in the tradition 39 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 39–56. © 2007 Springer.

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of female religiosity, is motivated by confidence in the indwelling presence of the divine, manifested by a strong inspirational force in spite of (or, better, thanks to) human frailty. While announcing in both moral and religious terms a history of “men and women from the present time down to the sixth age who, for having forsaken Lady Prudence’s virtuous path, have fallen in dreadful decadence and everlasting danger”5 —and, although she does not say it here, obviously those, from Abel to Charlemagne, who were righteous—her “petite euvre” [little work]6 also pertains to a genre particularly favoured by late medieval and early renaissance humanists, namely the literary debate, as it takes part in the Querelle des femmes. In fact, the compiler or, rather, her eponymous narrator never hesitates to interject opinions on the nature of power relations between the sexes. As will be argued, Catherine d’Amboise’s description of positive mythical figures can become a pretext for inscribing her auctorial views on the place and role of women’s creativity in cultural history. It is quite clear from the outset, that her depiction of famous and infamous human beings will acquire a highly personal overtone. No later than folio 1, the frame narrative is built on a series of autobiographical elements which disappear in the body of the treatise solely to be replaced by personal standpoints. As a moralist, she hates the wicked as much as she loves the righteous and rarely adopts a neutral tone. Just like Chaucer at the beginning of his version of Philomena’s tragic story in the Legend of Good Women, so does Catherine d’Amboise voice either her disgust or her enthusiasm in the face of certain characters, be they male or female, explaining that her subject has an unavoidable bearing on the words and style she employs. She also repeatedly affirms that her gender cannot be suppressed and that she chooses to write from a feminine perspective. In so doing, unlike most polemicists, she overtly admits to occasional distortions of the truth. To my knowledge, she is the only French renaissance woman writer to confess to having offered a biased account of history on the basis of her gender. It is this unusual gesture of consciously writing about women as a woman I would like to examine in this chapter. After showing how she positions herself as an author, I analyse how her selection and treatment of biblical and mythical exempla allow her to inscribe her original female voice in the history of debate literature. I. A S S E RT I N G A D I V I N E LY I N S P I R E D A U C TO R I A L V O I C E

Catherine d’Amboise’s treatise opens with a traditional setting dear to late medieval allegorical writers: a melancholic narrator visited in a dream or a vision by a spiritual guide taking him or her from despair to hope, from loneliness to divine love. In the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent, the narrator-protagonist called “Katherine d’Amboise” dates the visitation scene back to July 1, 1509, and presents herself as deeply downcast and close to losing her mind were it not for the help of Reason. Filled with pain, she enters her private chamber: “And as I saw myself upset by all this trouble, I left and purposely went to my little study where I usually retire to express my lamentations and female sorrow.”7 In this room of her own, she throws herself down on her bed, and, her eyes turned toward heaven, aspires to be joined with her Creator. While still awake, she is assailed by two horrendous creatures,

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Corrupted Justice and Treason, whom she accuses as responsible for her misfortune and curses so vehemently that they take their leave. In her solitude, she implores the Lady of Mercy and her blessed Son to rescue her. Thereupon, Prudence in the form of a bright, richly dressed celestial being enters through the window, announcing that her prayer has been answered and everlasting help granted to her as a reward for her ongoing service to Lady Patience. Out of compassion, the divine mistress recalls the various trials d’Amboise had to face ever since childhood and reminds her that all faithful servants must endure hardship. She promises to encourage her with a series of exempla designed to lead her to a state of perfection. Deeply moved by such love, the narrator falls into a state of mystical ravishment. When she can speak again, she praises her benefactor and bids her allegiance by the gift of her heart, her understanding, and her first piece of writing, the very work we are about to read. Three aspects of this frame narrative deserve attention. First, the use of the two allegorical figures, Corrupted Justice and Treason, to explain the protagonist’s misfortune allows for an immediate connection between the private and the political: presented as having suffered from injustice and betrayal, the narrator will find adequate historical examples of proper or improper ways of governing oneself and the land, thus offering moral and didactic insights pertaining to the genre of the mirror of princes.8 Second, the mediation of autobiography—that is to say, the fact that elements of the author’s life are not revealed by d’Amboise herself, but rather pointed out, detailed, and underscored by the authoritative words of Lady Prudence—confers to the protagonist’s melancholy even more pertinence and to the writer’s literary choice, divine wisdom. Third, as an account of the messenger’s uplifting examples and a subsequent gift of love to her, the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent acquires a sacred aura and suggests that its readership may identify with two implied readers: a human one, accepting the divine book’s value in terms of exempla (as d’Amboise did), and a divine one (like Prudence), receiving it as a token of love. Catherine d’Amboise’s prefatory admonition to her “lecteurs et auditeurs” [readers and listeners]9 should be understood in the same light: when she entreats us to taste and savour her book lovingly, she is both using a courtly commonplace and referring to a biblical association of the Word with Love which prevails in the affective mysticism of which she is so fond. According to this spiritual tradition, a book is worthy of God when it is inspired by godly love itself; moreover, it can be glossed only with the help of Love, Reason being too short-sighted to understand divine subtleties.10 Such expectation of an amorous reading, while presented by an allegedly inadequate narrator as a plea for mercy, can also be understood as a sign of confidence in the sacred words she recorded and a consciousness that her book requires divinely infused love to be interpreted properly. As a matter of fact, as we shall see, the virtue of charity also pertains to effective writing, “charitablement . . . proceder” [to proceed lovingly]11 being expected of writers and readers alike: And although these chapters are written in low style, if one comprehends them with careful understanding, one will find fruit therein. If the reader tastes it amorously, and savours it, it may well be profitable in due time and place. . . . And so, now that my apology has been described in childish terms, [I entreat] you, readers and listeners who will honour me with reading or listening to this poorly constructed volume, make use of charity: may you be so kind as to overlook my poor ignorance.12

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In conformity with oratory precepts, the demand of delectatio and utilitas are met: the treatise is both pleasing and profitable, the biblical and classical fruit metaphor alluding to promised growth. Using the same image of reading as tasting, she will ask us in her epilogue to keep her book’s sweetness and discard its bitterness.13 The author’s “petit sçavoir” [poor knowledge] is given as a natural consequence of the “hault toucher en matiere parfunde” [writing highly about deep subjects], close to the inexpressibility topos. Her shortcomings are adequately compensated by the indwelling of “amour divine” [divine love] and her spiritual and poetic “ferveur” [fervour, enthusiasm]14 by means of which she desires to praise her courtly mistress, obtain her favour, keep an everlasting record of her teachings, and subsequently place the inspired book under her patronage: In order to have perpetual memory of you [Lady Prudence] in future times, I have purposed with your help and succours—without which no one can prosper—to write a little work under your banner and confidence. Writing highly about deep subjects would be impossible to me, for I am still an apprentice lower than manual workers, as my explanation overtly demonstrates; and furthermore, this is my first shot at it, which gives me even more reasons for eliciting forgiveness. And therefore, my dear Lady and Mistress, give me favour in this very small work. According to the capacity of my frail understanding and tender mind, praising you for my strength, I shall build my enterprise, pleading the help of one only God reigning in three persons, to whom I humbly recommend myself for this work and all others, asking for His grace, succours, and help. Without it, it would be impossible for any creature to attain its desire.15 In order to praise you, most venerable Virtue, my dear Lady and Mistress, Lady Prudence, my only hope, would I dare to set about describing your most praiseworthy virtues? Do I have enough knowledge in me? I certainly don’t, my Lady. Yet nevertheless, trusting in your promise, I shall venture out, as one who is gripped by fervour and interwoven with divine love, beseeching you, courteous and gracious Lady, that if you see that I, frail and weak, vacillate under such weight, you would deign direct and guide me, for without you no work, little as it may be, can be pleasing. O Virtue worthy of highest glory, cardinal above all! Without you this entire creation cannot reach its highest degree of perfection.16

Her insistent excusatio should be seen less as a confession of human lack of knowledge than as an implied demonstration that her meekness is a sign of God’s approval, an open door for divine inspiration, a guarantee of didactic efficiency, and a sure way to reach a high level of perfection. As Marguerite de Navarre would later put it, following the same mystical tradition, it is through the narrator’s nothingness (“mon rien”) that God’s wholeness (“Son Tout”) can really shine and be made known to the world.17 I I. I F O N LY W O M E N C O U L D AT T E N D U N I V E R S I T Y

In the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent d’Amboise pleads to the reader, “Please make allowance and have consideration for the poor female sex.”18 D’Amboise’s insistence upon female ignorance should be read primarily as a strategy of justification. If she is but a “poor apprentice”19 it is because she is humble enough to accept God’s teachings. However, if she does not have the scholarly background of fellow male writers, it is because universities are prohibited to women: And therefore I most humbly and insistently beseech the listeners of this volume that in their benevolent graciousness they would excuse me, and also my tender mind, which for lack of knowledge and

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understanding cannot write down terms of rhetoric. I would gladly do it if I could. Excuse therefore this poor apprentice’s feeble mind; this will bring you honour. But it will bring you dishonour to contradict her. This is the work of a woman, and that gives peremptory reasons for making excuses, greater than for a man, who has the freedom to go here and there to universities and places of study where he may comprehend all sciences by solicitude, which is not the case of the female sex.20

Such a critical statement brings Catherine d’Amboise’s captatio benevolentiae closer to a vituperatio than initially expected. Pretending that it would be to men’s “dishonour to contradict her” certainly leaves little room for discussion. The fact that men prevent women from having access to high learning can be read as sharp irony in this spiritual context, where writing is no longer a matter of imitating human models but listening to a divine female authority, Lady Prudence, who is said to be the inventor, inspirer, facilitator, and ideal recipient of d’Amboise’s exemplary discourse. Stating that a cardinal virtue is her source and auctoritas is a strong ethical and aesthetic stand. The subtle interweaving of the two realms—literature and theology—appears also in the following quotation, where the words “euvre” [work] and “fabricque” [creation] are referring to a created work while “nul” [none] and “creature” [creature] to a human being, thus associating her creation with God’s: “without you [Prudence] no work, little as it may be, can be pleasing. O Virtue worthy of highest glory, cardinal above all! Without you this entire creation cannot reach its highest degree of perfection.”21 Since it is impossible to please God without following this spiritual path, are not all self-sufficient human efforts ironically annihilated? When affirming that no one can be successful in his or her literary enterprise without Lady Prudence’s help, is Catherine d’Amboise not implicitly condemning her potential (male) detractors’ haughtiness and valorising her (falsely) modest (female) endeavour? If we know how violently her treatise is denouncing the sin of superbia in imprudent men (of whom Nemrod is an emblem22 ), we can better appreciate the insistence on lowliness for her female speaker. Her stress upon the value of unknowing is even more cutting when she takes on as high a subject matter as praising the Virgin Mary. In such a case, evoking the inexpressibility topos goes hand in hand with a comparison between her humble attempt and that of famous writers and theologians: O sovereign Lady [Mary] . . . if I wanted to tell of the great benefits that through your prudence have come down to us, I would not have in me [sufficient] intelligence or knowledge to comprehend them. How could one have knowledge of them? There is no angel, archangel, or saint in paradise who would be worthy to write, tell, proffer, and even less put down in writing the smallest one of the inestimable graces and virtues belonging to you. How then would I, a poor woman lacking knowledge, dare to go on describing you, since so many holy people and devout doctors have written about you, and also the four Evangelists who have never been able to find the end of the shortest praise belonging to you. Conclusion: your graces and virtues are inestimable. Therefore, as the wise say, it is better to bring my words to an end than to say or write down anything for which I could be despised. And thus, I’ll close here.23

If even celestial beings cannot speak of the Mother of God, how could she? And yet, she does, for her humility is not to be misconstrued as feminine incapability, but as spiritual deference. Her stated conclusion “your graces and virtues are inestimable” shifts the accent from self to other, human to sacred, and deprecation to praise.

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Catherine d’Amboise’s constant use of preterition is a powerful rhetorical strategy to show her courage and justify the pertinence of her entering the sphere of literary and mystical writing: “would I dare to set about describing your most praiseworthy virtues? Do I have enough knowledge in me? I certainly don’t, my Lady. Yet nevertheless, trusting in your promise, I shall venture out, as one who is gripped by fervour and interwoven with divine love.”24 The confidence which emerges from her understatements finds a concrete expression in the cognitive terms employed to counterbalance the affective ones. The word “ferveur,” which serves to underline her devotion to this challenging task, appears in the preface with the verbal form “deliberee suis” to state her determination to organise her subject matter effectively for a didactic purpose: In my fervour I am determined, according to my possibilities, to build my work and divide my undertaking in chapters, as the titles will demonstrate, in order to better make my subject understood. For, as the wise say, he who reads and does not understand is like him who hunts and catches nothing.25 Considering the imprudence of men as much as of women of past times, who for not following your spiritual path, have suffered great downfall and destruction, I intend to draw my subject matter from this argument, starting with the imprudence of our first father Adam, and with Eve, and proceeding with the imprudent who came after them, as you shall read in the following chapters.26

Prudence, as an inspirational force, organising principle, moral example, and spiritual guide is legitimating d’Amboise’s discourse and will be at her side during the whole writing process, which the narrator designates as a literary exploration, “me, female explorer of the present volume . . . still pursuing my undertaking under the guidance and banner of my good mistress and friend, Lady Prudence.”27 The cardinal virtue will be called upon as a muse and fountain of knowledge on several occasions, particularly when the author chooses to praise women emphatically (in this case the goddess Isis): my only mistress and friend, Lady Prudence, open your divine ark to me, where perfect knowledge rests, imparting me a small portion of that treasure so that I may write about this subject in a worthy manner! For without your help I am not sure of the [auctorial] tradition [i.e. of my capacity to interpret my sources] and don’t have a high enough knowledge to extol and magnify this Lady [Isis].28

But writing as a woman, in the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent, is not only a matter of excusatio propter infirmitatem. It is a conscious and explicit choice of adopting gender-related expressions of feeling in such different realms as: voicing lament, showing compassion, identifying with female characters, praising heroic deeds, and presenting issues of womanly concern (like childbearing, childbirth, feminine intimacy, and illnesses). Although the topos of modesty will emphatically recur in each chapter (with almost the same wording as quoted above), it will be much less an insistence on female lack of know-how than a subtle means of avoiding criticism and attenuating daring statements against men. I I I. C O N V E R S I N G W I T H E V E

The Book of the Prudent and Imprudent is guided by two rhetorical principles used in moral speech: praise and blame, extolling examples to follow, and decrying those to avoid. Rather than a narrative form, it often adopts an oratory one.

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I already mentioned the metaphor of exploration. If Catherine d’Amboise does not choose the form of the allegorical journey, as she will in her Complainte (where the narrator-protagonist Katherine travels from the House of Holy Scriptures to the Park of Divine Love and meets spiritual personifications on her way), she nevertheless sets up lively interactions with many historical, biblical, and mythical characters she wishes to evoke. All linguistic forms geared to imitate conversation, or at least invocation, are employed. A panegyric tone will soon turn into invective as a section on a famous Prudent is replaced by one on an infamous Imprudent and vice versa. The case of Adam and Eve is a striking example of how conversatio can become a strategic tool when presenting a specific version of history is at stake. It is also a good illustration of how the character’s gender determines the type of treatment he or she deserves. The careful rhetoric used in the announcement of the chapter on Adam and Eve is already an indication of how problematic Katherine knows her prejudiced views of traditional material to be. With regards to the imprudence of our first father, it is not my intention to write much about it; I leave that to men. But since the imprudence of our first mother Eve touches me, on account of the female sex, I intend to write about it according to the capacity of my mind, without blasphemy, but only to offer admonition to all those, men and women, coming after us, in order to keep them from falling into this dreadful misery. And thus my intent is to proceed lovingly.29

The mention of “sans blaphesme” [without blasphemy], geared to avoid reproach on the part of her audience, is a sign that the risk of blasphemy is real, possibly on account of the allowance that will be made for Eve. Furthermore, to prevent readers from rejecting her cavalier way of dealing with biblical stories, the narrator will beseech them to be indulgent: “Therefore I beg the readers of the present book that in virtue of their graciousness they not be poorly edified if I speak to our poor mother Eve privately and in female terms: her case touches and concerns me.”30 On the other hand, the adverb “charitablement” [lovingly] leads us to think that she will not pass over a certain number of harsh remarks concerning Eve’s behaviour. It is clear from her introduction that the purpose of this chapter will be didactic, but as we shall see, the lesson may not be quite what we expected. The dissimilar treatment of Adam and Eve, announced in terms of length (“with regards to the imprudence of our first father, it is not my intention to write much about it”), is obvious also from a stylistic point of view. Not only is the part on our first father six times shorter than that reserved to his wife, it is also stigmatising, as though Adam were solely responsible for the fall of humanity. Adam’s imprudence, the first father and earthly lord, is the cause of all accidents befalling poor human beings from the beginning to the end of their life; all because of his disobeying the Creator. O wicked root! O branch of sorrow! Cursed disobedience! Because of you we had and will have to suffer so greatly that it is impossible to tell. O Adam, because of your crime, we have forsaken Lady Prudence’s righteous path; vices have entered the world like powerful and victorious princes; and misery in the form of disturbances, troubles, worries, severe illnesses, facing old age, being in servitude or in exile, suffering cold, heat, hunger, thirst, and thousands of other inestimable ills assailing poor human creatures from the first day of life until death. So then, let us contemplate what manner of great evil and blame has come upon us on account of our first father’s imprudence!31

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A succession of vocatives pertaining to the genre of the complaint and the invective— as well as a careful selection of terms designating vice, crime, and suffering, coupled with imperatives, hyperboles, and disproportionate enumeration—all concur to accuse Adam, denying him any defence. By contrast, the many folios devoted to Eve propose a different treatment of our first mother than has ever been done, to my knowledge, in the writings of the Querelle des femmes. In setting up a real conversation with humanity’s first mother—that is, inviting her not only to listen but to respond—Catherine d’Amboise advocates a new way of speaking about the past. Asking Eve to comment on what happened in the Garden of Eden does not really change the known facts, but puts them in an unusual light. This gesture of playing with hermeneutics is unique in early modern French female writings. I shall now cease talking about him and turn to the passage concerning our poor mother Eve, speaking to her graciously and more privately than I did with Adam, for he does not belong to the female sex; the reason why I did not write more about him. And therefore I beg the readers of the present book that in virtue of their graciousness they not be poorly edified if I speak to our poor mother Eve privately and in female terms: her case touches and concerns me. ‘O mother, mother, don’t be astonished if I am a bit rough when speaking with you: your crime would certainly be the reason for it; furthermore, I, your poor daughter, and others likewise, are touched and affected in our heart of hearts by your ugly wound.’32

The change of style is striking: the accusatory tone adopted for Adam is abandoned in favour of an affective and compassionate one. It is to be noted that the verb “toucher” designates at once writing, concerning, affecting, and touching. As expected, full use is made of vocatives, but this time in the form of a lament. Conversation becomes synonymous with privacy (“privement” [privately] is repeated twice), the exchange between women being set up as a secret chat “en termes femynins” [in female terms] on which readers are eavesdropping. The illusion of physical closeness allows for better identification—and therefore deeper moral and spiritual edification—very much like in mystery plays or allegorical pilgrimages where the reader is involved as a spectator of the scene and even a participant in the event. Both Eve and Katherine allude to the efficacy of such recreated presence: “Since you have such great desire, daughter, to know the cause and motive for my crime, I shall tell you without lying the absolute truth of it, better and more truly than volumes you could read or have read”; and “As for me . . . I took leave . . . a little more certain and assured about these things than I was before—and my heart felt entirely alleviated, for it is better to talk to the person concerned than to read about it.”33 By means of her protagonists’ in-passing declarations, Catherine d’Amboise suggests that her text is providing pure truth, is being more didactic, and touches in a deeper way than her predecessors’ and contemporaries’ written accounts: “mieulx et plus veritablement que volume que puissez lire ny avoir leuz” [better and more truly than volumes you could read or have read]. It is with this type of indirect statement that the author best proves her confidence in the stylistic choices she made and shares her scepticism vis-à-vis the didactic pertinence of religious and literary auctoritates. It also underscores the cathartic and spiritual power of her book, the phrase “m’alegea tout le cueur” [my

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heart felt entirely alleviated] being an allusion to the inner freedom granted by reading the truth and by writing it down. In fact, in her praise of Lady Prudence, the narrator asks her divine guide to assist her whenever her literary task would become too wearying: “if you see that I, frail and weak, vacillate under such weight.”34 It can be gathered from this mention of the unburdening of the heart that traditional male writings which stigmatised Eve represented a burden to the speaker. Offering a different portrayal of our first mother was an important issue for d’Amboise as a female author, an issue that touched her (“le cas me touche” [her case touches and concerns me]) for its identifying potential, and because it dealt with the founding story of Judeo-Christian culture that determined centuries of volumes written against women. Therefore, touching on such a subject undoubtedly meant taking a major religious stride. In her account, the parallel use of familiar and endearing terms to designate Eve (“O mere, mere”) and Katherine (“O fille, fille”) underlines their kinship and reduces the historical distance existing between them. Presenting Eve as a dear mother is also bringing her closer to Mary and suggesting that she is no longer viewed primarily as the origin of sin (as was Adam) but as an unfortunate creature. The “dolante mere”35 [mother of sorrow] points to the mater dolorosa. Every portrait of Eve shows her overtaken by grief: “as a woman paralysed with cries and tears”; “the poor mother, with her broken voice, overwhelmed with sorrow.”36 In Eve’s words, the same contrite attitude prevails: “my daughter and friend, alas! it was all caused by my imprudence and fickle mind, for which I have moaned and shed tears ever since, doing so much penance that in the end it pleased God.”37 The presentation of the first couple could not be more slanted: while Adam is accused of being a “wicked root” bestowing nothing but “great evil” upon the world, Eve is allowed, within this textual space, to confess her imprudence and proclaim her subsequent redemption. She is even called a good mother: “la bonne mere Eve.”38 Rather than stressing the consequences of Eve’s sin on humanity, the text privileges the effects it had on the female sex, thereby arousing compassion for the difficulties women have to face in their earthly life, as wives and mothers: “This is the reason why woman is subjected to man, where before she was his equal, not his subject, but his companion.”39 For we, poor women proceeding from you [Eve], we are subjected, because of your annoying transgression; and you have subjected us to so much misery, poverty, and affliction, that no orator or writer—no matter how much he knows and how well he writes—would know how to justly express them and give them due form. Similarly, and above all, [consider] the severe suffering and martyrdom of having children, which is an inestimable pain; and so many other secret ills, about which I keep silent for now, because hiding them is better and more honourable than revealing them—the source and origine of which lies in having forsaken the path of righteousness and the exhortation of Lady Prudence.40

The inexpressibility topos applied to womanly ills, that neither orators nor writers could describe, may be read as an ironic statement, given that few church fathers would have been inclined to show sympathy in that area and speak of female sufferings differently than in terms of curse or punishment. Here again, Catherine d’Amboise manipulates preterition to its fullest: what cannot be expressed, she nevertheless

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expresses, and with so much hyperbole, that it could not be stressed more adequately. Thus, as she daringly compares her endeavour with that of learned male authors, she implies that she is able to write (“bien justement . . . en forme deuue” [ justly . . . [in] due form]) on subjects which were not accessible to them. We may also note that in this account, Eve’s naïveté somewhat attenuates her culpability, as was already the case in Christine de Pizan and Isotta Nogarola, and will be often so in arguments set forth by advocates of women in the Querelle des femmes:41 “I, wretched, poor woman, tender and weak, and out of my senses,” “as though I were lost, frightened and troubled in my mind,” and “I, poor sorrowful and wretched, quicker to believe than I should have been, as a fool, lacking in sense and prudence.”42 Yet, our first mother’s poor judgement is not permanent. Catherine d’Amboise’s Eve evolves and shows great capacity for self-evaluation and spiritual amendment. In a sense, it may be argued that her consciousness and public admission of imprudence tends to place her in the category of wise women. In fact, the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent avoids both of the two extreme views transmitted by exemplary literature, refusing to present Eve as solely responsible for human downfall or to completely free her from culpability—as some defenders of women do, going so far as to make her into a heroine of the faith, whose sin was beneficial in bringing forth salvation.43 While being “ung petit rude” [a bit rough]44 to her, as the narrator puts it, the author gives her a voice, an opportunity to justify herself and express her sadness. However, she does it unlike medieval drama which also lets Eve speak, but in derogatory terms, mostly portraying her as ignorant and easily influenced, as a pitiful and often comical creature who is the target of misogynous diatribe. I V. I N P R A I S E O F W O M E N I N V E N TO R S

Three female inventors are recorded in the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent: Minerva, Ceres, and Isis, a triad that often appears in catalogues of illustrious women, as in Boccaccio and Christine de Pizan.45 Ceres is recalled for her civilising action, for inventing the use of oxen in agriculture and, thus, delivering humanity from ploughing the fields with their own bodies. Isis and Minerva are included for inventions pertaining to literature and writing, and are therefore crucial to the author for identification purposes. Yet, rather than developing this cultural aspect and expanding on its pertinence, as most of her predecessors do, the writer takes for granted that these two goddesses are familiar to her readership and uses the chapters as pretexts for praising the female sex. Until we reach folios 33v–36r, where these sections unfold, we are far from expecting the rise of such a strong voice in defence of women and even less a virulent arousal of polemics. But in the light of these passages, Catherine d’Amboise’s treatise rightly deserves to be added to the large collection of writings pertaining to the Querelle des femmes. The issues raised in these two chapters are as follows: women inventors are worthy of the highest honour, even if men do not like it; in fact without Isis and Minerva we would not be reaping the benefits of great works composed by clerks and wise authors;46 profitable examples should not be

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kept hidden; no male hero has ever reached such perfection on earth; in no written account was it possible to find enough praiseworthy men of the second age to speak about; therefore opponents to this argument just prove they cannot read if they keep on criticising the narrator for speaking too highly of women. The steadfastness with which Catherine d’Amboise makes her claims reveals a high self-esteem and puts her unceasing excusationes into perspective: “God in His Grace gave me sense, wisdom, reason, and right.”47 And if envious and slandering enemies or adversaries of the female sex would throw insults at me, female explorer of the present volume, saying that I praise and say very good things only of women, I overtly respond to them, in proper form, that if it were so, it is because everyone likes their own; so I whom God in His grace has given sense, wisdom, reason, and right, shall I not say the good that came out of women who are my kin? Yes, I shall, truly, in spite of the enemies of the female sex, given that a good deed must not be hidden, but spread out, so that it may serve as an example to everyone, and a bad deed crushed down without memory. Therefore, to silence the slanderers, if there should be any, [I say of them] let them go and look at the words and effects of the second age, and they shall find, if they know how to read, that there are but three men found worthy of being recorded in chronicle and everlasting memory. As a consequence, I was forced—in fact I should not say ‘forced,’ because I really like it—well, talking about the second age, I had to call upon those previously named virtuous women in order to finish my book, and rightly so, for they greatly deserved such honour.48

The opinion, already latent in the chapter on Eve, that it is only right for women to support their own, is far reaching. “[C]hacun ayme son semblable” [everyone likes their own] is not just a tautological statement reminiscent of the proverbial “qui se ressemble s’assemble” [birds of a feather flock together]. It implies a search for a female literary and civic community where women would show solidarity, uplift each other, and offer stimulating models to one another, in a manner similar to the City of Ladies [Cité des dames]. Moreover, the referred objection “that I praise and say very good things only of women” is a discursive turning point allowing the narrator to make her stylistic choice known. The switch from laudatory to deprecatory speech hands her an opportunity to define her aesthetics as a literary “responce” and to stress her capacity to do it with the appropriate rhetorical tools: “tout en la forme” [in proper form]. The urgency of this defence against potential harm from so-called “ennemis et controversez du sexe feminin” further allows her to allege self-worth and reiterate her decisiveness: “shall I not say the good that came out of women who are my kin? Yes, I shall, truly, in spite of the enemies of the female sex.” Far from the rhetorical questions called upon elsewhere, the interrogative receives in this case a clear-cut affirmative answer, even intensified with “truly.” To add insult to injury, the potential “murmurans” [slanderers] are sent back to their books as poor interpreters: “let them go and look at the words and effects of the second age, and they shall find, if they know how to read, that there are but three men found worthy of being recorded in chronicle and everlasting memory.” What else is this than a disguised affirmation of female hermeneutic superiority? The narrator intimates that history has been read wrongly all along, and that if we read it her way, we will be closer to the truth. Her task is presented as a moral imperative (“I was forced,” “I had to”), but one that she maliciously enjoys (“I should not say ‘forced,’ because I really like it”).

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In her chapter on Minerva, the purpose is not only to anticipate potential objections, it is to reprimand: Chapter two talking about the prudence of Minerva, who invented the seven liberal arts and the seven mechanical ones. All minds filled with science to perfection are highly worthy of commemoration. I say this with regard to a noble woman, illustrious in virtue, called Lady Minerva, who had in her so much grace, science, and knowledge that, to tell the truth, human sense could not fathom. She was the first inventor—no matter how men feel about it—and she innovated by inventing the seven liberal arts, and similarly the seven mechanical ones, the description of which I leave to those who feel better equipped to do so. What more could I say of this virtuous, outstanding, and magnificent lady who so highly exalts and honours the female sex? I can call her without fear of reproof the most virtuous among virtuous. And I also say, by way of reproach: let the detractors and slanderers come to me, let them approach and tell me otherwise! And then: let them find a single individual on their side who has accomplished great deeds like this prudent and virtuous woman! No, no, searching in all books, I could not see any. On the contrary, during my time, I saw many of them, young and old, who were not virtuous, but heathen, drunkards, openly debauched, slanderers, defamers of people, and filled with innumerable other vices too abundant to describe. And furthermore, in view of such infamy—in old men more than in young ones—I shall now be quiet, for it is wiser not to speak of it, I believe. So let them be quiet and stop lashing out imprudent words against the noble female sex! Let them be quiet and stop speaking ill of prudent, wise, and virtuous ladies! O Minerva, you are surpassing all virtues! Therefore I and others are compelled to honour you! May my goodwill be pleasing to you and worthy of its task. And forgive, I pray, my little knowledge unable on its own to write more highly of your highest virtues, for it would gladly do it if it could.49

This chapter does not add any major factual information to the rubric. The whole purpose of it is dithyrambic speech. In an ironic gesture of dismissal, the content announced in the title is left to be supplied by those who feel much more able to write about mythical figures than she does. This cutting remark may be read as a manner of distancing herself from male writers and claiming a different approach to the recording of history. Far more important than a detailed account of Minerva’s accomplishments is an underscoring of her praiseworthiness. She is presented as an icon to the noble female gender not only as a specially gifted inventor but as a gracious, knowledgeable, wise, and virtuous woman. Here, conversation is displaced from a one-on-one interaction with a prudent heroine to an indirect provocation of potential adversaries (“de leur parti” [on their side]). The adopted stylistic means connote a fighting arena where a crowd of opponents are being defied by a single mocking heroine, confidently awaiting to overthrow them, “without fear of reproof ”: “viennent et s’aprochent!” [let them approach!]. The use of the third person makes these provoking statements even more ironic, as if the reader were supposed to witness her adversaries’ ridicule. Interjections, rhetorical questions, anaphora, and hyperbole are distributed as stylistic blows to annihilate potential detractors. The expression of praise to the goddess makes use of the same lexical and syntactic tools as when extolling Mary, which shows that to an early woman writer who has yet to establish her name the whole treasure of pagan, fictional, and mythological exempla is as precious as biblical history to shed a new light on women. The semantic field of sacredness is particularly apparent in the following quotes where the word “virtue” or “virtuous” is recurring in every phrase: “a noble woman, illustrious in virtue, called Lady Minerva,” “this virtuous, outstanding, and magnificent lady,” “the most virtuous among virtuous,” “you are surpassing

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all virtues,” and “your highest virtues.”50 By contrast, because men as virtuous as Minerva are said to be rare in written records of the second age—the only exceptions being Cecrops, the founder of Athens and inventor of the judicial system, as well as Melchisedech and Abraham, two Christological figures—the male race is being depicted solely on the basis of the narrator’s alleged personal observation (“during my time I saw many of them”). The stylistic effect of enumeration cynically adds to the inexpressibility topos (“they would be impossible to describe”) to give an idea of their innumerable vices. The polarisation, proper to polemic debate literature, is all the more striking here in that it takes readers by surprise, set as they were to have in front of them a spiritual and moral treatise in praise of virtuous men of history. The reiterated invective (“se taisent,” “se taisent” [let them be quiet]) hints at the fact that misogynous literature must have been quite popular even in Catherine d’Amboise’s circles. Silencing that negative voice is a corollary to becoming silent herself, out of moral decency: “in view of such infamy—in old men more than in young ones—I shall now be quiet, for it is wiser not to speak of it, I believe.” Recording men’s actions only to blame them and subsequently put them to silence is a provocative reversal of what history has done to women. The chapter concludes by returning to the inventeresses. Making prudent women of the past known to all is by far the author’s primary purpose. As in the chapter on Isis, she calls this new feminine version of history an obligation: “O Minerva . . . I and others are compelled to honour you.” She and her followers must speak, for mythical women are worthy to be set before future generations: “and rightly so, for they greatly deserved such honour.”51 I hope to have shown in the light of these examples that while intended to be a spiritual and moral treatise, the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent was also a political work, in a broad sense of the term. Political, because it offers insights on major figures of the past and comments on their government, civic attitude, and civilising role.52 But this book is also political in its implied or explicit standpoints on power relations between the sexes. The author’s involvement in the Querelle des femmes, which has never yet been mentioned—let alone considered in detail—by critics is noteworthy for more than one reason. First, Catherine d’Amboise infers that it is possible to innovate even in such a conventional genre as debate literature. In fact, letting women of the past speak to us (as Eve does) may have a more cathartic and didactic effect and serve a deeper devotional purpose than traditional written accounts offering judgemental views on women. Second, she proves that in her reading of history, prudent women were in the forefront and rightly deserved to be, as models of virtue and agents of civilisation. Third, she insinuates that a spiritual female author of her time cannot write about history as a “sensible” and “reasonable” woman without engaging in polemics and aiming at silencing misogynistic talk. For being a woman is not so much a fact of nature to her—like centuries of male writings have ascertained and the doxa of her time would still faithfully repeat—as it is a social construct, a reality determined by a set of cultural conventions and practices, such as lack of educational possibilities, and subservient positions in marital and civic life. Expressing her “lamentacions et femyni[n]s regrectz” [lamentations and female sorrow]53 in a room of her own is

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therefore an opportunity she takes to set the tone also for a moral complaint against all imprudent individuals who prohibit women access to universities, deny them important inventions, and prefer them to be subjected to men. Paradoxically, if no authored spiritual book in early sixteenth-century France ever made such extensive use of excusatio (in every chapter without exception, and even several times per chapter), few works have negotiated space for feminine subjects with such stubborn engagement as the Book of the Prudent and Imprudent. In short, Catherine d’Amboise, as a daring “explorer,” has not only written about founding heroines and women inventors in an innovative way; she has created, by means of her assertive auctorial voice, new possibilities for female expression in literary, historical, and political discourse. NOTES 1 For an edition and an analysis of this work, see Catherine d’Amboise, Poésies, ed. Catherine M.

Müller (Montréal: Editions CERES, 2002). 2 Catherine d’Amboise, Le Livre des Prudents et Imprudents, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris, ms. 2037

(unedited). 3 Ibid., fol. 6r. 4 As will be apparent in the quotations below, the numerous use of connectors like “but” and

“nevertheless” illustrates the opposition between excusatio and assertiveness. 5 d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fols. 6r–v: “hommes et femes depuis cest age jusques à l’aage

6 7

8 9 10

11 12

13

14

sixesme, que pour avoir delessé le sentier vertueulx de Dame Prudence sont tombez en descadence ruyneuse et en peril perpetuel.” Ibid., fols. 6r, 7r. Ibid., fol. 1r: “Ainsi me voyant supprise de toustes ces perturbacions predittes, me transporté et mis paine me retirer en mon petit cabinet où j’ay de coustume me retraire pour faire mes lamentacions et femyni[n]s regrectz.” For an account of the importance of prudence as a political concept, see Karen Green, “Phronesis Feminised: Prudence from Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth 1,” in this collection. d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 6v. Several examples of an opposition between Reason and Love in hermeneutics can be found in RhenoFlemish mysticism, particularly in the writings of Marguerite Porete (d.1310). For an analysis of her work, see Catherine M. Müller, Marguerite Porete et Marguerite d’Oingt de l’autre côté du miroir (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 7v. Ibid., fol. 6v: “Et pousé que les dictz chapiltrez soist [sic] couchez en bas stille, se neaumoinctz à les bien comprandre et soigneusement entendre s’i trouvera du fruict, lequel, si le lecteur le gouste amoureusement, y prenant saveur, luy pourra proffiter en temps et lieu. . . . Et pour ce donc, mon excusacion si descripte en termes puerilles, vous lecteurs et auditeurs qui me ferés ceste honneur de lyre ou entendre se predict volume mal construict, usez de charité: c’est qu’il vous plaise excuser ma povrette ynorance.” See ibid., fol. 136r: “pour evicter toute prolicité de langaige contrainte suis imposer fin en mon euvre intitullé Livre des prudens et imprudens, priant toutesfoys ung chacum lisant que leurs [sic] plaisir soit accumuler le doulx et soief et rejecter l’aigre et amer d’icelluy” [in order to avoid prolixity, I am compelled to put an end to my work entitled Book of the Prudent and Imprudent, nevertheless entreating all readers to kindly keep its sweetness and softness and reject all bitterness and sourness thereof]. These quotations are found in d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fols. 34v, 6r, 7r, and 7r respectively.

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15 Ibid., fol. 6r: “Pour avoir de toy [Dame Prudence] perpetuelle memoire le temps futeur, ay proposé

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17 18 19 20

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22 23

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moyennant ton aide et secours, sans lequel nul ne peult prosperer, faire une petite euvre, soubz ta baniere et confidence. De hault toucher en matiere parfunde me seroit imposible, car encor ne suy-je apprentisse que soubz les maneuvres, comme la decleracion visiblement les [sic] desmontre; et oultre plus en icy le myen primier coup d’essay, qui donne matiere plus ample d’excusacion. Et pour ce doncques, ma chere Dame et Maitresse, donnez-moy faveur en ceste petite opusculle, que selon la capacité de mon fresle entendement et tendre esperict, en toy caulaudant [=louant] de mes forces, bastiray la myenne emprise, en inplorant l’aide d’ung seul Dieu resgnant en trois personnez, auquel en ceste euvre et toustes aultres tres humlement me recommande de la Scienne grace, secours et aide. Imposible seroit à la creature sans icelle parvenir à son optat.” Ibid., fol. 7r: “Pour toy louer, Vertus tant venerable, ma chere Dame et Maitresse, Dame Prudence, mon espoir singulier, ouserai-ge enprendre descripre les tiennes vertus tant caulaudables? Ai-je en moi assez de sçavoir? Certez, nenny, Dame. Mais en me confiant à ta proumesse, me adventureray, comme celle qui est de ferveur esprise et d’amour divine entrelassee, toy suppliant, Dame courtoise et benigne, que si tu congnois que moy, fresle et debille, chancelle soubz le fais, me daignes adressez et conduyre, car sans toy ne peulz tant petite euvre qui soit plaire. O Vertus digne de tresexcellante gloire par sus toustes cardinalle! sans toy ne peult la totalle fabricque parvenir ou hault degré de perfection.” See Marguerite de Navarre, Les Prisons, trans. Clare Lynch Wade (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), particularly the end of Book III. d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 35r: “Veillez excusez et avoir esgard au povre sexe feminin.” Ibid., fol. 6v. Ibid., fol. 6v: “Et pour ce, supplie tres humblement, et tant que le puis, aux auditeurs de ce predit volume que de leur grace benigne m[e] veillent avoir pour excusee, et le myen tendre esperict, lequel par faulte de sçavoir et comprandre ne peult pas couchez les termes de rethoricque, que voulentiers feroye se possible m’estoit. Excusez donc l’esperict debille de la povre aprentisse: se vous sera honneur; et deshonneur de la redarquer. C’est euvre de femme, qui donne rason peremptoire d’excusacion, plus ample que d’ung homme, qui a liberté aller sa et là aux universitez et estudez où il peult comprandre toustes sciences par solicitude, qui n’est l’estat du sexe femynim.” Ibid., fol. 7r: “sans toy [Prudence] ne peulz tant petite euvre qui soit plaire. O Vertus digne de tres excellante gloire par sus toustes cardinalle! Sans toy ne peult la totalle fabricque parvenir on [sic] hault degré de perfection.” Ibid., fol. 27r–v. Ibid., fol. 21v: “O Dame souveraine [Marie] . . . si je vouloys raconter les grans biens que par ta prudence nous sont venus, en moy n’ay cens ne sçavoir de les comprandre. Commant sçavoir? Il n’est ange, archange, ne sainct en paradis qui soit digne de toy escripre, narrer, ne proferer, et encore plus mettre par escript, la moindre des graces et vertus inestimables qui en toy redondent. Commant doncqz moy, povre femme despourveue de sçavoir, ouseroye plus proceder de toy descripre, veu et consideré que tant de sainctez gens et docteurs devotz ont de toy escript, mesmement les quatre Evvangelistes qui jamès ne sceurent trouver le bout de la moindre louenge qui en toy redonde. Conclusion: tes graces et vertus sont inestimables. Doncqz, comme dict le sage, mieulx vault mectre fin à mes dictz que dire chose ou mettre par escript de quoy soye mesprisee. E pour ce m’areste.” Ibid., fol. 7r: “ouserai-ge enprendre descripre les tiennes vertus tant caulaudables? Ai-je en moi assez de sçavoir? Certez, nenny, Dame. Mais en me confiant à ta proumesse, me adventureray, comme celle qui est de ferveur esprise et d’amour divine entrelassee” (italics added). Catherine d’Amboise employs similar wording in her description of the celestial hierarchy; see Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 22r. Ibid., fol. 6r: “En ferveur deliberee suis, selon le myen possible, faire et construyre ma ditte euvre et entreprise par chapitres, comme l’intitulacion en fera desmontrance, pour ce et afin de mieulx donner la matiere à entendre. Car comme dit le sage, autant vault celuy qui lit et ne l’entend comme cil qui chasse et rien ne prent.” Ibid., fol. 7v: “Considerant l’imprudence du temps preterit, tant de hommes que de femmes, que pour n’avoir suyvy ta sente spirituelle sont tumbés en grande ruyne et desolation; dont, et en ceste substance, est la myenne intencion prandre ma matiere et commancer à l’imprudence de notre primier pere Adam,

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34 35 36 37 38 39 40

C AT H E R I N E M . M Ü L L E R et Eve, et consecutivement aux imprudens après eulx venus, comme verrez par les chapitres cy après escripz.” Ibid., fol. 36r–v: “moy, explorateure de se present volume . . . poursuyvant tousjours la myenne emprise soubz la conduitte et baniere de ma bonne maitresse et amye, Dame Prudence.” Ibid., fol. 35v: “ma singuliere maitresse et amye, Dame Prudence, ouvrez-moy votre arche dyvine où science parfaicte repose, m’ynpartissant et eslargissant du tresor d’icelle quelque draine ou petite portion, pour cestuy faict condignement toucher! Car sans vostre secours je n’ay en moy la traditive [= tradition] seure, ne la science assez haultaine pour icelle dame [Isis] magnifier ne louer.” Ibid., fol. 7v: “Quant est de l’imprudence de notre dict premier pere, n’est mon intention en touchez gueres, car de ce m’en raporte aux hommes. Mais en tant que l’imprudence de notre premiere mere Eve me touche, à cause du sexe femynin, me dispose en toucher selon la capacité du myen esperict, sans blaphesme, mais seullement pour advertir tous ceulx et celles qui après nous viendront, pource et afin de les garder d’enchoir en ceste pouvreté ruyneuse. Et tout charitablement ainsi est la myenne intencion proceder.” Ibid., fol. 8r; see the Middle French quote below, in note 32. Ibid., fol. 8r: “Par l’inprudence d’Adam, le premier pere et terrien seigneur, est la cause motifve de tous les accidens qu’ont heu et auront pouvres humains jusqu’à la fin de leurs jours; et tout par l’inobediance qu’il perpetra contre le Createur. O racine faulce! O rameau de douleur! Inobediance mauldite! Par toy avons et aurons tant à souffrir qu’impossible est de le narrer. O Adam, par ton delict et avons delessee la vroye rectitude de Dame Prudence, sont entrez les vices au monde comme princes puissans et victorieux, et tant de povretez, comme perturbacions, ennuys, soucy, maladies grevaines, eschoir en vielesse, estre en servitude et exil, avoir froict, chault, fain, soif et aultres milles povretés qui sont inestimables, dont la povre creature humaine est agitee et assalye, depuis le premier jour de sa nativité jusques au jour de son trespas. Or considerons donc le grant mal et vitupere que par l’inprudence de notre dit premier pere nous est advenu!” Ibid., fols. 8r–v: “Atant me tais dudict et m’en viens tumber sur le passage de notre povre mere, Eve, parlant à elle gracieusement et plus privement que je n’ay faict d’Adam, car il n’est du party du sexe femynin, qui m’a gardee en toucher plus amplement. Et pour ce supplie aux lecteurs de se present livre que de leur grace ne soist [sic] point mal ediffiez si privement et en termes femynins parle à icelle, notre povre mere Eve: le cas me touche. ‘O mere, mere, ne t’esbais si en parlant à toy je suis ung petit rude: ton forfaict en seroit bien cause; oultre, ta playe inparfaitte et mauvaise touche à moy, ta povre fille, et aultres, jusquez au cueur.’” Ibid., fol. 8v: “Puis, fille, que tu as si grant envye sçavoir la cause et le motif de ma forfaicture, t’en diray sans en mentir la verité pure, mieulx et plus veritablement que volume que puissez lire ny avoir leuz”; and fol. 10r: “Et moy . . . me retiray . . . ung peu plus certaine et veritable des choses predictes que je n’estoye—qui m’alegea tout le cueur, car au personnage de qui est l’affaire, est plus parler que de le voir par escript.” Ibid., fol. 7r: “si tu congnois que moy, fresle et debille, chancelle soubz le fais.” See note 16. Ibid., fol. 10r. See also fols. 9r and 9v: “moy povre dolante et miserable” [I poor sorrowful and wretched] and “la povre mere . . . dolante et esploree” [the poor mother . . . filled with sorrow and tears]. Ibid., fols. 8v and 9v: “comme femme transye et offusquee de pleurs et larmes,” “La povre mere en voix cassé, comme toulte esploree.” Ibid., fols. 9v–10r: “fille, m’amye, helas! se fut par mon inprudence et ligereté d’esperict, dont depuis en ay getté mainctez larmes et gemissemens, en fesant penitance tant que à Dieu elle a pleu.” Ibid., fol. 10r. Ibid., fol. 9v: “Par cella est venu et est la cause pourquoy est subjette la femme à l’omme, là où auparavant estoist parelz, non pas sa subjette, mais compaigne tant seullement.” Ibid., fol. 10r: “Car nous, povres femmes après toy procedantes, par ton i[m]portune transgression sommes subjettes, et nous aservis à tant de miseres, povrettés et afflictions, qui n’est orateur ne rethoric, tant sachant bien ny escripre, qui bien justement les sceussent exprimer ne mettre en forme deuue. Et mesmement, et par sur toustes, la greifve passion et martire d’avoir enffant, qui est douleur inestimable. Et tant d’aultres maladyes segrettes—de quoy je me tais pour le present, car cachez icelles

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vault mieulx et est plus honneste que les descouvrir—dont d’icelles en est la source et droicte origine pour avoir delessé le sentier de rectitude et exortement de Dame Prudence.” See Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (London: Picador, 1983); and Isotta Nogarola, Complete Writings, trans. Margaret L. King and Diana Robin (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004). d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 9r: “moy, lasse, povre femme, tendre et debille et esperdue de mon scens”; “comme toulte esperdue, expavescente et troublee en esperict”; “moy, povre dolante et miserable, hastive de croyre trop plus toust que ne devoye, comme incensee et desprouveue de cens et prudence.” Among the traditional defences of Eve are the following arguments: that she was created in paradise (and thus in the worthiest of places), made of better material than Adam (of flesh rather than dirt), and represented the culmination of God’s mastery (for his creation follows an ascending and improving order from animals to man to woman). In avoiding these topoi, Catherine d’Amboise is breaking away from the highly rhetorical character of the writings pertaining to the Querelle des femmes. In fact, her account is set up as a search for truth by means of conversationes with biblical figures allowing for better identification and spiritual transformation. See note 32. In Boccaccio, Ceres is not exalted as a liberating force. After declaring her to be a civilising figure, the author shows the perverse effect of the progress she initiated and argues for the superiority of nature over culture. See for example the chapter entitled “De Cerres, royne et deesse” in the Middle French translation of De Claris Mulieribus (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, ms 12420) which was likely to be known by Catherine d’Amboise (Jean Boccace, Des cleres et nobles femmes, ed. Jeanne Baroin and Josiane Haffen, 2 vols. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1995), 1:30). See d’Amboise, Prudents et Imprudents, fol. 35v. Ibid., fol. 36r: “Dieu de sa grace m’a donné scens et raison”. Note the double meaning of the two nouns “sens” and “raison.” Many other examples of this positive vision of self can be gathered from the chapter on Prudence (fols. 17v–20v). Ibid., fol. 36r: “Et si aulcuns envieulx et murmurans, ennemis et controversez du sexe feminin, vouloist inferez à moy, explorateure de se present volume, quelque injure, disant que je ne loue et ne dis grans biens que des femmez, responce leur fais patente, tout en la forme, que si ainsi estoit, c’est que chacun ayme son semblable; parquoy donc moy, à qui Dieu de sa grace m’a donné scens et raison, ne diray de ma paraille le bien qui en est issu? Si feray pour vroy, maulgré les ennemis du sexe feminin, consideré qu’ung bienfaict ne doit estre caché, mais ventillé, pource et affin que chascum y preigne exemple; ung malfait, mis soubz le pié sans aucune memoire. Donc, pour apaiser les murmurans, si aucuns y en avoit, s’en aillent regarder les dictz et effectz du segond aage, et ilz trouverront s’ilz sçavent bien lyre que en iceluy n’y a et ne se pourroit trouver que trois hommez dignez d’estre mis en cronique ne en memoire perpetuelle. Parquoy doncqz ay esté contraintte—et diz plus: sans contraincte, car bien me plaist—m’a esté force, pour parachever mon livre parlant du dict segond aage, y mettre et faire venir en ranc icellez vertueusez davant nommeez, et non sans merite, car [elles] ont bien desservy ceste honneur.” Ibid., fols. 33r–34r: “Le segont chapitre parlant de la prudence de Mynerve qui les sept ars liberos composa et les sept mequaniquez. Les esperilz en science parfaictz tres dignez sont de commemoration. Je dis ces moctz pour ceste noble, tres illustre en vertus, Dame Mynerve ainsi nommee, laquelle en soy heut tant de gracez, science et sçavoir, que imposible seroit à cens humain les sçavoir comprandre, et qui soit vroy. Primierement fut inventerresse davant tous aultres—ne deplaise aux hommes—d’ynover et estre inventifve de composer les ars liberaulz, par cas parail les sept ars mecquanicqz, lesquelz je delesse à escripre à plus suffisans que moy. Que diray plus de ceste vertueuse dame tant excellente et magnificque, qui tant exsaulce et faict honneur au sexe feminin? Dire la puis, sans craincte d’estre reprise, la vertueuse sur toustez vertueusez. Et dis en oultre, en magniere de reproche: viennent et s’aprochent de moy les detracteurs et maulvaiz langagiers pour me dire du contraire! Et en oultre: que de leur parti me treuvent parsonnage ayant faict tellez euvrez que ceste prudente vertueuse! Non, non: tous livrez visitez, je n’en ay point veuz. Mais

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C AT H E R I N E M . M Ü L L E R de mon aage en ay congneu, tant vieulx que jeunes, assez et trop d’invertueulx, regnieux de Dieu, yvroingnez, paillars plubicqz, maulvaiz langagiers, diffamateurs de gens, et aultres vices habondans en eulx en si grant nombre, que imposible seroit les descripre. Et oultre, pour l’inffamye d’iceulx—et plus des vieulx que des jeunez—m’en tais, consideré ainsi le taire en valoir mieulx que le parler. Doncqz se taisent et mettent fin à leurs imprudentez parollez de plus toucher au noble sexe feminin! Se taisent de parler des dames prudes, sagez et vertueuses! O Mynerve, toustez vertus passant, que moy et aultrez te atribuez honneur sommez tenus, doncquez te p[l]aise le [m]ien bon vouloir reputer pour le faict, en excusant le mien petit sçavoir, qui en soy plus haultement toucher ne peult tes vertus altissimez, qui le feroit de bon cueur si possible luy estoit.” Ibid., fols. 33r–4r: “ceste noble, tres illustre en vertus, Dame Mynerve ainsi nommee,” “ceste vertueuse dame tant excellente et magnificque,” “la vertueuse sur toustez vertueusez,” “ceste prudente vertueuse,” “O Mynerve, toustez vertus passant,” and “tes vertus altissimez.” See notes 48 and 49. To properly evaluate that aspect, it would be necessary to examine the entire treatise, and closely analyse characters as different as Nemrod, Nero, and Charlemagne. My choice for this essay has been to concentrate on a few female characters. See note 7.

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C A R O LY N J A M E S

IV ‘‘ M A C H I AV E L L I I N S K I RT S . ’’ I S A B E L L A D ’ E S T E AND POLITICS

Isabella d’Este, who became marchioness of the Italian principality of Mantua when she married Francesco Gonzaga in 1490, has been the subject of intense scholarly and popular interest, much of it dependent on the archival research, more than a century ago, of Alessandro Luzio. He produced numerous essays on the woman he dubbed “Machiavelli in skirts” [Machiavelli in gonnella].1 The characterisation sums up Luzio’s admiring engagement with what he considered to be his subject’s unusual ability to bring an incisive intellect and bold decisiveness to political strategy but it also recalls one of the dominant aspects of the literary discourse about women that emerged, with gathering momentum, from the mid-fifteenth century in the northern courts of Italy. The few women who achieved fame and reputation because of their extraordinary achievements or superior moral stature did so by virtue of “la virilità dell’anima” [the virile spirit], within their female bodies.2 Luzio’s early twentieth-century biographical portrait of Isabella seems indeed to resemble the more virtuous heroines of Boccaccio’s Concerning Famous Women [De mulieribus claris], the fourteenth-century text that provided the model and source material for the body of writing that became known as the Querelle des femmes.3 It is no coincidence that it was around Isabella and her female relatives that the Italian defenders of women first rallied, but their approach to this still new genre varied considerably. Isabella d’Este encouraged the view by her humanist apologists that female education and experience of the world could harness innate intelligence, such as she patently possessed, to produce the masculine prudence and strength of character so essential to the exercise of political authority. However, she was also well aware of the necessity to present herself as a traditional aristocratic wife who ably intervened in the larger forum of state affairs when called upon to do so, a version of the princely consort that had been successfully played out by her mother, Eleonora d’Aragona.4 This essay examines the changing ways in which Isabella mobilised visual and literary propaganda to promote a political and cultural role that was partly based on the example of her female forebears but that gradually developed aspects of exceptionality that required a new and more thoroughgoing campaign of justification. It was indubitably the active administrative and diplomatic role of dynastic wives in the courtly context, where private and public duties were confusingly blurred, that called into being texts that grappled with the challenges that the greater influence of elite women presented to traditional notions of their innate inferiority. Almost all the late fifteenth-century Italian defences of women were dedicated to female members of the Neapolitan Aragonese dynasty: Eleonora and Beatrice d’Aragona, daughters of the king of Naples, and Eleonora’s eldest child, Isabella d’Este. She had been given the name of her maternal grandmother, Isabella di Chiaramonte, a woman well-used 57 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 57–75. © 2007 Springer.

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to regency and whose political skills were vital during the wars fought by her husband King Ferrante against local barons and Angevin claimants to the Neapolitan kingdom. Queen Isabella’s descendants seem to have inherited from her a confident ability to take on a political role even in contexts where there were fewer precedents than in Naples for female intervention in government. Eleonora d’Aragona, the daughter of Isabella di Chiaramonte, was taken up with her most pressing political duty when she married Ercole d’Este, duke of Ferrara, in 1473. The production of seven children between 1474 and 1481, five of whom were males, guaranteed a smooth transition of power and a plentiful supply of dynastic marriage partners after a long and troubled period of bachelor princes. However, in the late 1470s, when her husband was called from the state by military commitments, Eleonora assumed the regency and continued, even after her husband’s return, to take an active role in administration, overseeing the smooth functioning of the chancery and the everyday provisioning of the court. Eleonora is associated with three literary works dedicated to her which take for granted that she exercised an important political role.5 The Advice on Princely Duties [Memoriale sui doveri del principe], presented to Eleonora d’Aragona as a wedding gift by her former tutor, Diomede Carafa, is a practical, didactic guide to good government which acknowledges the gender of its dedicatee only by advice about overcoming traditional female failings such as the inability to keep a secret.6 However, On Princely Rule [Del modo di regere e di regnare], written in verse by Antonio Cornazzano towards the end of 1478 when Eleonora ruled Ferrara during her husband’s absence, adapts the princely virtues associated with the mirror of princes tradition to a female ruler, and seemingly to Eleonora in particular.7 In the same period, Cornazzano wrote a parallel work in prose for Ercole d’Este, On the Integrity of the Military Profession [De la integrità de la militare arte] which, despite the different title, shares much in common with On Princely Rule.8 It seems that these two texts—hers focusing on the court, and particularly on the princely requirement to dispense justice, and his on the virtues required on the battlefield—acknowledge a tacit division of labour between the ruling couple. Eleonora extended her domestic duties to supervision of the court and the state bureaucracy while Ercole concentrated on diplomacy and military imperatives. Whether this close political cooperation between the Ferrarese duke and his consort was a new phenomenon or a normal, if covert, practice within the ruling class is not yet clear because of the scarcity of research on this question. However, Cornazzano’s complementary texts, and the fact that he had earlier dedicated Concerning Admirable Women [De mulieribus admirandis] to the duchess of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti, suggest that he was aware of the need for a change in social attitudes about what constituted acceptable female behaviour among the political elite to accommodate new roles for aristocratic women within the court environment.9 Cornazzano was one of a small and new breed of courtiers who allied themselves with these women, seeking in their literary propaganda to promote the reputations and prestige of their female patrons and, of course, their own fortunes at court.10

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Bartolommeo Goggio, a Ferrarese notary and court official, carried the campaign on Eleonora’s behalf even further in his In Praise of Women [De laudibus mulierum] of 1487.11 In explaining his motivation for writing a work which sets out to dismantle the traditional basis for male superiority, Goggio refers explicitly at the beginning of the text to his alliance with women. He acknowledges “the virtues of women and the friendship that joined me to them.”12 As Stephen Kolsky points out in his recent analysis of this and other texts which focus on the woman question, the boldness of Goggio’s challenge to conventional views about women can partly be explained by the text’s limited circulation in manuscript. Radical ideas could be explored and appreciated by members of the court community without the risk of associating the duke’s consort with the controversy that the publication of such a work would inevitably involve.13 The collaboration of Eleonora d’Aragona in this subtly waged campaign on her behalf is suggested by the close relationship between In Praise of Women and a number of paintings depicting famous women from antiquity, probably commissioned from Ercole de’ Roberti by Eleonora shortly before her death in 1493.14 These panel paintings, The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children, Brutus and Portia, and The Death of Lucretia, depict women famous for the wifely virtues of constancy and fortitude, particularly necessary to wives of political leaders, as two of the paintings imply. These were the two virtues that Goggio asserted women possessed in greater measure than men.15 The association of these paintings with Eleonora’s patronage suggests that she actively, if cautiously, participated in the image-making surrounding her political role, a precedent that was to be pursued with greater verve and sophistication by her daughter, Isabella d’Este. It is striking that the chronological progression in literary works connected with Eleonora, from what might be defined as advice to a young princess to philosophical defences of the fundamental equality of women, is also observable in the defence literature dedicated to Isabella. We know about Isabella’s political activities and attitudes because some twelve thousand of her letters survive and her cultural patronage is documented in great detail. The link between the production of literature in praise of women by her male clients and the elaborately conceived programmes of paintings commissioned by Isabella to decorate her personal apartments becomes therefore more apparent and convincing than in the case of her mother. In 1492, just two years after her arrival in Mantua, the eighteen-year-old Isabella d’Este was presented with a collection of female biographies, dedicated to Ginevra Bentivoglio, wife of the ruler of Bologna. Written by Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, a Bolognese client of her father, Ercole d’Este, the Ginevra among the Famous Women [Gynevera de le clare donne] praised the very elite to which Isabella belonged, and to whom she was related by birth and marriage, while offering her a congenial model of behaviour to follow in her new role as marchioness.16 In his letter of presentation to Isabella, Arienti drew attention to his work’s relationship with the foundation text by referring to his collection of biographies as Concerning Famous Women [De mulieribus claris], but he broke away significantly from Boccaccio’s model by focusing on figures from the recent past.17 Arienti’s

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women, most of whom had lived one or two generations before Isabella, are portrayed as capable, intelligent, pious, constant, and even physically courageous in circumstances where this was appropriate. Caterina Visconti, for example, is depicted as reacting swiftly to prevent social disorder in Milan on the death of her husband, Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza, by boldly asserting her authority. However, she appealed for loyalty in terms that emphasised her status as a vulnerable widow with young children.18 Giovanna Bentivoglio is portrayed as the driving force behind her male relatives’ successful rise to power in Bologna: “With great cunning and fervour she expounded in letters to her brother what was necessary to overturn regimes and win political power, which was an astonishing thing.”19 When she discussed politics, Giovanna became excited, her feminine timidity fell away and very often she maintained “that the only thing that she lacked in her efforts to win power and reputation for the house of the Bentivoglio and to confound its enemies was the physical trait of masculinity.”20 Audacious and determined as she was in the public sphere, Giovanna was also a skilled embroiderer and mother of twelve children, the clear implication being that she would not unduly disturb conventional notions of femininity.21 Another elaborately researched biography in the Gynevera is that of Battista Sforza, wife of the duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro, and sister of the work’s dedicatee Ginevra Sforza Bentivoglio.22 Like Isabella d’Este, Battista and Ginevra Sforza belonged to a female dynasty renowned for the high achievements of its members. Raised to be as learned as her famous relatives, Battista Montefeltro and Costanza Varano, Battista Sforza first demonstrated her precocious talents by delivering a Latin oration at the age of four.23 According to Arienti’s account, her learning became a positive asset to her husband, tempered as it was by every conventional female accomplishment. When Federigo da Montefeltro had to leave Urbino to fight with his ally, Ferdinand of Naples, Battista ruled the state “with great prudence and spirit,”24 even fending off a dangerous challenge from Sigismondo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who had hoped to take advantage of the duke’s absence to attack the city. Despite his anger that Battista had foiled his plans, Malatesta acknowledged a grudging admiration for a woman who was so wise and possessed such foresight that she could have ruled all of France.25 By combining traditional female virtues with the qualities actually required by regents, Arienti suggested subtly that the role of the ideal wife within her family and household could be amplified in the case of princely consorts to ensure wise management and harmony within the state. Arienti even seems to have entertained hopes that women might more easily be persuaded to implement the ideals of princely rule than men. He cites a number of examples where women attempted to constrain the rapacious and unjust rule of their male relatives, or where queens were appreciated for their more benevolent approach to power.26 Arienti clearly endorses the deathbed advice of Battista Sforza to her young son to be a “real prince” rather than a “tyrant” who exploited his position selfishly and irresponsibly: “She had always taught him that rulers must with all their effort transfer every advantage, profit and benefit to their subjects and citizens from whom came the well being, loyalty and security of the state.”27

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That Isabella d’Este interpreted Arienti’s gift in the didactic spirit that he intended is suggested by her prompt and enthusiastic letter of acknowledgement: “This work, elegantly composed and treating of worthy subjects, is pleasing to us. We will read it attentively and strive to follow in the footsteps of those illustrious ladies, praising greatly the excellence of your talent.”28 When Isabella received this very appropriate and timely literary gift she had begun to relieve her husband of some of his administrative duties, freeing him to travel and to consolidate diplomatic ties with neighbouring states. She therefore had the opportunity to test Arienti’s new integration of wifely and political virtues. Within eighteen months of their marriage Francesco Gonzaga was convinced enough of Isabella’s administrative skills to leave her to supervise routine tasks in the chancery. He wrote to his sister as he left Mantua in mid-1491 expressing his confidence in his young but capable wife. We have left the weight and governance of our state and dominion to our Illustrious Consort, knowing that we can well rely upon her prudence and integrity, for even if she is still of tender age, she has shown great promise and ability in events of an important and honourable sort, and demonstrates in each of her actions a singular talent, so that we may with ease and great tranquillity go wherever we wish without looking over our shoulder all the time, knowing that our consort is at home, managing our government and our affairs.29

Francesco Gonzaga was no new age husband who championed the cause of women. He was a conservative in matters concerning hierarchy and could be harshly authoritarian. He saw his delegation of administrative responsibility to Isabella within a family tradition going back at least to his grandmother, Barbara of Brandenburg. She had translated the German diplomatic correspondence and used her dynastic connections to cooperate closely with her husband, Lodovico Gonzaga, in the formulation of state policy. She had also exercised a discreet role in local administration. Some Mantuan ambassadors even sent their most secret correspondence to Barbara, knowing that letters to the marquis were likely to be read by members of the chancery and that confidentiality could not be guaranteed.30 That Barbara’s role was kept well hidden, however, is suggested by Arienti’s brief, conventional biographical portrait in the Gynevera. She is described as a pious, devoted mother who donated a third of her income to charitable causes. The only hint of a political role is the statement that “unstinting in her efforts, she intervened willingly and humanely in the affairs of her subjects; where there was sedition and discord she imposed peace, concord and unity . . . in matters concerning the state she was of no small benefit and inspiration.”31 Given the considerable research that underlies many of Arienti’s biographies, it seems that it was difficult to find detailed information about Barbara of Brandenburg. Francesco Gonzaga, however, would have had ready access to evidence of the administrative and diplomatic role of his grandmother, and probably of his mother, Margaret of Wittelsbach, in his own chancery records.32 It was their example that encouraged him to collaborate with Isabella in the same way that his predecessors had done with their wives, just as Isabella expected to take on exactly the role Francesco was asking her to fulfil. Francesco’s initial infatuation with Isabella’s strong personality and his pride in her accomplishments prompted an enthusiastic and perhaps too public an endorsement

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of her political ambitions in the early years of their marriage. Grateful to be relieved of the heavy burden of letter writing and attention to bureaucratic detail that had dominated his bachelor days, Francesco was generous in his praise of Isabella and encouraged her to regard administrative duties as her contribution to a collaborative enterprise. In a letter of November 1490, he urged her to assume full responsibility for his affairs during his absence from Mantua.33 Some perceived this degree of political and personal cooperation as going beyond the norm and Isabella’s managerial role certainly did not go uncontested. There were courtiers who resented what they perceived as an inappropriate level of trust in a young and inexperienced woman and Isabella was always to have misogynistic enemies among her husband’s closest advisors. When Francesco crossed the Mantuan border in June 1495 to take up military duties he immediately began to receive reports of trouble in the city. Grain supplies were in short supply and, as Isabella explained in a letter to her husband, certain individuals had used the opportunity to undermine her authority by spreading rumours about an imminent shortage of bread. She defended herself confidently, knowing that she had consulted the appropriate authorities and advisors before making crucial decisions about the official price of grain. I speak so strongly because the whole city is witness to this and because I know that there is no one in the world who has greater love for Your Lordship and for this state than I have. Your Lordship should not worry, and should attend only to your military duties, since with the advice of the officials and experienced gentlemen of the court I will attend to political affairs here in such a way that you will neither be troubled nor suffer harm and everything will be done to the benefit of the subjects. And when you hear or read that things are going badly, and have not heard from me, take it for granted that it is a lie, since having granted audience not only to officials but to any subjects who wished to speak to me whenever they desired, it cannot happen that disorder will occur before it is anticipated.34

Although Isabella’s last point reveals a naïve optimism, which no doubt confirmed the views of some that she lacked the prerequisites for wise government, her conviction that rulers should be accessible would have received the full endorsement of writers of princely advice manuals who attempted to persuade rulers to be less arbitrary and more accountable to their subjects. The consequences of weak or corrupt leadership and an acute awareness of the fragility of power had been borne in on Isabella a few months earlier with the shocking collapse of the Medici regime in Florence and the even more unpredictable fall of the Neapolitan kingdom of her Aragonese relatives as the French army approached Naples. In late February 1495 she heard the news as she was celebrating Carnival in Milan and wrote to Francesco that she could scarcely believe that “in six days, without a sword being drawn, such a powerful king is expelled from his realm.”35 She was quick to draw the political lesson and urged her husband to do the same: “This situation, should be a lesson to all the lords and powers of the world to take more account of the hearts of their subjects than of their fortresses, treasury, or soldiers because the discontent of their subjects makes for a more dangerous war than any enemy that is to be found outside the city.”36

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In July 1495, still plagued by anonymous attacks on her authority that threatened to stir up civic unrest, Isabella was forced to demonstrate that she enjoyed her husband’s full confidence and favour by having a letter from him read out publicly. Only with this gesture could she combat the inevitable suspicion that a female regent, born in another city, was a foreign alien and a potential source of disorder.37 With time and her husband’s backing Isabella was able to convince the Mantuan population, and most court bureaucrats, that she could oversee the smooth functioning of the state even when the marquis was well beyond Mantuan borders. She had evidently watched her mother attentively and was, as Francesco Gonzaga acknowledged, an efficient and intelligent manager. She noticed when salaries to officials in sensitive border areas were in arrears and was shocked to discover that her husband had not paid one particularly deserving member of the chancery for three years, an omission she moved quickly to redress.38 Isabella had also learned a good deal from her father, Ercole, and it appears to have been his example that guided her in the modest reforms she attempted to implement in Mantua during the 1490s. In 1476 Ercole d’Este had decreed that “respectable and well-born young girls,” rather than the city’s prostitutes, were to run in the annual races associated with the festival of Saint George, depicted so evocatively in the fresco devoted to April in the Schifanoia Palace in Ferrara.39 Isabella introduced a similar change in Mantua in 1495, promising that young peasant girls who volunteered for the race would not be pelted with fruit as the prostitutes had been in the past.40 Just as her father and uncles had tried to do in Ferrara, and indeed as rulers in other Italian cities struggled to do, Isabella issued regular edicts to contain prostitution within certain areas of the city.41 As well as intervening in disputes involving dowries and other matters touching women, a traditional form of female patronage, Isabella also concerned herself consistently with theft and with violent crime, issuing edicts that banned the carrying of arms, particularly at night, and circulating after dark without a light.42 Moved by a particularly brutal homicide, she begged Francesco in August 1496 to leave twenty mounted soldiers in the city so that murderers could be pursued more quickly and brought to justice.43 In August 1509 she even tried to curtail swearing in the city.44 These were small gestures by Isabella but they reminded the Mantuan population of her concern for the spiritual well being of the city and the physical safety of its population while promoting her own image as a virtuous woman who would not tolerate vice. Constrained from issuing more than a modest number of edicts in her own name by the danger of appearing too dominating a political presence, Isabella communicated her vision of ideal government to a select and sophisticated audience within her own suite of rooms in the Castello San Giorgio and, later in life, in new apartments on the ground floor of the palace complex known as the Corte Vecchia. Here she created an environment that proclaimed her learning and refined taste and emphasised through visual allegory her crucial political and cultural role in Mantuan affairs. There is still debate among art historians about the precise key to the iconography of the cycle of paintings, representing the triumph of virtue, commissioned by Isabella to decorate

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her studiolo or private study, which she began work on in earnest after a visit to Ferrara in 1495. The difficulty of interpreting every detail of the complicated literary “inventions” behind the paintings is not surprising; Isabella wanted them to be densely filled with allegory and visual clues that could only be unpacked and appreciated by visitors to her private apartments after long contemplation and learned discussion. However, the dominant themes of the earliest paintings by Andrea Mantegna, the Parnassus of 1497 and The Expulsion of the Vices of 1502, both remarkable for the intensely archaeological approach to the evocation of the classical past, are clear enough to suggest that one of Isabella’s concerns was that she and her husband should be credited with the creation of Mantua as a garden of virtue. In the Parnassus (see Figure IV.1), knowledge and the Muses flourish under the patronage of the dynastic alliance of the Este and Gonzaga families alluded to in the colour schemes of red, blue, and white associated with the dominating figures of Mars and Venus and with the elaborate classicising couch behind them. According to Phyllis Lehmann’s detailed interpretation, Isabella’s wedding on February 11, 1490, represented an auspicious astrological convergence of the planets Mars, Venus, and Mercury, hence the presence of these figures in Mantegna’s painting and the close linking of Pegasus, consecrated to the Muses, with Mercury. Lehmann also points to

Figure IV.1. Mars et Vénus dit le Parnasse (The Parnassus), by Andrea Mantegna, 1497; Musée du Louvre, Paris.

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less noticeable allegorical associations such as the presence of hares, to be associated not only with fertility but also with vigilance; the squirrel, symbol of the victory of skill and experience over force, and the plentiful allusions to the peace and harmony that successful marriage could bring suggested by the decorative greenery of myrtle, quinces, citrus, and laurel.45 Equally elusive because of the many layered pictorial allusions, the Expulsion of the Vices (see Figure IV.2) nevertheless contains an arresting and dynamic image of Minerva, symbol of Prudence and a goddess with whom Isabella liked to associate herself, rushing with two unidentified divine female allies to rescue the Mother of Virtue, imprisoned behind the wall at the far right of the painting. The other cardinal virtues of Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice look down from a mandola-shaped cloud. The figures of Venus and Cupid are the main impediments to the expulsion of the Vices, who occupy a stagnant pond, but their defeat, the expulsion of the vices, and the liberation of the Mother of Virtue are prefigured in the background of the painting through the suggestion of new growth on old tree roots.46 Moralising notions of the triumph of reason over irrationality and sensuality are apparent in the later commissions for the studiolo—Perugino’s Battle between

Figure IV.2. Minerve chassant les Vices du Jardin de la Vertu (The Expulsion of the Vices), by Andrea Mantegna, 1502; Musée du Louvre, Paris.

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Figure IV.3. Allégorie à la cour d’Isabelle d’Este; Ornait le Studiolo d’Isabelle d’Este à Mantoue (Coronation of a Lady), by Lorenzo Costa, 1504–06; Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Chastity and Love and Costa’s Cosmos—but the most overt reference to Isabella herself is contained in Costa’s Coronation of a Lady (1504–06; see Figure IV.3). Most scholars agree, despite the lack of any literal physical resemblance to Isabella, that it is she who is crowned by Cupid within a bucolic space inhabited by courtly figures that write or play musical instruments, a clear reference to her patronage of important literary figures and to her own musical literacy.47 Isabella’s keen interest in music and literature was everywhere on display in her rooms, particularly in the wooden intarsia work depicting the instruments she played and in the array of rare manuscripts and first editions of classical texts from the Venetian printing firm of Aldus Manutius. Stephen Campbell’s recent suggestion that the paintings in Isabella’s studiolo endorse an active and virile interpretation of the pursuit of virtue, rather than the traditional idea that an admirable women possessed good qualities in a totally passive sense, is convincing given Isabella’s concern to present herself in these very terms.48 The evolution of the pictorial cycle in the first studiolo from the idealisation of the alliance between Isabella and her husband, apparent in the Parnassus, to a more

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particular focus on herself as patron and literary muse in the Coronation of a Lady, paralleled Isabella’s desire for greater autonomy as she grew older and more confident of her diplomatic and strategic abilities. Isabella was probably prompted to embark on the elaborate pictorial decoration of her rooms in the Palazzo San Giorgio by her familiarity with similar visual propaganda commissioned by her father and uncles in Ferrara, but that a woman should commission such an ambitious and complicated iconography to promote her own reputazione, a basic prerequisite of princely magnificence, was quite unprecedented, at least in the Italian context. The tension between Isabella’s desire to be remarkable and to push the boundaries of what her mother had quietly achieved, to become a celebrated example of a new kind of woman, and her awareness that this would alienate her husband and even public opinion, could not be easily resolved. Isabella had produced the long-awaited male heir by 1500 and, although she gave birth to more children in the following years, she regarded her essential reproductive duty as done. The defences of women most closely connected with Isabella were written shortly after the birth of her first son, as if to announce new possibilities and ambitions; they broke new ground in a debate about women that was becoming more vigorously contested. Concerning Women [De mulieribus], a Latin work written in 1502 by Mario Equicola, a humanist scholar who in 1508 became Isabella’s tutor and finally her personal secretary, and Agostino Strozzi’s In Defence of Women [Defensio mulierum] of 1501, which was translated into the vernacular sometime in 1502, were both responses to the conservative Concerning Many Famous and Extraordinary Women [De plurimis claris selectisque mulieribus] by Jacopo Foresti.49 First published in Ferrara in 1497, four years after Eleonora d’Aragona’s death, Foresti’s anthology of female biographies attempted to counter the effects of earlier defence literature associated with the duchess by rewriting biographies that threatened conventional gender norms.50 Elite women were to be reconsigned to their traditional sphere. The popularity of Foresti’s published and handsomely illustrated text required vigorous attack from the pro-woman side of the debate. The texts by Strozzi and Equicola were both commissioned by Margherita Cantelmo, a close friend of Isabella, and represent a collaboration between female patrons and their male humanist defenders.51 Agostino Strozzi, an Augustinian monk and Margherita’s cousin, argues in In Defence of Women against the misogynist tradition and asserts the equality of female and male natures. He is somewhat reluctant, however, to allow women parity in the real world. Stephen Kolsky suggests that under the influence of Equicola’s text, and encouraged by his female patrons, Strozzi takes a more “radical” stance in the vernacular translation of his original Latin text, known as the Palatine manuscript, specifically dedicated to Margherita Cantelmo, but this revised version left unresolved some of the underlying contradictory attitudes about women in the original version.52 Isabella was obviously more pleased with Equicola’s work, and rightly so, since the published text, despite its modest size, eventually disseminated her claims to be a virtuous and prudent ruler in the wider literary scene of Europe. Equicola praised Isabella in terms which suggested that she was capable of being more than her

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husband’s obedient administrator and political instrument: “No-one considers things more deeply than she, acts with greater wisdom or gets out of awkward situations with greater speed. She protects and defends her citizens with shrewd foresight, gives readily, never reproves but spurs on her functionaries to honest and commendable behaviour through example.”53 This was exactly how Isabella liked to project herself and just as her commissioned paintings portrayed her qualities within the latest classicising allegories, so Equicola’s De mulieribus made her the central exemplum in a highly sophisticated and original philosophical demonstration of the social origins of gender construction and the innate equality of women: “just as in war the defeated yield to the victors, so the feminine nature cedes to the male through force of custom that we know is not founded on natural law but rather established through example, through the deprivation of education, on the basis of some chance or opportunity, or through the convergence of all these factors.”54 Fundamental to Equicola’s analysis is the argument that “neither habits, disposition, vices nor virtues are the result of chance or fate but rather of judgement and practice because we are like a tabula rasa on which anything can be inscribed . . . Things being thus, who can doubt that custom and practice accounts for much, indeed everything?”55 Isabella was the living proof of women’s potential for high achievement and intellectual parity with men, if given access to education and allowed to exercise their minds and demonstrate their abilities. This could only occur if men were willing to share their privileges and Equicola points to marriage as the crucial instrument of female oppression.56 His conception of marriage as a collaborative partnership of equals was designed to win the approval of Isabella. He was, no doubt, well aware of her sympathy for the idealised version of her dynastic alliance with Francesco represented by Mantegna’s Parnassus, already installed in her study in 1497, and which had some basis in her husband’s declaration, nine months after his marriage to Isabella, that all was in common between them. Equicola cites an ancient Roman wedding vow to support his argument about a new basis for marriage. According to this classical ritual, the woman declared: “ ‘Where you are Gaius,’ I am Gaia, where you are the Lord I am also the Lady; where you are the master I am also the mistress.”57 The waxing and waning of Isabella’s political and personal collaboration with Francesco Gonzaga is a complex story that cannot be told here. The marquis was certainly not open to Equicola’s ideas about the essential equality of the sexes, even if he seems to have usually preferred to negotiate with Isabella on most issues rather than demand unquestioning wifely obedience. Francesco was among the first victims of the new disease of syphilis, spread in Italy as the French army retreated northwards in 1495 after the invasion of Italy. The symptoms began to manifest themselves dramatically from about 1509, but even by 1506 there were intimations of the disastrous impact that the disease would have on his marriage and on his ability to fulfil the requirements of the military contracts that brought in much-needed income to the ducal economy.58 Francesco was working hard on his own visual self-representation in the apartments being prepared for him in the Palazzo San Sebastiano in exactly the period

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associated with the completion of Isabella’s Coronation of a Lady. This building was on the opposite periphery of the city to the overcrowded castle and palace complex where Isabella still lived and that was the traditional seat of Gonzaga power. It was in his new suburban villa, and in a reception hall specially designed to display Andrea Mantegna’s famous canvases of The Triumphs of Caesar, that Francesco Gonzaga received visitors he most wanted to impress. On one occasion in 1515 the Venetian ambassador was received in this room and described the sight of the marquis seated next to the fireplace surrounded by “three terrible greyhounds and an infinite number of hunting falcons and gyrfalcons held on the fists [of attendants].”59 Francesco left little doubt about his concern to present himself in aggressively masculine guise. A smaller room, more like Isabella’s studiolo, contained four paintings by Lorenzo Costa, one of which seems to have been very similar to the artist’s Coronation of a Lady. According to Giorgio Vasari’s description, it represented Isabella surrounded by attendants singing and playing musical instruments. This would suggest not only that Francesco admired the painting in his wife’s study but that he may have tried to please Isabella by acknowledging the moral allegory with which she associated herself. The other three paintings had classical themes alluding to Francesco’s military and dynastic importance.60 A complementary approach to cultural propaganda, which associated the princely ruler with military values and his consort with the political virtues necessary for wise rule, had been seen in the collaboration between Isabella’s parents in Ferrara and had worked well in the first fifteen years of Francesco’s own marriage. However, his dogged attempt, despite his failing health and tarnished military reputation, to maintain the bellicose persona that had proved successful in the early days of his career, proved to be a source of some diplomatic embarrassment. Between 1510 and his death in early 1519, Francesco was increasingly confined to Mantua, and even to the palace that had been built to protect his privacy. Reduced to the stationary, administrative role that his wife had formerly exercised, Francesco was less than pleased when Isabella took the opportunity after 1512 to spend long periods in the stimulating political atmospheres of Milan and Rome. Although he had often blamed his wife’s tendency to pursue her own political objectives to defend himself against accusations of diplomatic duplicity, Isabella’s reputation for wifely independence now increased the perception by many that Francesco was ineffectual.61 His humiliating capture in 1509 and year-long imprisonment by the Venetians had allowed Isabella to rule Mantua successfully without his guidance and even to prove the mettle that Alessandro Luzio was to call Machiavellian.62 Her desire to build on this experience by staying for months at the Milanese court so that she could offer sage advice to her young nephew, Duke Massimiliano Sforza, caused friction between the couple, particularly when Francesco tried to blackmail Isabella into obedience by suggesting that people were gossiping about her prolonged absence from Mantua. Isabella’s furious response that her long years of service and steadfast loyalty to Gonzaga interests deserved better treatment than to be the subject of the rabble’s chattering, suggests that she was offended by Francesco’s heavy-handed attempts to impose his authority.63

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Equicola’s vision of marriage as a partnership of equals was of course an attractive fantasy for his female readers and it is significant that a later example of the defence of women genre, Giuseppe Betussi’s 1545 A Supplement to the Book of Illustrious Women [Additione al libro delle donne illustri]—a continuation with contemporary examples of his translation of Boccaccio’s Concerning Famous Women [De mulieribus claris]—emphasises a more traditional interpretation of the consort’s role. Isabella’s daughter, Eleonora Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, is praised for her patience in adversity and her determination to support her husband: “she never abandoned her generous spirit and was always a faithful wife, virtuous companion and a sweet consolation to her invincible husband in all his troubles.”64 The previous duchess, Eleonora’s aunt Elisabetta Gonzaga, another of Betussi’s examples, had already dramatically displayed long-suffering wifely loyalty. She had refused to dissolve her marriage even after the revelation of her husband’s enduring impotence and remained a steadfast support in his long illness.65 In Betussi’s view, only in extraordinary circumstances, such as the absence or death of her husband, could a woman assume autonomous political authority. Isabella d’Este, who had died six years before the appearance of Betussi’s text, is included in his anthology but only her activities as a collector are described in any detail.66 The text reproposes Arienti’s vision of the fusion of female domestic virtues and the civic values associated with harmonious government. It is no longer Isabella d’Este who represents this blend of private and public virtue, however, but her successor as marchioness of Mantua, Margherita Paleologo. She is praised for her success in rising to the challenge presented by the early death of her husband, Federico Gonzaga. By purging the court of the undesirable elements that flourished under the rule of Isabella’s son, Margherita presided over a return to Christian values and virtuous government.67 Isabella’s legacy to the next generation of political wives was an amplified version of the lessons she had learned from her mother. Her astute manipulation of cultural patronage to project herself as a virtuous, learned, and talented wife, who could bring these qualities into the public sphere without undue challenge to convention, seems to have provided a precedent taken up eagerly by other powerful women such as Eleonora di Toledo and later by Olimpia Pamphili.68 Her attempts, as a mature woman, also to test the boundaries of the newly-formulated apologies for a limited, but less covert, political role for elite women were not emulated by her female contemporaries or successors. The power of her example, however, endured in a subliminal way in the continuing European controversy about the status and public activities of women, and her image as a renaissance virago was the side of her that was to capture the attention of posterity. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In addition to assistance and encouragement from the editors, Karen Green and Jacqueline Broad, I especially wish to thank Bill Kent, Tony Pagliaro, and Molly Bourne for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

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NOTES 1 See in particular Alessandro Luzio, “Isabella d’Este e la corte sforzesca,” Archivio storico lombardo,

2 3

4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11

12

13 14

3rd ser., 15 (1901): 145–76; and, by the same author, “La reggenza d’Isabella d’Este durante la prigionia del marito (1509–10),” Archivio storico lombardo, 4th ser., 14 (1910): 5–104. Luzio, “Isabella d’Este e la corte sforzesca,” 147. See the recent Latin and English text of Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women, ed. and trans. Virginia Brown (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); and, for the Italian debate on the woman question, see Pamela Benson, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); Stephen Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio: Writings on Famous Women in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005); and Margaret Franklin, Boccaccio’s Heroines: Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). On the relationship between Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies and Boccaccio’s text, see Patricia Phillippy, “Establishing Authority: Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus and Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames,” in The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997), 329–61. On the emergence in renaissance biographies of new definitions of female virtue that allowed a public and active role for elite women rather than the domestic one approved by tradition, see Beatrice Collina, “L’esemplarità delle donne illustri fra umanesimo e controriforma,” in Donna, disciplina, creanza christiana dal XV al XVII secolo. Studi e testi a stampa, ed. Gabriella Zarri (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1996), 103–19. The only biographical study of Eleonora d’Aragona is still Luciano Chiappini, Eleonora d’Aragona, prima Duchessa di Ferrara (Rovigo: STER, 1956). See also Werner Gundersheimer, “Women, Learning and Power: Eleonora of Aragon and the Court of Ferrara,” in Beyond their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), 43–65. Diomede Carafa, Memoriali, ed. Franca Petrucci Nardelli (Rome: Bonacci editore, 1988). On this unpublished text, the presentation copy of which is decorated with a portrait of Eleonora grasping the sceptre of power by Cosmè Tura, now held in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, M.731, see Annalisa Musso, “Del modo di regere e di regnare di Antonio Cornazzano: Per il testo e la datazione,” Bollettino storico piacentino 92 (1997): 73–87; and, by the same author, “Del modo di regere e di regnare di Antonio Cornazzano: ‘Una Institutio Principis al femminile,’” Schifanoia 19 (1999): 67–79. See also Diego Zancani, “Writing for Women Rulers: The Case ofAntonio Cornazzano,” in Culture, Women and Society in Renaissance Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), 57–74. Musso, “Del modo di regere e di regnare di Antonio Cornazzano. Per il testo,” 68–9. Conor Fahy, “The De mulieribus admirandis of Antonio Cornazzano,” La Bibliofilía 62 (1960): 144–74. On Cornazzano’s employment at the Ferrarese court, see Musso, “Del modo di regere e di regnare di Antonio Cornazzano. Per il testo,” 78. This text, a late fifteenth century copy of which is preserved in the British Library, London, Add. MS no. 17,415, is discussed by Conor Fahy, “Three Early Renaissance Treatises on Women,” Italian Studies 11 (1956): 30–55; and Werner Gundersheimer, “Bartolommeo Goggio: A Feminist in Renaissance Ferrara,” Renaissance Quarterly 33 (1980): 175–200. Bartolommeo Goggio, De laudibus mulierum, fol. 2v, as quoted in Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 176: “Le virtù de le done et l’amicitia che naturalmente cum quelle me conzunze, postposta ogni inzuria per adrieto da loro recevuta, me hano inducto ad scrivere de le loro laude et gloriosi facti.” See Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, chapter 4 for a detailed analysis of Goggio’s text. Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 172–90. For the connection of Ercole de’ Roberti’s panels depicting famous women with Eleonora d’Aragona, see Joseph Manca, The Art of Ercole de’Roberti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),

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15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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30 31

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C A R O LY N J A M E S 58–61, 133–39; and, by the same author, “Constantia et Forteza: Eleonora d’Aragona’s Famous Matrons,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 19, no. 2 (2000): 13–20. Manca, “Constantia et Forteza,” 17. For a recent amplification of Manca’s argument, see Franklin, Boccaccio’s Heroines, 118–23, 131–48. Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, Gynevera de le clare donne, ed. Corrado Ricci and Alberto Bacchi della Lega, in Scelta di curiosità letterarie inedite o rare dal secolo XIII al XIX, 223 (1887; repr., Bologna: Forni, 1968). On Arienti and his works dedicated to women, see Carolyn James, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti: A Literary Career (Florence: Olschki, 1996) and now Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 63–109. Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti to Isabella d’Este, June 29, 1492, in Carolyn James, The Letters of Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti (1481–1510) (Florence: Olschki, 2001), 125–26. Arienti, Gynevera, 71–81. Ibid., 114–32 (129): “Usava grandissima arte et calidità significare per lettere al fratello come conviene per pigliare li stati, che era cosa stupenda.” Ibid., 120–21: “che non li manchava altro che ’l segno virile per dare stato et reputatione a la casa Bentivoglia ad confusione de’ suoi inimici.” Ibid., 116–17. Ibid., 288–312. Ibid., 289. Ibid., 288–312 (293): “Et in questo principio de la sua adolescentia remase al guberno cum tanta prudentia et anima, che facea de maraviglia stupire altrui.” Ibid., 293–94. James, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, 79–80. Arienti, Gynevera, 297–98: “Sempre dicea, che li signori doveano cum ogni sforzo loro transferire l’utile, le richeze e ’l bene a li subditi et citadini loro, da li quali procedea el bene, la fede et la securtà del stato.” Isabella d’Este to Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, July 3, 1492, in James, The Letters of Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, 126, n. 4: “Esso opera et per esser cum summa elegantia compilata, et per essere di nobile matheria c’è stata ultramodo grata, legeremola cum attentione et sforzaremose imitare le vestigie di quelle illustre matrone, laudando non mediocremente la excellentia del vostro ingegno.” Francesco Gonzaga to his sister Chiara, June 20, 1491: Archivio di Stato, Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga (hereafter ASMa–AG) box 2904, fasc. 138, fols. 46r–47r. This letter is transcribed in Mary H. Bourne, “Out from the Shadow of Isabella: The Artistic Patronage of Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquess of Mantua (1484–1519)” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1997), soon to be published by Bulzoni Editore. I am most grateful to Molly Bourne for making her unpublished thesis available to me. I have quoted her translation of this passage, Ann Arbor microfilm, 25. Elisabeth Ward Swain, “ ‘My excellent and most singular lord’: Marriage in a Noble Family of FifteenthCentury Italy,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 16, no. 2 (1986): 171–97. Arienti, Gynevera, 146: “volontiera se interponeva, non perdonando a fatica, ingenuamente infra li suoi cittadini, dove era seditione, discordia, pore pace, concordia et unione . . . al stato non fu de poco fructo et fomento.” For the correspondence of the Mantuan ambassadors in Milan with Barbara of Brandenburg and Margaret of Wittelsbach see the relevant volumes of Franca Leverotti, ed. Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla corte sforzesca (1450–1500), 16 vols. (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali. Direzione generale per gli archivi, 1999–). Francesco Gonzaga to Isabella d’Este, November 5, 1490, ASMa–AG, box 2106, fasc. 45.3, fol. 342r: “non solum una fiata ma mille havemo datta la auctorità a la Signoria Vostra del stato et facultade de poterne disponere tanto quanto nui medesmi per essere ogni cosa tra la Signoria Vostra et nui comune. Et quando non se ritroviamo in el territorio nostro che alcuni de’ nostri amici ne richede de qualche apiacer quella facia né più né mancho come faressimo nui et senza alcun rispetto perché cusì è la intencione nostra” [not only once but a thousand times we have given political authority to Your Ladyship and the means with which to exercise it equal to our own since everything between Your Ladyship and us is in common. And when we are not present in our dominion and one of our friends

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requests some favour, respond exactly as we would ourselves and without any hesitation because that is our intention]. Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, June 30, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2110, fols. 69r–70r (fols. 69v–70r): “Io parlo cussì gagliardamente perché testimonio è de questo tutta questa cità e perché scio che ’l non è persona al mondo che habia magior amore a Vostra Signoria et a questa republica como ho io . . . La Signoria Vostra stia pur cum l’animo quieto et attendi solamente a l’impresa militare che le cose qua dil stato cum consilio de questi magnifici zentilhomini et officiali governarò per forma che la non haverà molestia né danno et tutto se farrà cum beneficio de li subditi et quando gli fusse dicto o scripto de desordine et non habia aviso da me metti per una maxima che la sia bosia perché dando io adito non solum a li officiali ma a tutti li subditi de potermi parlare ogni volta che vogliono, non può occorrere cosa a che non sia proveduto nanti che desordine segui.” Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, March 1, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2110, fol. 49r: “in sei dì senza punta de spada sia expulso del reame cussì potente re.” Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, February 29, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2110, fol. 51r: “Questo caso debbe essere exemplo a tutti li signori et potentie del mondo de fare più extima de li cuori di subditi che de forteze, thesoro et gente d’arme perché la mala contenteza de li subditi fanne pegiore guerra che l’inimico che se trova a la campagna.” Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, July 5, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2110, fol. 76r: “Tuttavia non resta che anchora non gli sia qualche giottono che semini male. Questo dico perché questa mattina sono stati ritrovati a bon hora quatro scripti atachati ai muri dreto le piaze, uno di quali mando a Vostra Excellentia persuadendome che da qualchun altro la ne seria forsi avisata più sinistramente. La Signoria Vostra non ne piglii dispiacere perché non se possono tenire le male lingue” [Nevertheless there are still some ignoramuses who are making mischief. I say this because early this morning four manifestos were put up on the walls around the piazza, one of which I send to Your Excellency since I am persuaded that you will anyway surely be told about it on the sly by someone. Your Lordship should not be dismayed because one cannot stop malicious gossip]. Murmurings of discontent continued for the rest of the month, as Isabella reported to her husband on July 29, ASMa–AG, box 2110, fol. 98r: “Questi dì de mi et de tutti li Ferraresi se parlava molto sinistramente et cose de mala sorte. Ma perché erano nel populazo né se haveria potuto cavare l’origine, me ne son passata senza dimonstratione alcuna. Tuttavia per satisfare a Vostra Excellentia ho facto legere publicamente in più loci la letter che me scrive de Zoanne Michele et Maestro Iacomo aciò che ognuno intenda che sono in gratia sua” [Lately very unpleasant and damaging things have been said about me and everyone who is Ferrarese. But because it came from the mob and one couldn’t get to the bottom of it I let it pass without taking any action. Nevertheless to satisfy Your Excellency I had your letter about Giovanni Michele and master Giacomo read publicly in many places so that everyone understands that I am in your good graces]. Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, August 5, 1494, ASMa–AG, box 2109, fol. 234r: “L’è stato già tre anni, dì et nocte, assistente qua a la canzelaria de la Signoria Vostra, Ptolomeo Spagnolo cum molta diligentia e fede et senza provisione et remuneratione alcuna . . . mi è parso per questa mia recommandarlo a quella, pregandola che vogli exaudire la sua honesta dimanda perché in vero per la perseverantia et sollicitudine che l’usa in le cose de la Signoria Vostra el merita per qualche beneficio” [It has already been three years, that day and night, with great diligence and loyalty Tolomeo Spagnolo has worked in the chancery of Your Lordship without any allowance or remuneration . . . it seemed appropriate that I should commend him to you in this letter, praying that you grant his just request because in truth the persistence and solicitude which he brings to your affairs merit reward]. Isabella’s letter on behalf of Tolomeo Spagnoli did not win the loyalty of this future private secretary of her husband who emerged as her enemy in later years. For Isabella’s letter of August 19, 1495, regarding other unpaid employees, see ASMa–AG, box 2110, fol. 125r. Guido Facchini, Il palio di San Giorgio a Ferrara (Ferrara: Società anonima tipografia emiliana, 1939), 14, as cited in Deanna Shemek, Ladies Errant. Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998): “pute honeste et da bene.” See chapter 1 for an analysis of this event and its representation in the fresco cycle of the Sala dei Mesi in the Palazzo Schifanoia.

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40 Edict of June 22, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 8, fol. 20v. 41 Edicts of June 27, 1491, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 8, fol. 5r; 27 February and 23 April 1496,

ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 9, fols. 1v and 2v. 42 Edicts of July 5, 1495, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 8, fol. 20v; February 27, 1496, May 21 and

43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51

52 53

54

55

56 57 58

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September 30, 1496, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 9, fols. 1r, 3r and 4v; December 7, 1502, and January 23, 1503, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 10, fols. 8v and 9r; April 26, 1507 and August 11, 1509, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 11, fols. 6r and 11r. Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, August 27, 1496, ASMa–AG, box 2992, vol. 7, fols. 95r–96r. Edict of August 24, 1509, ASMa–AG, box 2038–39, fasc. 11, fol. 11v. Phyllis Lehmann, “The Sources and Meaning of Mantegna’s Parnassus,” in Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), 59–178. Egon Verheyen, The Paintings in the Studiolo of Isabella d’Este at Mantua (New York: New York University Press, 1971), 30–5. A recent study which refers to Costa’s painting as Coronation of a Woman Poet suggests that the central figure represents the Greek poet and musician Sappho rather than Isabella d’Este. See Stephen Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros. Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella d’Este (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2004), 191–204. On Isabella’s literary patronage see Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, “La coltura e le relazioni letterarie di Isabella d’Este Gonzaga,” pts. 1–9, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 33 (1899): 1–62; 34 (1899): 1–97; 35 (1900): 193–237; 36 (1900): 325–49; 37 (1901): 201–45; 38 (1901): 41–70; 39 (1902): 193–251; 40 (1902): 289–334; 42 (1903): 75–111; and on her musical ability, see William Prizer, “ ‘Una virtù molto conveniente a Madonne’: Isabella D’Este as a Musician,” The Journal of Musicology 17 (1999): 10–49; and, by the same author, “Isabella d’Este and Lorenzo da Pavia, ‘Master Instrument Maker,’” Early Music History 2 (1982): 87–127. Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros, 181–87. See also Leandro Venturi, “Grottesche e miti al femminile. La sala della Scalcheria nel Palazzo Ducale di Mantova,” Quaderni di Palazzo Te 1 (1994): 37–51 (47–8). For a detailed analysis of this work, first published in Ferrara in 1497, see Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 117–47. Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 133–37. Mario Equicola, De Mulieribus, ed. Giuseppe Lucchesini and Pina Totaro (Pisa-Rome: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, 2004); and Agostino Strozzi, La defensione delle donne d’autore anonimo, ed. Francesco Zambrini (Bologna: Gaetano Romagnoli, 1876; repr., Bologna: Forni, 1968). Kolsky, The Ghost of Boccaccio, 159–69. Equicola, De Mulieribus, 38: “Nemo pensius cogitat, agit consultius, maturius expedit. Cives suos circumspecta providentia protegit et defendit; donat plurimum, nihil exprobrat, suo exemplo suum famuletium ad honestatem et laudanda omnia invitat.” Ibid., 30: “ut bello victi victoribus, sic virili muliebris cedit animus consuetudine, quam non naturali necessitate constare, sed vel exemplo et disciplina privata vel fortuna et occasione quandam, aut etiam ex his omnibus congregari non ignoramus.” Ibid., 30–2: “neque habitus neque vitia neque virtutes, vel fortuna vel fato, sed arbitrio et exercitatione proveniant—cum simus tanquam tabula rasa, in qua pingi quodlibet potest . . . Quod cum ita sit, usum et exercitationem plurimum imo omnia posse quis dubitat?” Ibid., 44–6. Ibid., 44: “ ‘Ubi tu Gaius ego Gaia,’ quibus verbis illud notatur: ubi tu dominus ego domina, ubi tu herus ego hera.” Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, “Contributo alla storia del malfrancese ne’ costumi e nella letteratura italiana,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 5 (1885): 408–32 (411). Luzio and Renier argue that Francesco contracted syphilis in 1512 but this author’s archival research suggests that the marquis was already suffering serious symptoms in 1506, after a decade of remission. This description, reported in Sanuto’s Diarii, is translated in Molly Bourne, “Renaissance Husbands and Wives as Patrons of Art: The Camerini of Isabella d’Este and Francesco II Gonzaga,” in Beyond

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Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy, ed. Sheryl Reiss and David Wilkins (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2001), 93–123 (107 and n. 52). For a detailed discussion of the relationship between the camerini of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga, see Bourne, “Renaissance Husbands and Wives as Patrons of Art.” In a letter of March 9, 1513, to the Mantuan ambassador in Rome, Lodovico Guerrieri, for example, Francesco Gonzaga wrote: “A noi dole et horamai havemo vergogna di havere per nostra sorte una mogliere di quella sorte che sempre vol fare a suo modo e di suo cervello” [We lament and now are ashamed that fate has given us the sort of wife who always wants to do things according to her own ideas and in her own way]. This letter is published in Alessandro Luzio, “Isabella d’Este ne’ primordi del papato di Leone X e il suo viaggio a Roma nel 1514–15,” Archivio storico lombardo, 4th ser., 6 (1906): 99–180, 454–89 (109). See Luzio, “La reggenza d’Isabella d’Este.” Isabella d’Este’s letter of March 12, 1513, to her husband is published in Luzio, “Isabella d’Este e la corte sforzesca,” 164–65. See Betussi’s biography of Eleonora Gonzaga published in Stephen Kolsky, “Donne gonzaghesche nella Additione al libro delle donne illustri di Giuseppe Betussi (1545),” Civiltà mantovana, 3rd ser., 107 (1998): 71–88 (84–6): “non lasciò mai l’animo generoso, all’invitto marito fu sempre fedel moglie, onesta compagnia e dolce consolatrice in tutti i travagli.” Kolsky, “Donne gonzaghesche,” 79–84. Ibid., 78–9. Ibid., 87–8. See, for example, Pamela Benson, “Eleonora di Toledo among the Famous Women: Iconographic Innovation after the Conquest of Siena,” in The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 136–55; Bruce Edelstein, “Nobildonne napoletane e committenza: Eleonora d’Aragona ed Eleonora di Toledo a confronto,” Quaderni storici 104 (2000): 295–329; Susan Russell, “Virtuous Women: The Decoration of Donna Olimpia Pamphili’s Audience Room in the Palazzo Pamphili in Piazza Navona,” Melbourne Art Journal 3 (1999): 14–24. For a parallel example of art patronage used astutely by a woman in a northern European context to promote her political image, see Dagmar Eichberger, “A Renaissance Princess named Margaret: Fashioning a Public Image in a Courtly Society,” Melbourne Art Journal 4 (2000): 4–24.

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V L I B E RT Y A N D T H E R I G H T O F R E S I S TA N C E : W O M E N ’ S P O L I T I C A L WR I T I N G S O F T H E E N G L I S H C I V I L WA R E R A

In the third volume of her History of England (1767), Catharine Macaulay (1731–91) reports on the increasing political unrest of the early 1640s: “The impatience of the public at the slow progress of the long-promised reformation,” she observes, “excited a new inundation of petitions” from many different social classes.1 In seventeenthcentury England, public petitions addressed to parliament were not only an accepted way of expressing political dissent, but also a means of drawing the common people into political action. These petitions usually consisted of two or three pages of printed text, and were typically presented to parliament by a large (and sometimes clamorous) group. Women were among the many petitioners of the civil war era. Though they would often present petitions for personal reasons—to secure their estates or to defend their persecuted husbands2 —some were also motivated to air their political grievances as a social group. Macaulay praises one such group as “a company of decent, virtuous matrons, acting under the influence of conscience, expressing their fears and hopes on matters in which they were greatly interested.”3 As her words suggest, these women wrote and supported petitions not only because their personal circumstances had grown intolerable, but because, according to them, their rights and liberties as subjects had been neglected.4 Some of these women were strongly influenced by the radical ideas of the Leveller movement, a group that has been described as “the first democratic political movement in modern history.”5 In a number of petitions from 1642 to 1653, Leveller-inspired women defend the spiritual and political interests of subjects, the toleration of non-conformist religion, and—above all—the individual’s freedom of conscience.6 A handful of women also published pamphlets of a political nature under their own names: among them, Katherine Chidley (act. 1616–53), the mother of Samuel Chidley (a treasurer of the Leveller party), who published three justifications for the toleration of separatist religion in England;7 and Elizabeth Poole (fl. 1649), a visionary or “prophetess,” who wrote three works of advice to the General Council of the New Model Army concerning the trial and execution of Charles I.8 Although these civil war women cannot be labelled political theorists in the strictest sense, an examination of their works helps to reveal the extent to which women adopted and shaped key political concepts in the early seventeenth century. In the twentieth century, some scholars described the women petitioners as natural predecessors to Macaulay and her contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97). One historian of the Leveller movement, H.N. Brailsford, suggests that the female petitioners “may be reckoned in their modest anonymity among the forerunners of Mary Wollstonecraft.”9 More recently, Katharine Gillespie has suggested that, like later liberal feminists, the early dissenting women make a significant connection 77 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 77–94. © 2007 Springer.

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between the subject’s right to resist a tyrannical ruler, on the one hand, and a woman’s right to resist a tyrannical husband, on the other.10 Gillespie asserts that the arguments of the civil war women ought to lead us to rethink our assumptions about early modern feminism and its almost exclusive association with conservative Anglican and royalist politics. In the writings of early women radicals, such as Chidley and Poole, we apparently see the first steps toward extending the norms governing the social contract in the public sphere to those governing the marriage contract in private. Consequently, it is argued, their “texts rightfully deserve to be included in ‘genealogies’ of liberal political theory.”11 In this chapter, I examine the key political themes in women’s writings of the civil war era, with particular emphasis on the transition in their arguments from the spiritual liberty of souls to the political liberty of subjects; and then their apparent justifications of the right to resist unjust authority at both the family and state level. But I take a somewhat sceptical attitude toward claims about the significance of these women’s writings for the history of liberal feminism (in particular) and liberal political theory (in general). On the one hand, these women certainly deserve recognition for their astute observations about the political status of women in their time; and, with their emphasis upon liberty and the right of resistance, there is some sense in which the civil war women anticipate a strand of thought in later feminist philosophy. But on the other hand, it is difficult to see these early modern women as “feminists” or “liberals” on the standard definitions of those terms.12 In what follows, I demonstrate that the civil war women do not develop a feminist theory of women’s rights, and nor do they develop a thorough-going feminist critique of the marriage/social contract analogue. In fact, on the topic of the duties of wives to husbands, these women seem to have more in common with the conservative Tory polemicist, Mary Astell (1666–1731), rather than her liberal successors, Wollstonecraft and Macaulay. Though it would be nice to see the civil war women as mothers of liberal feminism—as active contributors to the birth of modern enlightenment—this interpretation can be achieved only at the expense of distorting their texts. In addition, though the civil war women do take a stance on the topic of female liberty, I maintain that it is not clear that they espouse a classic liberal conception of liberty. It is not straightforwardly obvious, in other words, that these women ought to be counted among the early proponents of liberalism. But I hesitate to dismiss the role that these women played in the history of political ideas in England. Even if we do not read their texts according to a “principle of progress” in the history of political thought, I hope to show that their ideas are philosophically interesting in their own right. In particular, we might think that the writings of these seventeenth-century women shed further light on the non-liberal origins of radical political thought in the early modern period. I. T H E 1 6 4 2 P E T I T I O N E R S O N L I B E RT Y

The primary political content of women’s civil war writings derives from their religious views.13 In this respect, the dissenting women follow the lead of the Leveller men, John Lilburne and Richard Overton. These men also translate a religious point

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of view into a political programme: much of the Leveller political outlook is borne of universalism, or the view that all human beings are capable of attaining salvation.14 Because, according to the Levellers, all Christian subjects have a spiritual duty to attain their salvation, they also share an interest in the government of the church. If the state church is unjust, or requires something that sins against the conscience of the individual, then that individual is entitled to dissent or resist the state church, rather than betray his or her conscience. All souls are free in the sense that they owe their primary allegiance to God alone; their consciences are not, strictly speaking, bound to any civil or earthly authority.15 A similar concept of religious liberty can be found in the works of the civil war women associated with the Leveller group. Women first appeal to their liberty of conscience in the early petitions of 1642. The petitioners of February 4, 1642, claim that they account themselves “to have an interest in the common priviledges with [their husbands].”16 These privileges, it is implied, consist in the “liberty of our conscience and the freedome of the Gospell, and the sincere profession and practice thereof.”17 They express a fear “that unlesse the blood-thirsty faction of the Papists and Prelates be hindred in their designes” they shall be exposed to “the thraldome of our soules and consciences in matters concerning GOD, which of all things are most deare unto us.”18 Freedom of conscience, for them, is the freedom to believe and worship as they see fit, without fear of persecution, external compulsion, or threat. In a long justification of their right to petition, these women spell out the reasons for their defence of freedom of conscience. They say that: It may be thought strange, and unbeseeming our sex to shew ourselves by way of Petition to this Honourable Assembly: but the matter being rightly considered, of the right and interest we have in the common and publique cause of the Church, it will, as we conceive (under corection) be found a duty commanded and required. First, because Christ has purchased us at as deare a rate as he hath done the Men, and therfore requireth the like obedience for the same mercy as of men. Secondly, because in the free enjoying of Christ in his own Laws, and a flourishing estate of the Church and Common-wealth, consisteth the happinesse of Women as well as Men. Thirdly, because Women are sharers in the common Calamities that accompany both Church and Common-Wealth, when oppression is exercised over the Church or Kingdome wherein they live; and an unlimited authority has been given to Prelats to exercise authority over the Consciences of Women, as well as Men, witnesse Newgate, Smithfield, and other places of persecution, wherein Women as well as Men have felt the smart of their fury.19

According to these women, they have an interest in the government of the church because they have a duty of obedience to Christ, who died for female as well as male sins; their happiness, as well as that of the men, consists in living in a land where Christ’s religion is permitted to flourish; and, conversely, women also partake in the misery that accompanies the oppression of church and state. They end their petition with the words: On which grounds we are imboldned to present our humble Petition unto this Honourable Assembly, not weighing the reproaches which may and are by many cast upon us, who (not well weighing the premisses) scoff and deride our good intent. We doe it not out of any selfe conceit, or pride of heart, as seeking to

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equall our selves with Men, either in Authority or wisdome: But according to our places to discharge that duty we owe to God, and the cause of the Church, as farre as lyeth in us.20

These women deliberately shun any assertion of their political equality “either in Authority or wisdome” with men. Their point is simply that, like men, they have a duty to fulfil their obligations to God and the church, and therefore an equal interest in freedom from religious oppression. Needless to say, this is a coherent position: having a duty might mean that you owe something to yourself or to others, or that others have the right to expect a particular kind of treatment from you—but it does not amount to you having the same right in return. Likewise, having an equal interest to men does not equate to having the same political rights as men either. (To draw an analogy: a sentient animal might have an interest in feeling pleasure rather than pain, equal to that of an intelligent adult human being, but this does not automatically give the animal the same rights as the human being.) The women petitioners are therefore right to assert that while they have an equal interest in freedom from religious persecution, this does not amount to them calling for equal political standing with men. Here, then, we do not find any clear assertion of “female political equality.” But what of their view that women possess an equal spiritual liberty to that of men: does this have any liberal feminist implications? For the petitioners, spiritual liberty consists in freedom of the mind or soul: if women are spiritually free, they cannot be forced to believe—or to profess to believe—a religious doctrine that, in good conscience, they cannot support. In the civil sphere, this translates into women having an equal interest in resisting a state of religious “thraldome” or a state in which prelates are given an “unlimited authority” over their consciences. But this does not automatically translate into an equal civil or bodily liberty for women as a social group; and nor does it amount to a call for their freedom from the arbitrary oppression of men as a social group. In so far as recognition of women’s spiritual liberty translates into recognition of some civil liberties, the women petition only for freedom from tyranny over their religious beliefs and practices. “Liberty for women” is thus confined to a narrow sphere of choice—religious liberty does not entail a challenge to those civil hierarchical structures in which women always occupy a subordinate position to men. I I. K AT H E R I N E C H I D L E Y A N D T H E 1 6 4 9 P E T I T I O N E R S O N L I B E RT Y

With these sentiments, then, the early petitioners do not develop a full-blooded “feminist concept of political equality.” Do the later women offer anything more? According to Katharine Gillespie, they do: in the late 1640s, claims about the equal spiritual liberty of men and women develop into a “feminist concept of political equality” or “an early theory of women’s rights.”21 Gillespie points to the works of Katherine Chidley and the later women petitioners, in particular. Chidley upholds a slightly more sophisticated concept of religious liberty than that of the early women petitioners. Chidley, a London seamstress or “stocking-seller,”

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was closely associated with the Leveller organisation of women’s petitions from 1649 to 1653.22 Some scholars maintain that Chidley herself is the most likely author of the 1649 women’s petitions: there are many stylistic and thematic similarities between Chidley’s works and the Humble Petitions of April and May.23 As a member of a persecuted religious sect, Chidley was also a fierce supporter of toleration for independent or separatist congregations. Her first work, the Justification, is written against the Presbyterian minister, Thomas Edwards, the author of Reasons against the Independant Government of Particular Congregations (1641).24 In this short tract, Edwards argues in favour of centralised church government. He maintains that a show of goodwill toward non-conforming sects “will make great disturbance in the Church, both to the outward peace, and to the faith and conscience of the people of the Kingdome.”25 Like Hobbes, Edwards sees the central role of government as the maintenance of civil peace and harmony; and for him, the state control of religion is essential to fulfilling that role. Edwards warns his readers that “Liberty, the power of government, and rule, to be in the people, are mighty pleasing to flesh and blood, especially in meane persons, and such as have beene kept under.”26 He maintains that the separatists will use such power and liberty to promote their religious outlook as the only truth; they will force their beliefs on the body politic, and thus create dissent and chaos among the masses. Against Edwards, Chidley calls on parliament to permit separatist congregations to operate independently of the state church. She maintains that “liberty, power, and rule, should be in the whole and not in one man or few”;27 church government must rest with the entire body of Christian worshippers, and not just one or two officers of the state church. Freedom or liberty is contrasted with tyrannical church government: The way of the Gospell, as hath beene plainely proved, is not to live without Gods Ordinances, nor to live at liberty (as you say) except you meane the liberty wherein Christ hath set them, and commanded them to stand fast, because he hath made them free, Gal. 5.1. By this you may see the Saints are called into liberty; but not a liberty to sinne (as you would insinuate) but to be freed from the yoake of bondage, which is the tyranny, or tyrannical government of the Canon, Lawes, either of Rome or England.28

In Galatians 5:1, Paul urges the Galatians to “maintain their Christian liberty”: “Stand fast . . . in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Christian liberty is the freedom to live according to the spirit of Christ, and to believe and worship independently of fear, constraint or coercion. According to Chidley, individuals ought to be permitted the freedom to search Scripture for themselves, rather than adopt an implicit faith and simply take for granted whatever religion the state dictates.29 But this spiritual liberty also amounts to a kind of civil liberty: for Chidley, true freedom of worship means being free from the arbitrary tyranny or discretionary power of others. In a significant passage of his Reasons, Edwards suggests that the separatists may live in England and enjoy their liberties. They may do so, he says, if they make an outward show of attending state church services: “(they may be tolerated) so long as they keepe communion with the Church, and submit to the Discipline and orders, and be peaceable, and not speake against what is established by common consent nor practise to the scandall

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and contempt of the Magistrate and Church.”30 For Chidley, this kind of toleration does not promote true liberty: under this “toleration” the separatists are still liable to pay their dues to the state church, and to face persecution if they are caught in their private conventicles. In her second work against Edwards, A New-Yeares-Gift (1644), Chidley points out that “the thing we plead for, is a peaceable enjoyment of our liberty to worship God, publikely, according to his revealed word . . . without feare of the execution of such unjust Lawes which former Parliaments have made.”31 True liberty is impossible so long as the church governors have the power to persecute separatists for their beliefs—even if those governors never exercise that power. True religious freedom does not depend upon the mere good will of governors or their willingness to turn a blind eye to separatist beliefs. According to Chidley, “We pleade for one intire governement established upon sound principles, unalterable. And not a government which may looke with severall faces, in severall times, upon severall occasions, according to mens fancies.”32 With these sentiments, Chidley articulates what some theorists might call a “republican” or “neo-roman theory” of liberty.33 This pre-liberal concept of liberty, highly prevalent in the English civil war era, has its origins in the classical ideal of the civitas libera or the free state. While liberal theorists, such as Hobbes, identify civil liberty with non-interference, or the absence of threat or coercion, neo-romans characterise freedom according to non-domination, or the absence of arbitrary sway.34 For the liberal theorist, you are unfree if you are threatened or forced to act contrary to your will; but for the neo-roman, you are unfree if your will is simply subject to, or dependent upon, the arbitrary power of another. While the liberal contrasts freedom with interference or coercion, the neo-roman contrasts freedom with a condition of dependence or domination, as exemplified by the condition of slavery. As Philip Pettit says, the latter acknowledge that “Domination can occur without interference, because it requires only that someone have the capacity to interfere arbitrarily in your affairs; no one need actually interfere.”35 The neo-romans thus highlight a crucial connection between the freedom of individuals and the powers of the state. In their view, an individual is not free if they are subject to the arbitrary sway or jurisdiction of another. For individual liberty to flourish, the powers of the state must be limited or constrained to a certain degree. The individual’s liberty cannot be upheld under an absolute monarch, for example, if that monarch has the power to interfere with the individual’s “life, liberties, and estate” on an arbitrary basis. Chidley appeals to this notion of liberty when she says that true freedom of conscience requires that separatists are permitted to worship openly and publicly, with some degree of security, and without fear of random persecution from the powers that be. For Chidley, it is possible to be unfree without actual interference: that is, when a government governs “according to mens fancies,” and not on the basis of sound, unalterable principles. Edwards’ proposed toleration of separatists (or, we might say, his policy of non-interference), on the proviso that they make an outward show of conformity, does not therefore guarantee true liberty. Similar sentiments are echoed in the Humble Petition of May 1649, a petition that may have been the work of Chidley herself. These women assert their equal interest

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in the protection of civil liberties. The petitioners ask “must we keep at home in our houses, as if we, our lives and liberties all, were not concerned”:36 Have we not an equal interest with the men of this Nation, in those liberties and securities contained in the Petition of Right, and other good Lawes of the Land? are any of our lives, limbs, liberties, or goods to be taken from us more then from Men, but by due processe of Law, and conviction of twelve sworn men of the Neighbourhood? And can you imagine us to be sottish or stupid, as not to perceive, or not to be sencible when daily those strong defences of our Peace and wellfare are broken down, and trod under-foot by force and arbitrary power.37

These women claim an equal interest in securing their civil liberties against arbitrary power in the state. Their appeal to the Petition of Right (1628) is significant: this document spells out the civil rights and liberties of English subjects under the crown. The Petition, first drafted by Sir Edward Coke, insists (among other things) that subjects ought to be granted freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. For the women petitioners, this statute applies to female as well as male subjects: women’s “lives, limbs, liberties, or goods” are also protected by law. No free woman may be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of her goods and liberties, but by the lawful judgment of her peers. They will not rest, the women argue, till “We, our husbands, Friends, and Servants, may not be liable to be abused, violated and butchered at mens Wills and pleasures.”38 Similar arguments are put forward in the earlier Humble Petition of April 1649. In this work, the women complain that their governors are simply repeating the tyrannies of former rulers instead of delivering their “promises of freedom and prosperity to the Nation.”39 The foundations of true freedom require that there is no “exercise of arbitrary Power, or continuance ofAuthoritie Civil or Military, beyond the time limited by Trust or Commission, or the perverting of either to unjust, bloudy, or ambitious ends.”40 Like Chidley, these women articulate a classical concept of civil liberty, as freedom from arbitrary sway and domination. They see this liberty as compatible with the “due process of the law,” despite the law being a form of interference in the lives of subjects.41 Their call for liberty is not a call for non-interference alone (the liberal ideal), in other words, but rather for an institutionalised guarantee of personal safety and security (the ideal of non-domination). Another woman writer, Mary Overton (fl. 1647), wife of the Leveller pamphleteer Richard Overton (act. 1640–63), appeals to the same concept of liberty in her petition, To The Right Honourable, the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, the Parliament of England (1647). Overton asserts that the “liberty of the people is the maine end of all Government.”42 The people are therefore entitled “to expect from this House the just defence, preservation, and fruition of all their Rights, Lawes, and Liberties, in their lives, persons and estates.” Again, all citizens are entitled to protection under the law. This entails that the government protects its citizens “against the malice and fury o[f] those that seek their ruine, by any arbitrary domination.”43 Yet, because of the government’s inaction, many begin to fear that: You give way to the Lords to carrie on a designe to alter the whole frame of the Legall Government of the Land, and of subjection of us to a tyrannous, lawlesse orbitrary [sic] Power, and vassalage, to the totall

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overthrow and irrecoverable losse and ruine of all our just Rights, and native Liberties; for what is tyranny, but to admit no Rule of Government, but their wills.44

In Overton’s view, the law is not necessarily a curb or constraint on liberty, but a condition under which liberty is made possible. According to Katharine Gillespie, such women’s writings ought to prompt us to rethink our assumptions about the history of liberal feminism. The prevailing scholarly view is that early modern feminist ideals are primarily derived from conservative royalist or Tory political origins. It is not until the eighteenth century—or so the common story goes—that we see the liberal conception of the individual in the public domain being extended to women in the domestic sphere. Contrary to this view, Gillespie argues that radical political movements of the seventeenth century make a significant contribution toward early liberal feminist thinking. In particular, she says, we might think that Chidley and the women petitioners translate a “concept of spiritual equality into the earliest notion of female political equality grounded in contract and consent.”45 Gillespie argues that sectarian women’s voices ought to be assimilated into the history of liberalism.46 Nevertheless, we have seen that these women call for liberty or freedom against their oppressors. Chidley and the early petitioners regard this oppression or domination as affecting a particular aspect of their lives—their freedom of conscience; they do not characterise their oppression as one that enters into every aspect of their lives. It is therefore difficult to see this as a straightforward liberal feminist call for women’s equality with men. First, there is no overt recognition that women are oppressed as a social group compared to men. According to Chidley’s arguments, it is simply the case that both male and female separatists suffer the same fear of persecution as a result of their religious membership; both men and women are therefore entitled to call for toleration. Likewise, in Overton’s tract and the 1649 petitions, the authors point out that women, as well as men, suffer the terrible consequences of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment; and so they too have an interest in seeing the “due process of law” respected. Nothing about this challenge to state control necessarily implies a liberal feminist challenge to men’s domination of women in the private sphere. It simply amounts to a claim that women are entitled to call for change, because they too are oppressed by their dependence upon arbitrary power. In addition, as we have seen, it is not clear that Chidley and the women petitioners uphold the liberal conception of liberty as freedom from interference. On the one hand, these women would certainly agree with the liberal position on freedom from state interference in one’s religious practices. But on the other, in calling for liberty against their oppressors, these women express a desire to live without anxiety and fear of random persecution on the basis of their beliefs. The condition of liberty is contrasted, not with interference, but rather the slave-like state or “vassalage” of being subject to the discretionary power of others. In their view, the interference of the law need not entail a loss of liberty, provided that it is extended to separatists and non-separatists alike on a just and non-arbitrary basis. Respect for the “due process of law” makes freedom from domination possible.

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I I I. C H I D L E Y A N D E L I Z A B E T H P O O L E O N T H E R I G H T O F R E S I S TA N C E

To establish whether or not these women offer a truly feminist theory of equality, we must determine not only the extent to which they grant both male and female subjects the liberty to challenge authority in the state, but also the extent to which they grant women as a social group the freedom to challenge the tyranny of men as a social group. I now turn to the textual evidence concerning Katherine Chidley and Elizabeth Poole’s theories of resistance to the authority of husbands in the home. Some comments in their writings might be interpreted as challenges to the political theory known as patriarchalism. In his Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings (1680), Robert Filmer outlines the fundamental features of his theory of patriarchal monarchism.47 He argues that no individual is ever born free, but always in subjection to some patriarchal superior or other: children are born in subjection to their parents, women are subordinate to their fathers and then to their husbands, and all subjects are subordinate to the crown. On his view, the authority of the king is explicitly linked to the authority of a father over his family. The king is literally the divinely appointed “father” of his people, and the source of his patriarchal power traces back to the power that God originally bestowed upon Adam, the first father. According to Filmer, royal power and paternal power are not just analogous to one another, but identical. By the end of the century, men such as John Locke and Algernon Sidney had undermined the patriarchal representation of the monarch’s legitimacy, replacing it with one grounded in social contract and consent. In his Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke argues that the political power of the monarchy is in fact grounded in an act of consent on the part of free-born individuals. On this view, citizens are justified in overthrowing a system of government if it does not promote the good of the people. Nevertheless, Locke does not explore the full implications of his challenge to patriarchalism—especially as far as women are concerned. In order to be consistent, as many critics point out, Locke ought to allow women the right to participate in the formation of government, as free and equal beings.48 Furthermore, as Locke’s contemporary Mary Astell pointed out, he also fails to extend the same liberty to women against domestic tyrants that he grants to subjects against tyrannical rulers. Many years prior to Locke and Astell, Chidley challenges the notion that married women are always required to obey their husbands. This challenge is a natural extension of her view that the people are entitled to “separate” themselves from those magistrates who do not practise true worship. As we have seen, Chidley opposes the view that the only legitimate religion is one sanctioned by the king or parliament. Against this, she maintains that all that confers true authority on a preacher is that they have been trained in the school of Christ. This training simply consists in being obedient to Christ and keeping God’s commandments.49 As Chidley repeatedly insists, the primary role of the magistrate is to give praise to those who do well, and to punish evil doers.50 If the separatists show a due obedience to God, then the magistrate has no right to arrest or imprison them for their beliefs. On the flip side, if the magistrate does not practise true obedience to God, or compels his subjects to practise an antiChristian religion, then those subjects have a religious duty to “separate” themselves

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from their ruler. For the Christian, it is their duty “to put it [God’s true worship] into practise, not onely in a Land where they have Toleration, but also where they are forbidden to preach.”51 Christians will therefore sometimes be compelled to defy the laws of the land, and to separate from the state religion, in order to do what is right and to engage in the proper worship of God. Magistrates, on this view, have a power over the “bodies, estates, and lives” of their subjects, but they cannot be “Lords over their consciences.”52 If they could dictate the religious beliefs of their subjects, then they would be usurping the authority of Christ.53 In all other civil matters, our bodies and lives are those of the sovereign in whose land we dwell; but in the case of spiritual worship, our bodies and souls belong to God alone.54 Chidley’s justification of separatism is entailed by her notion of liberty. Her theory about the subject’s right to separate from the state church is based upon her assertions about every subject’s freedom to live according to the spirit of Christ, and to believe and worship without fear of oppression. In her Justification, Chidley points out that many people refuse to conform to the state religion because its government is perceived to be “vaine and Popish.”55 Such non-conformity is justified—and ought to be tolerated—because all Christians have a religious duty to follow the true worship. Against this view, Thomas Edwards claims that the toleration of separatists “will breed divisions, and Schismes, disturbing the peace and quiet of Churches, and Townes”; and it will also “breed divisions in families betweene husband and wife, brother, and brother.”56 If we grant the right to resist the government in religious matters, then this will ultimately undermine patriarchal authority in other spheres. If subjects can dissent from the views of their rulers, then wives might dissent from their husbands, servants from their masters, children from their parents, and so on. By contrast, Chidley is unconvinced that toleration will disrupt the patriarchal authority of fathers over their families and of husbands over their wives: Next you say O! how this will take away that power & authority which God hath given to Husbands, Fathers, and Masters, over wives, children, and servants. To which I answer, O! that you would consider the text in I Cor. 7. which plainely declares that the wife may be a beleever, & the husband an unbeleever, but if you have considered this text, I pray you tell me, what authority this unbeleeving husband hath over the conscience of his beleeving wife; It is true he hath authority over her in bodily and civill respects, but not to be a Lord over her conscience; and the like may be said of fathers and masters, and it is the very same authority which the Soveraigne hath over all his subjects, & therfore it must needes reach to families: for it is granted that the King hath power (according to the Law) over the bodies, goods and lives of all his subjects; yet it is Christ the King of Kings that reigneth over their consciences: and thus you may see it taketh away no authority which God hath given to them.57

If subjects have a duty to pursue the true worship of God, then wives are permitted to defy the religious beliefs of their husbands whenever those beliefs contravene true worship. But does this amount to an argument for a woman’s right to resist unjust authority in the home? This interpretation is not borne out by Chidley’s text. Chidley explicitly states that the husband still has authority over the wife “in bodily and civill respects.” A woman’s right to “separate” from her husband is limited to the sphere of religious worship alone. On Chidley’s view, it is acceptable for wives to adhere to a different religion from that of their husbands, but it does not follow that wives might

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consider themselves to be free from their spousal obligations. Chidley’s argument in this key passage is not in favour of divorce—it amounts to an argument for female spiritual freedom or “Christian liberty” alone. This position is consistent with women practising an outward conformity to their husband’s beliefs, while at the same time privately adhering to their own; it is not about challenging the “arbitrary authority” of the husband in the home. We might think that to be truly consistent, Chidley ought to have extended her challenge to patriarchalism in the state to patriarchalism in the home; but she stops short of doing so—as do so many other republicans of the time. Chidley does not, strictly speaking, extend the notion of civil liberty to women in the private domestic sphere: she does not therefore develop a full-fledged theory of female political equality. The Baptist prophet Elizabeth Poole takes a similar position on marriage to that of Katherine Chidley. A member of a Baptist separatist congregation, Poole was known in political circles as “a woman of great wisedom and gravity.”58 On December 29, 1648, and then again on January 4, 1649, Poole visited Whitehall in order to offer advice to the General Council of the New Model Army about the trial of Charles I. At the time, the army was reluctant to negotiate, and few members of parliament were inclined to protect the king. In her advice to the council, which was later published as A Vision: Wherein is manifested the disease and cure of the Kingdome (1649), Poole claims to be interpreting a vision from God by the “gift of faith.” In this vision, the kingdom is represented as a “woman, crooked, sick, weak & imperfect in body,”59 and the army is appointed as her physician. According to Gillespie, Poole uses this metaphor to advise the council that “the sick body politic must exercise its right to break contract with the monarch . . . ‘she’ should divorce him as fast as a sectarian wife would an unregenerate husband.”60 Poole boldly advises the army to take away Charles’ kingly powers, but she warns against his execution. Poole begins by drawing a literal connection between kings, fathers, and husbands. Her argument draws on patriarchal logic, or the identification of kings with husbands, and subjects with wives. She advises the army that “the King is your Father and husband, which you were and are to obey in the Lord, & no other way.”61 It is true, she says, that: when he forgot his Subordination to divine Faith hood and headship, thinking he had begotten you a generation to his own pleasure, and taking you a wife for his own lusts, thereby is the yoake taken from your neck (I meane the neck of the spirit and Law, which is the bond of your union, that the holy life in it might not be prophaned; it being free and cannot be bound: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath freed us from the law of sinne and of death . . . 62

When the husband/king forgets his religious duty to his wife/subject, then the subordinate parties are entitled to consider themselves “freed from the bonds of their union,” according to “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” But although they might consider their spiritual covenant to be dissolved, subordinates are still required to honour their superiors: “although he would not be your Father and husband, Subordinate, but absolute, yet know that you are for the Lords sake to honour his person. For he is the Father and husband of your bodies, as unto men, and therefore your right cannot be without him, as unto men.”63 Their earthly or civil contract, in other words,

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is not dissolved. Although the husband/king may have refused to be subordinate to God, “You never heard that a wife might put away her husband, as he is the head of her body.”64 Although the husband/king has no authority over his wife/subject’s conscience, by law he still possesses authority over her bodily self. The wife/subject must therefore endure her husband/king’s tyranny in the flesh—to be insensible to her earthly “interests, lives, liberties, freedoms,”65 while being assured that she is “free in the spirit of the Lord.” To support this point, Poole appeals to the story of Abigail in I Samuel. This story demonstrates that although the husband/king may be unjust or irreligious, his ultimate punishment will come from God alone. Abigail, “a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance” is married to Nabal, a “churlish and evil man” [I Samuel 25:3]. When David comes to kill Nabal, Abigail pleads on her husband’s behalf, and convinces David not to take Nabal’s life with his own hands. A few days later, “the Lord smote Nabal” and he died [I Samuel 25:38]. By analogy, according to Poole, the army should not kill the king:66 For as the Lord revenged his owne cause on him [Abigail’s husband], he shall doe on yours [the king] . . . Stretch not forth the hand against him: For know this, the Conquest was not without divine displeasure, whereby Kings came to reigne, though through lust they tyranized: which God excuseth not, but judgeth; and his judgements are fallen heavy, as you see, upon Charles your Lord.67

A wife/subject may act in self-defence by holding the hands of her husband/king, but she must not proceed to take his life.68 In the end, therefore, Poole advises the army to bring Charles to trial so “that he may be convicted in his conscience, but touch not his person.”69 The army, in other words, represents the wife/subject who may “hold the hands” of her husband/king, but must wait for God to inflict the ultimate punishment (in this case, death). Poole does not support the Leveller position on “sovereignty for the people”; the wife/subject is not entitled to usurp her husband/king’s authority for herself. According to Gillespie, “Poole’s call for a trial . . . bespeaks a contractual interest in a limited rather than an absolutist monarchy, one that preserves the King’s life while also managing to infuse his ‘wife’ with new powers.”70 Poole implicitly challenges the traditional view that wives must always obey their husbands. Instead, wives have the right “to appropriate a measure of ‘sovereign’self-rule for themselves,”71 and they are “entitled to invoke the right of exit” or “the right to withdraw” from the marriage contract.72 In this sense, according to Gillespie, Poole presents a radical challenge to patriarchalism: she “raises new questions about the parameters of patriarchal authority, both at state level as well as within the home.”73 Poole implies that it is “the wife’s right to consent that forms the original grant of a contract theory,”74 and she may very well “withdraw consent in the face of tyranny.”75 Once the husband/king has violated the trust of the wife/subject, the latter is relieved of her obligation to obey—the wife/subject has grounds, in other words, for divorce. But it is not clear that Poole thinks that it is permissible for the wife/subject to divorce her husband/king. The textual evidence does not unequivocally support this interpretation. According to most patriarchalists, although the consent of both parties

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may be necessary to initiate the marital union, once the vows have been taken, a woman is unable to dissolve the contract. When a woman marries, as Mary Astell astutely observes in 1700, she “Elects a Monarch for Life” and gives him “anAuthority she cannot recall however he misapply it.”76 Although marriage is a “Contract,” the husband has a “sacred and inalienable” authority over the wife.77 According to Filmer, God alone invested this authority in the first patriarch, Adam, and his successors— the wife does not have the power to give or take away such authority by her consent or dissent. Poole’s advice to the council is entirely consistent with this patriarchal outlook: a wife must endure her husband’s physical abuse, Poole says, because by law he possesses authority over her bodily self. His punishment—and her reward— will come from God alone. The spiritual equality of men and women, on this view, does not translate easily into a right to resist unjust authority. The only “divorce” a woman can obtain from an unregenerate spouse is a spiritual one—she need not adhere to her husband’s religious beliefs, but she cannot physically withdraw from their union.78 This interpretation of Poole’s text is confirmed in her later works. Needless to say, Poole’s prophetic advice was ignored. Shortly after the beheading of Charles I on January 30, 1649, Poole published An Alarum of War, Given to the Army, foretelling “the judgements of God ready to fall upon them for disobeying the word of the Lord, in taking away the life of the King” (title-page). At about the same time, another work titled Alarum of War also appeared, now known as Another Alarum of War. The text includes material that does not appear in the first Alarum. Here Poole reminds the Army that: I told you, that the King was your Father and Husband, which you were to obey in the Lord, and none otherwaies; for when he forgot his subordination to Divine fatherhood and headship, thereby was the Yoak of the spirit, and Law, taken off from your necks, for though ye were bound in the bodie, yet are ye free in the spirit to the Lord, but were to suffer his [the King’s] terrour to your flesh for the Lords sake; according to another sentence in that paper, True liberty is not bound to any thing, nor from any thing.79

In this passage, Poole expands on her original statement by providing a definition of what it means to be “free in the spirit to the Lord.” Her concept of liberty is similar to Chidley’s notion of “Christian liberty.” She tells the army that “you are men that have professed your selves hot pursuers after libertie,”80 but true liberty consists in being free in a spiritual sense, and regarding all earthly interests as subordinate to the divine will. She says: It is true indeed, a just woman must deliver up her Husband to the just claim of the Law, though she might not accuse him to the Law, nor yet rejoice over him to see his fall, for all that passe by and behold her, will say that was a Strumpet, and not a faithful Wife, that rejoyceth at the fall of her Husband; and contrariwise the faithfull Wife mourneth in secret for him: (it is true shee cannot) neither ought she to condemne the just Law that cut him off, but is herein as the Prophet who saith to the people, if ye will not heare, my soule shall mourne in secret for you: You may also remember that as I told you in the Paper presented to your Councell, that you might not lift your hand against your husband to take his life; but suffer his terrour to your flesh, for the Lords sake: so I also said in the same Paper, if he usurpe authoritie over, her she may appeal to the Fatherhood which is the spirit of justice, and as in you, now therefore was I to exhort you (as I also did) to be perfectly dead, in the will of the Lord, to all your lives, liberties, interests, freedoms, or whatsoever you might call yours.81

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The husband/king’s fault is that he “forgot to whom he was subordinate [i.e. God], by prophaning the trust committed to him.”82 In this case, “the spirit of justice” is manifest in the wife but, again, it does not follow that she may take her own revenge. I V. C O N C L U S I O N

Katherine Chidley and Elizabeth Poole may be, as Brailsford observes, “pioneers of women’s emancipation” in some sense.83 But in their critiques of the marriage/social contract analogue, they do not anticipate the liberal feminist ideals of Wollstonecraft and her successors. Instead we might think that the views of Chidley and Poole have more in common with the conservative outlook of Mary Astell. At first glance, the radical civil war women and the Tory pamphleteer are rather strange political bedfellows. Astell stands opposed to everything the Leveller movement fought for: she vehemently rejects the toleration of non-conforming sects, she defends traditional social hierarchies, and she certainly does not support the sovereignty of the people.84 Yet, in terms of the limitations of their challenge to patriarchal authority in the home, Astell, Chidley, and Poole occupy similar positions. They each support a wife’s spiritual freedom within marriage, while at the same time advocating wifely obedience in a bodily and civil respect. In her Reflections upon Marriage (1706), Astell draws an analogy between slavery in the state and slavery in the family: If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men, be the perfect Condition of Slavery? and if the Essence of Freedom consists, as our Masters say it does, in having a standing Rule to live by? And why is Slavery so much condemn’d and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?85

Astell does not employ this analogy to argue in favour of extending the contractarian ethic to the private sphere. She uses the analogy to highlight the inconsistency of liberal Whigs, such as Locke, who distinguish between a man’s freedom (in the public sphere) and a woman’s subjection (in private) on purely arbitrary grounds. She “heartily wishes,” she says, “that our Masters wou’d pay their Civil and Ecclesiastical Governors the same Submission, which they themselves exact from their Domestic Subjects.”86 Astell’s feminism is restricted by her conservative political outlook, in the same way that Chidley and Poole’s views on marriage are limited by their uncritical acceptance of patriarchalism in the home. I would like to end the paper, however, with a positive suggestion about the contributions of civil war women to the history of political philosophy. I do not agree with Gillespie’s claim that their work should lead us to reassess the history of liberal feminism: first, it is not obvious that these women are feminists, and second, it is not clear that they are liberals. But I do agree with her that their writings prompt some kind of reassessment of the history of women as political thinkers in the seventeenth century. These women were active in developing and promulgating a particular concept of civil liberty in their time: they do not espouse a liberal conception of liberty as freedom from interference, but rather as freedom from arbitrary domination. Even though they might not have thought to call for women’s liberty against the arbitrary

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tyranny of men in the private sphere, they do extend this concept of liberty to women as political subjects more generally. They see women, in other words, as part of the political realm, and as sharers in the fortunes of the commonwealth. There is also a further historiographical point to make: that is, that a careful examination of women’s civil war writings might partly challenge the common perception that the history of ideas made a smooth progression from a dying conservative outlook to a modern or “enlightened” worldview. Although the civil war women were radicals of their time, they are much more conservative than we might expect. In this sense, we might see their political ideas—together with those of their male contemporaries—as offering us a somewhat more complex picture of the history of political thought in this period.

NOTES 1 Catharine Macaulay, The History of England From the Accession of James I. To that of the Brunswick

2

3

4

5

6

7

Line (London: J. Nourse, J. Dodsley, and W. Johnson, 1767; Dublin: A. Leathley and J. Exshaw, 1767), 3.197. See, for example, [Anonymous], To the Supreme Authority of this Common-wealth, The Parliament of England. The humble Petition of Severall of the Wives and Children of such Delinquents, whose Estates are propounded to be sold, as the Petitioners are informed (London: n.p., 1650). Macaulay, History of England, 3.198. Macaulay’s interest in such radical women should come as no surprise—she was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, and one of the first historians to write a history of England from the perspective of radical politics. On Macaulay, see Sarah Hutton, “Virtue, God and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay,” and Martina Reuter, “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will,” both in this volume. There is some debate about whether or not women themselves actually wrote these petitions; see, for example, Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647–49) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, ed. and intro. A.S.P. Woodhouse, with a foreword by A.D. Lindsay (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1951), 367. Given the lack of conclusive evidence on either side, I do not propose to enter into this debate. I examine instead the concepts of liberty, religious toleration, and resistance, as they are presented in relation to women or from a woman’s point of view. G.E. Aylmer, ed. The Levellers in the English Revolution (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 9. On the history of the Leveller movement, see H.N. Brailsford, The Levellers and the English Revolution, ed. Christopher Hill (London: Cresset Press, 1961); Ian Gentles, “London Levellers and the English Revolution: The Chidleys and Their Circle,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 29, no. 3 (1978): 281–309; Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (London: Temple Smith, 1972); and David Wootton, “Leveller Democracy and the Puritan Revolution,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, ed. J.H. Burns, with Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 412–42. On the wider activities of the women petitioners, see Patricia Higgins, “The Reactions of Women, with Special Reference to Women Petitioners,” in Politics, Religion, and the English Civil War, ed. Brian Manning (London: Edward Arnold, 1973), 177–222; and Keith Thomas, “Women and the Civil War Sects,” in Crisis in Europe 1560–1660, ed. Trevor Aston (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 317–40; reprinted from Past and Present 13 (1958): 42–62. Katherine Chidley, The Justification of the Independant Churches of Christ. Being an Answer to Mr. Edwards his Booke, which hee hath written against the Government of Christs Church, and Toleration of Christs Publike Worship; Briefely Declaring That the Congregations of the Saints ought not to have Dependancie in Government upon any other; or direction in worship from any other than Christ their Head and Law-Giver (London: William Larner, 1641); Katherine Chidley, A New-YearesGift, or A Brief Exhortation to Mr. Thomas Edwards; That he may breake off his old sins, in the olde

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8

9 10 11 12

13

14 15

16

17 18 19 20

JACQUELINE BROAD yeare, and begin the New yeare, with new fruits of Love, first to God, and then to his Brethren (London: n.p., 1645 [i.e. 1644]); and Katherine Chidley, Good Counsell, to the Petitioners for Presbyterian Government, That They May Declare their Faith before they Build their Church (London: n.p., 1645). Elizabeth Poole, A Vision: Wherein is manifested the disease and cure of the Kingdome. Being The summe of what was delivered to the Generall Councel of the Army, December 29, 1648. Together With a true Copie of what was delivered in writing (the fifth of this present January) to the said Generall Councel, of Divine pleasure concerning the King in reference to his being brought to Triall, what they are therein to do, and what not, both concerning his Office and Person (London: n.p., 1648 [i.e. January 9, 1649]); Elizabeth Poole, An Alarum of War, Given to the Army, And to their High Court of Justice (so called) revealed by the will of God in a Vision to E. Poole, (sometime a messenger of the Lord to the Generall Councel, concerning the Cure of the Land, and the manner thereof). Foretelling the judgements of God ready to fall upon them for disobeying the word of the Lord, in taking away the life of the King. Also a letter to the Congregation, in fellowship with Mr. Kissin, in vindication of E. advising them to live lesse in the Letter of the scripture, and more in the spirit (London: n.p., 1649); Elizabeth Poole, An [other] Alarum of War, Given to the Army, And to their High Court of Justice (so called) by the will of God; revealed in Elizabeth Pooll, Sometime a Messenger of the Lord to the Generall Councell, Concerning the Cure of the Land, and the manner thereof (London: n.p., 1649). Brailsford, The Levellers, 317. Katharine Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent in the Seventeenth Century: English Women’s Writing and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 13. Although it is hard to give a precise and uncontested definition of feminism, I assume that there must be at least two basic components to any feminist theory worthy of the name. First, a feminist doctrine must put forward a descriptive account of women’s oppression or disadvantage as a social group: there must be some account of how women are oppressed or disadvantaged compared to men. Second, any feminist theory must have a normative component: there must be some statement to the effect that women’s oppression and disadvantage is morally unjustified or impermissible, and ought therefore to be eliminated. I am grateful to Karen Green for pointing out to me that even this bare-bones definition of feminism is open to question. Late medieval women writers, such as Christine de Pizan, do not develop a theory of women’s oppression, though they do argue (against their misogynist contemporaries) that women, like men, are capable of cultivating the virtues and achieving the good—a distinctively feminist claim. But I take it that my definition is one that liberal feminists would accept without question or qualification, and have therefore retained it as adequate for my purposes. The line between religion and politics was typically blurred in the seventeenth century. Hilary Hinds observes that religion and politics were seen as two approaches to the same issue—the question of how God’s plans could best be implemented in society; see Hilary Hinds, God’s Englishwomen: SeventeenthCentury Radical Sectarian Writing and Feminist Criticism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 6–7. Brailsford, The Levellers, 33, 64. Sharon Arnoult refers to this as the “sovereignty of the soul”; see Sharon L. Arnoult, “The Sovereignties of Body and Soul: Women’s Political and Religious Actions in the English Civil War,” in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Louise Olga Frandenburg (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 228–49. Anonymous, A True Copie of the Petition of the Gentlewomen, and Tradesmens-wives, in and about the City of London. Delivered, To the Honourable, the KNIGHTS, Citizens, and Burgesses, of the house of Commons in Parliament, the 4th of February, 1641. Together, With their severall Reasons why their sex ought thus to Petition, as well as the Men; and the manner how both their Petition and Reasons was delivered. Likewise the Answer which the Honourable Assembly sent to them by Mr. Pym, as they stood at the House doore (London: R.O. & G.D. for John Bull, 1641 [1642]), 2–[3]. Ibid., 5. Ibid., [4]. Ibid., 6–[7]. Ibid.

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21 Katharine Gillespie, “A Hammer in Her Hand: The Separation of Church from State and the Early

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47

Feminist Writings of Katherine Chidley,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 17, no. 2 (1998): 213, 223; and Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 85, 91. On one occasion in 1653, Chidley organised a group of 6000 women to sign a petition for the release of the Leveller leader, John Lilburne. Brailsford, The Levellers, 318 n. 8; Gentles, “London Levellers,” 292; and Gillespie, “A Hammer in her Hand,” 223. Thomas Edwards, Reasons against the Independant Government of Particular Congregations: As also against the Toleration of such Churches to be erected in this Kingdome (London: Richard Cotes for Jo Bellamie and Ralph Smith, 1641). Quoted in Chidley, Justification, 21. Quoted in Chidley, Justification, 24; see Edwards, Reasons against the Independant Government, 25. Chidley, Justification, 24–5. Ibid., 38. Ibid., 45. Quoted in Chidley, Justification, 73. Chidley, A New-Yeares-Gift, 16–7. Ibid., 20. See Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); and Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). An act is arbitrary if “it is subject just to the arbitrium, the decision or judgement, of the agent; the agent was in a position to choose it or not choose it, at their pleasure” (Pettit, Republicanism, 55). Pettit, Republicanism, 23. Anonymous, To the Supream Authority of England The Commons Assembled in Parliament. The humble Petition of diverse wel-affected WEOMEN, of the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borrough of Southwark, Hamblets, and places adjacent. Affecters and Approvers of the Petition of September 11, 1648. (London: n.p., 1649), [1]. This work is hereafter referred to as Humble Petition II. Anonymous, Humble Petition II, [1]. Ibid., [1]. Anonymous, To the Supream authority of this Nation, the Commons assembled in Parliament: The humble Petition of divers wel-affected Women Inhabiting the Cities of London, Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, Hamblets, and Places adjacent; (Affecters and Approvers of the late large Petition) of the Eleventh of September, 1648. In behalf of Lieutenant Col. John Lilburn, Mr. William Walwyn, Mr. Thomas Prince, and Mr. Richard Overton, (Now Prisoners in the Tower of London) And Captain William Bray, Close-prisoner in Windsor-Castle; And Mr. William Sawyer, Prisoner at White-Hall (London: n.p., 1649), 5. This petition was first circulated on April 22, 1649, and published two days later. The work is hereafter referred to as Humble Petition I. Anonymous, Humble Petition I, 7. On freedom as non-domination and the law, see Pettit, Republicanism, 35–41. Mary Overton, To The right Honourable, the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, the Parliament of England, assembled at Westminster, The humble Appeale and Petition of Mary Overton, prisoner in Bridewell (London: n.p., 1647), 1. Overton, Humble Appeale and Petition, 3. Ibid., 10. Gillespie, “A Hammer in her Hand,” 214, and Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 76. Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 14. On the different kinds of patriarchalism in seventeenth-century England, see Gordon J. Schochet, The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England: Patriarchalism in Political Thought (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books, 1988). For the sake of simplicity, I summarise Filmer’s theory here, but his was by no means the only patriarchalist justification of political obedience at the time.

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48 See, for example, Melissa A. Butler, “Early Liberal Roots of Feminism: John Locke and the Attack on 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Patriarchy,” The American Political Science Review 72, no. 1 (1978): 135–50. Chidley, Justification, 7. Ibid., 38. Ibid., sig. *2r. Ibid., 29. “I pray you where must Christ reigne then? Must he sit at the Magistrates footestoole? and take what power the Magistrate will give him? . . . Here you thrust Christ into a narrow corner” (Ibid., 29). Ibid., 32. Ibid., 23. Quoted in Chidley, Justification, 25. Chidley, Justification, 26. Anonymous, The Manner of the Deposition of Charles Stewart (London: n.p., 1649), 6; quoted in Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 139. Poole, A Vision, 1. Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 116. Poole, A Vision, 6. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 2. Poole says “feare not to act the part of Abigail, seeing Nabal had refused it (by Appropriating his goods to himselfe) in relieving David and his men in their distresse; it was to her praise, it shall be to yours, feare it not: Onely consider, that as she lifted not her hand against her husband to take his life, no more doe yee against yours.” Ibid., 5. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 6 [7]. Ibid., 6. Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent, 142. Ibid., 143. Ibid., 147, 149. Ibid., 149. Ibid., 150. Ibid., 151. Mary Astell, Reflections upon Marriage, in Political Writings, ed. Patricia Springborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 48. Astell, Reflections, 17. For an alternative interpretation of Poole’s text, see Brian Patton, “Revolution, Regicide, and Divorce: Elizabeth Poole’s Advice to the Army,” in Place and Displacement in the Renaissance, ed. Alvin Vos (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995), 133–45. Patton points to a tension in Poole’s Vision. According to his analysis, Poole figuratively represents the army both as the ruling husband/king and the subordinate wife/subject. On my own reading, Poole avoids explicitly characterising the army as the husband/king of the people; this metaphor is reserved for the disgraced king alone. Poole, Another Alarum of War, 7. Ibid. Ibid., 7–8. Ibid., 9. Brailsford, The Levellers, 38. On Astell’s political thought, see Michal Michelson, “ ‘Our Religion and Liberties’: Mary Astell’s Christian Political Polemics,” in this volume. Astell, Reflections, 17–9. Ibid., 8.

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VI M A R G A R E T C AV E N D I S H A N D T H E FA L S E U N I V E R S A L

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, has created both delight and challenges for those studying her over the last three decades. Over the centuries following her death in 1673 Cavendish fit within that category of writers and eccentrics (no one would have called her a thinker) that appeared in isolated comments (normally negative) representing a particular quality of the mid-seventeenth century. In her case she was most often identified with outlandish habits among aristocratic ladies, as an out-of-control author of fantasies, as a dabbler in early science, as a ready source for biographical tidbits about her husband, and as an author of unperformable plays.1 Her unsystematic and minimally edited writing style was used to deride any serious thoughts she might have had, and Virginia Woolf famously saw her as an example of women’s failure as writers, as “hare-brained, fantastical.” Woolf characterised Cavendish’s writing in colourful and disparaging language: her “wild, generous, untutored intelligence . . . poured itself out, higgledy-piggledy, in torrents of rhyme and prose, poetry and philosophy which stand congealed in quartos and folios that nobody ever reads.” Woolf links such limitations to Cavendish’s isolation and lack of formal education: “What a vision of loneliness and riot the thought of Margaret Cavendish brings to mind! as if some giant cucumber had spread itself over all the roses and carnations in the garden and choked them to death.”2 All that has shifted dramatically over the last thirty years; there is now a Margaret Cavendish Society that holds biannual meetings on her work either in Europe or North America; a number of scholars mostly in literature but also in the history of science, and to a lesser degree in philosophy and intellectual history, have begun studying her in a serious fashion. Susan James has edited her political works for a volume in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, and Eileen O’Neill has edited her Observations upon Experimental Philosophy for the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy.3 For someone who began studying her in 1970 this change has truly been mind boggling. What then led to her dismissal for centuries and the growing enthusiasm of the last few decades, and are they in anyway connected? Of course part of the answer is simple: she has gained from the exponential growth in scholarship about women— and especially from its underlying assumption that women had something important to say, that their thoughts on a range of topics should not be fodder for humour or derision, and that there is value in women’s insights formed outside universities and professional societies not found within the more confined intellectual disputes among their better educated brethren. However, Cavendish is somewhat distinct; she is not so much an example of the lost historical figure only recently unearthed. While Cavendish was earlier derided, she always gained attention—both in her lifetime 95 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 95–110. © 2007 Springer.

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and from later writers such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb. She has remained an individual not easy to ignore—a sort of larger than life character. Yet Margaret Cavendish has not found a place within the scholarship relating to political theory, which has so dominated the intellectual landscape of early modern England. This is the case even though she has uttered both its most profound and controversial thoughts regarding women’s political standing. Her Sociable Letters, number sixteen, is one of the few discussions of women’s independent interests and power status within the broader social and political hierarchy characterising the seventeenth century. It avoids the usual status analysis of women’s lack of any political role or prescribed place within the family, and rather traverses a path from “as for the Matter of Governments, we women understand them not” to “we are excluded from intermeddling therein” to “if we be not citizens in the Commonwealth, I know no reason we should be Subjects to the Commonwealth.” While ending with a reference to women controlling men through their beauty, she still presents the most fundamental power analysis of women’s diminished political standing during the 1600s. Such an analysis has been ignored while countless studies have referred to Puritan discussions of the political significance of the family, others to proper gender roles (for women, read family), and suggestions of democratic thought which consistently ignores women as either included or excluded in early modern politics.4 How then do we grapple with Cavendish as an early modern thinker whose writings incorporated a greater range of genre and interests than virtually any of her contemporaries? In thinking of her critiques of marriage, motherhood, learned scholars, natural philosophers or early scientists, political theorists, and the easy sense of superiority of the aristocracy, officers, and those in power generally, one is often drawn to later forms of philosophic expression—pithy and sarcastic aphorisms. When I read her I sometimes think of Nietzsche’s “Maxims and Interludes” in Beyond Good and Evil, and in particular the phrase, “even concubinage has been corrupted by marriage.”5 She claimed fame was her central goal in life, but she often went about obtaining it in a strange fashion, and this led sometimes to shocking others—in ways similar to the later German philosopher. She wrote sympathetically of incest, penned the most negative assessments of marriage and motherhood of her era, and offered a power analysis of basic class and gender relationships.6 Coming from a duchess her comments are remarkable, but likely her social position protected her from even greater social ostracism. It is simply difficult to discover another woman who so consistently judged her society purely from the perspective of power and personal interest. One discovers such views, which I have identified as closest to what later came to be termed utilitarian values, most clearly in her Sociable Letters and the Orations of Divers Sorts, but one can find them in comments from characters in her plays and in her scientific commentary, especially her later scepticism regarding experimental science.7 We unfortunately know so little about her intellectual influences, and we literally have only a few letters remaining of those she wrote. Her Sociable Letters are mostly model, not actual correspondence, and she was not treated

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kindly by those who might have preserved her written record. Cristina Malcolmson has made a strong case that the Cavendishes owned Christine de Pizan’s works, and thus she was an obvious influence (if you doubt Cavendish about her inability to read French).8 Here one can discover a source for the sarcasm against educated men and find ideas as to how governments should be formed. But there is no assault on women’s family role comparable to that penned by the later English author. Mostly we have to rely on her biography of her husband, her brief autobiography, and her works to tell us what made her such an extraordinary individual, both intellectually and personally. Scholars have claimed she took her political views from her husband and his friends and many of her scientific interests also from William Cavendish, but more importantly from his brother Charles. And certainly she refers to them as important teachers and supporters of her work; yet, there is so much in her writing that diverges from, or openly disagrees with them, that any definitive influence is questionable. In seeking her intellectual core and its integrated qualities across genre and topic, it is useful to turn to arguments she pursued to their logical conclusion. In these moments, I think we reach the genuine Cavendish, the one that most reflects her independent thinking. It is here that her use of the false universal is most evident—her tendency to question the language and principles that presumably applied to all in early modern England.9 I developed the concept of the “false universal” in a 2002 study to demonstrate that the most effective means to exclude women from definitional qualities attached to human, adult, citizen, civic responsibility, and so on, was not by an explicit exclusion, but rather by situating such qualities in presumably universal terms—terms which in reality could emerge only from men’s experiences. If civic responsibility required a classical education or office holding, then women invariably could not embody it no matter if an individual woman (or many women) might exemplify its characteristics. Cavendish is ever ready with a power analysis to question broad legal and political principles, and to employ class and gender demarcations in asking what it means to be English and to be afforded or denied various liberties and privileges. One such moment comes from Part IV of her Orations entitled “Pleadings” in “A Cause Pleaded at the Barr before Judges, concerning Theft.” It is a good example of the way in which she extended a particular example to embrace more fundamental questions about the purpose of government and its relationship to class. The case involved a poor man who stole from his neighbors; there is no question of guilt and he is accused of “Robbing openly, against all Law and Right, the Goods of his Neighbours,” and his accusers are simply seeking recompense for such wrongs. His defence argues that he took from others to support older parents “which are past Labouring,” for his young children and for his “Weak, Sick Wife” who is currently in labour.10 Here it is typical that Cavendish injects a feminist perspective (which she does continually) alluding to both of his parents working and to a wife needing a husband’s support because of illness and not as a dependent. In returning to her treatment of the poor man’s condition, Cavendish starts with a theme central to her works—the independent power of a female nature, which

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she consistently portrays as the creator, arguing that private property subverts her authority: [Nature] made all things in common. She made not some men to be Rich, and other men Poor, some to Surfeit with overmuch Plenty, and others to be Starved for Want: for when she made the World and the Creatures in it, She did not divide the Earth nor the rest of the Elements, but gave the use generally amongst them all.

Most significantly, those to blame for such inequality are “commonwealth makers” who established the rules of society and the state at the disadvantage of those in need. Or, in her words: when Governmental Laws were devised by some Usurping Men, who were the greatest Thieves and Robbers . . . which are call’d Moral Philosophers . . . [who] were not only thieves and robbers to the Generality of Mankind, but they were Rebels against Nature . . . Binding her with Laws, and Inslaving her with Propriety, whereas all is in Common with Nature.11

She continues that it is against nature’s law for one man to own more “of the World or the Goods of the World” than another, and that only an unjust state established by these commonwealth makers would allow such inequities, directed against the “poor and powerless.” The prosecution offers a rejoinder that the lawyer making such claims “ought to be Banish’d from this Place, and his Profession of Pleading” for he adheres to a supposedly just nature; but, in strongly Hobbesian language, the prosecutor contends that nature is cruel and lawless and must be controlled by a “Civil Government, Ordained from an Higher Power.” This order requires “a Supreme Power given by the Gods to Rule and Govern Nature.” He concludes by seeking the man’s execution, that his death will serve “an example for a warning to prevent the like crimes.”12 There is little doubt that such views were extraordinary for one married to a duke who had served as a royalist general. And much speculation has emerged as to where she gained such insights; clearly for a work that appeared in 1662 she had plenty of opportunity to read published accounts from the Civil War struggles in the Putney debates, Leveller documents, and Winstanley’s claims for the Society of Diggers to plow common lands. Here, and in the numerous other occasions where she offers two sides to a particular issue (as in a dialogue), any contention that the more extreme position was authentically hers has been dismissed by those seeing her as simply offering both sides of a particular case. Yet such an interpretation presents problems. First, while she would have heard arguments defending the current social and political hierarchy from those around her, she would have had either to seek out opposing views, or to think through the issue on her own to present this position. Second, such views emanated from the declared enemies of her husband who took his lands and forced them both into exile. And there are numerous instances of her glorifying a nature gendered female, and to contrast it uniformly with gods who also wielded power over creation. One of the more unique qualities of Cavendish among seventeenth-century women was her distance from organised religion and Christianity

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generally. After reading virtually all that she has written I have encountered only a rare mention of Christ, and even there in an appendix to her Grounds of Natural Philosophy. In addition, it is mentioned in the context of her materialist philosophy in which she is claiming there is no place between “Body and no Body,” but acknowledges that Christ is something of an exception for he was both material and immaterial.13 And very seldom does she use the term “God” in her writings; when she speaks of supernatural creatures or powers, she consistently uses the term “gods,” something that sets her apart. She simply seems open to a wider range of explanations and judgments than most of her contemporaries, while also indulging in defences of the monarchy, sumptuary laws that prevented those poorer from dressing or acting like their betters, and reaping the benefits of living in a wealthy, aristocratic household. In another of her attempts to present differing positions on a single topic she takes up the issue of religious toleration; here she defends the freedom of individual conscience as her primary stance, while at the same time undermining such a position. This dialogue is constructed through three separate orations, the latter supposedly a compromise between the first two. But in actuality it is much closer to the first which defends religious freedom—hardly a position popular with royalists during the Civil War. And here, as in the earlier discussion of the poor man’s theft, she gives more space and a more elaborate argument for one side versus its more predictable opposition. Her support of religious toleration is based on utilitarian grounds: she argues the nation is headed for civil war because those from the “one and the same Religion” cannot come to an agreement, stirred up by “Theological Disputations in Schools, Colleges, Churches, and Chambers, as also Books of Controversies.” In such a situation of religious zeal “the Governours must Yield, or they will Consume the Civil Government with the Fire of their Zeal.” She thus concludes “the best remedy . . . is to let them have Liberty of Conscience, Conditionally, that they do not meddle with Civil Government.” But severe punishments should be meted out to those who continue to attack the government based on sectarian religious beliefs, either exile or death.14 In response, the opposing speaker claims: “if you give Liberty in the Church, you must give Liberty in the State, and so let every one do what they will, which will be a Strange . . . or . . . no Government.” Such anarchy will destroy all laws and thus “there can be no justice, and if no justice, no Safety, and if no Safety, no Propriety, neither of Goods, Wives, Children, nor Lives.” Here the disputant links private property with the patriarchal family, reinforcing Cavendish’s perceived ties between governmental authority and the unequal power of individuals.15 Such an emphasis highlights the centrality of politics to all her concerns, in this instance religion. The last speaker in support of compromise removes coercion from any framework for religious toleration. The answer is neither “an Absolute Liberty, nor a Forced Unity” for religionists but to allow them to “gather into Several Congregations,” and if those she terms “Sects or Separatists” disturb not the commonweal “why should you Disturb their Private Devotions.” The speaker concludes: “Wherefore, give them leave to follow their Several Opinions, in their Particular Families, otherwise if you

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Force them, you will make them Furious, and if you give them an Absolute Liberty, you will make them Factious.”16 Here, a utilitarian need for peace and order is tied to families rather than to a patriarchal hierarchy, and there is no mention of property concerns. There is also no support for a legitimate role for religion in the state, reflecting, I think, her indifference to religious faith.17 Before turning to that area where she was most original and most at odds with her contemporaries—namely women’s standing and the strategies most conducive to their gaining power and respect (especially her own)—I want to tease out what made her so unique. While she has been consistently identified with the aristocracy she did not come from an aristocratic background. Rather she came from a substantial gentry family, and while later she pursued leisured academic pursuits, Cavendish highlighted the practical skills gained from watching her mother actively manage the family’s estate. In assessing her mother’s accomplishments, and the widow’s sense of herself, she understood that women’s voicing society’s expectations of them did not always mesh with their own perceptions. Her mother “would often complain, that her family was too great for her weak Management, and often prest my Brother to take it upon him.” But Cavendish did not fully accept this, and rather added: “yet I observe she took a pleasure, and some little pride in the governing thereof: she was very skilfull in Leases, and setting of Lands and Court-keeping, ordering of Stewards, and the like.”18 And, in describing herself in an introductory note from the Sociable Letters, she states: “I am not a Dunce in all Imployments, for I Understand the Keeping of Sheep, and Ordering of a grange, indifferently well.”19 Such a portrayal neither alludes to the decorative role of the aristocratic lady nor the academic interests that dominated her life. There is more of the practical in Cavendish than is usually noted, and one discovers it in autobiographical materials as well as the underlying principle guiding her intellectual interests. While we know too little about her day-to-day existence, there is evidence that it was more problematic than has sometimes been represented. Two examples of her need to protect herself come from manuscripts held at the University of Nottingham. The first involves the medical regimen planned for her by William and his physicians, Theodore Mayerne and Thomas Cademan; and the second comes from a false claim of adultery made against her not long before her death at age fifty.20 William Cavendish has consistently been portrayed as a remarkable supporter of his wife’s intellectual endeavours and her publications, and he certainly was that. Yet, as she stated frankly in her biography of William, no matter his future behaviour it was her youth and fertility that most attracted him. This later insight follows one of the most elaborate courtships, embellished by the duke’s love poetry and correspondence peppered with his deep devotion. She stated: “For he, having but two sons, purposed to marry me, a young woman that might prove fruitful to him and increase his posterity by a masculine offspring.” Cavendish noted that the duke desired “male issue” even if they “came to be persons of the meanest fortunes,” yet no children were born of their union, and she concludes: “but God (it seems) had ordered it otherwise, and frustrated his designs by making me barren, which yet did never lessen his love and affection for me.”21

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The medical evidence is strong that William Cavendish pursued any means to ensure his wife’s pregnancy, even to the point of Mayerne suggesting such harsh measures should be abandoned. She was seen as a difficult, and overly independent, patient by the duke’s physicians who never corresponded with her—but only passed on their advice and treatments through William. As a person afflicted with stomach problems and serious bouts of constipation, Margaret required extreme measures in their minds. As a means to induce vomit in the patient, Thomas Cademan directed: My Ladyes vomit is made thus. Halfe an ounce of Crocus Mettallorum powdered and washed thrice in Bauline water or Cardus Benedictus water . . . one ounce is an ordinary dose for strong men. . . . weake folkes, wimen and Children must goe lesse—My Lady-Marquesse of Newcastell is one of those that is so hardly moved to cast, that hir Ladyshipe must have a double dose at least and will not be moved to any purpose without two ounces, rather more.

He then concludes: “Yo er Lordshipe is very hapie to have no neede of any of these things, for as yor Lo ip Commanded mee to tell hir Ma te [majesty] her Lookes and Language are yo r Restoritiues. . . . I believe the Joye you have in my sweete Lady and happy tranquility at home in your blessed family is the best Preservative of yo r health.”22 Both physicians use Margaret’s supposed poor health and difficult nature as a framework to praise William. Their correspondence documents their struggle with Cavendish over managing her health, and most comments side with William’s concern over internal difficulties that might interfere with her pursuing motherhood; yet finally Mayerne differs with William’s desperation to produce more children after his first wife died giving birth to their tenth child. Mayerne begins: For my Lady she doth farre Exceede you for matter of the Hypochondry, I have had hir in Cure of that disease heretofore w th good sucesse . . . , I would have hir goe againe the next Autumne, and so hereafter yearely, soundly Courtinge the Steele w ch is onely Capable to doe hir good in the degree shee stands in neede of.23

He concludes, though, with a reluctance to prescribe harsh measures on a long-term basis: “Touching Conception, I know not if in the estate she’s in, you ought Earnestly to desire it, It is hard to get Children w th good Corage, when One is Melancholy, and after they are gott and come into the World, they bring a great deale of Payne w th them, And after that very often one Looses them.”24 Such concerns over the nature of her health and proper treatment—though one could certainly question the use of ground steel for a woman suffering from constipation and stomach disorders—were not the greatest difficulty for her physicians. Most troubling was her medicating herself (choosing purges over steel and various chemicals), and her resistance to the physicians’ wills. “I believe that to Cure my Lady Marquesse your wife will be yet harder, Not so much for the nature of the Disease, which is Rebellious, as for the disposition of the Patient, who will not willingly submit to the Councell of her Physicians, be they neuer so good & so skilfull.”25 Other than the conflict between Margaret and William’s physicians, another discovery in these medical manuscripts relates to the issue of infertility. Mayerne raises doubt concerning the one at fault for the couple’s infertility, in discussing in veiled terms

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a problem with William which holds hints of syphilis, and the physician speaks of both sharp pain and getting “those parts to act as you want,” while being less than straightforward about the site of the problem.26 Whatever the true import of these medical materials, they do raise doubt concerning William as a purely benign, supportive spouse. They also may give greater import to Margaret’s comment as regards barrenness, where she stated “but God (it seems) had ordered it otherwise”; perhaps the “seems” has greater significance than normally thought. Certainly it is hard to think that Cavendish received the most considerate treatment from her husband or his physicians, and it seems unlikely that her needs were central to any treatment. The accusation over adultery also raises doubts about the supposed easy life she faced within the Cavendish family. She was accused of an affair with her financial advisor and husband of her maid in waiting, Francis Topp, in an anonymous letter delivered to the duke. The accusation came from a conspiracy led by the estate’s steward and supported by two other men. They were concerned that Margaret Cavendish was giving too close scrutiny to the Welbeck estate books and that she was gaining too great a portion following the duke’s death that would both subtract from what they might gain, as well as from the inheritance of his children.27 There was clearly bad blood between Margaret and Henry Cavendish, the duke’s heir; and one of the conspirators was his servant. Henry stated in a letter to the Earl of Danby “I am very mallencholly, finding my Father more perswaded by his Wife then I could thinke it possible.”28 Information regarding the conspiracy is found in a deposition to the local justice of the peace by two of those involved. It claims that the conspiracy was conceived by Andrew Clayton, the steward, and they joined up because they were convinced the duchess would unfairly take from the other heirs and harm their ongoing business dealings. The context for the conspiracy is complicated, involving Clayton not being able to pay Liddell (the third conspirator) as he had promised and being unable to use funds from the duke’s account because “the Duchess did so narrowly of late inspect his Graces affaires, as that he could make no alteration . . . , without being discovered: and he also found that shee posatively obstructed his Grace for paying of that 500 £ debt.”29 Clayton clearly used the actions of Cavendish to justify his delayed payment and to convince Liddell it was necessary to remove her if he were to gain the duke’s investment in a local colliery, and for Clayton to shift the duke’s funds for his own benefit. The conspirator Booth testified their action was “for the purpose of making dissensions between the Duke and Duchess.” They gathered on October 30, 1669, to discuss their plans, and Clayton stated that “he had studied all wayes in the world how to give her Grace a dead blow, and to devert his Graces affections from her, but he could not find out any person Liveing that would or durst tell his Grace such things as he had to say against her.”30 He continued that it was her “Graces delight to ruine all persons that she had to doe with and that he heard her Grace say the old Countess of Shrosbury practised the same, and she was a Duchess and Consequently, a greater person, then a Countes, and would out doe her in that kinde.” This fascinating comment refers to

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William’s grandmother, Bess of Hardwick, and lays the foundation for Clayton’s use of Margaret’s disrespect for the Cavendish family to draw in the others, especially Booth who was the duke’s comptroller. To dissociate themselves from the actual delivery of the letter declaring Margaret’s adulterous affair, the conspirators hired a young boy to ride through the woods in a circuitous route, avoiding the village, and to leave the letter for the duke’s attention but with little fanfare as to its delivery. The subsequent reaction and efforts on the part of both William and Margaret are telling. As soon as the mail was delivered, the plan began to unravel. Clayton stated “that he perceived his Grace did not Recent [resent] it so highly as he hoped he would have done.”31 As might be expected the duke reacted angrily, but the duchess set in motion practical steps to apprehend the culprits. Clayton reported: his Grace had acquainted him with the Receipt of a Libell and further tould him he had given it to her Grace who was suspitious that he or Gilbert Eagle or both of them had a hand in it; but his Grace said he had satisfied her of theire Inocence, and that he suspected that accuste Rascall the Parson of Mansfield for it [and] further added the Auther was both a foole and a knave to thinke he should be derected by Libells, [claiming the letter] abused Peg[,] as he pleasd to call her Grace[,] abominably.32

Tellingly, though, Margaret Cavendish had correctly identified the ringleader and then shortly after, according to Clayton “the post Mrs. had bene here and were examined upon it and all agreed it came from the North and he told me further Mrs. Dvens was sent privately to Tuxford in her Graces Coach to inquire somwhat Concerning” the matter. Ultimately, the confessions were obtained and Clayton and the others punished, although not harshly. What is most striking about this incident (other than the duke’s immediate dismissal of the charges) was its depiction of Margaret Cavendish; first it strongly undercuts the vision put forth in her autobiography and repeated by later academics that she lived as an isolated scholar, little involved with running the household or estate. Second, it revealed her acuity in identifying the culprit and, third, in relying on the testimony and efforts of women, first the postmistress and then Mrs. Devens who she sent in her coach to check what had happened. Such moments certainly undercut the stereotypes of her lack of practical skills and her belief in the incompetence of other women as well.33 In turning to Cavendish’s analysis of women’s place in the mid-1600s one finds her most profound insights into the power realities of early modern society. While she wrote concerning common soldiers being denied the spoils of war, and how peasants who were the most valuable members of society were most demeaned in the eyes of the world, still it is her remarkable discussion of women’s lack of legitimate political and social status that marks her most original thinking. And it is here that she makes the most perceptive comments of her age about gender undermining any universal rights on the part of the English people; it is clear she consistently asked: “how will this affect women,” when virtually no one else was doing so. And she certainly did not accept the supposedly universal language of Civil War documents, whether addressed to royalists or parliamentarians.

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Yet in analysing such thoughts one must acknowledge Cavendish’s continual claims of women’s weaknesses and lack of abilities; her work blends accusations of men’s tyranny and their unjust denial of learning and respect to their sisters with praise for their taking care of women’s needs.34 It is almost as if she recognises men’s value in the particular, but denies it in a universally constructed human nature. She integrated women into each of her works, but the best known of her comments on the topic are found in letter sixteen from Sociable Letters, from her seven-part “Female Orations” from Divers Orations, as well as the orations on death for a young married woman and a woman dead in childbirth. She also went against the grain in her push for widows to quit mourning, get up from their praying, and to have a good time for the remainder of their lives.35 Again, for a political context, most fundamental is letter sixteen which documents women’s omission from the state, referred to earlier. In the Sociable Letters from 1664 she addresses number sixteen to a woman who serves as a go-between between herself and another who supported the parliamentary side during the civil war.36 She begins: “I hope I have given the lady D.A. no cause to believe I am not her friend” simply because they were on different sides of the revolutionary conflict. But such a difference should no more make them enemies “than cases of Conscience in Religion, for one may be my very good Friend, and yet not of my opinion, every one’s Conscience in Religion is bewixt God and themselves.” It is particularly the case regarding women and government, where they have been defined outside its scope: “as for the matter of Governments, we Women understand them not, yet if we did we are excluded from intermeddling therewith, and almost from being subject thereto.” This movement from ignorance to exclusion is typical of Cavendish’s evolutionary writing, where she begins an argument at one point and ends up at quite a different one. She continues: “we are not tied, nor bound to State or Crown; we are free, not Sworn to Allegiance nor do we take the Oath of Supremacy.” Again, this progression reflects the Restoration requirement of all males of political standing to take loyalty oaths, and is another example of her applying events around her to women in ways others were not. She then concludes: “we hold no Offices, nor bear we any Authority therein; we are accounted neither Useful in Peace, nor Serviceable in War, and if we be not Citizens in the Commonwealth, I know no reason we should be Subjects to the Commonwealth.”37 It is difficult to imagine another author of her age moving from ignorance to treason in a few short sentences. Yet while women were not citizens or subjects in the commonwealth, she did agree they were subjects to their husbands, and there they used their charm to “usurp their Authority, or else by flattery we get their good wills to govern.” Such manipulation of men is based on women’s grace and beauty, and Cavendish continues again demonstrating the complex, and often circular nature, of her reasoning. Had “Nature not befriended us with Beauty . . . we should have been more inslaved than any other of Nature’s Creatures she hath made.”38 This analysis both acknowledges women’s ability to enslave men through their affections, and their essential powerlessness. She

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then concludes by justifying women’s unity situated in the specific context of the English Revolution: Though there hath been a Civil War in the Kingdom, and a General War amongst the Men, yet there hath been non Amongst the Women, they have not fought pitch’d battles . . . [and thus] her Ladieship is the same in my affection, as if The Kingdom had been in a calm Peace.39

Here Cavendish uses the prop of a supposed epistle to treat in a broad and complicated way women’s standing as citizens in the seventeenth century, something not pursued by others outside, perhaps, the petitions of Leveller women who claim political standing when arguing for the release of Leveller prisoners or pursuing a particular goal, such as removing the office of bishops.40 Yet Cavendish is unique in debating the status of women for its own sake, not so women can support one cause or another. And it is this fundamental questioning that allows her to dispute the falsely universal nature of both English revolutionary goals, and the claims of loyalty from the ultimately victorious royalists following 1660. Cavendish also took a harsh look at women’s role within the family. While she accepted that women should think of their husbands before they made a spectacle of themselves pleading in public, still she viewed marriage, motherhood, and domesticity as restrictive, and was critical of women who used their place to gain special attention. She viewed women’s role in political terms, and judged it on similar terms to how men judged themselves in public. Thus women should think about power and self interest and downplay affection when evaluating their family position. She discussed this position in two brief funeral orations and at greater length in an oration on why second wives should not desire children, as well as in a letter to a friend advising her on her daughter’s future. They portray marriage, even given her supposedly blessed union, as an unhappy choice for women. Much speculation has arisen as to why she thought such, and usually it is based on her inability to have children. I think, though, it reflects the scepticism she brought to most topics and her utilitarian critique which viewed marriage as an unwise bargain for women, given difficult, sometimes fatal childbirths, subordinate standing, and the monotony of household duties. While many noted the hard life faced by married women, few placed their comments within an analysis based so strongly on power and self interest. In the sermon upon the death of a young married woman Cavendish claims she is in a preferable state “were he the Best Husband that could be; for Death is far the Happier Condition than Marriage.” It is statements such as these that highlight her tendency to shock and to speak in the extreme, but her actual discussion of marriage conforms to the nature of many: “Although Marriage at first is Pleasing, yet after a time it is Displeasing, like Meat which is Sweet in the Mouth, but proves Bitter in the Stomach . . . [marriage] cannot digest Neglects, Disrepects, Absence, Dissembling, Adultery, Jealousy, Vain Expenses.”41 In continuing with these common problems, and in her longer discussion of the interests of second wives, one can discover echoes of her own problems: “As for Pains, Sickness, Cares, Fears, and other Troubles in Marriage, they are Accounted as wholesome Physic, which the Gods give them; for

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the Gods are the Best Physicians, and Death is a very Good Surgeon, Curing his Patients without Pain.”42 Interestingly, she offers one hesitation in urging this path. “Death is only Cruel in Parting Friends from each other.” Death seems an even greater solace for the young woman who died during childbirth for the level of her suffering would never be acknowledged. Although all Women are Tender Creatures, yet they indure more than Men, and do oft’ner Venture and Indanger their Lives than Men, and their Lives are more Profitable [through children] . . . and yet Men think all Women meer Cowards, although they do not only Venture and Indanger their Lives more than they do, but indure greater Pains with greater Patience.43

And she reminds her readers again that women “are more inslaved than any other Female Creatures.”44 Her “Female Orations” contain some of the best known of her writing, especially her claim that women are “Helpless for want of Power, and Dye in Oblivion for want of Fame,” and that men “Barr us of all Sorts or Kinds of Liberty.”45 She concludes that they cooperate “not to Suffer us Freely to Associate amongst our own Sex, but would fain Bury us in their Houses or Beds, as in a Grave, the truth is, we live like Bats or Owls, Labour like Beasts, and Dye like Worms.”46 She follows these charges in oration one, with others claiming women “have no Reason to Speak against Men, who are our Admirers, and Lovers; they are our Protectors, Defenders, and Maintainers.” As a part of men’s greater sacrifice, and their support of women, she, along with discussions of men’s providing jewels and other goods for women’s needs, includes “neither do we Waste or Shorten our Lives with University or Scholastic Studies, Questions, and Disputes.”47 Such a phrase raises questions as to Cavendish’s seriousness here; she did not simply spend much of her time in scholarly pursuits but complained often that her lack of a university post denied her the ability to exchange ideas with others. It is thus always necessary to place her writings within an explanatory framework in which one works to identify the central tenets of her thought—something far from simple. Yet there is a core that hones in on women’s lack of power and recognition, a utilitarian argument as to what works best for them, and a continual questioning of falsely universal principles and goals that are framed so as to obscure their omission. Letter ninety-three seems a good place to conclude this assessment because it best integrates Cavendish’s analysis of both men’s and women’s place in the family and society. It is addressed to another go-between over the melancholy experienced by a second wife for failing to have children. The husband has heirs from his first marriage, and so she contends: I know no Reason why she should be troubled for having no Children for though it be the part of every Good Wife to desire Children to Keep alive the Memory of their Husbands Name and Family . . . yet a Woman hath no such Reason to desire Children for her Own Sake.48

She continues to explain that children take their father’s name, inherit his property, and if daughters “are but Branches which by Marriage are Broken off . . . & Ingrafted into . . . another Family, so that Daughters are to be accounted but as Moveable

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Goods.” Not merely do women gain nothing from children personally, but motherhood turns many of them into “Breeding Women” who “desire Children, as Maids do Husbands, more for Honour than for Comfort or Happiness, thinking it a Disgrace to live Old Maids, and so likewise barren.”49 She concludes that women take such pride in motherhood that they feign illness, demand expensive lying-in linen, and “to their Husbands they are so Coyly Amorous, or so Amorously Fond and so Troublesome Kind, as it would make the Spectators Sick.”50 In conclusion, then, Margaret Cavendish stands out as a unique thinker for two significant reasons: she continually returns to the needs and experiences of women as her central concern, and she analyses them in the context of the false universal underlying men’s political and social standing. She does not, as most of those in her century did—and as the majority of scholars continue to do today—establish standards for judging women by criteria based on either a distinct nature or distinct place in society. She acknowledges women’s weakness in society, and subordination at home (and thus does not claim they live identical lives to their brothers), but she judges the worth or harm of that life by the same standards of power, authority, personal development, and public recognition that apply to men. Cavendish rejects women’s exclusion from the principles of early modern individualism, adheres to Hobbes’s valorisation of self-defence against authority, and seeks recognition for her and other women on human, not female, terms. Such values permeate her work and even appear in a letter concerning the interests of a young girl, in explanation for dolls and toys she has sent: “I do not send them for Bribes, to Corrupt her from Edifying Learning and Wise Instructions, for I would not have her Bred to Delight in Toyes, and Childish Pleasures, but I send them as Gifts to Allure her to that which is most Profitable, and Happiest for her Life.”51 She also recommends she should be raised without “Terrifying Threats and Cruel Blows” because violence “Breaks the Understanding, Destroyes all Ingenuity, for the Fear of Punishment Confuses the Brain.” Such lessons will ultimately teach her to avoid vanities such as toys “and that nothing is to be Prized, Esteemed, but what is Useful.” 52 It is this integration of a utilitarian vision, with a dismissal of supposedly inclusive goals restricted to political men, and a dogged concentration on women’s interests that sets Cavendish off from her contemporaries—and most that followed her over the next 350 years.

NOTES 1 The standard biography of Cavendish has been Douglas Grant, Margaret the First: A Biography of

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 1623–73 (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957); a more recent biography is Katie Whitaker’s Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the First Woman to Live by her Pen (New York: Basic Books, 2002). Recent studies of Cavendish are too numerous to mention, but a particularly perceptive and synthetic analysis can be found in chapter 2 of Mihoko Suzuki’s Subordinate Subjects: Gender, the Political Nation and Literary Form in England 1588–1688 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 2 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, foreword by Mary Gordon (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), 61–2.

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3 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Political Writings, ed. Susan James, Cambridge Texts in

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the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, ed. Eileen O’Neill, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For a discussion of her place as a philosopher see chapter 2 of Jacqueline Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). General works such as Nicholas Phillipson and Quentin Skinner, eds., Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500–1800, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) both ignore women’s political writings and the place of women within politics more broadly. While works such as Rachel Weil’s Political Passions: Gender, the Family and Political Argument in England, 1680–1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), which focuses on the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and Amanda Vickery’s Women, Privilege and Power: British Politics, 1750 to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), which is directed to the post-1750 period, discuss gender and politics, they do not give much attention to women’s political views. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), 98; however, Cavendish lacks the anti-woman venom found in some of Nietzsche’s comments such as: “Where neither love nor hate is in the game a woman is a mediocre player” (ibid., 97) or “In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man” (ibid., 101). For an earlier discussion of this analysis see Hilda L. Smith “ ‘A General War amongst the Men [but] None amongst the Women’: Political Differences between Margaret and William Cavendish,” in Politics and the Political Imagination in Later Stuart Britain: Essays Presented to Lois Green Schwoerer, ed. Howard Nenner (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 1997), 143–60. It is in her work on experimental philosophy where she is most explicit about the necessary utilitarian basis for scientific endeavours: “But could Experimental Philosophers find out more beneficial Arts . . . either For the better increase of Vegetables and brute Animals to nourish our bodies, Or better and commodious contrivances in the Art of Architecture to build Houses, or for the advancing of trade and traffick to provide necessaries for us to live . . . [they] would not onely be worth their labour, but of as much praise as could be given to them” (Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (London: A. Maxwell, 1666), 10). Cristina Malcolmson, “Christine de Pizan’s City of Ladies in Early Modern England,” in Debating Gender in Early Modern England, 1500–1700, ed. Cristina Malcolmson and Mihoko Suzuki (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 15–36. For a discussion of the false universal and its operation in early modern England, see Hilda L. Smith All Men And Both Sexes: Gender, Politics and the False Universal in England, 1640–1832 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002). Cavendish, Political Writings, 176; Susan James contends that Cavendish could have gotten her ideas from Gerard Winstanley regarding men’s equal standing within nature. Ibid. Ibid., 177. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Grounds of Natural Philosophy: Divided into Thirteen parts: with an appendix containing five parts (London: A. Maxwell, 1668), 247–48. I would like to thank Jacqueline Broad for bringing this reference to my attention. Ibid., 166. Near the end of this statement, she links religious and political liberty in the following: “no governor or magistrate shall in any kind infringe our just rights, our civil or common laws, nor our ancient customs; for if the one law should be made and not the other, the people would be slaves and the governors their tyrants” (ibid., 167). Thus religious and political liberty were intertwined. Ibid., 167. Ibid., 167–68. This is not to claim that she did not sometimes speak in the language of her age regarding proper behaviour, but she did so in ways never explicitly linked to Christianity. In an oration addressing the rebuilding of a church, she spoke of the materialism of her contemporaries, a subject common to most sectarians, if not the population generally: “You have built many streets of houses, but never a church,

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which shows you think more of the world than you do of heaven; you take more care for your bodies than your souls” (ibid., 158–59). But in this selection, again she never mentions Christ, Christianity or a particular denomination. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life (1656) in Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader, eds. Sylvia Bowerbank and Sara Mendelson (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 1999), 49. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, “To his Excellency the Lord Marquis of Newcastle,” Sociable Letters, ed. James Fitzmaurice (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2004), 38. University of Nottingham Manuscripts, Nottingham, Pw V90, Portland Collection, 72A contains “A Booke wherein is Contained Rare Minerall Receipts Collected at Paris from those who hath had great Experience of them,” and, “There is also in this Booke some other Excelent Receipts w ch are not Mineralls.” The archivist has added “Title page and many entries in the handwriting of Thomas Farr. Some pages in that of Wm. Cavendish Duke of Newcastle.” Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, The Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, ed. C.H. Firth (London: John C. Nimmo, 1886), 87–8. “A Letter from Sir Thomas Cademan to the Lord Marquesse of Newcastell,” August 29, 1647, University of Nottingham Manuscripts, Nottingham, Pw V90, Portland Collection, 72A. “Letter of Theodore Mayerne to William Cavendish,” ibid. Ibid. “A Letter from Sr Theador Mayerne to the Lord Marques of Newcastle Concerning the health of his Lady,” ibid. Ibid. “A true narrative and Confession, of that horrid Consperacie, against her Grace Margarett Duchess of NewCastle acted at Welbecke, October the 31st last past, by Andrew Clayton, Francis Liddell, and John Booth, and now confessd by the said John Booth,” University of Nottingham Manuscripts, Nottingham, Pw. 1, fol. 316. A discussion of this conspiracy also appears in Whitaker, Mad Madge, 327–33. The earl of Ogle (later second duke of Newcastle) to the earl of Danby, August 10, 1671, in S. Arthur Strong, comp., A Catalogue of Letters and Other Historical Documents Exhibited in the Library at Welbeck (London: J. Murray, 1903), 61–3. University of Nottingham Manuscripts, Nottingham, Pw 1, fol. 316. Witnesses to this confession are Edward Ogle, Jo. Proctor, and Gilbert Eagle. Francis Liddell has an accompanying confession where he says that everything that Booth has said is true. Ibid. Clayton always cleverly linked their personal interests to their respective loyalties to the Cavendish family; he claimed “now an opertunitie was delivered into our hands to doe our selues good and serue the familie of Newcastle.” Ibid. Ibid. Booth’s confession was dated July 3, 1671; it was followed by the following: “Memorandum that Francis Liddell Esq. have perused this Confession of John Booth written in three sheets of paper and I doe hereby acknowledg that all and every Matter and thing therein attest every of them upon my Corporall Oath when ever I am thereunto Calld before any Lawfull authoritye witnes my hand [signature Fr Liddell].” One of the many works directed against women’s interests is Cavendish, “An Oration against the Liberty of Women,” Political Writings, 246–47, in which she stated that women’s meetings ought to be prohibited “for women corrupt and spoil each other, striving to out-brave, out-beauty, and out-talk each other with their vanities, paintings, and gossipings” and “liberty makes all women wild and wanton, both maids, wives, and widows, which defames themselves and their families.” This is followed by “An Oration for the Liberty of Women.” In “A Widows Funeral Oration” she castigated a widow thus: “nor did she waste her wealth in vanities, but she did waste her life in sorrow; she sat not on the knees of amorous lovers but kneeled on her knees to God . . . In short, she was so intemperate in her grief as her grief killed her” (ibid, 220).

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Cavendish, “Letter 16,” Sociable Letters, 60–1. Ibid., 61 Ibid. Ibid. On women petitioners of the civil war era, see Jacqueline Broad, “Liberty and the Right of Resistance: Women’s Political Writings of the English Civil War Era,” in this volume. Cavendish, “A Young New-Married Wife’s Funeral Oration,” Political Writings, 219. Ibid. Cavendish, “A Child-Bed Womans Funeral Oration,” Political Writings, 226. Ibid. Cavendish, “Female Orations,” Political Writings, 248. Ibid. Ibid., 251. Cavendish, “Letter 93,” Sociable Letters, 145. Ibid., 145–46. Ibid., 146. Cavendish, “Letter 152,” Sociable Letters, 214. Ibid.

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VII THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT O F D A M A R I S C U D W O RT H M A S H A M

Damaris Cudworth Masham was a woman philosopher of seventeenth-century England. To those familiar with her today, she is foremost remembered as either the daughter of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth or as the long-time friend and biographer of John Locke. Some also remember her as the intellectual adversary of Mary Astell, also a British woman philosopher of the seventeenth century and whose name is more familiar to us today than Masham’s.1 Regarding the nature of her philosophy, scholars have been eager to discuss her metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, not to mention her feminist philosophy.2 There is, nonetheless, a dimension of her thought that remains to be discussed—her social and political philosophy. This is striking as her social and political thought is one of the major themes that runs throughout her two and only short treatises: A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705). This essay is an attempt to introduce her social and political ideas and in doing so to reveal the centrality of them to her overall philosophical work. In this way, I am suggesting that without understanding the social and political aspects of her thought, we cannot appreciate her philosophical thought as a whole. Although the themes in her two treatises are not identical, they nevertheless exhibit an underlying continuity. This is not to say that Masham necessarily wrote her first work, the Discourse, with the knowledge of what she would discuss in the second work, Occasional Thoughts, it is merely to propose that these two treatises complement one another. Interestingly, the social theme in the first work prepares the way for the political theme in the second. In the Discourse, Masham argues that leading a social life is essential to being a Christian. In Occasional Thoughts, she first says that the laws of a government will not be effective as long as society is disordered, and then proceeds to show how Christians and well-educated women are essential to the order of society. And so, these two different but complementary themes of her two treatises suggest a natural way to approach her thought: namely, by first articulating the thesis in the earlier work (that being a Christian is being social), and then turning to the topic of her later work (how a certain social order, involving a society of Christians, is necessary to political stability). In the opening pages of the Discourse, Masham describes what she views as two influential interpretations of Christian life, both of which she distinguishes from her own. An analysis of both will help clarify the nature of her own interpretation. With respect to the first, she does not specifically locate it in any particular tradition, but her descriptions suggest that it is most likely Calvinist. She says that this tradition views morality as having no bearing on one’s soul, but rather sees it as “little more worthy of a Christian’s Perusal, as such, than Histories or Maxims of humane Prudence.”3 111 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 111–122. © 2007 Springer.

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Although she does not elaborate further on what she means here, her description evokes the Calvinist idea that human beings are so sinful that they are unable to earn their salvation; instead, salvation is obtained by God’s grace alone. And so, morality has no relationship to one’s eternal life, but rather amounts to mere prudential calculation to make life on earth as bearable as possible. The Calvinist’s strong separation between one’s ethical character and one’s spiritual character is a likely reason for Masham’s claim that advocates of this position “distinguish a Religious, from a Moral Man.”4 The second interpretation of Christian life she identifies as coming from the Roman Catholic tradition. She says that adherents to the Roman Church believe, unlike the Reformers, that human beings have the power to earn their salvation and also that the best means of securing one’s salvation is by “betak[ing] themselves to that which they call the inward Way, or Life of Contemplation,” which they view as “the Perfection of a Christian State.”5 Masham claims that although Calvinism and Catholicism are committed to opposing ideas of the Christian life, they share an important element: both assume that the socially and politically active life is irrelevant to one’s soul. The Calvinist maintains that no activity, let alone social and political activity, will be sufficient for earning salvation; whereas, the Catholic says that the activity of contemplation is the surest means for earning salvation. Masham distinguishes her interpretation from these traditions by arguing that not only is the active life compatible with being a Christian but it is necessary. She spends the rest of the Discourse defining and articulating this position. Masham’s interpretation of the Christian life unfolds against her objections to a philosophical theory that she sees as supporting the Catholic ideal: namely, the occasionalism of her contemporary countryman John Norris. She provides an alternative philosophy to Norris’s which she believes successfully captures God’s wishes for humanity. Thus, before discussing her theory it is helpful to attend to her objections to Norris’s thought. Masham describes Norris’s occasionalism as the doctrine that nothing in the universe is an efficient cause except for God. This means that all other things are causally inert—a radical claim that goes against our everyday experience. For instance, when a person enjoys eating a bowl of leek and potato soup, she cannot say that the pleasure is caused by anything about the soup itself. Instead, she must say that the pleasure is caused directly by God, independently of the soup. And so, according to such a theory we must view the soup or anything else that seems to have an effect on us (except for God, of course) as “only Occasional Causes of those Sentiments which God produces in us.”6 Masham goes on to discuss the moral implications that Norris draws from his view that God is the only cause of our pleasing sensations. The first is that “God is the only proper Object of our Love.”7 As God is the cause of our pleasing sensations, Norris concludes that we ought to love or “desire” him alone. Norris takes an implication of this to be that the love of things other than God is immoral. In fact, he goes so far as to say that love directed towards anything besides God is a sin. Masham says that in addition to these two implications there is a third which Norris does not himself

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draw from his theory, but which logically follows. As love of anything but God is a sin, a moral person is one who desires God alone; yet, Masham notes that such a standard for moral character has devastating consequences for society. She says, that a moral person could not desire anyone else, and so it follows that a moral person would not desire the company of others let alone desire to procreate. In fact, in order to avoid the temptation of desiring others, it would be preferable to withdraw from society or, in her words, “to betake ourselves to Desarts.”8 Masham is quick to note that this would result in nothing less than the dissolution of society and the termination of the human species.9 She is of a totally different opinion from Norris regarding the nature of Christian life: it is to be lived in the social and political world and not away from it. And so it comes as no surprise that she says of Norris’s theory “That we must not only literally become Fools for Christ’s sake; but also cease to be Men. Can any Rational Man, not bred up in the Bigottry of Popery, ever perswade himself that such a Religion can be from God?”10 Nevertheless, the unattractive consequences of Norris’s conception of the Christian life do not alone provide sufficient grounds for rejecting it. Perhaps for this reason Masham also offers philosophical objections. First, Masham argues that the view that God is the only cause in the universe is incompatible with the belief that God’s wisdom is perfect (an attribute of God to which she assumes Norris is committed). According to her, God’s perfect wisdom implies that there are no redundancies or things whose end is superfluous. If God is the only cause in the universe, then there should be nothing else in the universe whose purpose is to causally interact with other things. Masham notes that there are, however, many things in the universe whose purpose entails causal interaction with other things, a good example of which is sense organs. But, if we assume that God is the only cause, then it would seem that the existence of sense organs suggests an imperfection in His design.11 Second, Masham points out an apparent contradiction between Norris’s claim that we ought to love God alone and Jesus’ second commandment “Thou Shalt Love thy Neighbor.” For why would God command that He is the only object worthy of love while at the same time demand that we love others? According to Masham, Norris attempts to avoid this dilemma by offering a semantic distinction between the love of others and the love of God. He says that love of God qualifies as love proper and involves a desiring, whereas, love of others is actually benevolence, which is not a desiring but rather a wishing-well. He notes that we desire things that are perfect, which is God, but we only wish-well things that are imperfect, that is, the rest of creation. It would make no sense to wish a perfect being well.12 Nevertheless, Masham argues that this semantic distinction collapses, because such a solution would require a moral person to wish food well and not desire it, an odd request indeed. If we cannot desire food, Masham says that we can seek it “only upon a Prudential Account, and not out of any desire that . . . [we have] to the Meat.”13 Although such a calculation is possible, it is nevertheless impossible not to desire food, as hunger pangs are out of our control. And so, she suggests that as long as we are alive, we will instinctually be drawn to desire basic necessities; therefore, as long as we live we will, on Norris’s theory, be sinning involuntarily.

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One can wonder, though, how much of a problem this is for Norris. There are many Christian traditions committed to the notion that human nature is so corrupt that sin is inescapable. And perhaps Norris is devoted to such a conception; although it remains to be said how this could square with what Masham sees as his belief that human beings can earn their salvation. In any case, Masham does not have a stand-alone objection against the view of human nature as necessarily sinful, but she does provide one when she explicates her own theory. We can now turn to her theoretical foundation for establishing what she believes is the correct interpretation of Christian life. Masham’s interpretation of what it means to lead a Christian life begins from a very different starting point than Norris’s. Instead of occasionalism, which she says is no more than an “hypothesis” in his mind, she believes that the principles of empiricism and common sense are the best means by which one can discern God’s expectations for humanity. As we shall see, she argues that both empiricism and common sense in their own way suggest that God designed human life to be social. According to Masham, empiricism proves that human beings are social creatures. In order to understand this, we must look to her discussion of knowledge, which in many ways reflects Locke’s empiricism. Masham says that all knowledge derives from the experience of sensation and reflection and, as Locke explained before her, we begin with simple ideas and through combining these we end up with more complex ones.14 Furthermore, as we receive perceptions, they are accompanied by either pleasure or pain, which in turn motivates us to seek out certain things and to avoid others. She says that our seeking of pleasure is ultimately what brings us to our idea of God. In the Discourse, she does not offer a full analysis of how we come to our idea of God, but in Occasional Thoughts, she offers a teleological proof. She says that our complex ideas of the “beauty and order of the Universe” confirm the existence of a “first cause” or God.15 As the universe is complex and beautiful, God must be at least “intelligent, Wise, and Powerful” not to mention good, because we derive pleasure from mere existence.16 She says that we only come to our idea of God through our awareness of the beauty and order of the universe which is accompanied by pleasing sensations. Our pursuit of pleasing sensations eventually leads us “both to know and to love God.” Masham views her discussion of how human beings come to acquire knowledge of God as having important implications for human sociability. The only way that we come to know and love God is by first coming to know and love the things of this world. For, as she has shown, there is a natural progression of our ideas from simple to complex; and we are only motivated to pursue knowledge as long as it is pleasurable. Thus, we necessarily love others before we come to know and love God, which has important implications. Since God designed human beings, Masham assumes that it follows that human beings are designed by God to acquire knowledge in the way that they do, and therefore that God requires human beings to love and know others. For this reason, she concludes that human beings are designed by God to be social. Now that we have seen how Masham uses empirical principles to prove that God intends human beings to lead a social life, we can turn to her use of “common-sense”

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to see how she justifies that Christians in particular are meant to lead a social life, too. Nowhere does she explicitly articulate what she means by the term “commonsense,” but she does say that it involves using the “familiar sense of the terms” or the “everyday” sense and not “Jargon.”17 She employs common sense as a guide for interpreting the teaching of Jesus, who was the model for Christian life. Christ’s message becomes self-evident because Jesus came “Conversing in the World like other Men: And he assures us, That he came not to destroy, but to fulfil the Law.” Also, Jesus practised “virtues that support and profit society.”18 Oddly she does not cite any Scripture for these claims. In her support, there are many passages in the Bible that depict Jesus in the society of others. However, there also seems to be a problem for Masham, because there are passages that depict Jesus refusing to defend himself against enemies, and instead choosing to “turn the other cheek.” If one were to carry out Jesus’s request, it would seem to nullify corrective justice not to mention defending one’s country in war—two things that seem necessary for the maintenance of society. Nonetheless, Masham understands Jesus to have led a social life and believes Christians would do best exemplifying him. Since Masham’s social theme in the Discourse—namely the linking of being a Christian with leading a social life—has been discussed, we can turn to her second work to where she attempts to show how a particular social order is necessary for political stability. In Occasional Thoughts, Masham expresses interest in isolating the principles that “disorder Commonwealths and Kingdoms.”19 The following passage illustrates what she believes are precursors to political instability: A general Contempt of Religion towards God: Want of Truth and Fidelity amongst Men: Luxury and Intemperance, follow’d with the neglect of industry, and application to useful Arts and Sciences, are necessarily attended with misery, and have been usually also, the Fore-runners of approaching Ruine to the best and most flourishing Governments which have been in the World.20

Here she suggests political ruin is intimately related to vice, and that the nature of this relationship is symptomatic: vice indicates that a government may be on the brink of failure. But isolating the indicators of political dissolution is not the same as uncovering the causes of it. Indeed, Masham’s language is stronger in other passages where she treats vice not merely as a warning sign but as a cause of political instability. She first shows how vice—or more generally, moral character—is the consequence of an individual’s willingness or unwillingness to follow God’s laws. Then, she argues that governments that do not cultivate citizens who respect God’s laws will also have an unstable rule. In order to understand Masham’s concept of moral character, we must turn to her theology. She says that God’s wisdom is eternal and immutable and “admitting of no Irregularity,”21 and also that it is the ordering principle of the universe and all things are subject to its dictates. The only exception to God’s rational order is human choice, because God has given human beings the freedom to do otherwise.22 Human beings are able to follow or turn from God’s purpose as they have two principles of action that can guide them—reason and the passions; reason is stable as it reflects God’s eternal wisdom, whereas the passions have their own “Logik.”23 Masham refers to

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life lived according to reason as “virtuous” and a life lived according to the passions as “vicious.” We have seen how Masham establishes a relationship between moral character and God’s law, but it remains to be shown how moral character has any effect on civil laws, let alone the integrity of civil government. Perhaps in attempts to clarify this, in one passage she says that any nation that hopes to avoid dissolution must have virtuous members. For, to demand political stability with a society of vicious people is against the order of God’s wisdom—the principle of the universe. Masham treats God’s laws like natural laws in physics: just as it would be ridiculous to expect a cup to defy gravity upon release, it would be ridiculous to try to run a government smoothly with a nation of vicious people. As she says, it would be to hope to “withhold the natural Effects of the Constitution and Order of things.”24 And so, the secret to achieving political stability lies in running government according to God’s expectations. Although Masham in fact never discusses what civil laws would look like if they reflected God’s wisdom, she does discuss how God expects society to be ordered. In this way, by articulating the conditions of social order, she sees herself as also answering the problem of political ruin. She claims that a stable government requires good citizens, which in some respects seems self-evident. However, Masham is quite particular as to the sorts of character that society ought to cultivate. In fact, she devotes much of her second treatise to a discussion of a few roles that God has designed for the well-functioning of society and political government, but which are often ignored in political science: the role of Christians and the roles of women. We will first look to her discussion of the role of Christians and then the roles of women to see how they are essential to not only a well-ordered society but also political stability. Masham is aware that her objective of showing how Christianity is necessary to political theory would not be universally accepted, as many of her contemporaries were interested in establishing political principles using natural reason alone, not revelation. Although she does not refer to any particular political theorist by name, we need only think of Hobbes, who defended the efficacy of the social compact in absence of God.25 In order to justify her claim that Christianity is necessary to political stability, she appeals to her notion of the state of nature for support. Although the state of nature was a common notion in early modern political philosophy, its content varied greatly from thinker to thinker. For instance, Hobbes conceived it as a state of war in which there is no sovereign, and a state in which a few individuals and all nations are in conflict with one another; whereas, Locke saw it as a device to articulate not a real condition but our natural rights and duties, thereby providing him a standard by which he could determine legitimate rule. Masham’s notion of the state of nature is different from both of these. For her, the state of nature describes the condition of an individual or government under the guidance of natural reason and in absence of revelation. She additionally believes that it is a real state: one in which all nations (even some Christian ones) have been in and still are.26 Her hope is to use the state of nature as a device to “see what light we receive from Nature to direct our Actions, and how far we are Naturally able to obey the light.”27 In the

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end, she argues that such a condition could not be politically stable, and that we need the aid of revelation. Masham explains that in the state of nature, without the aid of revelation, human beings have only the knowledge which they derive from experience to guide them. In fact, her conception of empiricism and the principles that we derive from such knowledge is the same as those discussed in the Discourse. She says that we can come to an idea of a good and wise God who created things with a certain purpose in mind.28 Furthermore, in order to understand God’s purpose, we need only to reflect upon the nature of things to see how God created the world and what he intends for us to do in it.29 Masham refers to God’s expectations for human life as laws of reason or nature. We also come to learn that fulfilment of God’s plan is pleasurable and leads to happiness “our chief End.”30 Masham notes that seeking pleasure is the “strongest principle of Humane Nature.” And so, based on the information we receive in the state of nature, we realise that it is best to seek our happiness by following God’s laws. She refers to acting according to God’s laws as far as natural reason reveals it as “natural religion.”31 But Masham believes that natural religion does not take us very far. Her explanation for this lies in her belief that human faculties “unassisted by Revelation, [are] insufficient to the Ends of Natural Religion.”32 We have seen how happiness is the end of natural religion and that following God’s laws is what ensures our happiness; however, we can yet wonder in what sense human beings are too weak to follow God’s laws? Her answer is that “we should want very often sufficient Motives and encouragements to submit our Passions and Appetites to the Government of Reason.”33 Human beings do not obey the law in the state of nature because they lack the proper incentive. However, this raises a serious problem for Masham. Her claim that human beings do not have the initiative to obey God’s law assumes that an individual can know the law but not desire to obey it. Nevertheless, she has in other passages argued that a knowledge of God’s law is always accompanied by a desire to follow it; she says that our “love of pleasure . . . does oblige us” to follow the “dictates of Reason.”34 And so, Masham is indecisive with respect to the classic debate that originates with Plato and Aristotle as to whether knowledge of the good necessarily entails a desire to do the good. To be sure, she attempts to avoid this difficulty by making a distinction between our “love of pleasure” and our “present Appetites.” She says that when we are guided by a “love of pleasure” we are following the dictates of reason; conversely, when we are guided by our “present Appetite” we are doing what is against the dictates of reason.35 She admits that fulfilling our appetite is satisfying, but that it is not as satisfying as acting from our love of pleasure. Her reason for this is that appetites are erratic, and therefore afford us only an unpredictable pleasure; whereas our “love of pleasure” is based on an observation of the law of reason which is eternal and regular, thus providing us with a constant source of pleasure. There are nevertheless, at least a few problems with her distinction. One is that it undermines God’s goodness. Masham believes that God has implanted in human beings a natural inclination for

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pleasure, which helps direct them to the good. In fact, in one passage she claims that our natural good, which she identifies with a desire for pleasure, and the moral good are essentially identical.36 However, our natural good does not always point us in the right direction, as in the case of the appetites. This has the unintended consequence of suggesting that God, who created human beings, deceives them as to what the good is. Another problem with her distinction between “pleasure” and “appetite” is that it contradicts her claim that all desiring is but one act of the mind—a claim she makes during her attacks on Norris.37 She may want to argue that an “appetite” is not a desire, yet this hardly seems tenable and would require a rigorous demonstration, which she does not provide. Despite this problem in her thought, she proceeds to say that our lack of motivation to follow laws in the state of nature can be overcome with the aid of revelation. She says that “the Christian Religion . . . is every way admirably adapted by the Divine Wisdom, to the end of inforcing the eternal Law of Reason or Nature.”38 She claims that revelation tells us that human beings are capable of eternal salvation and likewise that they are capable of eternal damnation. Whether we earn one or the other depends upon our actions, specifically whether we follow God’s laws or not. And so, the truth of salvation provides us with a powerful incentive to follow God’s laws, yet the question remains as to what revelation has to do with political stability. As we have seen, Masham says that God’s laws dictate a certain social order for human life, and because His laws issue from His infinite wisdom, they are orderly and stable. It then follows that any government whose civil laws complement God’s laws will also benefit from the order and stability of His wisdom. Conversely, any government whose laws do not complement God’s reason will be unstable and erratic. But even the best government whose civil laws conform to God’s laws will not be stable unless its citizens have been exposed to revelation. For, it is only by fear of eternal damnation or reward that people have the proper incentive to follow God’s laws. Masham supports her claim that governments need revelation in order to have stability by turning to history. She says, “For the Truth of this effect of Christianity we must appeal to History” and she provides examples of political societies who have not been exposed to the truths of revelation and so have failed or are on the brink of failure.39 She casts her eye throughout history and cites the Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Peruvians as failures because all of their empires eventually crumbled. The Greeks, she notes, were an interesting case as they had good laws, a commitment to virtue, and even a notion of the afterlife. However, she says that they did not take the afterlife seriously enough, and so it did not provide the proper compulsion for people to follow the law.40 The Jews were also interesting to her as they had “shadows” of the saviour and so a promise of an afterlife built into their religious commitments. Nevertheless, as their saviour has yet to come, they also lacked the proper compulsion to obey the law.41 Another group she greatly admires are the Peruvians and she speaks fondly of them in many places. For example, she talks of their God Pachacama, whose “Rules of Living . . . were highly suitable to the dictates of right Reason.”42 In fact, their close approximation to natural reason was responsible for what she says was their “long uninterrupted Succession of Excellent

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Princes.”43 Nevertheless, because they did not have the knowledge of the afterlife, they too ultimately faced political dissolution. Masham also refers to political groups that were still in existence when she was writing and who were ruled by Christian principles, these include European colonists in America, who she refers to as the “Americans,” and any nations governed by principles of Catholicism. As to the Americans, Masham admires their concern for the advancement of the “good of the community”—a concern which must have complemented God’s plan, for, as she says, they too have shown a long rule.44 Nevertheless, she predicts that because they are not exposed to true Christian principles—a claim which she does not justify—that their rule will inevitably come to an end. With respect to institutions based on Catholic principles, she surprisingly says that they are in the state of nature and so are not guided by revelation. Her reason is that the Catholic tradition’s allowance of the forgiveness of sins negatively affects political society as it does not adequately prevent transgressions of the law.45 For this reason, such states will ultimately fail. But Masham’s insistence that her interpretation of Christianity is the best means by which to encourage people to follow the law raises an important question: is Christianity good merely because of its effects, or is there something inherent in it? That is, would it be possible for any other religion with a serious idea of salvation and no concept of indulgences to be just as effective and in that case just as right? In many places, Masham discusses the superior effects that Christianity has in encouraging people to follow the law,46 but in truth, she does not offer an argument as to why it is inherently or exclusively the best. She says only that it encourages others to follow God’s laws: “The great end then of Christianity is to teach us effectually to . . . indeavor, for the time to come, to obey the Law of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, which is no other than the Law of Reason.”47 Now that we have looked at Masham’s analysis of how being a Christian is necessary to political stability, we can turn to her discussion of the roles of women and their respective importance to such an end. She says that God designed women in particular to fulfil the roles of a Christian, mother, and educator, respectively. The role of being a Christian, according to Masham, involves employing reason because Christianity is a rational religion. She argues that women are capable of being Christians as they have the ability to reason; furthermore, as God is good and wise, He would not provide women with such a faculty unless it were meant to serve a purpose. But what benefit do women Christians bring to the state? She discusses a couple of advantages, the first of which is that female Christians, like male Christians, would reason with their neighbours about the truths of Christianity. The importance of this leads to the second advantage which is that the more Christian citizens become, the more orderly society and subsequently the political government will be (assuming of course its laws complement God’s). Masham also argues that God expects women to be mothers and educators. She says that God clearly intends women to be the bearers of children as is evidenced by their wombs. And women are also expected to educate their young because women by nature are patient and sensitive—qualities necessary for a good instructor. Together,

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the roles of being a mother and an educator also serve the state. A person’s character, she claims, is formed in the first few years of life. And so, whether an individual is guided by passions or reason is something that takes root early on, but which has important consequences for political stability. If a person is guided by reason, then she is naturally drawn to follow the law but if she is guided by passion, then she is not. Thus, the mother’s concern for her child’s development is important because it has an effect on whether her children, who will become the citizens of the future, will respect the law. Despite the fact that women’s roles are necessary for the stability of the state, they are rarely fulfilled and this is because of the customs of the day. Masham says that to be a Christian one must have the capacity for reason. But she notes that the custom of her day views women as irrational creatures, or at least not rational enough to grasp the principles of religion.48 Perhaps it is also not surprising that custom views women to be unfit educators. Custom maintains that upper class women are not designed to nurture or educate their young.49 In response, Masham warns that upper class women ought to concern themselves with the moral education of their children because their sons are the potential leaders of the country. She says that their role is absolutely “of consequence to the Common-wealth” and refers to “Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi” and “Aurelia, the Mother of Julius Caesar” as salient examples of mothers whose children had great effects on the state.50 In conclusion, Masham’s social and political thought is concerned with two major issues. The first is presented in the Discourse, where she attempts to link social life with being a good Christian. The second is covered in Occasional Thoughts, where she works to solve the issue of political stability. Although the works are different in emphasis, they complement one another, for the social activity she allows to Christians in the first treatise comes to the fore in the second where Christianity becomes essential to having a stable government. Her desire to associate Christianity so closely with social and political life is not without serious difficulties. She never anticipates the problems of trying to reconcile some of Jesus’s teachings that seem antithetical to a stable society with her theory that Jesus was in favour of a social life. Also she is not persuasive in arguing that Christianity is the only answer to political instability, as it seems any religion with a strong concept of the afterlife and no use of indulgences would have the same political effects. Nevertheless, Masham’s thought is fascinating for many reasons. She is a woman philosopher who is clearly involved in the social and political issues of her day and is employing philosophical principles in a unique fashion. Moreover, she is passionately committed to the condition of women during a time when the prominent male political philosophers were ignoring such issues. Masham not only turns her attention to the condition of women, but she attempts to show that without the consideration of women’s role within society, any social and political theory is incomplete. NOTES 1 On Mary Astell, see Michal Michelson, “ ‘Our Religion and Liberties’: Mary Astell’s Christian Political

Polemics,” in this volume.

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2 See Jacqueline Broad, “A Woman’s Influence? John Locke and Damaris Cudworth Masham on Moral

3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27

Accountability,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67, no. 3 (2006): 489–510; Jacqueline Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 114–40; James G. Buickerood, “Introduction” to The Philosophical Works of Damaris, Lady Masham (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum Press, 2004), v–xlv; Sarah Hutton, “Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham: Between Platonism and Enlightenment,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 1, no. 1 (1993): 29–54; Kathryn J. Ready, “Damaris Cudworth Masham, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, and the Feminist Legacy of Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity,” Eighteenth-century Studies 35, no. 4 (2002): 563–76; Patricia Springborg, “Astell, Masham, and Locke: Religion and Politics,” in Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition, ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 105–25; Sue Weinberg, “Damaris Cudworth Masham: A Learned Lady of the Seventeenth Century,” in Norms and Values: Essays on the Work of Virginia Held, ed. Joram Graf Haber (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 233–50. Damaris Cudworth Masham, A Discourse Concerning the Love of God, in Philosophical Works, 3. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 3–4. Ibid., 9. The theory of occasionalism is quite odd if taken without any philosophical context. Historians of philosophy typically agree that it is an attempt to resolve problems in Cartesian philosophy, but they do not agree as to which problems. Some argue that it is a way to preserve Descartes’ substance-dualism while avoiding the problem of mind-body interaction. Others argue that it is a way to be consistent with Descartes’ claim that the physical world is inert by placing the principle of motion in something above it; namely, in the will of God. Ibid. It would of course seem to follow that as God is the cause of everything, he must also be the cause of our pain and therefore the object of our dislike. This, however, does not come up. Ibid., 124. Ibid., 83. Ibid., 122. Ibid., 32. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 66. Damaris Cudworth Masham, Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life, in Philosophical Works, 61. In this section of the text, Masham suggests that all of her ideas whether simple or complex actually reflect reality. She says that our grasp of complex ideas is “seeing things to be what they are, and that they cannot but be what they are” (ibid., 63). She never makes an effort to explain how she is able to justify this on the grounds of her Lockean empiricism. We have to wait for Francis Hutcheson who provides a more coherent attempt at deriving the metaphysical realism of things such as God, beauty, and morality from Lockean empiricism. Ibid., 62. Masham, Discourse, 40 and 6 respectively. Ibid., 123. Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 2. Ibid., 232. Ibid., 27. Ibid., 64. She says “we being indu’d . . . with a liberty of acting, or not” in accordance with God’s wisdom. Masham, Discourse, 28. Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 232. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 97. Masham argues that all Christian institutions have been in the state of nature. But her reason is that it is because none of them were based upon the principles of true Christianity, by which she means her interpretation of the Christian faith. Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 60.

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28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Ibid., 72. Ibid., 64. Ibid., 76. Ibid., 54. Ibid., 55. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 76–7. Ibid. Ibid., 78. Masham, Discourse, 18. Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 122. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 106–07. Ibid., 116–17. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 87–9. See for example, ibid., 117–118. Ibid., 118. Ibid., 165–66. Masham clearly is speaking to only the upper class women. But it is important to wonder whether these God-given duties were exclusive to the upper class or applied to all women (ibid., 160). 50 Ibid., 181.

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VIII ‘‘ O U R R E L I G I O N A N D L I B E RT I E S ’’: M A RY A S T E L L’ S CHRISTIAN POLITICAL POLEMICS

Early modern women’s political and religious discourses are intertwined to an extent that makes them, if not indistinguishable, then certainly analogous. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a preponderance of all political debate was conducted by appeals to Scripture and theological principles, and the correlation between religious doctrine and political ideology that supported the traditional unity of church and state was widely accepted. During the civil war era in England however, the proliferation of dissenting sects—many with specific political agendas—brought about a more complex understanding of the proper connection between religious and civic frameworks. The fear of sectarian fanaticism, alongside the perennial threat of popery, figured prominently in ensuing political debates. Though Cartesian philosophy’s division between mind and matter and Hobbesian political theory’s separation of human authority from spiritual considerations had recently introduced a rational, secular perspective into public debate, religious discourse, David Zaret reminds us, remained “a, if not the, predominant means by which individuals defined and debated” concerns in the public sphere and politics even after the Glorious Revolution.1 Though a number of “visionary women” had been public figures of dissent during the interregnum, Ruth Perry cites Mary Astell as “perhaps the first woman not of royal blood to enter seriously into mainstream political discourse.”2 Her political opinions themselves were not mainstream, however, since her definition of the terms being debated diverged radically from the prevailing liberal model. An ardent Anglican and avid Tory, she adhered to the tenets of divine-right monarchy, dependence of subjects, and passive obedience, while her Whig opponents—the new orthodoxy—invoked the principles of social contract, citizen’s rights, and personal liberty. Of these doctrines, Astell was highly sceptical. She portrays the Whig call for “Reason, Liberty, and the Rights of human Nature” as mere labels for “proud Understandings,” “stubborn Wills,” and “exorbitant Affections,” traits that require the “humbling,” “subduing,” and “restraining” which “proceed from GOD.”3 It is only in studying God’s will and conforming to His laws, she writes, that humanity can develop their reason, the rational potential which is the true “Right of human Nature,” or know real liberty, that is, liberty of mind and soul in service of God. Liberty and rights, as sovereignty and reason, are for Astell first and foremost religious paradigms that only secondarily pertain to the political. “He and he only is a Freeman who acts according to Right Reason,” she states. A person is not liberated from “grievous and ignominious” slavery to their passions, which are the “vilest Masters,” until he or she “obeys the Commands of the Sovereign Lord of all.” That heavenly “Lord,” whose dominion supersedes the jurisdiction of any earthly ruler, ensures personal sovereignty and freedom from tyranny, for He “has not put the 123 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 123–136. © 2007 Springer.

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Liberty of His Creatures in any one’s power but in their own.”4 Humanity has an innate independence that God has decreed, then—with the stipulation that they act “according to Right Reason.” Right reason, for Astell, is necessarily synonymous with heavenly will. She grants all persons the freedom inherent in their being God’s rational children created in His image, but consigns them to a stringent hierarchy dictated by holy writ. This places them freely (for Astell could not imagine the possibility of any reasonable creature not unreservedly recognising heavenly dominion) under God. Liberty is not dependent upon earthly legislation in her judgment, but bestowed by an almighty deity and commensurate with obeying his law. Astell addresses the concepts of liberty, virtue, and toleration in expressly theological terms whether discussing her perception of the sovereign individual, political systems, or specific partisan legislature. She envisions her own autonomous female subjectivity as derived from that God-given reason which all women possess, and should therefore cultivate; this spiritual world-view is the base of her feminism and her construction of the proper political subject. She legitimises her exposition of the duplicity and invalidity of the latitudinarian model and the correlating hypocrisy of its followers by reference to biblical exegesis and Anglican doctrine. I first examine Astell’s assertion of the female self as an active public agent and next her critique of the liberal political model. In the initial section, I begin with her record of biblical sanction for women’s active communal roles, and follow with her affirmation of authoritative positions available to contemporary women that temporal circumstances—though not ability or inherent worth—dictate. Under the second rubric I first outline Astell’s criticism of party men seeking personal rather than public gain, and second her commentary on the hypocrisy of a programme that purports to offer liberty to all citizens when in reality it excludes half of the human race. Both phenomena are symptomatic of the third position I address, Astell’s assessment of the entire premises of the liberal framework as misconceived. The Whig model does not in her eyes offer or even speak to the true nature of virtue and liberty, which are not political but spiritual concepts, “rights” that can only be obtained through diligent and devout attention to holy precepts. Astell’s reliance upon this religious perspective in the political arguments of Reflections Upon Marriage (1706) and The Christian Religion as Profess’d by a Daughter of the Church of England (1717), as well as in her partisan Tory pamphlet Moderation Truly Stated: or, a Review of a Late pamphlet, Entitul’d Moderation a Vertue (1704), reveals the pervasive spiritual underpinning of her thought, and how this is manifested in her political writings. I. ‘‘ T H E B I B L E I S F O R , A N D N O T A G A I N S T U S ’’

Astell’s strong sense of the autonomous, rational female self is derived both from the authority granted the solitary enquiring mind by Cartesian philosophy and the preeminence of the individual interpreter of Scripture in Protestant theology. In the preface to the third edition of Reflections Upon Marriage (1706), she uses scrupulous biblical exegesis to refute critics of earlier versions of this text who claimed that the pro-woman sentiments she had posited “were not agreeable to scripture.”

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What is agreeable to Scripture, she points out, is a matter of interpretation. For Scripture, Astell declares, “is not always on their side who make parade of it,” and most notably so in the case of rulings on human hierarchies, where men, “thro’ their skill in Languages and the Tricks of the Schools,” attempt to “wrest it from its genuine sense to their own Inventions.”5 That is to say, in spite of the unfair advantage of their superior training, men do not interpret biblical text correctly, but purposefully manipulate it to support their own agendas. This has led them to contradict God’s dispensation granting women the right to cultivate their rational aptitude and corresponding spiritual—as well as legal and political—authority. These privileges are both permitted and promoted by divine command, as Astell’s ensuing disquisition on women in Scripture demonstrates. While men have denied women sense, interpretive authority, and an active position in learning and defending their own beliefs and legal rights, she proclaims, God has not. Although “the world will hardly allow a woman to say any thing well, unless as she borrows it from Men,” it is a historical fact that “GOD Himself allows that the Daughters of Zelophehad spake right,” and the reasoning behind their request to inherit their father’s land as his daughters (in lieu of sons, as he had only female progeny) was not only accepted, but “their Request” became “Law.”6 While “Men have engross’d to themselves” the “Learning,” and so prevented “Women from Acting in the World, or doing any thing considerable,” this is not in accordance with divine will.7 Men have simply erred in interpreting the Pauline lines invoking women’s silence and subjection—which clearly, in Astell’s reading, have either limited historical specificity or only allegorical intention—as overriding proscriptions.8 They have imbued biblical descriptions of human practice with the authority of divine revelation in a “desire to maintain their Hypotheses,” she avows, rather than studying the actual words of the texts to understand divine intent. In doing so, they have neglected to give “Reverence to the Sacred Oracles” in order to privilege their own partialities and preconceptions.9 Biblical record clearly endorses women’s right to contest the law, and if their claim is just, divine sanction to overturn it. Astell presents numerous biblical exemplars—including Ruth, Esther, Rebecca, Miriam, Deborah, Abigail, the Shunamite woman, Huldah, and Michal from the Old Testament, and the daughters of Philip, Mary, Mary Magdalen, the Syrophenician, Elizabeth, Martha, Priscilla, and Anna from the New—as evidence that “whatever other Great and Wise Reasons Men may have for despising Women, and keeping them in Ignorance and Slavery, it can’t be from their having learnt to do so in Holy Scripture.” Astell’s examples of politically and spiritually prominent women who are neither in “Ignorance” nor “Slavery”—as, she bemoans, most contemporary women are—support her declaration that “the Bible is for, and not against us.” It cannot, she reasons, “without great violence done to it, be urg’d to our Prejudice.”10 Such “violence” has been repeatedly attempted and regrettably often wrought by conventional masculine authorities. Reason and the historical record are on her side, however. The preponderance of pious, prophetic, and learned female biblical figures logically supports her claim for women’s commensurate spiritual and intellectual capacities. Women active as national leaders such as Deborah, whose “Government

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was confer’d on her by GOD Himself,” as well as the Shunamite woman, a “Bailiff ” “who Governs . . . among her own People,” show the divine sanctification for the utilisation of those abilities in the political sphere.11 In addition to the commemoration of “righteous women” who played active historical roles in the community, a strategy Astell employs in what Margaret Olofson Thickstun labels a “hermeneutics of remembrance,” Astell’s interpretive practice entails a “hermeneutics of suspicion” in relation to accepted masculine methodology.12 Rather than relying on tradition and the Aristotelian dialectics of the schools as do clergy, she prioritises (her) reason over (their) erudition, common sense over biased custom. The empirical evidence of strong, independent, and virtuous women of authority in the Bible corresponds, she explains, to the sanctified position of women in God’s ideal universe that has not yet been realised. The fact that “Holy Scripture considers Women very differently from what they appear in the common Prejudices of Mankind” reflects upon the true essence of women, and reveals the falseness of the female stereotype that is based merely on “appearances” and “prejudices.”13 Astell privileges her own biblical reading, one that is not distorted by erroneous preconceptions and inherited schemes but which endeavours to determine the straightforward meaning of the sacred written word regarding Godly rule on women’s public function. Though she presents clear historical evidence for divine sanctification of women’s authoritative communal role and political participation with her exposition of virtuous female biblical archetypes, Astell does not expressly call for contemporary women’s right to an active public position—unless, that is, “Custom and the Law” allow it. She does establish divine authorisation of its legitimacy both in principle and for those whom tradition and social position validate such a role. “The Apostle ‘tis true wou’d not have [women] usurp Authority where Custom and the Law” decree otherwise, but it is axiomatic that “if by Custom of Contract, or the Laws of the Country, or Birthright (as in the Case of Sovereign Princesses) they have the supreme Authority,” it is not “contrary to Holy Scripture, nor . . . to the law of Nature” for women to govern, and certainly “no Usurpation.”14 Under the proper circumstances, women can and do lead nations. As a monarchist, Astell believes that the right to rule is divinely granted to the head of the royal family—be it man or woman, king or queen. It is God who authorises the ruler’s dominion, and that ruler’s gender is not a determinant of their power. Following the misconstrued model positing “the Natural Superiority of their Sex,” men conclude that “every Man is by Nature superior to every Woman,” Astell observes. If this were true, she notes, then the necessary but patently absurd corollary would be that “it wou’d be a Sin in any Woman to have Dominion over any Man, and the greatest Queen ought not to command but to obey her Footman, because no Municipal Laws can supersede or change the Law of Nature.”15 Astell’s reductio reveals the faulty logic behind the claim of generic male preeminence. “That the Custom of the world has put Women, generally speaking, into a State of Subjection” she concedes, but reasons that “the Right can no more be prov’d from the Fact, than the Predominancy of Vice can justifie it.”16 That is, men do normally rule over women,

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but their dominance is justifiable only to comply with accepted social practice and preserve community order, not as a “Right,” or sign of natural supremacy. Having lived through the political turmoil and parliamentary manoeuvering surrounding the disputed succession to the British throne after Charles II’s reign, in Astell’s view it is paramount that political and social order be maintained. Proper lines of authority and “Dominion” in a nation and a family are indispensable, and she understands these lines as being rightfully determined by the laws of the church and Scripture. Dismissing the liberal claims for the right of citizens to choose their leaders, Astell espouses the time-honoured divine right of kings—or queens. The commandment to “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme: Or unto governors” refers in her understanding to position, not gender [1 Peter 2:13–14]. It thus supports the chosen monarch—currently Queen Anne—as “supreme” ruler. Faulty semantics and errant human custom have given men a preeminence that is unwarranted, whereas careful study of divine and ecclesiastical law eliminates the misogynist bias of earthly politicians. God determines properly ordered systems of governance for state and society, and those structures demarcate hierarchic but gender-neutral and just relationships. Astell advises women to independently determine the spiritual ascendancy of earthly authority before submitting to it. Since, she declares, “reason is that light which GOD himself has set up in my mind to lead me to Him,” the divine giver of that reason “will never permit” unqualified submission “to any mere Humane Authority.” Only when a woman’s own rational assessment concludes that a law comes from God, when “upon a strict enquiry” she establishes that an ordinance “has all the evidences that Reason can ask, to prove that it is Divine” should she surrender to it. After scrupulous examination, women are obliged to acquiesce to rightful rule, as indeed must men. Submission to justified dominion does not signify negation of personal autonomy or renunciation of independent reason, however, for autonomy is not synonymous with unadulterated freedom, nor submission with self-abnegation. Astell represents chosen adherence to divine dominion as imparting rather than resigning agency through a metaphor of military prowess. When women independently “examine and prove all things,” and “are sure [they] have found the Truth” of God’s will, they “ought to stick to it with a heroick Constancy and immoveable Resolution; which is a Valour that does not misbecome a woman, be it be nick-nam’d Pride or Obstinancy.”17 Astell personifies a woman of faith (a genus which certainly does not “misbecome” her sex) as a warrior, since “she may take the Shield of Faith, the Sword of the Spirit, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Breastplate of Righteousness without any offence . . . and they become her as well as they do the greatest Hero.”18 With this martial imagery, Astell conflates her political, religious and feminist motifs in the powerful figure of a female soldier on a holy mission, armed with “Righteousness” and “Faith.” In divine service, a woman may act with the “Valour” of a “Hero,” a task that, notwithstanding misguided custom, she is as capable of performing as a man. Though normally relegated to a position of passivity in national governance, women’s primary task on earth is to promote the quintessentially rightful kingdom of the Lord at every opportunity. Astell advocates quietism, private meditation,

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and an otherworldly perspective in much of her writing (though this does appear to be mainly for lack of any realistic alternative), but she herself actively intervened in the political turmoil around her through publication of numerous polemical treatises. I I. ‘‘ M E A N T R IC K S A N D B A S E A RT I F I C E S ’’

Astell’s feminist hermeneutics prescribe involvement in state matters in order to combat religious unorthodoxies. As a staunch supporter of the Anglican High Church, the reinstated state religion since 1660, Astell condemns both the dissenting sects that had multiplied during the civil war period as well as the emerging latitudinarian and Socinian factions. She derides these Protestant detractors for the duplicity of their public and personal behaviour as well as for their doctrinal heresies. Though she does not explicitly name the particular male interpreters of Scripture that she has in her sights in Reflections, her scathing allusions to the cant of the Whig revolution and its adherents throughout the tract point to the promulgators of political liberalism and the Protestant sects to which many belonged.19 In Christian Religion she castigates these same dissenting and liberal men more directly, including an entire section refuting “Mr. Lock.”20 She berates this group for doing away with canonical dictates and the “proof of the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures” as they “reject as spurious, all that which does not sort with their Conceits”; this, to her, is both irreverent and seditious.21 Astell additionally attacks her opponents for their unethical, self-seeking standards. She published three political pamphlets in 1704, all dealing specifically with contemporary crises surrounding the authority of the monarch and the preeminence of the Anglican Church (both, in Astell’s view, divinely sanctioned). Two addressed the campaign for a bill against occasional conformity, Moderation Truly Stated and A Fair Way with the Dissenters; the third, An Impartial Enquiry, was a panegyric to Charles I.22 In Moderation Truly Stated Astell ridicules the dispensation of occasional conformity for allowing members of dissenting sects to be appointed to a government post if they demonstrate their allegiance to the state church by attending an Anglican service once a year.23 She stresses the hypocrisy of this ostensible show of adherence to episcopal doctrine, depicting it as purely self-serving pretense and, as such, emblematic of the entire Whig scheme. The politicians concerned “balk no opportunity to heap up Riches right or wrong,” and by “indirect and dishonourable Methods, mean Tricks, and base Artifices” manipulate to “keep them[selves] in their Posts.” Their deceit does not even have the excuse of being in the service of their (wrongful) cause, then, but is only for their own personal gain.24 Astell finds the hubris of the party men calling for political rights and allowances without fulfilling commensurate moral and civil obligations preposterous. “What can be more ridiculous,” she writes, “than to see Men setting up for the Roman Love of Liberty without any thing of the Roman Virtue!” It is a travesty of ethics “to see a bloated luxurious Epicure whose business is to gather Wealth rapaciously, that he may spend it on his Vices, indulging himself in all the Softness and Debaucheries of

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a Licentious Age.”25 She continues her diatribe against the politicians who display such avarice: To see these set up for Patriots who have nothing of the Temper of the Truly Noble Patriots to pretend to! None of those great Qualities and that Publick Spiritedness which was founded on Simplicity of Manners, a Love and Veneration of Honest and Magnanimous Poverty, and a Generous Contempt of Riches, and all that they can purchase, is a Contradiction!26

She personifies the politicians of the Whig party instead as “busy Patriots” who reap “Private Ends and Advantages” from what is purported to be public service.27 Astell finds it abhorrent that a “Man who would have every one conform to his Magisterial Dictates” should pose as a “cabal for Liberty.” One who “violates the dearest Interests of his Neighbour” and wields his own personal influence in a capricious fashion ought not to “exclaim against Arbitrary Power” in the monarchy. Astell rails against the liberal politician who “wrongs another’s Honour, and robs him of what he values most,” positing that such a figure “transgresses all the Laws” only to subsequently “pretend to stickle for the Birthright and Privileges of his Country-Men” and “become a Zealous Advocate in their Defence!” Upholding the legal loophole of occasional conformity that sanctions personal political and material gain through a betrayal of ethical integrity is toAstell the equivalent of “hear[ing] a Socinian argue for Articles of Faith, and a Deist for the Protestant Religion!”28 Those who sponsor such legislation merely show their “hypocrisie,” which is “as great an Immorality as any can be,” a “Complication of Vice and Impiety, a Sin.” Such political manoeuverings are to her not only civil wrongdoings but religious sacrilege. By “Dissembling in Matters of Religion” with “a Profession” of “Piety” they “do not find at heart,” such persons not only transgress God’s laws with their insincerity but commit the additional sin of dividing the Protestant community and so the nation. When they make an “Appearance” of conformity “upon Occasion, and to serve a turn” they go against the “Gospel” which “injoyns Unity of Affection and Unity of Worship,” causing “Schism, which every body allows to be a Causless Division, a work of the Flesh, and ranking it among the most enormous Sins.”29 These politicians not only demean the purity of the true Church of England, then, but sin against God in their dishonesty and in their instigation of religious and national disunity. Astell claims that the “evil effects of Toleration [have] done much more . . . toward the Rooting of Religion out of the Hearts of Men in Seven Years, than the enforcing of Uniformity did in Seventy.”30 To her mind toleration is disingenuous, not inclusive; it causes “evil effects,” rather than being a forward-thinking measure that will bring the nation together and strengthen the state as the liberal politicians erroneously allege. To tolerate a misguided belief and withhold judgment where judgment is called for, Astell proclaims, is to accept, even endorse, a sin. The “shrewd Men, the heads of the Faction” mislead “poor deluded Souls” into following “the Leading Man” as unwittingly as “some of the Israelites” followed “Rebellious Absalom.” Those men, like their biblical forbear, “have something else besides Religion and Liberty at heart.”31 They betray the “Ignorant Multitude” into division and heresy while pursuing their own “Power and Preferment,” their personal “Passions and Establishment.”32

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Astell depicts the liberal leaders as hypocritical and sacrilegious rebels against the stability of the church and state rather than sincere religious or political rivals. They have violated the “Order,” which “God prescribes Himself,” and which is thus “a Sacred Thing.” Subordination is “a necessary consequence of Order,” which is obligatory in the manifestly dissolute “State of Ignorance and Pravity” of a period, she laments, “such as ours.” Instead of “set[ting] up for that which is best in their own conceit,” she writes, Englishmen need “humbly to observe where GOD has Delegated his Power, and submit to it, as unto the Lord and not to Man.”33 Obedience to established political and ecclesiastical authority is not a matter of political option, but a commandment enjoined by God. In her overall delegitimisation of the liberal agenda, Astell calls attention to its additional hypocrisy of seeking political liberty for men while maintaining domestic dominion over women. Carole Pateman argues that by neglecting to include women in its conceptualisation of the citizen, liberalism presupposes their prior subjection in the sexual contract.34 Astell reveals how the Whig call for democratic process and recognition of citizens’rights in the state does not attempt to ameliorate the educational and domestic inequalities—or even acknowledge the basic human equivalency—of women, and so exposes the hollowness of its “democratic” motto. This is clearly not a model upon which a virtuous Christian state can be built. Her query, “if Absolute Sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a Family?” inverts the ubiquitous homology argument equating the marriage and social contracts that was most prominently argued by Sir Robert Filmer.35 Though the Whig politicians condemn the “Absolute Sovereignty” of the monarch, Astell asserts that not even that champion of natural liberty, “Milton himself wou’d cry up Liberty to poor Female Slaves, or plead for the Lawfulness of Resisting a Private Tyranny.”36 She discloses the duplicitous reasoning of those arguing for “freedom” for “all men” who are oblivious to “the perfect Condition of Slavery” that women are subjected to in marriage. “Why,” she wonders, “is Slavery so much condemn’d and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?”37 In her eyes, that “Slavery” is part of the requisite hierarchy in both contexts. Absolute rule is necessary, in a state as in a marriage. Men and women are obligated alike to obey divinely ordained rule in an ordered society, be it king, priest, or, in the wife’s case, husband—if a woman chooses to marry. Astell supports biblically determined absolute rule as indispensable for maintaining social order, but not as indicative of any inherent inequality between men and women. A wife’s obligation to obey her spouse is contingent on her married state, and does not negate, or indeed reflect in any way upon the intrinsic equivalency of her mind and soul with his. “The Service she at any time becomes oblig’d to pay to a Man,” is instead like the duty of someone employed in hog keeping to tend to the hogs, “only a Business by the Bye.”38 A woman’s true essence and worth is defined by her relationship to the divine, not her provisional earthly subordination. Obedience, though temporarily due to those higher up on the worldly hierarchy, is always and ultimately owed only to God. Astell’s condemnation of the social contract’s conception of an independent citizenry that includes only the masculine

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is on one level a censure of patriarchy, but more fundamentally a questioning of the nature of human independence. People are born into a polity, a community, and a Godly order, she contends, not as separate, autonomous individuals in a mythical free state of nature. In her critique of the irreligious premises upon which proponents of natural rights build their theories, Astell rejects their hypothesis of an unfettered “state of nature” as a “meer figment of Hobbs’s Brain,” wryly declaring that she had “hitherto thought, that according to Moses, we were all of Adam’s Race” rather than having “sprung up like so many Mushrooms or Terrae Filii,” free from “dependency” upon parents, King and God.39 The proposition of a population of unattached subjects who choose a human form of government to protect themselves from one another free from divinely ordained familial, state, and religious structures is to Astell an intrinsically erroneous concept. Though her celebrated epigram, “If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?” is certainly a significant signpost in the history of early modern feminist thought, Astell’s primary purpose, as Sharon Achinstein notes, is not to point out the untenable exclusion of women from the new democratic image of the citizen, but to disclose the unsound premises upon which that theory is based.40 Contract theory’s material focus on human government as an arrangement among men for their mutual benefit and no longer the earthly approximation of an eternal order excludes not only women, but God. Astell maintains that the worldly human condition is most decidedly not “free,” since as God’s postlapsarian creations “Our Weaknesses and Wants perpetually remind us that we are Poor, Dependent Beings; Creatures, whose very Nature and Existence as such, supposes entire Dependence.” Rather than discussing the “liberty” and “rights” of citizens (who were at the time by definition male), the public men who spout these terms should remember humankind’s fundamental state of dependency. Instead of crying out for freedom, they “ought to teach us to Depend in the right place,” since depend we must.41 The only “liberty” Astell “think[s] fit to take” is the liberty she and all women must claim to think and judge for themselves what to “Believe and Practice” in terms of their sacred duty.42 As imperfect mortals must rely on a superior, immortal entity, women should only depend upon God, since men are as flawed by their inherently sinful natures as they are themselves. This condition is not an irrevocable impediment, however, since that reliance is upon an omniscient and omnipotent Almighty whom, Astell pronounces, it is “our Privilege and Felicity to Depend upon . . . and upon Him only.”43 Through a religious faith and eschatological perspective Astell defines freedom for women (and for men) as dependence upon a God who has set out the proper earthly political hierarchy in Scripture. Astell’s ideological principles draw upon an older Stuart culture of obligation, integrity, and tradition that accepts a divinely ordered system of monarchy and priestly authority. She sees this model as necessarily exemplifying a Christian state—the only state Astell could imagine. In the current social environment, “Religion,” she laments, “is left at the Door . . . a Plain, Honest Matron, and this as Times go is no great Recommendation,” since “Liberty of Conscience . . . the Goodlier Person, uses a little Art, goes Finer, has better Address and more plausible Eloquence.”44

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For her, it is the “Honest Matron,” that is, religion (significantly gendered female), and not “liberty of conscience” that is the path to human fulfilment and freedom. Though political theorists have misled people into focusing their efforts on temporal concerns, Astell declares that women’s—that all human beings’—genuine happiness depends upon metaphysical matters. At the crux of her conservative politics, as well as her radical feminism, is her belief that freedom is not obtained or protected by entering into a contract, be it social, marital, or other. Liberty, rather, is a matter of the soul. A firm believer in the ability of the discerning mind to attain true knowledge through concerted inquiry, Astell advocates the explicitly pious use of reason to ascertain the optimal path towards fulfilling the divine plan. She agreed in essence with the conservative Anglican cleric Charles Leslie (notwithstanding her tonguein-cheek characterisation of “Mr. L[esle]y” as a “furious Jacobite”), who saw the theological postulations in Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) and John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) as deifying reason rather than using it to uphold faith. Leslie construed Locke’s and Toland’s hypotheses as not being in the service of Christian investigation, but rather, William Kolbrener observes, symptoms of a “drift away from orthodoxy towards a heretical rationalism that verged . . . upon atheism.”45 Astell certainly concurred with this evaluation. Reason in her estimation must necessarily lead to acceptance of divine rule. Following Christian precepts is not “a blind Obedience . . . an Obeying without Reason,” but the epitome of reason itself. For “GOD himself does not require our Obedience” until “he lays before us the goodness and reasonableness of his Laws.” In fact, He enjoins human examination of His commandments. However, if there would be “anything in them whose Equity we could not readily comprehend,” we must not reject it out of hand but reexamine such “Laws” from a celestial perspective. Ultimately, she proclaims, we have the only “clear and sufficient Reason on which to found our Obedience” that we need, which is “that nothing but what’s Just and Fit, can be enjoyn’d by a Just, a Wise and Gracious GOD.” An equivalent level of “reasonableness” and virtuous, valid authority “will never hold in respect of Men’s Commands” even if, or perhaps even because, they are democratically agreed upon by human mediators.46 The Whig proposal to determine society’s regulations through public directives void of the guidance of revelation and holy mandate is not, therefore, and never can be, as “Just and Fit” as Godly rule. Astell’s “radically subjective” political thought, Rachel Weil observes, “is not about the rules governing relations between people in civil society, but about people’s relationship to themselves and to God.”47 Her ideal universe is one in which governments and human laws are, or should be, unnecessary. Humanity was created with the ability to reason, and that reason alone should have, and still can, lead to a community, a state, that is governed in freedom, by virtue. In the Adamic world, “if Mankind had never sinn’d,” then “there wou’d have been no struggle for Dominion, and Brutal Power wou’d not have prevail’d.” There would have been no need for government or legal structures, for “Reason would always have been obey’d,” and reason perforce leads to the perfect laws of a rational God. After the Fall, humanity has been guided

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by their “Appetites,” however, and so order must be kept by an external force. In a world obsessed with its senses, “the Will and Pleasure of the Governor” must take the place of “the Reason of those who will not be guided by their own.”48 Since true justice and freedom must now wait until the next world, temporal, mortal regimes are necessary to keep peace in this one. Astell intervened in legislative controversies in an effort to promote her vision of an ethical civic community cognizant of its necessary subordination to a higher order. If we are “true to our selves” and guard against “the Pusillanimity and Treachery of weak and false Brethren,” she advises, “Our Enemies can’t wrest our Religion and Liberties from us.”49 “Religion” and “Liberties” are synonymous for Astell, as are (or should be) divine governance and worldly political systems. Her female persona is a citizen in the kingdom of God, a realm whose laws are reasonable and obligatory. Is Astell’s thought, then, truly feminist? Properly political? She did not argue for equal political representation or equal rights for women. It is not only a gross anachronism to imagine that she could, or would, but a misunderstanding of her political ideals as I have outlined them here. She portrays women as men’s mental, spiritual, and moral equals (if not superiors), which to her are the categories that truly matter. She addresses them as a class that is discriminated against and to which she belongs, calling upon her “sister souls,” signing herself as a “Lover of her Sex.”50 Astell’s texts provide a turning point in formations of identity, Catherine Belsey observes, offering a groundbreaking “perspective” that is both “feminine— and feminist.”51 Though the versions of equality and freedom she proposes are not political in a modern, secular sense, she applies them in political debates, and to women’s position in the political framework. Her thoughts on specific legislation as well as systems of domination are not conventional deliberations on statecraft, for her extensive discussions of freedom, power, and community are always in a dialogue of faith. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is,” Astell asserts, “there is Liberty. True Liberty, which consists not in a Power to do what we Will, but in making a Right use of our Reason, in preserving our Judgments Free, and our Integrity unspotted, which sets us out of the reach of the most Absolute Tyrant.”52 Political, personal and spiritual “Liberty” and “Integrity” conflate in Astell’s thought in her vision of a state, a world, of untainted reason ruled by Godly virtue. The centrality of religion to her construction of an autonomous subject position cannot be overemphasised. Synthesising languages of rationality, theology, and political philosophy in her appraisal of the social theories and ethics surrounding her, Astell defines an ideal public community that is virtuous and free, and which includes fully both the feminine and the spiritual.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am grateful to William Kolbrener for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

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1 David Zaret, “Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in Seventeenth-Century England,”

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in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1994), 213. Ruth Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 183 (italics added). Although Astell was one of the first non-royal female political thinkers to be taken serious notice of in England, she did have a few notable predecessors in Europe, including women such as Christine de Pizan and Marie le Jars de Gournay. [Mary Astell], The Christian Religion as Profess’d by a Daughter of the Church of England, 2nd ed. (London: R. Wilkin, 1717), 19. Ibid., 195. Mary Astell, Reflections Upon Marriage, in Astell: Political Writings, ed. Patricia Springborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 14. Ibid., 23; see Num. 27:7. Ibid., 21, 23. The passages most often cited were “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience” (1 Cor. 14:34); “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Tim. 2:11–12); and “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” (Col. 3:18). Astell, Reflections, 14. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 24, 25. For a comparison of Astell and the radical Quaker Margaret Fell’s hermeneutic practices, see Margaret Olofson Thickstun, “ ‘This was a woman that taught’: Feminist Scriptural Exegesis in the Seventeenth Century,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 21 (1992): 149–58. Thickstun contends that Astell, “retreats from claiming women’s equality in the Spirit” by her acceding authority to “temporal reality” rather than privileging the inner light of spirit while Fell, though neglected by modern feminists, claims full equality for women through her radical reading of Scripture (ibid., 156, 149). Hilda L. Smith, conversely, specifically censures Fell for “deny[ing] the right to speak to women who sought to ‘usurp authority over the man,’” as one of a number of sectarian women whose “voices were disembodied and removed from both their personal identity and the identity of women generally” and who thus “did not use their pulpit or congregational representation to press for greater power for women within the family or society at large.” See Smith, “ ‘Cry Up Liberty’: The Political Context for Mary Astell’s Feminism,” in Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith, ed. William Kolbrener and Michal Michelson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 202–03. Combining the insights of these critics, I note, rather, the efficacy and commensurability of both spiritual and rational authority in the unambiguously feminist discourses of both Fell’s and Astell’s writings. Astell, Reflections, 23. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 9. Ibid., 10. Astell, Christian Religion, 5. Ibid., 71–2. Here Astell is citing passages from Eph. 6:13–17. Astell refers sarcastically to “Men of Letters,” “grave Dons,” “learned Men,” and “Men of Sense” who “stoop so low as to make Invectives against the Women,” and in doing so “debase their good Sense which fits them for the most weighty Affairs, such as are suitable to their profound Wisdoms and exalted Understandings” (Astell, Reflections, 22). Though they are not explicitly named, Springborg writes that this passage “seems to cue us to Locke and the Shaftesbury circle” (ibid., 58, n. 13). While Mark Goldie cites Astell as “feminism’s first retort to liberal modernity,” he stresses the predominantly religious focus of her critique of Locke. He states that Springborg is mistaken in asserting that

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Astell’s “animus against Locke” is founded upon his “political thought” at all. Astell’s encounter with Locke’s politics, he writes, “was always subordinate, even incidental, to her interest in his philosophy and theology.” See Goldie, “Mary Astell and John Locke,” in Kolbrener and Michelson, Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith, 66, 67; see ibid. 65–85. For Patricia Springborg’s analysis of Astell’s view of Locke’s politics, see her Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), passim. Astell, Christian Religion, 294, 18. In the “Appendix” to her Christian Religion (1717) Astell specifically refutes Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Two Treatises of Government (1689), The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), the third Reply to the Bishop of Worcester (1699), Damaris Masham’s Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696), and the anonymously published A Lady’s Religion (1697). See Astell, Christian Religion, 294–351. A Fair Way with the Dissenters and their Patrons Not Writ by Mr. L[esle]y, or any other furious Jacobite, whether Clergyman or Layman; but by a very Moderate Person and Dutiful Subject to the Queen (1704) is Astell’s effort to discredit Daniel Defoe’s Shortest-Way With The Dissenters (1702) and More Short Ways with the Dissenters (1704), in which he satirises the Tory restrictions and defends dissenting academies. She wrote An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom (1704) in response to the Whig bishop White Kennett’s sermon commemorating— inadequately in her eyes—Charles I. Moderation truly Stated (1704) is her rebuttal to the nonconformist minister James Owen’s Moderation a Virtue (1703) that he wrote in favour of occasional conformity. Owen’s tract was published in 1703 and attacked by Daniel Defoe and Charles Leslie as well as Astell. For discussion of Astell’s part in the campaign against occasional conformity, see Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell, 182–214; for an overview of the influence of her political perspective on her writings, see William Kolbrener, “ ‘Forc’d into an Interest’: High Church Politics and Feminine Agency in the Works of Mary Astell,” 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 10 (2004): 3–31. Mary Astell, Moderation Truly Stated: or, a Review of a Late pamphlet, Entitul’d Moderation a Vertue. With a Prefatory Discourse to Dr. D’Aveanant, Concerning His late Essay on Peace and War (London: Richard Wilkin, 1704), 27–8. Astell, Moderation, 106. Springborg cites Astell’s “ideal of freedom from domination,” or liberty, as “ubiquitous from the Roman Republic to the Roman Law codes of the Empire . . . to early modern theorists of natural rights.” See Springborg, “Republicanism, Freedom from Domination, and the Cambridge Contextual Historians,” Political Studies 49, no. 5 (2001): 853. For a comprehensive discussion of Astell in relation to Roman concepts of freedom and rights and their corollaries in early modern republicanism, see ibid., 851–76. Astell, Moderation, 107. Ibid., 106. Ibid., 107. Ibid., 32–3. Ibid., 59. Astell’s mention of “Absalom” brings to mind the parallel repeatedly drawn between the manoeuverings of the Earl of Shaftesbury to exclude Charles II’s Catholic brother James from the succession and put his illegitimate (Protestant) son the Duke on Monmouth on the throne in his place and the biblical story of King David’s rebellious son [2 Sam. 13–18]. The analogy was most famously made by John Dryden in “Absalom and Achitophel” (1681). This bitter political struggle had threatened to explode into a true national crisis, which was averted when Charles imprisoned Shaftesbury (who was later acquitted by a Whig jury). Astell, Moderation, 60–1. Ibid., 59. See Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). Astell, Reflections, 17. Filmer set out in his Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings (1680) a strict biblical fundamentalism in support of monarchism that equated patriarchy with monarchy and theocracy

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with absolutism. As divine dictum appointed Adam to rule over Eve, he writes, so all husbands are the head of their wives and fathers the undisputed lords of their families. Since the state is identical to the family, the king is the father of the people/state and his rule, as father, is God’s will. Since God’s and so the king’s will (now indistinguishable) are unconditional, these premises conflate into one generic assertion of absolute male and monarchical power. Astell, Moderation, 107; Astell, Reflections, 46–7. Astell, Reflections, 18–9. Ibid., 11. Astell, Moderation, xxxv (italics reversed). Astell, Reflections, 18; Sharon Achinstein, “Mary Astell, Religion and Feminism,” in Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith, ed. William Kolbrener and Michal Michelson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 19–20; see ibid., 17–29. Achinstein argues for recognition of the central, if somewhat problematic, role of religion in Astell’s feminism. Astell, Christian Religion, 183. Ibid., 4, 3. Ibid., 183. Astell, Moderation, xli (italics reversed). William Kolbrener, “The Charge of Socinianism: Charles Leslie’s High Church Defense of ‘True Religion,’” Journal of The Historical Society 3, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 2. For a synopsis of the High Church position on the “heresy” of the latitudinarian version of Anglicanism, see ibid., 1–23. Astell, Reflections, 75. Rachel Weil, Political Passions: Gender, the Family and Political Argument in England, 1680–1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 146. Astell, Reflections, 15. Astell, Moderation, 100–01. [Mary Astell and] John Norris, Letters Concerning the Love of God, Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris (London: Samuel Manship and Richard Wilkin, 1695), 134; Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Parts I & II, ed. Patricia Springborg (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1997), 4. E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New propose that, though “interest in Astell as a feminist has tended to vitiate a full understanding of her philosophical and theological inclinations,” the entirety of her principles, “including her feminist thought,” can best be understood when her religious convictions—as expressed in Letters Concerning the Love of God—are taken into account. See E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New, “Introduction” to Mary Astell, Letters Concerning the Love of God, ed. E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 3, 5. Catherine Belsey, The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama (London: Methuen Press, 1985), 216. Hilda Smith’s and Springborg’s most recent works both revise what they see as the limitations implied by their earlier use of the term “proto-feminist” rather than “feminist” for Astell. They now write, respectively, of Astell’s “radical feminism” and that “she is indeed a feminist.” See Smith, “ ‘Cry up Liberty,’” 204, and Springborg, Mary Astell, 3. Astell, Christian Religion, 195.

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IX V I RT U E , G O D , AN D S TO I C I S M I N T H E T H O U G H T O F E L I Z A B E T H C A RT E R A N D C AT H A R I N E M A C A U L AY

Women’s political theory (that is political theory authored by women) is generally held to have come of age with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Until recently (certainly in the early studies of Wollstonecraft), it was generally assumed that the earliest discussions of women’s rights entailed a more or less straightforward expansion of Lockean political theory to include women. The credit given to John Locke as the forefather of rights for women is now being challenged in the light of both more work on the history of women’s thought and developments in political theory itself. Notably, Carole Pateman has challenged the relevance of Lockean contractarianism to subjects whose subordinate status disallows them the grounds of contracting (and that means women).1 Separately from this, it has been a puzzle to modern analysts that Wollstonecraft and her sisters slip so easily into the discussion of “virtue,” rather than “rights.”2 It would seem that the favoured discourse of other politically-conscious women of the eighteenth century was ethical rather than political. Furthermore, the ethics in question have unmistakable religious overtones. In so far as they appealed to a law of nature, early English feminists would seem to have understood by it the state of things as instituted by an all-powerful and providential God. This has led feminist commentators either to ignore the theological dimension of their writings or conclude that these women are in the thrall of the moralism of their age. In this chapter, I propose to examine the huge investment in moral arguments by the earliest English feminists in order to come to a better understanding of the relevance of religious principles to the political consciousness of eighteenth-century women. By discussing two of Wollstonecraft’s predecessors, Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay, I argue that ethical issues were at the heart of their feminism, and that they understood these in religious terms, even in their understanding of non-religious writing—as may be illustrated from their reception of Stoicism. In conclusion I shall point up parallel concerns with ethical theory in Wollstonecraft herself so as to emphasise the point that, as proponents of female education and autonomy, Carter, Macaulay, and Wollstonecraft share many ideals and aspirations. In their adoption of ethico-theological arguments all three women also share a common methodology based on a similar set of values. Theology and ethics are, therefore, an additional dimension of the continuities between them. Their ethical and theological thinking does not, of course, constitute the whole story of women’s political thought, but it is, perhaps, one area in which we can begin to identify a female strand in political theory. It goes without saying that to focus on the contribution of religious thought, of course, goes against the resilient characterisation of Enlightenment as a period which saw the triumph of secularisation.3 137 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 137–148. © 2007 Springer.

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However, it is consistent with the findings of recent work on eighteenth-century women.4 Before discussing Carter and Macaulay, let us acknowledge that a plausible explanation for the religious aspect of women’s political thought is what might be called the “wall-paper” theory, on account of the fact that religion formed the backdrop to all social and cultural activity in pre-industrial times. That religious discourse should have been the dominant medium for most women in the eighteenth century is therefore hardly surprising. After all, as Jonathan Clark and others have convincingly demonstrated, public political debate in eighteenth-century England was more often than not conducted in religious terms.5 Issues such as belief in the Trinity or articles of the creed fuelled more political debate than did Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689) or Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680). If religion provided the medium of political debate for men, it is not surprising that those women who entered public debate should also do so in identifiably religious terms. Indeed, one might argue, that non-revolutionary women would inevitably adopt a faith-based or faith-compatible way of speaking. After all, religious discourse was the chief non-domestic discourse to which they were most exposed—and the nearest thing to intellectual discourse that most women encountered in their lives. This factor is captured in Macaulay’s observation that “all religion may, undoubtedly be styled philosophy.”6 At a domestic level, the self-same social prescriptions, which denied women both access to education and political status, permitted them—nay prescribed them—the duty of religious observance and a lead role in the moral management of their families. For literate women, the most widely available reading matter was religious in content. And educated women read on religious topics as a matter of choice, even when more secular alternatives (e.g. novels) were available. There are plenty of examples one might cite of women who conserved their standing as “proper” ladies by displaying their godly credentials very clearly: with book titles like Letters concerning the Love of God or Occasional Thoughts in reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life,7 women proclaimed their piety at their point of entry into the public domain of print, their books. The importance of moral credentials for women may be illustrated by the case of Elizabeth Burnet who initially held a low opinion of Catharine Trotter Cockburn because she was a playwright. Trotter eventually won Burnet’s approval when she had established her credentials through her philosophical writings.8 Be a “wall-paper” explanation of women’s religiosity as it may—and there is much to support it—this kind of explanation of the presence of religious terminology and views in women’s writings at this time is a conservative model which can, at best, only account for conformist women. It does not, of itself, account for the religious ethics of those who argued in favour of changing the customary expectations of women. As I intend to argue, the religious aspect of the political thought of early feminists entails more than mere “wall-paper.” To treat it as such is to miss an important aspect of both the nature and content of their views. It is indeed the case that many eighteenth-century women published moral writings of one kind or another. But there is a perceptible difference among these between the pious moralists and those who spoke out for women’s education, equality, and autonomy. A striking fact about

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the latter group is that, first of all, they are not morally prescriptive. They do not expound dogmatic precepts, but they advocate moral conduct based on rationally agreed principles. Secondly, this latter group shares a similar theology, and they appear to do so irrespective of their confessional or party-political affiliations, or whether they can be classified as political conservatives or revolutionaries, conformists or non-conformists. This is particularly true of their shared conviction that ethics are religious in their foundation since God is the guarantor of truth and goodness. Such female luminaries as Damaris Cudworth Masham, Mary Astell, Catharine Macaulay, and Mary Wollstonecraft, not only argue, in various ways and in varying degrees for greater education and autonomy for women, but they all subscribe to a similar theology, and all link their arguments to their idea of God or, more exactly, to their conception of the attributes of God. The differences between them notwithstanding (and they should not be ignored) all of them conceive of God as supremely benevolent; they repudiate voluntarist and predestinarian notions of the deity; and they all insist on the eternal foundation of truth and goodness—topics which translate easily into more general ideas of equality and liberty. In the remainder of this chapter I substantiate these claims by comparing two women intellectuals of the eighteenth century: the translator, Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806), and the historian, Catharine Macaulay (1731–91). Of the two, Macaulay is the most apparently obvious choice as a contributor to a history of women’s political thought, since the subject matter of her History of England is overtly political. By contrast, the more retiring and overtly pious Carter, who never penned a polemical word, never mind published one, seems an unlikely candidate for inclusion in such a history. But it is precisely this kind of difference that makes their political consciousness, and how they express it, interesting. And, as I argue, there are topics on which they would probably have agreed. In many respects Macaulay and Carter could not be more different. Carter was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman.9 She is best known for her translations of Algarotti’s Newtonianismo per le dame (1737), Crousaz’s commentary on Pope’s Essay on Man (1739), and the writings of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus (1758).10 (Hence her nickname “Epictetus Carter.”) However, in spite of the success of her translations she did not seek a career as a lady of letters. Instead she spent most of her life in her home town, Deal, making periodic trips to London and elsewhere to visit her friends, and caring for her ageing father. As one might expect from a clergyman’s daughter, especially one who never permanently left home, religion was central to her selfidentity. Her friendships reflect this—two of her closest friends Hester Chapone and Elizabeth Benson belonged to the inner circle around the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker. Macaulay, by contrast, was born into a family with strong political credentials— the Sawbridges were prominent supporters of “real” Whig causes.11 She established an international reputation in her own day as an historian and a politically partisan historian at that: her History of England from the Accession of James I to the Present, published between 1763 and 1783, gives a Whig account of the struggle for political liberty in seventeenth and eighteenth-century England. She also championed the

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education of women in her Letters on Education (1790), in which she makes the argument for educational equality of women with men. She took an active interest in contemporary politics, and her political interventions included pamphlets attacking Edmund Burke, for example her Observations on a Pamphlet entitled Thoughts On The Cause of the Present Discontents (1770).12 She also defended the French Revolution against Burke in Observations on the Reflections of the Right Honourable Mr Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France (1790). Macaulay’s credentials as both political radical and feminist rest on her championship of liberty and equality. Where Macaulay was fêted in both France and America for her pro-revolutionary sentiments, Carter deplored the French revolution. The nearest that she came to political activity was her participation in the Bluestocking salons of her influential friend, Elizabeth Montagu.13 Unlike their French equivalents in the salons of Paris, however, the Bluestockings prided themselves on their highly principled morals and impeccable sexual propriety. Their strong sense of religious duty was an inalienable part of the model of acceptable femininity to which they conformed. Sociability and politeness, rather than political activism, were their hallmarks. But they were not without influence in the highest political circles, and their political conservatism is apparent in their anti-Whig pronouncements, their admiration for Edmund Burke, and their hostility to all things savouring of libertinism and (later) revolution. However, although they did not openly challenge the gender norms of the day, Elizabeth Montagu and her circle asserted the need to improve women’s status and opportunities, and advocated widening the horizons of women, especially in terms of education. To arrive at a judgement about Carter’s views, we have to look beyond her translations to works published only after her death and to her private letters.14 These show that although she was deeply religious, she was not a dogmatist, and there is a strongly rational dimension to her spirituality. She was open-minded enough to see the good in a heathen like Epictetus and to visit English Catholic nuns when she travelled abroad. She read the writings of Madame Du Châtelet because she was a woman, notwithstanding the Marquise’s libertine sexual mores. Carter’s theological premises can be inferred from her abundant correspondence, as well as from one or two shorter writings on religious subjects. These show clearly that Carter’s God was a good God, whom she refers to repeatedly as “the Divine Goodness.”15 This of itself is not especially remarkable. But a number of consequences follow. By definition, this benevolent God is not a deity who rules by arbitrary decree, but one who exercises his power in accordance with his wisdom, goodness, and justice: “We certainly know that the sovereign Lord of us all is wise, and good, and just; and consequently that wisdom, goodness, and justice will, in the event of things, be the measure of his dispensations to all his creatures.”16 Knowledge of the divine nature is an “eternal truth,” which provides the basis of the firm principles that govern our moral lives—“The virtuous affections of the heart,” she told her friend Elizabeth Vesey, “are founded on unchanging principles.”17 Crucially, the exercise of virtue is possible only if the subject has free will, for without it we would be automatons of necessity. “The very essence of virtue consists in its being a voluntary act of choice.”18 This choice therefore requires an act of mind, which is only possible if the mind is free. Virtue, she

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writes, could not “exist in circumstances under which any exertion of the powers of the mind is impossible, and its motion ruled by laws as necessary and inevitable as those which regulate the beating of the pulse.”19 Carter’s argument for free agency within the bounds of religious duty amounts to a moral for human self-improvement through education—an argument that extends to women, as much as to men. That in itself is not an argument for women’s rights. But it is an argument for cautious expanding of female horizons. I. C AT H A R I N E M A C A U L AY

Just as Carter’s religiosity and political conservatism belie her forward-looking views on female autonomy and education, so also Macaulay confounds assumptions about the relationship between her religion and her feminism. Her profile as an historian who championed revolutionary causes seems secular in every respect. However, her championship of liberty and equality cannot be accounted for solely in terms of her Whig politics. (To make an obvious point, none of her political associates among the so-called “Real Whigs” is known for his sexual egalitarianism). Macaulay’s commitment to liberty and educational equality is sustained by arguments that are in essence moral, and may be linked directly to her religious views. And, as I have argued elsewhere, religion for Macaulay was not simply a badge of political affiliation.20 No less than with Carter, her political and feminist outlook is underpinned by a specific theological and ethical position. This is true in all her writings. But it is first stated in a less well-known book of hers, a treatise on ethics entitled A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (1783). The themes of this book were subsequently incorporated into her Letters on Education. A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth puts the spotlight on her conception of God as an “all-perfect and omnipotent being,” the “true source of all moral differences” who has “fixed the principles of human virtue.” She takes a necessitarian position, according to which “the moral perfections of God subject him to a kind of moral necessity, to act in all things agreeable to the transcendent excellence of his nature.” In consequence, there is a necessary connection between divine benevolence, truth, and goodness, and God’s providential government of the world. Accordingly God “can never suffer the misery of any being he has created.”21 In Letters on Education, Macaulay takes these claims further and deploys them in support of her case for educational equality for women and men. Macaulay’s coverage of religion and ethics in her argument for women’s education is not just a pious gesture, but encompasses the social and the political. Her case presupposes the reality of moral principles and the doctrine of the moral perfections of the deity. Since there is “but one rule of right for the conduct of all rational beings,”22 virtuous ideals entail no gender distinction, but men and women are endowed with the same capacity for virtue. Women must not, therefore, be denied the chance to improve themselves, since their salvation depends upon virtuous conduct. The key to this “reformation” (as she puts it) is a proper moral education for “understanding [the] principles on which all laws ought to be established.” Like Damaris Masham before her, Macaulay understands moral education to be not a code of conduct to be

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learned by rote, but an understanding of the principles on which virtuous behaviour should be based. These principles are fixed and unchanging, founded in the “necessary and essential difference of things,” especially “immutable right and wrong.”23 In this way liberal theology goes together with aspirations for social reform: a benign God is necessarily a providential God who governs the universe in such a way as to allow all human beings (and not just men) to change for the better. I I. S TO I C I S M

Macaulay’s, then, is an ethico-religious position not dissimilar from Carter’s— certainly at this level of generality. But it is important to acknowledge that Christian ethics is not the whole story of Macaulay’s or Carter’s thought, not least of their political thinking. As far as philosophy is concerned, it has strands from within identifiable philosophical traditions, including, especially, classical philosophy. Nevertheless, their discussion of other philosophies centres on ethical issues. And their judgement of other philosophies is strongly influenced by theological criteria. Of particular relevance here is Stoicism, with which both Carter and Macaulay took an interest. One practical reason for increased familiarity with Stoic writings is the availability of Carter’s English translation All the Works of Epictetus, first published in 1758.24 Macaulay made extensive use of this for her discussion of Stoicism, in her Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, a discussion that is reproduced in her Letters on Education.25 She also lists Stoic texts (Epictetus and Cicero’s De officiis) among the recommended reading for moral education in her Letters on Education. The introduction that Carter wrote for her translation shows that, of her three translations, this was the one with which she identified most. The interest of both in Stoicism is explicable in political terms: here, after all, is a philosophy which elaborates rational rules of conduct for public life and dealing with the realities of power. Although not feminist in any sense, Stoicism has particular relevance to women as a philosophy of the disempowered, which offers a guide for dealing with tyranny. On the face of it, however, the interest in Stoicism shown by Carter and Macaulay would appear to be at odds with my claim that religion is a central component of women’s political thought in the eighteenth century. At the very least, some explanation is required to reconcile a non-Christian, rational philosophy with the Christian ethics of Carter and Macaulay. And that, as it turns out, is the central question for both Carter and Macaulay. Stoicism is not a philosophy that has anything to say about womankind or any concern with the condition of women. In fact women are hardly mentioned by Epictetus except as the chattels of men. Nevertheless, speaking in general terms, it is possible to argue that Stoicism has direct applications to the female condition which gives it appeal to feminist thinkers. In particular, Stoic emphasis on forbearance in the face of adversity offers a practical method for coping with the realities of subordination and disempowerment, by making a virtue of necessity. Epictetus, after all, was a slave, who claimed to have found both freedom and happiness despite his social position.

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As a political philosophy, Stoicism is the ultimate practical philosophy, for it focuses on the possible, or what is “in our power” (eph hemin). In addition to this, there are aspects of Stoicism which would have had special appeal to women of the enlightenment. Stoic moral philosophy is founded, after all, on rational choice in the pursuit of virtue. And virtue is happiness, achieved with the aid of innate principles. Epictetus, in particular, set education at a premium. Furthermore, for a pious woman, like Carter, Stoicism had theism to recommend it as a philosophy. However, the attractions of Stoicism as a political philosophy must be set against the fact that it entails passivity of an extreme kind. The freedom attained by the Stoic is an inner freedom. No matter how mentally and spiritually liberated he might become, the slave remains a slave. As a philosophy, Stoicism is ultimately negative, for the final route to freedom is suicide. To put it simply, if reductively, ultimately the free man is a dead man. In this aspect, Stoicism has little to offer political activism, and those seeking political change. Although both Macaulay and Carter had alternative sources for Stoic philosophy, especially Cicero, their views are largely based on their reading of Epictetus. Significantly, neither accepted Stoicism uncritically. In fact Carter’s misgivings about the compatibility of Stoicism with Christianity were such that she felt it necessary to add a preface that drew attention to these difficulties. In so doing, she made distinctions between different Stoic philosophers, among whom Epictetus was clearly her favourite. She regarded his “unmethodical” writings as “one of the most valuable Remains of Antiquity” from which his readers “can hardly fail of receiving Improvement.”26 Carter commends Stoicism on many grounds—for asserting the government of providence, and for making piety the foundation of virtue, and virtue the foundation of human happiness. She commends their “Doctrine of Evidence and fixed Principles” as an antidote to scepticism. She was attracted to their unworldliness, their emphasis on inner self reliance and control of the passions. However, she thought they set too much store by logic, and were guilty of many “absurdities”—for example their pantheism and their positing the eternity of matter. Nevertheless, the fact that they were not atheists was a major point in their favour. In many ways, it is precisely because Stoicism, especially as expounded by Epictetus, appeared so attractive, that Carter felt the need to highlight its disadvantages. The main thrust of her case against Stoicism hinges on the incompatibility of Stoicism and Christian doctrine. As with so many Christian commentators before her, a central issue was Stoic advocacy of suicide, and the doctrines that underpin it. But she also had concerns about the anti-social implications of Stoic solipsism, and the elitist attitude according to which philosophy is accessible only to the worthy few. For Carter, the shortcomings of even the best Stoic philosophers are a lesson in the limitations of human reason. So, although Stoicism may be given credit as an example of what unassisted human reason can achieve, by the same token, it also illustrates that reason does not always get things right. Thus Stoics are commendable for their view that the human mind can come to a rational acceptance of the existence of God, but reason alone can only lead to a defective understanding of God. To form a true conception of God, and hence to come to a clear understanding of the nature of virtue, we need the

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assistance of other channels of information, which reassure us that God is loving, and will reward us for our pains in striving to conduct ourselves well in this life. In other words, we need the assurances that Christian revelation provides of the immortality of the soul, of the rewards and punishments in the afterlife, under the tutelage of a wise, just, and loving deity. Without the benefit of revelation, Stoicism is little better than deism. Macaulay’s reading of Stoicism is no less concerned with religious and moral issues, but her discussion enlarges on the political dimension of Stoic thought. Macaulay, like Carter, had her reservations about Stoicism, and these, too, centre on the superiority of Christian over Stoic doctrine. But her overall assessment is, on balance, much more positive than Carter’s. For one thing she expands on the close parallels between Christianity and Stoicism. Indeed she believed that, historically, the Stoics were forced to review and re-adjust their doctrines in the light of the spread of Christianity, especially in the light of Christian emphasis on the justice and benevolence of the deity. She seems to have regarded Epictetus as just such an example of reformed Stoicism. She insists that there are not many differences between Stoicism and Christianity, but regards the latter as superior, largely on account of its teachings on the afterlife. In consequence of this, Christianity is free from any “improper degree of apathy,” and is inconsistent with the Stoic principle of suicide. While Macaulay does not condone Stoic teaching on suicide or Stoic apathy and solipsism, she is more understanding in her evaluation of them. Such matters should, she argues, be evaluated in context. When so viewed, even suicide can be seen as only a “comparative deformity” in relation to Christianity. In relation to the Stoic system, however, suicide can be understood as “a real excellence” because it was consistent with the Stoic view of the deity, and was the only principle to which they could turn to render them immune from evil.27 Another defence of Stoicism is that their precepts have been distorted by misquotation—for example, on the authority of Epictetus, she claims that the maxim “a wise man never changes his mind” is a false construction, which omits the qualifier that it refers to “only such determinations as are right.”28 Measured against Christian precepts, Macaulay’s interpretations of Stoic doctrine are more generous than Carter’s. Another area of distinct difference from Carter is her denial that Stoicism is an anti-social philosophy, and she commended the “excellent rules of self-government and of social behaviour” of the Stoics. She also takes her discussion on to a political plane by listing those statesmen and rulers of the ancient world who abided by Stoic principles. The list includes noted opponents of imperial tyranny, including at least two who took their own lives: Cato, Brutus, Thrasea Paetus, and Helvidius Priscus. She also includes emperors: Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, as well as “almost every good emperor, whose conduct helped to support the tottering state of the empire and to give a breathingtime to the subject from the miseries of a capricious tyranny.”29 Significantly, of the emperors she honours by name, the first was remarkable for restoring the powers of the senate, and the second was a notable Stoic philosopher. Macaulay’s more positive assessment of Stoicism is nevertheless balanced by criticism. Ultimately, her critique is, like Carter’s, religious in foundation, and ethical in scope. For she insists “that any

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sound system of religion or morals” can be established only “on those principles which are consonant with the enlightened reason of man, and which form the principles of the Christian religion, viz. an abstract fitness of things, unlimited perfection, wisdom, and goodness of God, and a future state of rewards and punishments.”30 This brings us full circle to the religious ethics of both women. Their emphasis on the superiority of Christianity cannot be explained in terms of the narrowing impact of piety and the cultural claustrophobia of religious conformity on the outlook of politically conscious women. Their reservations about Stoicism did not lead them to reject it altogether. Rather, the parallels with Christianity enabled them to use those aspects of Stoic moral philosophy which supported their essentially Christian ethics. Within the context of their liberal Christian theology Stoicism served to endorse religious ethics on which their arguments for political agency were based. I I I. E T H I C S A N D P O L I T I C S

The political implications of Carter’s theology and ethics are perhaps difficult to see, since, in her case, religion very much defines the boundaries of her scope for action, and those boundaries are very much in keeping with the traditional limitations on women’s role in society. Nevertheless, within those confines, she made a space for autonomy, education, and social interaction—space cleared by her understanding of the virtuous life defined and sustained by Christian doctrine. In Macaulay’s case, the wider political potential of the same ethical foundations are more obvious, because she makes explicit links to political ideals. For Macaulay, ethical arguments founded on fixed moral principles founded in the nature of God offered a means to argue for change against the status quo. This is a position that is both anti-sceptical and rational. By it she sought a sure foundation for her defence of liberty and equality, and to side-step counter-arguments based on custom and tradition. Macaulay saw herself as engaged in the same cause as John Locke, whom, she claimed, had the aim of “fixing moral truths on such grounds of apparent certainty as shall render them capable of as clear a demonstration as mathematical problems.”31 Carter would have agreed that there is a direct link between God, ethics, and human agency, though she would have demurred at the Lockean pedigree of this. And in an important sense she would have been right. For arguments for female education, equality and autonomy founded in a rational understanding of God as good, wise, and just, are not arguments that can be traced back to Locke’s political writings. The pedigree of these arguments descends through channels of ethical and religious thought, rather than political theory, from the liberal Anglicanism of theologians like Samuel Clarke, through to the dissenting theology of Richard Price. The doctrinally sanctioned ethics of Macaulay and Carter finds expression in other thinking women of the eighteenth century. It is, furthermore, a position that anticipates the more fully articulated discussion of rights of Wollstonecraft. The link with Wollstonecraft underlines the political dimension of the ethics in question. Moreover, as is well-known, Wollstonecraft consciously invoked a link with Macaulay as a feminist and political writer, by singling her out for special mention in her Vindication

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of the Rights of Woman, where she praises Macaulay’s strength of mind. The two shared political and feminist views. But they also, apparently, concurred on theology and ethics.32 This is brought sharply into focus in Wollstonecraft’s review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education in the Analytical Review in November 1790—one of the longest reviews she wrote for that journal. The length of the review corroborates Wollstonecraft’s high regard for Macaulay, but, surprisingly, Wollstonecraft does not give much attention to Macaulay’s views on education. Still more surprising is the fact that she subordinates education to theology and ethics. In fact her main reason for recommending Macaulay is not as an historian, but as “a moralist,” and most of her discussion of Letters on Education focuses largely on those sections of the book that deal with ethical and theological issues: moral obligation, free will, the origin of evil, and the divine nature. Along the way she admits her own positive view of “the philosophy and doctrines of the Stoics,” when she commends Macaulay for having cleared them of “some unjust assertions . . . which bigotry and ignorance have industriously propagated, to render doctrines ridiculous or odious, which deserve respect.”33 Wollstonecraft writes as someone familiar with the ethical debates involved, and takes the opportunity to expatiate on her own views on these topics. In so doing she shows her theological hand—“The grandest idea which we can form of God’s is that his motives are always right, and his Will wisdom.”34 Her remarks show that she accepted the omnipotence of God without qualification, but that she did not regard this as inconsistent with divine goodness, that it is no derogation of the “irresistible power of God” to “suppose it guided by wisdom.” By subsuming God’s will to his wisdom, Wollstonecraft subscribes to a view of the divine nature which sets her broadly within the same liberal theological tradition as Macaulay and Carter. And it is this theology which underpins her arguments in Vindication of the Rights of Woman.35 Although she did not agree with Macaulay on all points (particularly her attribution of moral necessity to God) the content of her review shows that she regarded the religious and ethical issues raised by Macaulay as sufficiently important to warrant public airing. And this underscores the point that the appeal to God in Vindication of the Rights of Woman is not mere window-dressing. Rather, it is an important dimension of Wollstonecraft’s political thinking, and one of the means by which she placed her championship of women in relation to her like-minded predecessors. NOTES 1 Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988; Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 1988). 2 For example, Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Revolutionary Life (London: Weidenfeld and

Nicolson, 2000), 179. 3 This older model of the Enlightenment has been revived and re-invigorated with the publication

of Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 4 See studies contained in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, ed. Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), to which John Robertson draws attention in his concluding, “Women and Enlightenment: A Historiographical Conclusion,” 692–704.

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5 J.C.D. Clark, English Society, 1685–1732. Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the

Ancien Régime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 6 Catharine Macaulay, A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (London: C. Dilly, G. Robinson,

7

8 9

10

11

12

13

14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

T. Cadell [and three others], 1783), 290. This is probably also a comment on the rational style of religious discourse with which she was familiar at this time. Both were printed anonymously: [Mary Astell and] John Norris, Letters Concerning the Love of God, Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris (London: Samuel Manship and Richard Wilkin, 1695); and [Damaris Cudworth Masham], Occasional Thoughts In reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (London: A. and J. Churchil, 1705). Anne Kelley, Catharine Trotter: An Early Modern Writer in the Vanguard of Feminism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 15–6. The best account of Carter is Judith Hawley’s introduction to her edition of Carter’s writings. See, Judith Hawley, ed., Elizabeth Carter, vol. 2 of Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–90, gen. ed. Gary Kelly, 6 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999). Jean Pierre de Crousaz, An Examination of Mr Pope’s Essay on Man, from the French of M. Crousaz (London: A. Dodd, 1739); Francesco Algarotti, Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy explain’d for the use of the Ladies in Six Dialogues on Light and Colours. From the Italian of Sig. Algarotti (London: E. Cave, 1739); Elizabeth Carter, trans., All the Works of Epictetus. Which Are Now Extant (London: A. Millar, John Rivington and R. and J. Dodsley, 1758). On Carter as a translator, see Mirella Agorni, Translating Italy for the Eighteenth Century: British Women Translators and Travel Writing (1739–97) (Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2002). Bridget Hill, The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); J.G.A. Pocock, “Catharine Macaulay: Patriot Historian,” in Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition, ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 243–58. This is just one of several famous responses to Burke written in defence of Richard Price, whose Discourse on the Love of Our Country (London: T. Cadell, 1789) occasioned Edmund Burke’s antirevolutionary Reflections on the Revolution in France (London: J. Dodsley, 1790). The best-known defences of Price were Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men (London: J. Johnson, 1790), and Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man (London: J. Johnson, 1791). On the Bluestockings, see Sylvia Harcstark Myers, The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); Elizabeth M. Fay, A Feminist Introduction to Romanticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). Also Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). For a modern edition of works by Carter, see Hawley, Elizabeth Carter. Carter’s nephew Montagu Pennington published various pieces and letters in Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter, with a new edition of her Poems, to which are added Some Miscellaneous Essays in Prose together with her Notes on the Bible and Answers to Objections concerning the Christian Religion, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1808). He also edited two volumes of her letters, A Series of Letters between Mrs Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770, to which are added, Letters from Mrs Carter to Mrs Vesey, between the Years 1741 to 1787, ed. Montagu Pennington, 4 vols. (London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1809), and Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu, between the Years 1755 and 1800. Chiefly upon Literary and Moral Subjects, ed. Montagu Pennington, 3 vols. (London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1817). Pennington, Memoirs, 3.400, 401. See Carter, A Series of Letters, 4.198. Carter, A Series of Letters, 3.222–23. Ibid., 4.42. Pennington, Memoirs, 3.378. Ibid. Sarah Hutton, “Liberty, Equality and God: The Religious Roots of Catherine Macaulay’s Feminism,” in Knott and Taylor, Women, Gender and Enlightenment, 538–50. Macaulay, A Treatise, 380.

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22 Catharine Macaulay, Letters on Education with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects

(Dublin: H. Chamberlaine and Rice, L. White, W. McKenzie [and five others], 1790), 201. 23 Ibid., 31. 24 This saw three editions in Carter’s lifetime. 25 For a discussion of Stoicism, see Macaulay A Treatise, pt. 3, ch. 4–7. See also Macaulay, Letters on

Education, pt. 3, sec. 10–2. Carter, The Works of Epictetus, in Hawley, Elizabeth Carter, 31 n. 9 and 14. Macaulay, A Treatise, 303–04. Ibid., 305. Ibid., 320. Ibid., 325. Ibid., p.17. For further details on similarities between Wollstonecraft and Macaulay, see Martina Reuter, “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will,” in this volume. 33 Mary Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” vol. 7 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Janet Todd and Marilyn Butler, 7 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1989). 34 Ibid., 7.318. 35 See Sarah Hutton, “The Ethical Background of the Rights of Women,” in Philosophical Theory and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ed. W. Sweet (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2003), 26–40. This will be more fully discussed in my forthcoming book on Wollstonecraft and her predecessors. 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

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M A RT I N A R E U T E R

X C AT H A R I N E M A C A U L AY A N D M A RY W O L L S TO N E C R A F T ON THE WILL

Mary Wollstonecraft is well known for her affirmation of the French revolution and its slogan liberté, fraternité, egalité. As has been noted by several writers, Wollstonecraft’s conception of liberty is strongly connected to a conception of selfgovernance, which she shared with the movement of Rational Dissent.1 The Dissenters emphasised that one has to be free in order to be virtuous. Freedom here has a double meaning: first, one has to be free from coercion in order to be responsible for one’s own actions. Second, one has to be free in the sense that one governs oneself and acts according to one’s reason rather than prejudices or temporary passions.2 Thus the political question of freedom from coercion is closely tied together with the moral question of self-governance. The problem is double-sided: one has to have a certain amount of political freedom in order to be responsible for one’s actions and one has to morally govern oneself in order to be able to fulfil one’s duties as a citizen. Education constitutes an important means by which human beings become self-governing citizens. Freedom, according to Wollstonecraft, is something human beings have because they are reasoning creatures. Human actions are free when they are based on the use of reason. She repeatedly emphasises the categorical difference between the principles of human knowledge and virtue, based on reason, and the principles according to which “brute creation” functions.3 While brutes are unfree and governed by mechanical laws, human beings are able to govern themselves. Human freedom is rooted in this difference and guaranteed by the Creator, who created human beings as rational creatures. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) Wollstonecraft writes that “the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who alone could limit them,” and continues: “an immortal soul, not restrained by mechanical laws and struggling to free itself from the shackles of matter, contributes to, instead of disturbing, the order of creation, when, co-operating with the Father of spirits, it tries to govern itself by the invariable rule that, in a degree, before which our imagination faints, regulates the universe.”4 The rest of created nature is limited by external causation, but God has not imposed this kind of limitation on the immortal soul of man. Human actions are not restrained by mechanical laws, but instead self-governing according to universal and invariable rule or principle. It is important to note that the soul is described as governing itself when “cooperating with the Father of spirits”5 rather than obeying his commands. Wollstonecraft emphasises that we ought to respect God because of his wisdom, not his power.6 What is true for God applies also to worldly authorities, which ought to be respected when they are wise, but to which one should never blindly submit. Wollstonecraft repeatedly reminds her readers that true virtue cannot be achieved 149 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 149–169. © 2007 Springer.

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by obeying rules, either human or divine. No one can “act wisely from imitation, because in every circumstance of life there is a kind of individuality, which requires an exertion of judgement to modify general rules.”7 Virtue can be achieved only by the free use of one’s own reason. It is evident that Wollstonecraft conceives human freedom as primarily based on the capacity to reason, whereas “the shackles of matter” are a condition against which one has to struggle. At the beginning of the Rights of Woman, she writes that “from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow.”8 This formulation seems to indicate a necessity by which knowledge and virtuous action follow from the right use of reason. Virtuous action is not something we will, but rather something we achieve by using our reason.9 In the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft does not discuss the relation between necessity and freedom, but this is done in great detail by Catharine Macaulay in her Letters on Education (1790) and the earlier A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (1783). Interestingly, Wollstonecraft develops her only explicit discussion of the freedom of the will in her review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education, published in the November 1790 issue of the Analytical Review. In this essay I will investigate the role of the will in the thought of Macaulay and Wollstonecraft by comparing the latter’s mainly implicit understanding of the topic with Macaulay’s explicit remarks. My focus will be on questions of moral psychology, but the close connection between self-governance and liberty implies that these questions have a broader political significance in Wollstonecraft’s thought. In the first section I describe Macaulay’s conception of the relation between the will and the understanding. Then I consider Wollstonecraft’s review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education and compare their views on the passions and the imagination. In the final section I examine how Wollstonecraft’s conception of the will should be interpreted and compare her views with Rousseau’s discussions of the topic.

I. C AT H A R I N E M A C A U L AY ’ S C O N C E P T I O N O F M O R A L N E C E S S I T Y

Catharine Macaulay is best known as an historian and political pamphleteer.10 Her theological views and “metaphysics of the mind”11 are developed in A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth and Letters on Education.12 Both of these works present expositions that are much more scholarly and systematic than anything Wollstonecraft wrote. Macaulay’s examination of the will is primarily a defence of moral necessity directed against the position she attributes to “free willers.”13 These “free willers”14 represent a position often called voluntarism, according to which God created morality and imposed it upon human beings by a completely free act of his will. The opposite position, often called intellectualism, holds that God did not create moral standards by an act of His will, but rather acts guided by His intellect’s knowledge of eternal standards. Used in this way voluntarism and intellectualism refer primarily to the will and intellect of God as a creator of the world. But most of these seventeenth and eighteenth-century voluntarists and intellectualists did posit a connection between the will of God and the human will. Thus voluntarists emphasised the free will and

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intellectualists the eternal standards according to which both God and human beings choose.15 Macaulay’s position is explicitly intellectualist. She holds that among all possible choices there can be only one best and it is characteristic of an infinite intelligence that it will perceive and choose the best possibility. Macaulay writes that the “subjection to this necessity, is the peculiar glory of the divine character.” By using their understanding finite creatures may approach the perfection of their creator and thus be more and more brought under the subjection of the same true principles God has chosen.16 The position Macaulay attributes to the free willers has features of a straw man, created for argumentative purposes. She puts great emphasis on the idea that according to the free willers the mere pleasure of using one’s will is an essential motive for human as well as divine acts of the will. Few self-defined voluntarists would perceive the pleasure involved in using one’s will as a basic motive to exert the freedom of the will.17 In her review of Letters on Education, Wollstonecraft seems to question Macaulay’s somehow exaggerated picture of the free willers’ position. Wollstonecraft emphasises that in their conduct the free willers and defenders of moral necessity express more similarity than in their opinions. She points out that virtuous free willers do in fact cultivate their minds with as much care and choose according to what they believe to be the most virtuous motives.18 In contrast to the position of the free willers, Macaulay defends a conception of the free will based on the distinction between physical and moral necessity. She claims that the existence of strong or even irresistible reasons presented by the understanding does not contradict the freedom of the will. Macaulay defines physical and moral necessity in the following way: Physical necessity in man, is considered as a necessity imposed on the will by the power of a divine impulse; or proceeding from the negation of such a strength in the faculties and power of the human mind, as are necessary to oppose the force of that desire and aversion which arises from the continual action of corporeal or mental causes. Moral necessity is, that necessity which arises from the irresistible force the understanding has on volition, by its discriminations on the nature of those objects of choice which present themselves to the mind, as to its conceptions of good and evil.19

Physical necessity thus includes two kinds of determinism: the will may be determined directly by God or by corporeal or mental causes due to the mind’s inability to resist these causes, that is, desires and aversions. Moral necessity, on the other hand, consists in the irresistible force the understanding has on volition. This force is, according to Macaulay’s argument, not contradictory to freedom. On the contrary she claims that freedom is realised when we act according to true motives presented by reason. Macaulay’s terminology of moral necessity is explicitly indebted to G.W. Leibniz’s and Samuel Clarke’s correspondence on this subject.20 Leibniz distinguishes moral necessity from metaphysical as well as physical necessity. The meaning of “moral” as used by Leibniz is not unequivocally ethical. In seventeenth-century French, moral had the meaning of conventional. Descartes, for example, distinguished moral certainty, sufficient for everyday life, from the stricter metaphysical certainty required by philosophy.21 The connection between the moral and the ethical good developed during Leibniz’s lifetime. In a letter to Clarke at the end of his life, Leibniz uses

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moral in a partly but not entirely ethical sense. Here he distinguishes moral necessity from “logical, metaphysical or mathematical” necessity, which is subject to the law of non-contradiction and implies that any other option would be logically impossible. He describes moral necessity as the necessity “whereby a wise being chooses the best, and every mind follows the strongest inclination.”22 In this context Leibniz also calls inclinations motives (motifs) and the motives of a wise being, reasons (raisons).23 In a polemic against Hobbes, published as an appendix to the Theodicy, Leibniz distinguishes moral necessity from the “blind necessity” of physical causes, which operate “without intelligence and without choice.” When one acts according to moral necessity “one is prompted by good reasons to act as one does.”24 Moral necessity in Leibniz’s sense is related to purposes, even though these purposes are based on reason and directed at the true good only in the case of the wise being. “Moral” necessity is not subject to the law of non-contradiction and it is not the necessity of “blind” physical causes. Macaulay seems to understand moral necessity as the moral necessity Leibniz attributes to the wise being. Moral has now become an ethical concept and moral necessity is closely tied to the ability of the understanding to discern truth from falsehood and good from evil. Macaulay’s use of “physical necessity” does not correspond directly to Leibniz’s use of either physical or metaphysical necessity. It is noteworthy that she includes divine as well as mental causes under the label of physical necessity: one defends physical necessity if one believes that God is the direct cause of human actions or that the understanding is unable to resist mental causes such as desires and aversions and therefore is determined by them. In order to distinguish moral necessity from physical necessity, Macaulay has to show two things: that God does not determine human action directly and that the human mind is able to resist, and is thus not determined by mental and corporeal causes external to the understanding. She emphasises that it would have been in God’s power to create human beings differently. He “might have acted physically on man, and made him either necessarily moral, or necessarily immoral,” but instead God bestowed on human beings “the privilege of a free agent,” who acts under the guidance of reason, but is necessarily exposed to the errors which arise from an “ill informed understanding” or an understanding “mischievously affected” by appetites and “those passions proceeding from the various corporeal and mental qualities which exist in the human frame.”25 Human beings are rational and sensitive agents, who, due to their rationality, are able to distinguish “the difference which lies in the nature of things” and “prize some objects as good, and others . . . as evil.”26 The possibility of error, and in some sense of freedom as well, is based on the fact that human beings are finite, imperfect and not only rational beings. When an agent chooses to use her reason, she submits to the necessity of true principles. Macaulay writes that “the nearer approaches which all finite creatures make to the perfections of their creator, the more they will be brought under the blessed subjection of being necessarily determined in their volitions by right principles of conduct.”27 Approaching perfections in this way means that a creature, which is by nature rational

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as well as sensitive, chooses her rational potential. Freedom consists in the fact that virtuous actions are based on our voluntary use of reason: they are not by physical necessity bestowed on us by divine impulses. After having avoided the divine type of physical necessity, Macaulay attempts to show that the human mind is not determined by corporeal or mental impulses. She argues that though human beings, according to the position of moral necessity, do not have the power to suspend volitions, the human agent does have “the power of suspending the motion of a correspondent action till he has taken into due consideration the good or the bad which may exist in the object of volition.”28 Thus the mind is able to oppose the force of mental and corporeal causes in order to give reason the time needed to examine the objects of desire or aversion, and decide whether they are truly good or bad.29 Then, as we have seen, the exercise of reason and the understanding introduces the necessity of true principles. The essential difference between physical and moral necessity, as defined by Macaulay, seems to be that physical determination is external to human reason, whereas moral determination is caused by reason itself. Macaulay comments on the claim that real voluntary choices are made against motives: we are considered to act voluntarily when we act contrary to “the power of all motives, contrary to every colour of interest, to the natural love of life, the natural dread of pain, or the importunate calls of appetite.”30 She attributes this conception of voluntary choice especially to the Stoics, but emphasises that they did not hold this position because of the “mere satisfaction of the enjoyment of choice.”31 Thus the Stoics were not victims of the fallacy she attributes to the free willers. The Stoic idea was to disregard and choose against immediate false motives in order to act according to true motives, which were not based on self-interest or appetites. Macaulay points out that this idea is in complete agreement with her own position. The claim that all choices have a motive constitutes an essential aspect of Macaulay’s conception of moral necessity. She argues for this claim by showing that even in cases that seem completely arbitrary—such as choosing between two boiled breakfast eggs—we try to use some kind of standard and choose “either from size, colour, or situation.” If no other motive can be found, the mere necessity to make a choice becomes a motive.32 One aspect of her argument is to show, against the position attributed to the free willers, that “the mere pleasure of willing has no charms for a rational agent.”33 Using the example of two eggs, Macaulay wants to point out that it is on the contrary frustrating to have to choose in the absence of distinguishable motives. We do not exercise our will because it is pleasurable, but rather because it is always necessary to choose something. We cannot live our lives without making choices. Our choice is free when it is motivated by reason instead of appetites or mere self-interest. On a more implicit level Macaulay’s example concerning seemingly arbitrary choices indicates that she gives a very limited—if any—role to freedom as the possibility to choose otherwise.34 According to Macaulay we can choose otherwise only in cases where there are no clear motives, when the choice seems arbitrary—such as choosing between two almost identical eggs. We are indeed able to choose against

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motives, but that is only because we, in addition to our immediate present motive, have sight of a higher one. Macaulay’s conception of the freedom of the will seems to fit into the position twenty-first century metaphysicians call rationalist compatibilism.35 The position is called compatibilism because it allows that freedom is compatible with necessary determination and rationalist because necessity is located in reason, not in any physical causes. Typical for this position is the idea that freedom is identical with the capacity to exercise one’s reason.36 Many different conceptions of the will share the conviction that rationality is a necessary condition for human freedom: without the possibility of rational deliberation our acts would be only arbitrary, not free in any substantial sense of the word. The problem with identifying freedom and reason is that if they are the same there can be no conflicts between acting according to reason and acting voluntarily: we could not act voluntarily against our reason.37 According to Macaulay, people are able to act in non-virtuous ways and do what is wrong, but she has to explain these acts as deriving from a lack of understanding or insufficient use of reason. She explicitly claims that the understanding acts irresistibly on our volitions, from which it follows that we are unable to act voluntarily against our understanding or rational capacity. Macaulay’s position excludes the possibility that people voluntarily do what they know is wrong. The passions are the main source of error and they are in this sense contrary to reason, but Macaulay also conceives them as a useful and even necessary part of the human condition. First, and most importantly, the passions are a necessary condition for meritorious virtue: virtue is earned through reason’s struggle against passions and appetites.38 In addition to this rather obviously theologically motivated role, Macaulay indicates that the passions are also necessary in a philosophically more interesting way. She writes that “the appetites and the passions are such useful incentives to action in the frame of the human mechanism, that they appear to be a necessary part of the constitution of such a being as man.”39 Here Macaulay picks out an aspect of the passions that becomes important in Wollstonecraft’s thought.40 The idea is that the passions are a necessary condition for our actions: if we did not experience passions we would not be able to act either virtuously or non-virtuously. In the next section I consider Wollstonecraft’s explicit remarks on Macaulay’s thought, briefly compare their views on the passions, and describe Wollstonecraft’s view on the imagination. In the final section I examine what consequences the emphasis Wollstonecraft puts on the passions and the imagination has for her conception of the human will. I I. PA S S I O N S A N D T H E I M A G I N AT I O N

Wollstonecraft’s review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education is mainly laudatory, but there are points where she has reservations and develops her own reflections in new directions. I already mentioned Wollstonecraft’s somehow more generous view of the free willers’ position. Considering the reading-lists Macaulay composes for her pupils, Wollstonecraft questions whether the package of classics is too heavy to be

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digested, “unless by a youth of uncommon abilities.”41 Regarding Macaulay’s rather severe reflections on the use of novels as a part of education, Wollstonecraft takes a more liberal stand and writes: The remarks on some celebrated novels are just; but still we are of opinion, that we should not so widely deviate from nature, as not to allow the imagination to forage a little for the judgment.—It may be made a question, whether the understanding has sufficient strength before it arrives at maturity to investigate such important projects? It may be necessary for the passions to be felt before their operations can be understood, or observed to any useful or moral purpose.42

Wollstonecraft emphasises that in order to develop and refine the understanding by means of education, we cannot proceed directly to teaching how to make sound judgements. The pupil has to experience passions before she is able to understand and regulate them. Wollstonecraft seems to claim that the capacity of judgement depends on the imagination as well as reason.43 It is interesting to note that Macaulay criticises novels mainly on the ground that it is extremely difficult to copy “Nature with exactness.”44 Most novel writers have virtuous intentions, she claims, but because of the extreme difficulty of their task, they are caused “to draw situations unnaturally, and to give forced and exaggerated sentiments to their characters.” Thus, despite good intentions, fiction gives a false picture of human nature and “the circle of moral consequences, as they really exist.”45 Wollstonecraft has more faith in the skills of novelists—she is the author of fiction whereas Macaulay is the historian, who attempts to document episodes as they have happened. It is interesting to note that Wollstonecraft might have been influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who is known for the exquisite moral portraits developed in his great novel Julie, or the New Heloise (1761) and for his claims that historical biography is the best guide to the past and fiction the best way to describe moral character. According to Rousseau, this is so because we can judge only individuals and their moral character, not general historical events and complex circumstances, the full causes of which we can never know.46 He emphasises that moral consequences cannot be captured on a general level or by studying historical episodes, but have to be approached through particular portraits, either biographical or fictional. Macaulay’s aim is the achievement of a general insight into the human mind and a capturing of the mind’s most universal characteristics. Rousseau claims that our understanding is constrained to the particular. Wollstonecraft is perhaps implying that all moral knowledge is irreducibly dependent on particular experience even when its aim is universal insight. Macaulay conceives of reason as the capacity by which one can understand and describe human nature. The passions and experience are needed in order to motivate and provide material, but only reason can capture the true universal principles of nature and morality. Thus the “strict copier of Nature” ultimately depends on the use of his or her reason. Wollstonecraft agrees on the necessary role of reason, only reason can ultimately grasp true principles, but she seems to have learnt from her reading of Rousseau’s Julie (1761), Emile: Or, On Education (1762), and Confessions (1780) that the understanding of our passions—and at least to some extent the understanding provided by our passions—are essential parts of our self-understanding and of the novelist’s skill in portraying moral character.

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Despite Wollstonecraft’s laudatory words and explicit commitment to Macaulay’s views, there seem to be several differences between their perspectives. First, Wollstonecraft puts more emphasis on the passions as a necessary constituent of human nature and incentive behind moral action. Second, she conceives the imagination as a significant aspect of moral development. Third, and as already mentioned, she emphasises the similarities rather than the differences between the positions of the defenders of moral necessity and the free willers. Wollstonecraft points out that the metaphysicians have not been able to solve the question of the freedom of the will, and therefore it is important to note that in the commitment of their everyday lives necessitarians and free willers both regard motives as important, not least in the education of their children.47 I think Wollstonecraft can be seen to claim that, because the question of the will might be insoluble as a metaphysical problem, it is more informative to focus on how people in fact act. I return to this point in my conclusion. Wollstonecraft does not conceive of the passions as a mere motivating force: they are a necessary part of what Macaulay calls the “metaphysics of the mind.”48 The passions do not only spur us to act, they also move us to think. Wollstonecraft seems to conceive of thinking as secondary to acting.49 In an often quoted passage from the Rights of Men (1790) she writes: “The passions are necessary auxiliaries of reason: a present impulse pushes us forward, and when we discover that the game did not deserve the chase, we find that we have gone over much ground, and not only gained many new ideas, but a habit of thinking. The exercise of our faculties is the great end, though not the goal we had in view when we started with such eagerness.”50 Wollstonecraft emphasises that the passions are a necessary constituent of the human mind, which we have to take into consideration in order to understand how the mind works. There are hints that Macaulay gives the passions a necessary role as well, as shown by the passage from Letters on Education, quoted above, but the role of the passions is under played, because she never questions that reason is able to motivate action by itself or that reason ultimately presents stronger motives than the passions. Because Wollstonecraft puts more emphasis on the necessity of the passions it becomes less evident that reason always presents the strongest motive. It might be claimed that Wollstonecraft takes the consequences of the fact that the passions are necessary more seriously than Macaulay. As Karen Green and others have argued,51 Wollstonecraft conceives of the imagination as a necessary complement to reason, which “integrates feeling into judgement”52 and promotes our understanding of ourselves as passionate beings. Human nature cannot be truthfully understood nor described without use of the imagination, and this is a further reason why fiction has essential importance as a moral genre. The imagination receives its content from sense experience, but is able to conduct variations and present to the understanding objects that are not immediately perceived by the senses. In his discussion of Wollstonecraft’s conception of the imagination and futurity, John Whale emphasises the capacity the imagination has to transgress present contentment and spur towards extended possibilities.53 The main problem with the passions, according to Wollstonecraft, is not that they often present false goals, but

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that they easily degenerate into appetites, which lose their moving force when they are satisfied.54 The task of the imagination is to create a desire, which is not a mere satisfiable appetite or need, and which therefore keeps the mind moving towards future goals ultimately set by reason.55 Wollstonecraft’s view of the role of the imagination in the creation of desire resembles Rousseau’s view. He makes a distinction between physical needs (besoin physique) and desires specific to the human mind (besoin proprement), which have their origin in the imagination. Human beings share the former with other animals and these needs can be physically satisfied, while the latter are not in this sense true needs and cannot be satisfied.56 The human capacity to transgress physical needs depends on the imagination and is a necessary condition for civilisation, including the unhappiness accompanying its endeavours. According to Rousseau, man’s paradoxical tragedy is that he has more mental powers than are needed for self-preservation. The imagination is the essential root of the problem: it creates a gap between what man can desire and what he can achieve.57 From Wollstonecraft’s point of view the ability to desire what is at least not immediately achievable is more for the good than the ill. Whale points out the probable influence Jacques Necker’s views on the importance of the imagination in religious experience had on Wollstonecraft’s thought.58 According to Whale’s interpretation, Necker provides Wollstonercraft with a concept of the imagination, which is more suitable for her purposes than Rousseau’s pessimistic account.59 It is evident that Wollstonecraft’s optimism is related to her belief in providence, which Rousseau did not share,60 but I think her optimism is also, on a less explicit level, related to the fact that she conceives the imagination as a voluntary capacity. We are not able to control where the imagination takes us in minute detail, but we are able to direct its function according to reasonable goals. (This is not unrelated to the question of providence: because Wollstonecraft believes in providence, she believes that there are reasonable and attainable goals set in the future). The idea that the imagination can be controlled by the will is found at least as early as in Descartes’ thought. In The Passions of the Soul (1649) he separates imaginings (imaginations) formed by the soul61 and imaginings caused by the body. To the former category belongs wilfully produced imaginings such as enchanted palaces and chimeras, but also geometrical figures, and to the latter category belong illusions, dreams, and also “the day-dreams we often have when we are awake and our mind wanders idly without applying itself to anything of its own accord.”62 The imagination as a voluntary capacity becomes essential during the Romanticism of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. James Engell has traced the development of the conception of creative imagination from the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. He emphasises how the imagination was conceived to unite conscious and deliberate choice with strong and involuntary desires.63 The possession of a true creative imagination was the hallmark of a genius. Wollstonecraft’s acquaintance and admirer, the Romantic poet, essayist, and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge64 was central to the development of a concept of the creative imagination. He distinguishes

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primary and secondary imagination. The latter is the imagination of poetic creativity and genius, and it is separated from primary imagination by its co-existing with the conscious will.65 Especially in her letters to Gilbert Imlay and Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796), Wollstonecraft is clearly an adherent of the creative imagination. One often quoted letter to Imlay refers to the Prometheus myth popular among the Romantics: she claims that “the imagination is the true fire, stolen from heaven.”66 Wollstonecraft does not explicitly claim the voluntary nature of the imagination, but it is indicated for example when she urges Imlay to use this capacity. She tells him that he should not submit passively to his gross appetites and need for (sexual) variety, but instead use his imagination and let it lend “its magic wand to convert appetite into love, cemented by according reason.”67 As early as in Original Stories (1788), Wollstonecraft claims that the imagination, together with reason and “the affections which arise from reason,”68 belongs to the realm of voluntary action and virtue, specific to human beings. She explains the differences between animals and human beings, and points out that the affections and impulses, which can be observed in animals, are “like our inferior emotions, which do not depend entirely on our will, but are involuntary.”69 The topic of the creative imagination explicates the differences between Rousseau’s and Wollstonecraft’s views on the role of the imagination. In her vivid study of Rousseau’s social thought, Judith N. Shklar emphasises that he remained very far from the Romantic ideal of individuality. Rousseau did not believe in the Promethean artist-hero expressing unique individuality through the creative imagination. Shklar connects Rousseau’s distance to this ideal with his view on suffering: Rousseau conceives suffering as “a great equalizer.”70 Suffering is the most common and the most binding human experience and all human beings are made equal as victims of suffering. Shklar emphasises that this view of suffering is totally different from the Romantic notion, which makes suffering a dramatic and creative state typical for the genius. According to Rousseau, men should resign to necessity rather than glorify perfectibility, which is the deepest source of misery.71 Wollstonecraft’s view of suffering is closer to the Romantic conception, as becomes evident in her letters to Imlay and in Letters Written during a Short Residence. She never conceives of suffering as an equalizer. Suffering is most often caused to women by men lacking courage and sincerity—and there is nothing equal about that. I would not claim that she idealises suffering, either as equalizer or creativity, but in her letters to Imlay and published travel letters from Scandinavia, Wollstonecraft does more than hint at the Romantic idea that suffering intensifies the sufferer’s experience of the world and thus opens up possibilities for creative expression. I I I. R O U S S E A U A N D W O L L S TO N E C R A F T: PA R A D O X E S O F W I L L

Wollstonecraft’s conception of the voluntary nature of the imagination introduces the topic that might in the end constitute the major difference between Macaulay’s and Wollstonecraft’s conceptions of morality and virtue. Wollstonecraft appears to be a

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less convinced necessitarian than Macaulay. I now conclude by making a tentative characterisation of Wollstonecraft’s conception of the will. In the Rights of Woman her position is very close to Macaulay’s: both locate human freedom in the use of reason and imply that the exercise of one’s reason by necessity produces virtuous action. But in some of her late writings Wollstonecraft seems to be less convinced that the truth compels or that the capacity to reason forms the essence of our freedom. This shows through in the unfinished and posthumously published novel The Wrongs of Woman (1798), where the character Maria reflects on the fact that she acts in ways she knows she should not.72 There has been much discussion of whether Wollstonecraft’s philosophical views change between her earlier and later work.73 I claim that to the extent there is a change at least of emphasis, it concerns exactly the relation between the compelling nature of true knowledge and the need for willpower. I would like to suggest that one reads Wollstonecraft’s letters to Gilbert Imlay as a documentation of the process by which she rethought her belief in the compelling power of reason. In these letters the idea of willpower becomes essential for her reflections on herself as well as on Imlay’s behaviour, and it seems that the imagination is the principal capacity through which this willpower can be exercised as well as strengthened. Wollstonecraft seems to hold that the truth does not necessarily compel by itself, but we are able to choose to follow it and we can use the imagination in order to motivate ourselves to act in the right way. The imagination is able to transform passive “gross appetites” in accordance with reason into active truthful volitions.74 As we saw above, Wollstonecraft’s conception of the creative and voluntary imagination differs from Rousseau’s view. But despite this difference, I want to claim that Rousseau’s conception of the relations between reason, the passions, and will had an essential influence on Wollstonecraft’s thought and caused her to question implicitly Macaulay’s necessitarian rationalist compatibilism. Rousseau’s novel Julie, or The New Heloise plays a significant role in the plot of The Wrongs of Woman and it is not too far-fetched to suppose that Rousseau’s thought might have influenced Wollstonecraft’s last work on several levels. According to Rousseau, it is the power of the will rather than reason that separates human beings from other animals. In A Discourse on Inequality he writes that “Nature commands all animals, and the beast obeys. Man receives the same impulsion, but he recognizes himself as being free to acquiesce or resist; and it is above all in this consciousness of his freedom that the spirituality of his soul reveals itself.”75 Rousseau continues by claiming that physics may explain the mechanisms of the senses and the formation of ideas, but not the power to will or choose, which is a pure, unexplainable, spiritual activity.76 Rousseau conceives reason as a weak and potentially corruptible capacity. “Reason alone teaches us to know good and evil,”77 Rousseau writes in Emile, but only passions can cause us to act.78 In words reminiscent of Hume, he emphasises that “[o]nly through passion can we gain the mastery over passions.”79 When he describes the acts of a virtuous man, Rousseau claims that the will is able to conquer the passions. This is what it means to be virtuous: “Virtue is the heritage of a creature weak by nature but strong by will; that is the whole merit of the righteous man.”80 Strength is

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crucial as the foundation of all virtue. We have to remember that the “word virtue is derived from a word signifying strength.”81 Rousseau seems to think that this strength is ultimately derived from the passions and channelled by our free will. Judith Shklar writes that according to Rousseau, the “psychic energy that the will molds into virtue is always erotic.”82 The strength required for virtuous action is based on love of virtue. Rousseau did not find it likely that ordinary men living in modern society become virtuous and govern themselves by their willpower. He elaborates on the conflict between human weakness and the will for virtue in the monologue of the Savoyard Vicar, which is inserted into Book 4 of Émile. The Vicar experiences himself carried away by conflicting motives, he is at once a slave, passively carried away by his passions, and a free man, who perceives what is right even when he does what is wrong. His worst suffering is the knowledge that he might have resisted.83 He complains: “I have always the power to will, but not always the strength to do what I will. When I yield to temptation I surrender myself to the action of external objects. When I blame myself for this weakness, I listen to my own will alone.”84 Because men are naturally weak, Rousseau reserves a morality based on virtue and willpower for individuals who have received a specific education, citizens of ancient Sparta, and the perfectly educated Émile. Ordinary human beings may rather be taught to regulate their vicious passions by the benevolent passion of pity and the natural instinct of conscience.85 Wollstonecraft did not agree with Rousseau’s pessimistic acceptance of human weakness, an acceptance that she thinks inevitably leaves women even more victimised than men, and she was very critical of the idea that morality could be built on pity.86 For her a virtuous life meant using the understanding and willpower in order to fight against human weakness. The characters of Maria and Jemima in The Wrongs of Woman are both extremely victimised, but the acceptance of their weakness is never an option for either of them. Wollstonecraft seems to agree with Rousseau that the strength required in order to act according to virtue is derived from the passions. I claim that this is where her notion of the imagination becomes crucial: it is the imagination which is able to mould passion into virtue and make us strong. Because the imagination is a voluntary capacity at everyone’s disposal and it may strengthen our willpower, weakness is no excuse to act against virtue. This is what is at stake when Wollstonecraft scolds Imlay and tells him to use his imagination instead of passively submitting to his appetites.87 The capacity to give us willpower makes the imagination a magic wand and the true fire, which “animates this cold creature of clay.”88 For Wollstonecraft virtuous action is everyone’s moral duty, not a road open only to ancient heroes, the well-educated Emile or romantic geniuses. She explicates this position in Rights of Woman and emphasises that most men and women have private rather than public duties, and if society were more reasonably organised, there would be even less need for heroic virtues.89 But the predominance of private duties does not mean that there is no need for virtuous action or that morality could be built on pity. Wollstonecraft writes: “Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them,

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I sturdily maintain, must be the same.”90 Many descriptions of struggling destitute mothers make it quite clear that according to Wollstonecraft the fulfilment of private virtues might require as much strength as ancient heroic virtues. How then should Wollstonecraft’s conception of the will be characterised? In his recent account of the free will, Thomas Pink examines a supposed intermediary position between different kinds of compatibilism and a libertarian conception of the free will. According to this supposed intermediary position, our capacity to act depends on the existence of different kinds of bodily and other probabilistic causes that affect, but do not determine, our actions. Freedom is depending on as well as occasionally acting against causes.91 Wollstonecraft’s as well as Rousseau’s conceptions of how the passions constitute a necessary condition for our capacity to act and think seem to fit into this intermediary position. Leaving Macaulay’s rationalist compatibilism behind, Wollstonecraft would end up in a position where reason and the passions are both necessary conditions for our freedom of action. Reason and passion both affect us, but neither determines our actions, thus leaving space to act voluntarily even against true knowledge. Wollstonecraft agrees with both Macaulay and Rousseau that the mind has the strength to reject bodily impulses and is not determined by desires. But there are instances where she seems to retreat from Macaulay’s conception of moral necessity and suppose that the mind is not determined by the understanding either. It therefore takes willpower to do the right thing. On the other hand Wollstonecraft is much more optimistic than Rousseau regarding the power of reason. She does believe that reason is able to motivate our actions, even though the strength required for virtuous action is ultimately derived from the passions. The imagination is crucial because it is able to mediate between motives presented by reason and motives presented by the passions, and it has a voluntary ability to use its “magic wand” in order to create willpower and strengthen our passionate desire for reasonable goals. Despite Rousseau’s explicit and Wollstonecraft’s implicit rejection of moral necessity, neither of them claims that the will is self-sufficient.92 They both think that the exercise of willpower depends on strength derived from the passions. Pink rejects the intermediary position according to which freedom depends on as well as acts against causes. He claims that if freedom is something that our capacity to act allows us to exercise, then “that same capacity cannot plausibly and by its very nature threaten and conflict with freedom.”93 Pink’s claim seems to be based on the principle that a given thing cannot at the same time have attributes that contradict each other: nothing can at the same time be both blue and not blue. From this it follows that it is not consistent to suppose that a thing at the same time suffers or causes contrary effects. Pink thus draws the conclusion that the intermediary position is absurd, or logically inconsistent. Since Plato this problem has haunted attempts to give logically consistent metaphysical accounts of inner conflicts. How is it possible that somebody at the same time both desires to do something and yet does not desire to do it?94 It involves a similar kind of logical paradox to claim that our capacity to act makes freedom possible, at the same time as it threatens our freedom. Neither Rousseau

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nor Wollstonecraft seems to deny that the freedom of the will constitutes a kind of paradox. Wollstonecraft hints at her solution in her review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education, when she emphasises that virtuous necessitarians and free willers act in more or less the same way, despite their opposite metaphysical views.95 She seems to be satisfied to leave behind the metaphysical question of the will, including its demand for logical consistency, and to focus on the conduct and experience of actual human beings. Thus the paradox of the will might, despite its logical inconsistency, be an accurate description of how the freedom of will and action appear in human experience.96 This kind of approach has been developed by twentieth-century existential phenomenologists, such as Maurice Merleau–Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir, and Hannah Arendt, who have explored the paradoxical nature of human freedom. According to these thinkers the ambiguity of the human condition consists exactly in the fact that our freedom of action depends on the very same material conditions that threaten it.97 The paradox of human action is perhaps most explicitly expressed in Arendt’s thought. She emphasises that because “the actor always moves among and in relation to other acting beings, he is never merely a ‘doer’ but always and at the same time a sufferer.”98 She defines free action as a break with the probability of statistical laws—true action is a “miracle” because it breaks with the material condition it simultaneously depends on.99 Wollstonecraft had a fancy for paradoxes and she admired Rousseau especially for his skill in capturing and describing the paradoxes of human life. In her review of the second part of Rousseau’s Confessions, published in the April 1790 issue of the Analytical Review, she reflects on how the author exposes his weaknesses and imperfections, and claims that “a description of what actually passed in a human mind must ever be useful; yet, men who have not the power of concentring seeming contradictions, will rudely laugh at inconsistencies as if they were absurdities; but their laugh is the crackling of thorns, the empty noise of insensible ignorance.”100 I do not think she would have considered it absurd to end up in a conception of the freedom of action and will, according to which the passions constitute a necessary condition for deliberate acting and willing at the same time as they often threaten and conflict with our freedom. This is the human life described by Rousseau: it is paradoxical, but what becomes absurd when logical consistency is required does not necessarily appear absurd in human life. In relation to Rousseau, Wollstonecraft would merely want to add a little more willpower and courage in order to compose a truly virtuous life. NOTES 1 The Rational Dissenters were a group of religious nonconformists, who combined rational theology

with demands for parliamentary reform and sympathies with the American and French revolutions. During the latter half of the eighteenth century the English Dissent was headed by the Reverends Richard Price and Joseph Priestley. Price was a friend and mentor of Wollstonecraft. For an analysis of the impact that the Dissenters had on Wollstonecraft’s thought, see G.J. BarkerBenfield, “Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthwoman,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50 (1989): 95–115. See also Catriona Mackenzie, “Reason and Sensibility: The Ideal

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of Women’s Self-governance in the Writings of Mary Wollstonecraft,” Hypatia 8, no. 4 (1993): 35–55; Virginia Sapiro, A Vindication of Political Virtue: The Political Theory of Mary Wollstonecraft (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); Susan Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart: Mary Wollstonecraft’s View of the Relation Between Reason and Feeling in Morality, Moral Psychology, and Moral Development,” Hypatia 13, no. 1 (1998): 78–117. Khin Zaw, for example, claims that Wollstonecraft considers self-governance as the prime human duty, see Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart,” 89. Barker-Benfield, “Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthwoman,” 97. See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, vol. 5 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Janet Todd and Marilyn Butler (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1989), 81. Ibid., 116. Ibid. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, vol. 5 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, 34; Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 255. See also Sapiro, A Vindication of Political Virtue, 46–7. Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 249. Ibid., 81. The relation between reason and passion in Wollstonecraft’s moral and political thought has during the last decade received increasing attention among scholars, but her conception of the will has to my knowledge not been studied at all. See Mackenzie, “Reason and Sensibility”; Sapiro, A Vindication of Political Virtue, 43–76; Karen Green, “The Passions and the Imagination in Wollstonecraft’s Theory of Moral Judgement,” Utilitas 9, no. 3 (1997): 271–90; and Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart.” I thank Simo Knuuttila for turning my attention to the question of the will in Wollstonecraft’s thought. For an intellectual biography of Macaulay, see Bridget Hill, The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); for an account of her identity as an historian, see J.G.A. Pocock, “Catharine Macaulay: Patriot Historian,” in Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition, ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 243–58; and for a comparison between Macaulay’s and Wollstonecraft’s replies to Edmund Burke, see Wendy Gunther-Canada, “The Politics of Sense and Sensibility: Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay Graham on Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France,” in Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition, ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 126–47. Catharine Macaulay, Letters on Education, with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects, vol. 3 of Female Education in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Janet Todd (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1996), i. Sarah Hutton examines the relation between Macaulay’s theology and feminism in “Liberty, Equality and God: The Religious Roots of Catharine Macaulay’s Feminism,” in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, ed. Sarah Knott and Barbara Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 538–50. According to Macaulay, the free willers conceive the will of every intelligent being as a kind of “predominant appetite” (Macaulay, Letters on Education, 458). This appetite is satisfied in the “simple enjoyment of choice” (ibid.), from which it follows that the will has in itself the power and the means to its own gratification, independently of any external cause arriving from desire or aversion. The will is free to give to “every object of choice a principle of pleasure” (ibid.). According to this position, human beings share this unlimited principle of agency with all intelligent beings, including God, whose will sets the standards for good and evil. Macaulay writes that, according to the free willers, good and evil “receive their essential qualities from their conformity or discordancy to the will of God” (ibid.). She explicitly opposes this position (ibid., 460–61). It is difficult to determine who the “free willers” really are. In other cases Macaulay usually specifies who she is criticising and it is possible that she here prefers to refer to anonymous free willers because she is actually thinking of a friend, the extreme Calvinist reverend Augustus Toplady. I thank Sarah Hutton for pointing out this possibility. For some remarks on Macaulay’s and Toplady’s friendship, see Hill, The Republican Virago, for example, 88–9.

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15 See for example J.B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 8–9. 16 Macaulay, Letters on Education, 462. For a discussion of the relation between Macaulay’s int-

ellectualist position and her feminism, see Hutton, “Liberty, Equality and God.” 17 René Descartes can be seen as a proto-voluntarist. He conceives the use of one’s free will as pleasur-

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able: we experience the pleasing passion of admiration when we perceive the exercise of our free will and the control we have over our volitions. But this pleasure is an effect of our using the freedom of the will as well as possible, according to our best knowledge at the moment when we have to choose and act. The pleasure of voluntary actions can never be a motive in itself. See René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1.384; René Descartes, Œuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris: J. Vrin, 1996), 11.445. Mary Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” vol. 7 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Janet Todd and Marilyn Butler (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1989), 321. Macaulay, Letters on Education, 456. Macaulay, Letters on Education, 457. I thank Markku Roinila for pointing out the relevance of Leibniz’s conception of moral necessity. In § 205 of the French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes uses “moral” in this sense. He writes that “moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false” and distinguishes this merely moral certainty from metaphysical certainty. See Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 1.289–90; Descartes, Œuvres de Descartes, 9.323–24. See Leibniz’s fifth letter to Clarke, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans. and ed. Leroy E. Loemker, 2nd ed. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1969), 696. My presentation of Leibniz’s view of moral necessity is much indebted to Robert M. Adams, “Moral Necessity,” in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom, ed. Donald Rutherford and J.A. Cover (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 181–93. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, 696. For the French text see Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin: Georg Olms Hildesheim, 1961), 7.389. Leibniz’s terminology of motives and reasons resembles the use of these terms in recent moral psychology debates over internalism vs. externalism. Leibniz and Macaulay would both be strong internalists, who think that if an agent judges it right, that is, has reason x to do y, then having the reason x will be sufficient in order to motivate the agent to actually do y. Reasons are always sufficient motives. But this terminological resemblance is also deceptive. Leibniz often uses reasons and motives interchangeably, they are both basically the same kind of mental purposes, whereas the internalism vs. externalism debate distinguishes reasons and additional motives, which the externalists claim are necessary in order to motivate the agent to act. For an account of the internalism vs. externalism debate, see Michael Smith, The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). Macaulay does not distinguish between motives and reasons and in my presentation of her argument I will follow her terminology of motives, which may be either true motives presented by reason or potentially false motives, such as appetites. I thank Karen Green for pointing out the similarities between Macaulay’s conception of moral necessity and the internalist position. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Reflexions on the Work that Mr. Hobbes published in English on ‘Freedom, Necessity and Chance,’” in Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard and ed. Austin Farrer (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1985), 395; see Adams, “Moral Necessity,” 183–84. Macaulay, Letters on Education, 463–64. Ibid., 463. Ibid., 462. Ibid., 483. Ibid., 482–83. Ibid., 466.

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Ibid. Ibid., 464–65. Ibid. The possibility to choose otherwise is an essential aspect of the libertarian conception of the free will. See for example Thomas Pink, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 12–4. There are two instances in Macaulay’s presentation that might cast doubt on the view that she is a compatibilist. Most important is the claim that the mind is able to resist mental and physical causes and has “the power of suspending the motion of a correspondent action till he has taken into due consideration the good or the bad which may exist in the object of volition” (Macaulay, Letters on Education, 483). The idea of suspension indicates a non-compatibilist position according to which volitions are not determined. But I think Macaulay here conceives suspension as determined by understanding, which acts according to a higher motive. Thus her conception of suspension is compatible with a compatibilist position. Second, Macaulay’s discussion of the choice between two eggs seems to allow for the possibility of an arbitrary choice, which would again contradict the compatibilist position. But here I think her claim is that the choice is only seemingly arbitrary. Several of her formulations such as “the irresistible force the understanding has on volitions” (ibid., 456) and “necessarily determined in their volitions by right principles of conduct” (ibid., 462) unequivocally indicate a compatibilist position. Pink, Free Will, 43–5. See ibid., 46. Macaulay, Letters on Education, 472–73. Ibid., 472. I think we can detect the development of Wollstonecraft’s thought on this point. At the beginning of the first chapter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft mentions only the role of the passions as a necessary obstacle: “For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes; whispers Experience” (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 81). Later in the book, as Wollstonecraft gets involved in her reflections, the passions become much more essential for the human capacity to act and even think. Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” 312. Ibid., 313. Wollstonecraft develops these views in some remarks she makes on fiction in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Here she emphasises that novels are problematic as part of a traditional feminine education, where “the sensibility is . . . increased at the expense of reason, and even the imagination” (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 133–34). She often presents reason and imagination together, as opposed to mere appetites and sensibility, as when she writes: “For any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by slight exertion of its thinking powers; besides, even the productions that are only addressed to the imagination, raise the reader a little above the gross gratification of appetites, to which the mind has not given a shade of delicacy” (ibid., 256). For some interesting remarks on Wollstonecraft’s view on reading and examples as stimulus of the imagination, see Green, “The Passions and the Imagination in Wollstonecraft’s Theory of Moral Judgement,” 284–85; see also Martina Reuter, “Mary Wollstonecraft on Love and Friendship,” in Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson (Stockholm: Thales, 2005), 128–29. Macaulay, Letters on Education, 143. Ibid. Macaulay should not be interpreted as a defender of realist novels, though. Cervantes is one of the few authors she appreciates as “strict copiers of Nature,” and Don Quixote “may be read at every period of life, without leaving any mischievous impressions on the mind” (ibid., 144). Don Quixote seems to be saved by the fact that not even a small child confuses its descriptions with reality, whereby the reader is led to focus on the general moral topics presented. This characterisation of Rousseau’s view is made by Judith N. Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 53. On biography vs.

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M A RT I N A R E U T E R general history, see Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Barbara Foxley (London: Everyman, 1993), 239–43; and on the veracity of moral fiction, see “Conversation about Novels” included as a second preface in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie, or the New Heloise, trans. Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché, vol. 6 of The Collected Writings of Rousseau (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1997), 7–22. Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” 321. Macaulay, Letters on Education, i. This is noted also by Karen Green, The Woman of Reason: Feminism, Humanism and Political Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 100–01; and Khin Zaw, who writes that “appetites and passions, it seems, develop reason by driving us to action” (Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart,” 99). But Khin Zaw leaves it open as to what extent action is a necessary condition, because she continues: “Action, as well as exercising the mind and stocking it with ideas, teaches us that obeying the passions brings disappointment” (ibid.). Wollstonecraft, Rights of Men, 16. Green, “Passions and Imagination in Wollstonecraft,” 278–85. Ibid., 281. See John Whale, Imagination Under Pressure 1789–1832: Aesthetics, Politics and Utility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 71–4, 78–86. This problem is especially apparent in the realm of sexual love. In relation to this context, Wollstonecraft writes: “Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment” (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 99). Susan Khin Zaw also highlights the importance Wollstonecraft gives to the imagination as a creator of unachievable goals, which develop the love of virtue out of disappointed desire for worldly goods; see Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart,” 101–03. The problem with Khin Zaw’s interpretation is that she emphasises the illusory aspect of the imagination to an extent that misconstrues Wollstonecraft’s conception. Khin Zaw’s misinterpretation seems to be based on the fact that she opposes religion and “the real world” in a way that would be foreign to Wollstonecraft. Khin Zaw writes: “Only in the unreal world of religion could [Wollstonecraft] find the ideal space she needed to set imagination to work on what the real world might be” (ibid., 111). According to Wollstonecraft, religion did not present an unreal, but rather a more perfect and true world, see, for example, Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 83–4. The imagination provided a vision of how to perfect civilisation because it was able to grasp this more perfect world. Further, Khin Zaw’s interpretation relies partly on the highly unlikely claim that Wollstonecraft derived her conception of passion and imagination from reading Plato’s Phaedrus (see “The Reasonable Heart,” 109–12, n. 4). I also think the Platonist influence on Wollstonecraft’s thought is important, but side with the scholars who think this influence came through John Milton, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Richard Price; see Karen Green, “Reason and Feeling: Resisting the Dichotomy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71, no. 4 (1993): 392–93; and Barbara Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 108–11. By emphasising the illusory nature of the imagination, Khin Zaw ends up misconstruing the most important influence Platonism had on Wollstonecraft’s thought: the idea that reason is itself passionate and loves the truth, see Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination, 108. Khin Zaw writes that Wollstonecraft “gives to imagination the supremacy Plato gives to reason, and to illusion the power he gives to truth; reason is demoted to the instrumental role and empirical character described above” (Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart,” 111). The non-instrumental passionate nature of reason is not explicitly claimed by Wollstonecraft, but I think it is expressed implicitly in how she describes the use of reason, for example, when writing that reason is “the simple power of improvement; or, more properly speaking, of discerning truth” (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 122). I do not think Khin Zaw gives sufficient evidence that Wollstonecraft conceives reason as primarily instrumental. Rousseau, Émile, 356; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres Complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), 4.662. Susan Khin Zaw and

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Barbara Taylor also highlight the similarity between Wollstonecraft’s and Rousseau’s conceptions of the relation between physical appetites or needs and passions formed by the imagination, see Khin Zaw, “The Reasonable Heart,” 101–03, and Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination, 73–85. Rousseau, Émile, 52–3. My understanding of Rousseau’s conception of the passions and the imagination is indebted to Hannu Sivenius, whom I thank for comments, discussions, and the chance to read unpublished manuscripts. Wollstonecraft’s translation of Necker’s De l’Importance des Opinions Religieuses (On the Importance of Religious Opinions) was published by Joseph Johnson in 1788. Whale, Imagination Under Pressure, 1789–1832, 73–5. Wollstonecraft’s critique of Rousseau is often based on her belief in providence, see for example Rights of Woman, where she writes “had Rousseau mounted one step higher in his investigation, or could his eye have pierced through the foggy atmosphere, which he almost disdained to breath, his active mind would have darted forward to contemplate the perfection of man in the establishment of true civilisation, instead of taking his ferocious flight back to the night of sensual ignorance” (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 87). Wollstonecraft shared her belief in providence with Macaulay, see Macaulay, Letters on Education, 366; Hutton discusses the relation between Macaulay’s belief in providence and her feminism, see Hutton, “Liberty, Equality, and God.” About these, Descartes writes: “When our soul applies itself to imagine something non-existent— as in thinking about an enchanted palace or a chimera—and also when it applies itself to consider something that is purely intelligible and not imaginable—for example, in considering its own nature— the perceptions it has of these things depend chiefly on the volition which makes it aware of them. That is why we usually regard these perceptions as actions rather than passions” (Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 1.336). Ibid. James Engell, The Creative Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 16. For descriptions of the relation between Coleridge and Wollstonecraft, see Taylor, The Feminist Imagination, 194, 293 n. 91, 305 n. 5. Engell, The Creative Imagination, 125. During the second half of the eighteenth century there was also a frequently made distinction between fancy and imagination, according to which fancy was related to feminine romantic illusions and lower-order fiction, whereas the male creative genius possessed true imagination; see Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination, 61–3. Mary Wollstonecraft, The Collected Letters, ed. Janet Todd (London: Penguin, 2004), 264. Ibid., 297. Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations, calculated to Regulate the Affections, and form the Mind to Truth and Goodness, vol. 4 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, 372. Ibid. Shklar, Men and Citizens, 54. Ibid. Most significant, perhaps, are the prison sequences, where Maria deliberately strengthens her romantic passions for Darnford by reading Rousseau’s Héloïse, despite the fact that she knows these feelings are deceptive, see Mary Wollstonecraft, The Wrongs of Woman: or, Maria. A Fragment, vol. 1 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, 90–9. Following a psychological model of explanation, Barbara Taylor, for example, holds that there is a change and claims that in The Wrongs of Woman, there is more psychological maturity that replaces Wollstonecraft’s earlier religious faith, which was a response to her failure of self-love; see Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination, 130–42. I do not think that this view constitutes a deliberate break with Wollstonecraft’s position as it is presented in the Rights of Woman, the voluntary capacity of the imagination is already present there.

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M A RT I N A R E U T E R She is rather explicating its role, and I think this explication is prompted by the fact that she becomes more conscious of the problems created by the assumption that true knowledge compels. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men, trans. Maurice Cranston (London: Penguin, 1984), 88. My presentation of Rousseau’s conception of the will is indebted to Patrick Riley’s and Judith Shklar’s interpretations. See Shklar, Men and Citizens, 57–74; and Patrick Riley, “Rousseau’s General Will,” in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, ed. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 124–53. As Riley points out, we can here find a certain anticipation of Kant’s notion of the will; see Riley, “Rousseau’s General Will,” 128. Rousseau, Émile, 39. Ibid., 175. Ibid., 349. Ibid., 489. Ibid. Shklar, Men and Citizens, 66. Rousseau, Émile, 289. Ibid., 290–91. For Rousseau’s view on pity, see Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 101; Émile, 218–26; and for his view on conscience, see ibid., 298–99. For an interesting interpretation of the moral strategy Rousseau provides the weak, see Shklar, Men and Citizens, 60–70. Karen Green has pointed out that Wollstonecraft was very critical of Rousseau’s conception of conscience as an inborn moral instinct; see Green “Passions and Imagination in Wollstonecraft,” 272–73. According to Wollstonecraft, women need respect, not pity. Pity by its very nature requires inequality. It is interesting to note that whereas Rousseau conceives pity as a social emotion which helps man to overcome sexual desire, Wollstonecraft doubts “whether pity and love are so near akin as poets feign” (Rights of Woman, 219). In the Rights of Men she criticises Edmund Burke’s idea that love is directed towards the weak and refers to Plato in defence of her claim that love is on the contrary directed towards perfection (Wollstonecraft, Rights of Men, 46). For an account of why Wollstonecraft conceives pity and compassion as an insufficient basis of morality, see Lena Halldenius, “The Immorality of Emotional Response: Liberty and the Slavery Metaphor in Wollstonecraft’s Theory of Property,” in Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson (Stockholm: Thales, 2005), 109–17. Wollstonecraft, The Collected Letters, 297. Ibid., 264. Wollstonecraft, Rights of Woman, 132–33. Ibid., 120. Pink, Free Will, 86–8. Pink seems to consider self-sufficiency of the will as a necessary condition for the libertarian conception of the will, which he defends (ibid., 119–23). Ibid., 88. For a discussion of this topic, see Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1990), 25. I thank Henrik Lagerlund for drawing my attention to the relevance of the classical problem of inner conflicts for an understanding of Pink’s claim about the inconsistency of the intermediary position. Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” 321. I do not want to claim that it is impossible to construe a logically consistent description of the freedom of the will, which would capture Wollstonecraft’s position, but she did not aim at this kind of description and I think that her philosophical intentions are better understood from a non-metaphysical point of view. Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes: “The rationalist’s dilemma: either the free act is possible, or it is not— either the event originates in me or is imposed on me from outside, does not apply to our relations with the world and with our past. Our freedom does not destroy our situation, but gears itself to it: as long as we are alive, our situation is open, which implies both that it calls up specially favoured

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modes of resolution, and also that it is powerless to bring one into being by itself ” (Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge, 1962), 442). For a thorough philosophical account of Simone de Beauvoir’s thought and its part in the phenomenological tradition, see Sara Heinämaa, Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). It should be noted that in the thought of these phenomenologists, dependence does not mean causal dependence, but rather a condition of possibility, whereas Pink seems to consider dependence as necessarily causal dependency. He does not deny that we experience varying degrees of control over our actions. Pink allows that sometimes control even appears to be absent, and describes the experience of “losing it” in ways that resemble Rousseau’s Savoyard Vicar (Free Will, 122–3). It seems to me that the problem with Pink’s libertarian position is its inability to give an account of what these experienced limitations on our control really are. 98 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 190. 99 Ibid, 176–78. I give a more detailed account of Arendt’s conceptions of the will and action in a paper “Infinity and Unpredictability: Descartes and Arendt on Will and Action,” presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the Nordic Society of Phenomenology, University of Bergen, April 22–24, 2005. 100 Wollstonecraft, “Contributions to the Analytical Review,” 229.

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C A R R I E F. K L A U S

XI KEEPING AHEAD OF THE ENGLISH? A DEFENCE OF JEWS B Y C O R N É L I E WO U T E R S , B A R O N E S S O F VA S S E ( 1 7 9 0 )

On September 21, 1791, the National Constituent Assembly in Paris issued the following decree: The National Assembly, considering that the necessary conditions for being a French citizen and for becoming an active citizen are fixed by the Constitution, and that every man who, satisfying the stated conditions, takes the civic oath and promises to fulfill all the obligations the Constitution imposes is entitled to all the advantages it provides, revokes all deferments, reservations and exceptions included in previous decrees relative to Jewish individuals who take the civic oath, which will be regarded as a renunciation of all privileges and exceptions introduced previously in their favour.1

With this decree, the Jews of France became the first Jewish community in Europe to gain full civil and political rights.2 At this time, the French Constitution made a key distinction between “passive” citizens, who were entitled only to basic civil rights, and “active” citizens, who were entitled to political rights as well, that is, who could vote and hold office. To be considered “active,” citizens had to be male, at least twenty-five years of age, and either born or naturalised French. They also had to prove they had lived in their city or canton at least a year, had paid a direct tax equal to three days’ work, were not domestic servants, and were enrolled as members of the national guard. Finally, they had to take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution, the nation, the law, and the king.3 France was, of course, ruled by a constitutional monarchy at this time; it was not until 1792 that the First Republic was proclaimed (Louis XVI was beheaded in January 1793). The acquisition of civil and political rights did not come without a cost for Jews, as in order to become full French citizens, they had to give up a certain degree of community autonomy.4 Nonetheless, as Arthur Hertzberg puts it, “For the first time in the modern history of the West, all the Jews within the borders of a European state were united with all of its other citizens as equals before the law.” Hertzberg continues, With these events of 1790 and 1791 in France a new era in Jewish history began. The armies of the Revolution took ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ with them beyond the borders of France. Under the dictatorship and empire of Napoleon, Jews continued to be given equality as a matter of course wherever his power extended. The restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France left the emancipation of the Jews in France itself untouched. In Italy and Germany, where the laws imposed by the French were indeed reversed after the collapse of Bonaparte, at least the memory of equality remained. All over Europe, even during the period of political reaction between 1815 and 1848, Jewish opinion was dominated by two convictions: what had happened in France was now immediately possible elsewhere in Europe; it had to happen in every country because it was an inevitable corollary of the emerging liberal-secular political order to which the future belonged.5

The National Assembly’s decision in 1790 was thus of consequence not only for France, but for larger Europe as well. 171 J. Broad and K. Green (eds.), Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration, 171–188. © 2007 Springer.

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Jews had been expelled from France by a decree of Charles VI in 1394, so the Jewish population of the French kingdom was relatively limited at the time of the Revolution. Among the twenty-six million inhabitants of France were approximately 34,000 Jews. About 27,500 Ashkenazim lived in northeastern France (that is, in Alsace and Lorraine), and about 5,800 Sephardim lived in southeastern and, especially, southwestern France (around Avignon, and around Bordeaux and Bayonne). Some 500 Jews lived unofficially in Paris.6 The status of these separate Jewish communities differed considerably. The Sephardim in the south had emigrated from Portugal after Henri II had granted rights to Portuguese “New Christians” (also known as “crypto-Jews,” “conversos” or “marranos”) in 1550.7 In large part, France was tolerant toward these Jewish immigrants because of their economic usefulness to the French kingdom. Furthermore, the “crypto-Jews” avoided harsh anti-Semitism by giving up many of their traditional laws and rituals, at least the most visible ones. As Esther Benbassa observes, “the New Christians during this period enjoyed a privileged situation because they lived as good Catholics, baptised their children, married, and buried their dead in the Christian manner, without giving the least sign of any Jewish tendencies.”8 Over the years, members of this community became more widely recognised as Jews and abandoned the pose of Christianity, but by then, they were firmly established in French society. “In Bordeaux,” Benbassa writes, “Jews participated in the intellectual and cultural life of the city, read the philosophes, entered into dialogue with Christians and associated with them, thus conforming to the Enlightenment ideal that men overcome their religious differences and communicate on the basis of a certain number of shared interests.”9 Perhaps not surprisingly, the call for emancipation did not come first from Jews in the south. The much larger Jewish community in northeastern France, however, was subject to severe restrictions. These Jews had been granted permission to remain in France when Alsace and Lorraine were annexed to the French kingdom in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but they did not share the rights of their Christian neighbours.10 In the eighteenth century, Jews in the northeast were not allowed to own property, to exercise most trades or to move freely from town to town. Ruth Necheles describes the situation of these Jews: Reduced to abject poverty and subject to extraordinary and onerous taxes, the majority survived by becoming peddlers, rag dealers, money-lenders, and middlemen for livestock and grain. In the cities where they were permitted to reside, they were restricted to certain streets, forbidden to erect synagogues, and denied public welfare and chastity. Isolated in ghettos, many could not speak French, the majority were illiterate, and the rest wrote only Hebrew or Yiddish.11

There were, however, highly educated individuals in the northeastern communities, especially in the urban centres of Metz and Nancy, and it was from here that a call for recognition of Jews first emerged in France. The few Jews who lived in Paris had no legal rights. They were classified as transients and did not form a cohesive community. After a series of violent acts against Jews in Alsace in the late 1770s, the condition of Jews in France gained increased public attention. In 1781, an Alsatian Jew by

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the name of Hertz Cerf-Berr paid for the publication of a text written by Protestant historian Christian Wilhelm von Dohm at Moses Mendelssohn’s request: Ueber die buergerliche Verbesserung der Juden [On the Civil Improvement of the Jews]. The text was published in Berlin in 1781. A French translation (De la réforme politique des Juifs) by Jean Bernoulli appeared the next year.12 In 1785, the Royal Society of Sciences and Arts of Metz announced a competition, with a prize to be awarded in 1787, on the following question: “Are there ways to make Jews more useful and happier in France?”13 As it happened, none of the nine entries submitted in 1787 was deemed worthy of the award, so the competitors were asked to revise and resubmit. In the meantime, the Comte de Mirabeau, later a revolutionary leader, summarised Dohm’s ideas in a text he published in London in 1787, entitled Sur Moses Mendelssohn, sur la réforme politique des Juifs et en particulier sur la révolution tentée en leur faveur en 1753 dans la Grande-Bretagne [On Moses Mendelssohn, on the political reformation of Jews, and in particular on the revolution attempted in their favor in 1753 in Great Britain].14 In 1788, three winners were chosen from the revised entries to the Metz competition: the Abbé Grégoire (the celebrated priest),15 Claude-Antoine Thiéry (a lawyer from Nancy),16 and Zalkind Hourwitz (a learned Polish Jew who was living penniless in Paris).17 I examine their works below. Still, despite increased attention to the Jewish condition, no actual policy changes were made. In 1787, a royal edict granted civil status to Protestants in France, but no such edict was issued for Jews. In 1788, when Louis XVI convened the Estates General in an attempt to solve some of the kingdom’s most pressing problems, the Jewish issue came up several times, but no action was taken. Not until the revolutionary events of 1789 did the first possibility of real improvement for Jews arise. On July 9, the National Constituent Assembly was proclaimed; on July 14, the Bastille was taken; and on August 4, the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen [Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen] was adopted, proclaiming “Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits” [Men are born and remain free and equal in rights]. Optimistically, the Jews of Paris wrote to the Assembly on that same day and demanded their citizenship. A few weeks later, on August 31, deputies of the Jews in Alsace and Lorraine likewise demanded full civil and political rights, although they proposed that their communities should remain autonomous. However, as Hertzberg has observed, “it became clear immediately that this broad philosophical language, so consciously reminiscent of the opening lines of the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, did not yet include the Jews.”18 The Jews in Bordeaux remained silent, fearful they might lose the tenuous recognition they had already achieved. On January 28, 1790, after a heated debate in the National Assembly, which Hertzberg calls “the most scandalously unruly in the brief but tempestuous history of the Assemblée up to that time,”19 southern Jews were recognised as “active” citizens, partly on the grounds that they had been enjoying de facto political rights anyway. It was not until September 27, 1791, however, almost two years later, with the decree quoted above, that this recognition was extended to all Jews in France. From 1789 until 1791, as the status of France’s Jews hung in the balance, an

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impassioned debate emerged in print. Petitions to the National Assembly came from Jewish communities all over the east, from Metz to Lunéville and Sarguemines, as well as from Paris and Bordeaux. Speeches, letters, reports, and memoranda were addressed to the National Assembly and to the Commune of Paris,20 prompting both bodies to consider motions, argue and issue statements. Private individuals, that is, persons not directly involved with either the National Assembly or the Commune of Paris, chimed in as well, publishing their own opinions in pamphlet after pamphlet.21 Among these many and varied texts we find the nine-page Mémoire à l’Assemblée nationale pour démontrer aux Français les raisons qui doivent les déterminer à admettre les juifs indistinctement aux droits de citoyens [Statement to the National Assembly to demonstrate to the French the reasons that should convince them to grant Jews indiscriminately the rights of citizens], published in 1790 and signed “La Baronne de Vasse, Angloise” [the Baroness of Vasse, Englishwoman].22 This statement is the only female-authored contribution to the debate that I have found.23 We know relatively little about the life of the Baroness of Vasse, née Cornélie Wouters. Although she calls herself an “Englishwoman,” she seems to have been born not in England but in Brussels in 1737.24 She was baptised in Brussels as well. According to Wouters’ nineteenth-century biographers, she married the Baron of Vasse (or Wasse), whom one biographer calls a German, when she was relatively young and travelled throughout Europe with him. Wouters’ published work does suggest a broad knowledge of—or, at least, an interest in—Europe; her fiction includes numerous comments on the varying dispositions of the English and French, as well as of the Spanish, Dutch, Germans, Italians, and Russians. Her two longest works are dedicated to the Prince of Prussia and the King of Sweden. There is no indication that Wouters had any children. Apparently after her husband’s death, she moved to Paris, where she had a brief but prolific literary career, composing original fiction in French and translating a substantial body of English fiction, theatre, and history into French.25 Wouters’ biographers say that she suffered financial hardships during the French Revolution, losing access to property in England and Germany. At some point, surely after the end of the Reign of Terror (1793–94) and perhaps even later, Wouters returned to Paris. She died there in 1802.26 The confusion over Wouters’ national origin—and the fact that this Brussels-born, French-speaking baroness identified herself as “English,” at least in this publication— suggests that she might best be viewed as an early modern transnational figure. Joan DeJean, who has considered the question of transnationalism in this period, points out the similar case of Isabella van Tuyll van Serooskerken, “known to French scholars as Isabelle de Charrière, who composed her extensive oeuvre in French but was of Dutch origin and worked in Switzerland.”27 DeJean makes the point that national categories do not necessarily coincide with choice of language, a point that is central for our understanding of Cornélie Wouters. There are, of course, many such women. Margaret Cohen mentions Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni, another eighteenth-century woman who wrote in French but whose national identity was not always clear. Cohen

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remarks, “The novels of Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni are frequently set in England, and this invocation must have been convincing, for I have found her classified as an English writer in an early nineteenth-century French bookseller’s catalogue.”28 If national and linguistic categories are as fluid as they seem in this period and in this context, it is significant that Wouters would declare herself to be “English” in her statement to the French National Assembly, particularly given her line of argumentation, as we shall see below. Cornélie Wouters, Baroness of Vasse, published four works of original fiction in 1782 and 1783: Les Aveux d’une femme galante [The Confessions of a Gallant Woman] and L’art de corriger et de rendre les hommes constants [The Art of Correcting Men and Making them Constant], two best-selling novellas dealing with love and marriage,29 Le Nouveau continent [The New Continent], an allegory of the American Revolution,30 and Le Char volant, et Relation d’un voyage dans la lune [The Flying Chariot, and Relation of a Trip to the Moon], a work of early (or proto-) science fiction that takes aim at the French Academy of Sciences.31 Wouters seems to have spent most of the years from 1783 to 1789 translating English texts into French. She published a translation of Agnes Bennett’s Juvenile Indiscretions [Les imprudences de la jeunesse], 1788,32 an “imitation” of “Mrs.” Cartwright’s Platonic Marriage [Le mariage platonique], 1789,33 and two major works, the twelve-volume Traduction du théâtre anglois depuis l’origine des spectacles jusqu’à nos jours [Translation of English Theater from the Origin of Spectacles to the Present Day], 1784–87,34 prepared with her sister, Marie Wouters, and a twelve-volume translation of Thomas Mortimer’s British Plutarch, under the title Vie des hommes illustres d’Angleterre, d’Écosse et d’Irlande, ou le Plutarque anglois [Life of Illustrious Men of England, Scotland, and Ireland, or the English Plutarch], 1785–87,35 possibly also prepared with Marie Wouters. Some of the translated plays in the Traduction du théâtre anglois also appeared as separate volumes. In 1790, Wouters published the statement to the National Assembly, and in 1793, she published another original text, a one-act play titled La Famille Émigrée, ou le procédé généreux [The Emigrant Family, or the Generous Proceedings],36 which deals with the plight of a family of French nobles in exile in Cologne. Wouters’ last known publication is a translation titled La Belle Indienne [The Beautiful Indian Woman], which appeared in Paris in 1798.37 With the exception of the 1793 Famille Émigrée, which was published in Nivelles (about thirty kilometres south of Brussels), most of Wouters’ works list London as place of publication but seem actually to have been published in Paris, in most cases by the Veuve Ballard & Fils.38 The statement on Jews was published by Baudouin, the official press of the National Assembly. Like many of the women whose contributions to political thought are discussed in this collection (Christine de Pizan and Catherine d’Amboise, among others), Wouters includes political commentary in many texts that are not, strictly speaking, political treatises. Le Nouveau continent, in particular, contains a series of prescriptions for enlightened rule, and La Famille émigrée blends a sentimental love story with a harsh indictment of the Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror. It is only in her

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statement to the National Assembly, however, that Wouters’ work becomes explicitly political.39 The main point made by all of the leading advocates of Jewish emancipation in France is that vices attributed to Jews are the result of many years of discrimination against them and not of essential differences between Jews and Christians. The main charge levelled against Jews is, not surprisingly, that they practice usury. Jews’ defenders explain that Jews have no natural propensity toward money-lending, but that they have taken up this profession only because all other trades have been closed to them. All three winners of the Metz competition make this point, as does Mirabeau. Mirabeau writes, “One cannot in good faith doubt that better treatment will eradicate the religious prejudices that prevent the children of Moses from being more sociable. The Jew is more a man than he is a Jew.”40 Thiéry concludes that wherever Jews have been well treated, they have made significant contributions to society: “Let us say it, then, and let us say it with history, wherever Jews have been made Citizens and men, they have been found to be hardworking and enlightened, they have shown everywhere proof of genius, courage and sensitivity that Philosophy has more than once deemed worthy of transmission to posterity.”41 The Abbé Grégoire judges, “Respected Jews are incontestably respectable,” adding, Their fear is a fruit of slavery, poverty has dried up their hearts, despair has provoked their loathing and has led them to vengeance. Such is the incontestable genealogy of many crimes, and the almost infallible course of human nature in such a case. But Jews’ wrongs, their misfortunes accuse our conduct toward them. Nations, admit with a groan that it is your doing! Jews have produced the effects, you set up the causes: who are the guiltiest ones?42

Hourwitz proposes a simple solution: “The means of making Jews happy and useful? Here it is, stop making them unhappy and useless.” This solution can be reached, he explains further, “by granting them, or rather by returning to them, the right of citizenship, of which you have deprived them against all divine and human laws, and against your own interests, like a man who, with gladness in his heart, would make himself crippled in one limb.”43 Over and over again, proponents of a reformation of attitudes toward Jews explain that any evils associated with Jews come not from an intrinsic Jewish “character” but from long oppression. Wouters, however, makes absolutely no effort to rehabilitate Jews. She refuses to recognise any perceived character flaws, remaining silent even on the question of usury and taking as a given that Jews are men—that is, human beings—and deserve to be treated as such. “You have decreed that all men are equal in law, and this decree alone makes you immortal,” she flatters the National Assembly. But while every day is marked by new good deeds that emanate from your wisdom, Jews alone remain uncertain of their fate. Oh! Do not leave them in suspense any longer! Think how much he who glimpses happiness after so many centuries of misfortune, persecutions, mistreatment is eager to enjoy it! Think that by crowning your work with this act of justice, you will spread joy in hearts oppressed by sorrow and return to man what he has the right to expect of you.44

Wouters ends her statement much like she begins it, with a compelling call to the Assembly to bestow upon Jews the privileges “which they may claim by virtue of

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being men.”45 For Wouters, it could not be simpler: the statement that “Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits” [Men are born and remain free and equal in rights] in the first article of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen must, by definition, include Jews. The basis of the legal equality of Jews in Wouters’ text may be found in both Nature and God. Wouters finds these two sources of authority to be in complete harmony with each other. The National Assembly’s most significant accomplishments, according to her, have been restoring to all human beings their natural, God-given rights. Restoring these rights to Jews is but the next step in the process. “Has it (the National Assembly) not already brought together men who were, not fifteen months ago, more than a thousand leagues distant from each other in the feudal regime?” she asks. “Those who have the power to bring together the Farmer and the powerful Proprietor of the fiefs, the humble Village Pastor and the magnificent Prince of the Church, no doubt also have the power to return to Jews the rights that Nature has granted to all her children, and of which Religion approves, in recommending universal charity to us.”46 The Assembly need do nothing more than recognise the rights of Jews that are already ordained by both Nature and Religion. Religion, of course, for Wouters means the Christian religion. Perhaps because her God is still the Christian one—or perhaps because she wants to reassure the Christian members of the National Assembly that granting rights to Jews will in no way threaten their own religious beliefs or affiliations—she cites Christian Scripture in an attempt at persuasion. “What is this maxim of the Gospel: Love your neighbour as yourself, if not an order to regard all men as brothers? What is this other maxim, Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you?”47 At no point, however, does she give any indication that she hopes Jews, once recognised, will one day convert to Christianity. Her call is for a tolerant, even pluralistic, French society. By contrast, the four major contributors to the debate over political rights for Jews mentioned above (Mirabeau, Thiéry, Hourwitz, and Grégoire), all suggest that Jews should ultimately become fully integrated with Christians. None of them see Jews as ultimately continuing to follow traditional rites and practices. Hertzberg summarises their arguments with regard to integration. “Neither [Mirabeau nor Thiéry],” he writes, “respected the traditional religion of the Jews and both regarded it as a prime purpose of enlightened governmental policy to free the Jews from the ridiculous laws of the Talmud.”48 He adds that “both were sure that the Jews would have freed themselves a long time ago if they had not been forced into ghettos and excluded from wider society.”49 Hourwitz, he says, “promise[d] society that, in payment for equality, the Jew would give up his tradition and become an Enlightened Deist.”50 As for Grégoire, he claims, “[he] was holding out, at least to himself, the hope that the regenerated Jew would ultimately turn Christian.”51 Wouters does not seem to share any of these beliefs. There is ample precedent, of course, for a desire to reconcile Jewish and Christian doctrine, beginning with Paul’s claim “There is no such thing as Jew and Greek . . . you are all one person in Christ Jesus” [Galatians 3:28]. According to Sarah Hutton, even Anne Conway, the seventeenth-century English philosopher who took

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a great interest in Jewish mystical traditions and studied the kabbalah, may have had a conversionist agenda. As Hutton has argued, “for all her professed ecumenism in extending understanding to Jews, Turks and other ‘infidels,’ Anne Conway Christianises her arguments through appeals to the Bible, including the gospels.” Hutton continues, “by importing kabbalism into her system, or, rather, by demonstrating its compatibility with kabbalist teaching, she believed she had a means of outreach to the Jews. For, if the kabbalah could serve as common ground between Christians and Jews, and if her system could offer an application of it that is at once compatible with Christianity and inoffensive to Jews, her philosophy would hold the key to conversion.”52 Wouters’ Christianised arguments, by contrast, seem primarily tactical, aimed at persuading a Christian audience—the National Assembly—rather than at identifying points of connection between Christianity and Judaism. Wouters takes the path of broad relativism in her call for toleration. Instead of suggesting that Jews should give up their traditions, she argues that religious differences should be overlooked, that they are a matter for God, not human beings, to judge. “By what right,” she asks, “do we dare to pronounce anathema against those who follow a religion different from our own? Is not faith a gift from Heaven? Is it our place to grant it, when the supreme Master of this vast universe reserved the right to be its dispenser?”53 Then, looking to Nature again for answers, in a comment worthy of Fontenelle (whom she surely read in preparation for her Char volant), she tells her audience, “Let us cast our eyes on the stars that roll above our heads: they are but the faint image of an immensity of worlds where man’s eye cannot penetrate.”54 There may be many more religions than one can even imagine. How absurd, then, to condemn any single religion from a limited, human perspective. Both God and Nature forbid it. “See,” she says, “if the admirable order by which [God] governs Nature is upset because we do not adore him on the same Altars, and because we do not offer our tributes in the same language. If the great Architect of the Universe manifests his love of order thus, this love extends to all creation, and we must doubtlessly offend him by oppressing Jews, who are our brothers.”55 Failing to recognise the rights of Jews runs counter to the order of Nature, as established by God. Wouters concludes, “When we rise up against each other for religious beliefs, we do ourselves [or ‘each other’] much harm, and despite our pride, these wars, these discussions that upset peace and order are nothing more in the eyes of the Eternal than what would be for us a civil war waged by ants over a grain of wheat.”56 Here, of course, Wouters sounds much like Voltaire’s giant Micromégas, who marvels when the maggot-sized human beings he sees on earth ask him, “Do you realize . . . that at this moment there are a hundred thousand madmen of our species wearing hats killing, or being killed by, a hundred thousand other animals wearing turbans, and that over almost all the face of the earth this has been the custom from time immemorial?”57 Wouters’ main point, however, is an eminently practical one, and one that is crafted to appeal to French national pride. If the French do not recognise Jews’ political rights immediately, the English will beat them to it and reap all the benefits. Wouters

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tries to convince the National Assembly of the urgency of the situation. “There is not a moment to lose,” she warns. “Your rivals and your emulators in merit, and whom you already surpass in talent, are working on a project that will rob you of the glory of having surpassed them in enlightenment. Yes, the Parliament of England is preparing to bestow on Jews the privileges that all English enjoy.”58 Since Jews were said to live in better conditions in England than anywhere else in Europe, with the possible exception of Holland, Wouters’ audience would likely have found her warning convincing. As it happened, the situation was not quite as pressing as Wouters made it out to be. Although England had a reputation for treating Jews relatively well, Jews still did not share the same rights as natural-born or naturalised English men and women. In 1753, a bill had been passed allowing Jews who had lived in Great Britain or Ireland for at least three years to become naturalised without taking the Sacrament—the main obstacle to naturalisation for Jews—but the Bill was repealed seven months later, after intense public opposition. In the years following the repeal, Jews slowly gained rights in England, but they did not achieve full political emancipation until 1858, more than one hundred years later.59 Cecil Roth explains the delay as follows: “before political emancipation was achieved, it was relatively easy to secure the removal, little by little, of minor Jewish disabilities affecting civic life. The new tactics were in fact more in accordance with the English genius of building up a doctrine from practical details, as opposed to the continental fashion of imposing a general principle without working out its implications.”60 Roth’s defence of the English delay includes a subtle critique of continental politics—perhaps a lingering sign of competition between England and France. Wouters clearly sees the reference to the English to be her most convincing argument, and she makes the most of it. She continues her appeal to French patriotism. You will see taken from you not only the honour of having been more just than they, but you will enrich that nation with the commerce of an industrious people, and you will lose in an instant what will cost France centuries of regrets. In vain will you retrace your steps and grant what the English have granted before you; the opportunity will be lost, and the Jewish families of Great Britain, Holland, Poland, Spain, Italy, and Germany, who would have brought their treasures to you, will deposit them in the treasuries of the people who first treated them as brothers.61

Wouters does not state precisely what these “treasures” might be, although the allusion to Jews’ potential economic usefulness to France is clear. She then recalls the disastrous consequences of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, when so many talented—and prosperous—Protestants left France for Germany, Prussia, the Empire and, indeed, England.62 At the end of the text, she offers a final admonition: “Believe me, French; confirm your happiness with tolerance; it is the triumph of reason. Do not allow the English to strip you of the treasures that Jews will bring to France, and that will help you compensate for the losses you have already endured.”63 She adds temptingly, “I know of three Jewish families who wait for nothing but the Decree of the august Senate to leave England, and to settle among a gentle, amiable people, a people who has but one more step to take to be the greatest that History has ever, or will ever, make mention.”64 She concludes confidently, “And you will take

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this step; no, you will not fail to complete your journey, after having so gloriously approached the goal of true greatness.”65 If the Assembly listens to Wouters, France will not only avoid being trumped by the English, but will become the greatest nation in history. To be sure, Wouters is not alone in bringing up the status of Jews in England. Mirabeau, Thiéry, and Grégoire all mention that Jews are said to live relatively well there, and Mirabeau discusses the failed 1753 bill in depth. Only Wouters, however, fully exploits the rhetorical potential of the long-standing competition between the English and the French. We see now why she so deliberately declares herself an “Englishwoman” in her statement to the National Assembly. Having already made a name for herself in Paris as the translator of a wide range of texts from English to French, Wouters calls herself English here to remind her audience that she is an authority on conditions in England, thus bolstering the strongest argument in her Mémoire à l’Assemblée. By signing her text “La Baronne de Vasse, Angloise” [The Baroness of Vasse, Englishwoman], Wouters highlights not only her knowledge of England, but her rank as well.66 Just why an “Englishwoman” would have been so eager to have the French beat her country to the punch remains unexplained. The most intriguing question is why Wouters chose to write this statement at all, what prompted this Brussels-born baroness to throw her voice into the mix and defend the cause of Jews in France. She is clearly motivated by a desire to improve the Jewish condition; her conviction is unmistakable. Did she also believe that if the National Assembly were persuaded to recognise the political rights of Jews, it would then be forced to make good on its promise of liberty and equality to all, and that this “all” could then be construed to include not only Jews, but women as well? This connection has already been made with regard to revolutionary women who advocated political recognition for blacks and slaves. Olympe de Gouges, author of the famous Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne [Declaration of the rights of woman and of the (female) citizen], defended the rights of slaves in the French colonies in her 1785 play, Zamore et Mirza [Zamore and Mirza], also known as L’Esclavage des Nègres [The Slavery of the Black],67 and in a 1788 pamphlet titled “Réflexions sur les hommes nègres” [“Reflections on Black Men”].68 She addressed the National Assembly, moreover, on behalf of both women and blacks. “As early as October 1789,” Joan Landes writes, “[Gouges] proposed a reform program to the National Assembly which encompassed legal sexual equality, admission for women to all occupations, and the suppression of the dowry system through a state-sponsored alternative.” Landes continues, “Cognizant of the slave uprisings on the Caribbean island of San Domingo (Haiti), she concluded her plea for women’s rights with a firm avowal of full equality for all people, even at the cost of the colonies and the French empire.”69 Gouges was not the first feminist to make the connection between women and slaves. In 1696, the author of An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, a text that has been alternatively attributed to Judith Drake and to Mary Astell, commented, “[T]hey [Men] have endeavor’d to train us [women] up altogether to Ease and Ignorance; as Conquerors use to do

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to those, they reduce by Force, that so they may disarm ’em, both of Courage and Wit; and consequently make them tamely give up their Liberty, and abjectly submit their Necks to a slavish Yoke.”70 In her 1706 Reflections Upon Marriage, Astell asks: If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men, be the perfect Condition of Slavery? and if the Essence of Freedom consists, as our Masters say it does, in having a standing rule to live by? And why is Slavery so much condemn’d and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded, and held so necessary and so sacred in another?71

The rhetorical force of connecting women to slaves was thus long established by the time Gouges—and Wouters—were writing. Interestingly, despite her call for wide-sweeping changes, Gouges remained a monarchist, as did Wouters. Both women called for significant reforms from within the newly established system. As Carla Hesse remarks, “radical as [her] political claims were, Gouges . . . dedicated her pamphlet to the Queen, Marie-Antoinette, and argued that the recognition of women’s equality was the best means to strengthen the French monarchy. She was an ardent and active monarchist until the King’s flight in 1791.”72 The radical revolution was not favourable to either Gouges or Wouters: Gouges ended up on the scaffold, and Wouters went into exile. This explanation for Wouters’ motivation—the idea that by championing Jewish rights she was holding out the possibility of similar rights for women—is perhaps too simple. And yet, Wouters does bring up her gender in the very first line of the Mémoire à l’Assemblée. She writes, “Although I am a woman, I dare to join those who have spoken in favor of Jews. When pleading the cause of justice there is no more distinction of rank or sex; everyone can come equally before the Tribunal, and I come before that of the most enlightened Nation on earth.”73 Wouters’ reference to her sex seems to be more than an empty rhetorical formulation here; it seems especially deliberate in the context of a debate over the official recognition of a previously excluded group. Joan Scott has commented on the ambiguous status of women in the French Revolution. “For women,” she writes, “the legacy of the French Revolution was contradictory: a universal, abstract, rights-bearing individual as the unit of national sovereignty, embodied, however, as a man.”74 Gouge’s Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne shows that the falseness of revolutionaries’ universalist claims was crystal-clear already in 1791. Scott remarks, The abstraction of a genderless political subject made it possible for women to claim the political rights of active citizens and, when denied them in practice, to protest against exclusion as unjust, a violation of the founding principles of the republic. The equally abstract gesture of embodiment—the attribution of citizenship to (white) male subjects—complicated enormously the project of claiming equal rights, for it suggested either that the rights themselves, or at least how and where they were exercised, depended on the physical characteristics of human bodies.75

It is in precisely this context of bodies before the law that Wouters’ Mémoire à l’Assemblée must be read—with respect to both Jews and women.

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In the end, it proved more difficult to include women in the notion of active citizenship than to include Jews.76 The phrase “Jewish individuals” in the National Assembly’s decree of September 1791 turned out to signify Jewish men; women in France did not gain full political rights until they were granted voting privileges in 1944.77 Lynn Hunt has argued that women were, by far, perceived as the greatest threat to the French nation when it came to the expansion of active citizenship. She notes, “When revolutionaries proclaimed the sanctity of the universal rights of man, they raised inevitable questions about the identity of the brotherhood. Why were men of color excluded? Were women not citizens and ‘men’ too in the generic sense?” She concludes, “It turned out to be harder to resist the abolition of slavery and the admission of men of color into the fraternity than to resist the admission of women to the full rights of citizenship.”78 There is, of course, the simple fact that there were many more women in France and its colonies than there were Jews or slaves. In the period in which Wouters—and Gouges—were writing, however, the issue of rights and citizenship for all of these previously excluded groups was still on the table. “In these early years of the Revolution,” states Hunt, “the question of the status of women was an open one.”79 In 1790, when Wouters published her Mémoire à l’Assemblée, and in 1791, when Gouges published her Déclaration, radical changes in the status of women still seemed achievable. Hesse goes so far as to call the revolutionary period a “literary awakening” for women, noting a rapid rise in the number of publications by women, including numerous political pamphlets.80 The revolutionary “woman question” was not resolved, deems Hunt, until the fall of 1793. It was at this time that Marie Antoinette was executed—as much for her symbolic power, Hunt argues, as for any real or perceived political power that she may have possessed. “[T]he queen represented,” Hunt explains, “not only the ultimate in counterrevolutionary conspiracy but also the menace that the feminine and the feminizing presented to republican notions of manhood and virility.”81 Just a few weeks later, women’s political clubs—which by then existed in Paris and in at least fifty other French cities82 —were banned. In 1793, Wouters was living in exile and Gouges was put to death. Whether or not Wouters believed that women would be the next group to gain political rights in France, it is clear that, apart from the matter of Jewish recognition, things did not turn out as she had hoped. In her 1793 play, La Famille Émigrée, published not in Paris but in Nivelles, Wouters expresses a sense of betrayal and a marked nostalgia for the past; one of her protagonists discusses “les desastres affreux qu’éprouve ma malheureuse patrie” [the terrible disasters that afflict my unhappy country]83 and others cry out from time to time, “Malheureuse France!” [Unhappy France!].84 In the revolutionary moment, however, all things seemed possible, and Wouters took advantage of this moment to argue that Jews should be admitted with full rights as “active” citizens in the new, constitutional monarchy—and, perhaps, to hint that women should be so recognised as well. At one point, she asks members of the Assembly poignantly, “If intolerance is the child of ignorance, can it exist in a century such as ours?”85 It is a question we are called upon to ask again today.

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NOTES 1 [Anonymous], L’Assemblée Nationale Constituante. Motions, Discours et Rapports. La Législation

2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11 12 13 14

15 16

17

18 19 20

nouvelle, 1789–91, vol. 7 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des juifs (1789; repr., Paris: Éditions d’Histoire Sociale, 1968), n.p.: “L’Assemblée Nationale considérant que les conditions nécessaires pour être citoyen François & pour devenir citoyen actif, sont fixées par la Constitution, & que tout homme qui réunissant lesdites conditions, prête le serment civique & s’engage à remplir tous les devoirs que la Constitution impose, a droit à tous les avantages qu’elle assure: Révoque tous ajournemens, réserves & exceptions insérés dans les précédens Décrets relativement aux individus Juifs qui prêteront le serment civique, qui sera regardé comme une renonciation à tous priviléges & exceptions introduits précédemment en leur faveur.” All translations into English, unless otherwise noted, are mine. Esther Benbassa, The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present, trans. M.B. DeBevoise (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 82. Serge Aberdam, R. Bianchi, R. Demeude, E. Ducoudray, B. Gainot, M. Genty, and C. Wolikow, Voter, élire pendant la Révolution française 1789–99 (Paris: CTHS, 1999), 455 and 477. See Benbassa, The Jews of France, 82–5 and elsewhere, for a consideration of this question. Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 2. Ruth F. Necheles, The Abbé Grégoire 1787–1831: The Odyssey of an Egalitarian (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971), 5. In 1497 King Manuel I expelled all Jews from Portugal. Many of these Jews were recent arrivals who had come to Portugal after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had expelled all Jews from Spain in 1492. Benbassa, The Jews of France, 50. Ibid., 76. Even today, Alsace and the eastern part of Lorraine (known collectively as Alsace-Moselle) retain laws with regard to religion that differ from those of the rest of France. These regions were part of Germany in 1905 when the Concordat, which separates church and state in France, was passed. Although freedom of religion is assured in Alsace-Moselle, church and state are not separate, and the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish (but not Muslim) faiths are all state-subsidised. Necheles, Abbé Grégoire, 7. See Benbassa, The Jews of France, 76–7. See Benbassa, The Jews of France, 77: “Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus utiles et plus heureux en France?” Honoré Gabriel Riqueti and Comte de Mirabeau, Sur Moses Mendelssohn, sur la réforme politique des Juifs et en particulier sur la révolution tentée en leur faveur en 1753 dans la Grande-Bretagne, vol. 1 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs (1787; repr., Paris: Editions d’ Histoire Sociale, 1968). Henri Grégoire, Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs, vol. 3 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs. Claude-Antoine Thiéry, Dissertation sur cette question: “Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus utiles et plus heureux en France?,” vol. 2 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs (1788; repr., Paris: Editions d’ Histoire Sociale, 1968). Zalkind Hourwitz, Apologie des Juifs, en réponse à la question: “Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus heureux et plus utiles en France?,” vol. 4 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs. (1789; repr., Paris: Editions d’ Histoire Sociale, 1968). Note that Hourwitz inverts the terms “plus utiles” [more useful] and “plus heureux” [happier]. Hertzberg, French Enlightenment, 339. Jews in the new United States of America were politically equal to Christians. See also ibid., 272. Ibid., 339. The Commune de Paris was the name given to the revolutionary government of Paris set up after the capture of the Bastille. Its membership included representatives elected by the citizens of the city of

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Paris, which was then divided into 48 sections, and was led by a mayor. (The revolutionary government of March 26–May 20, 1871, was also called the Commune de Paris.) Many of these documents are included in La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs. Cornélie Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée nationale pour démontrer aux Français les raisons qui doivent les déterminer à admettre les juifs indistinctement aux droits de citoyens (Paris: Baudouin, 1790). Wouters’ Mémoire à l’Assemblée is in vol. 8 of La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs (1790; repr., Paris: Editions d’ Histoire Sociale, 1968). Wouters’ is the only text signed by a woman in the eight-volume La Révolution française et l’émancipation des Juifs. It is possible, of course, that some of the anonymous texts in this collection were authored by women (who, however, did not see fit to identify themselves as such) or that the collection’s editors chose not to include other female-authored texts. A Cornélie Pétronille Benoîte Wouters was born and baptised in Brussels on October 14, 1737. Wouters’ nineteenth-century biographers give the author’s full name as Cornélie Pétronille Bénédicte Wouters and list her birthdate as 1737, so she may, indeed, be the child in question. However, the parents of Cornélie Pétronille Benoîte, Jacques Corneille and Catherine Marguerite (Charlier) Wouters, also baptised two other daughters named Cornélie in Brussels (Cornélie Carole, May 1745; Cornélie, September 1752), so it is possible that the first Cornélie died and that one of the later Cornélies became the author. The fact that Cornélie Pétronille Benoîte was born and baptised on the same day may suggest that there was some fear for her survival. Goethals says that a Cornélie-Barbe, daughter of Jacques Corneille and Catherine Marguerite (Charlier) Wouters, was born on October 14, 1737, and died on May 14, 1745, but it is possible that he is conflating two separate Cornélies. See Félix-Victor Goethals, Dictionnaire généalogique et héraldique des familles nobles du royaume de Belgique (Brussels: Polack-Duvivier, 1849–52), 4:1132. Another daughter, Marie Thérèse, who collaborated with Cornélie, was baptised in Brussels on October 20, 1739. (The record of the birth and baptism of Cornélie Pétronille Benoîte is found among the baptismal records of the parish of Notre-Dame du Finistère, vol. 439, and on microfilm 131 of the parish records at the Archives of the City of Brussels. The baptismal records of the two other Cornélies, of Marie Thérèse, and of another daughter and two sons are found among the baptismal records of the parish of Saint-Géry and on microfilm 85.) The lines between “original” work and translation are, of course, still blurred during this period, and Wouters’ translations are often considerably amplified. As Mary Helen McMurran has noted, “Many translators were novelists themselves . . . and they were often conscious of blending the two processes. Because these writers did not always acknowledge their source texts or mixed translation with original writing, much translation of prose fiction in eighteenth-century Britain and France was marked by the permeability of the two languages and cultures.” See Mary Helen McMurran, “National or Transnational? The Eighteenth-Century Novel,” in The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel, ed. Margaret Cohen and Carolyn Dever (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 51. Marie-Pascale Pieretti has also commented on eighteenth-century French women translators’ free adaptation of source texts, which, she notes, were most often in English. Marie-Pascale Pieretti, “Women Writers and Translation in Eighteenth-Century France,” The French Review 75, no. 3 (2002): 474–88. The following nineteenth-century biographies (often borrowing from each other) provide details of Wouters’ life: [Paul André Roger,] Biographie générale des Belges morts ou vivants (Brussels: Muquardt, 1849), 35; Fortunée Briquet, Dictionnaire Historique, littéraire et bibliographique des Françaises et étrangères naturalisées en France (Paris: Treuttel and Würtz, 1804), 342–43; Alfred Langue Dantès, Dictionnaire biographique et bibliographique, alphabétique et méthodique, des hommes les plus remarquables dans les lettres, les sciences et les arts, chez tous les peuples, à toutes les époques (Paris: A. Boyer, 1875), 1021; Mathieu G. Delvenne, Biographie du royaume des Pays-Bas, ancienne et moderne (Liège: Veuve J. Desoer, 1828–29), 2:572; Goethals, Dictionnaire généalogique, 4:1132; Ferdinand Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale: depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1866), 46:986–87; Nicolas-Toussaint Le Moyne, dit Des Essarts, Les Siècles littéraires de la France, ou Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, critique et bibliographique de tous les écrivains français, morts et vivans jusqu’à la fin du XVIII siècle (Paris: Des Essarts, 1800–03), 6:327–28; Jean Pauwels de Vis, Dictionnaire biographique des Belges (Brussels: Périchon, 1843), 63;

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and Nicolas-Alexandre Pigoreau, Petite bibliographie biographico-romancière, ou Dictionnaire des romanciers tant anciens que modernes, tant nationaux qu’étrangers (Paris: N.-A. Pigoreau, 1821), 344. Joan DeJean, “Transnationalism and the Origins of the (French?) Novel,” The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel, ed. Margaret Cohen and Carolyn Dever (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 37. Margaret Cohen, “Sentimental Communities,” in The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel, ed. Margaret Cohen and Carolyn Dever (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 118. Cornélie Wouters, Les Aveux d’une femme galante (London and Paris [i.e. Paris?]: chez la veuve Ballard et Fils, 1782); Cornélie Wouters, L’Art de corriger et de rendre les hommes constants (London and Paris [i.e. Paris?]: la veuve Ballard & Fils, la veuve Duchesne, Mérigot l’aîne [and two others], 1783). L’Art de corriger was a response to the anonymous L’Art de rendre les femmes fidèles (1713; repr., 1779 and 1783), attributed to Chevalier De Cerfvol. Both L’Art de corriger and Les Aveux sold out quickly and were reprinted soon after their initial publication; there are copies of both texts in libraries scattered across North America and Europe. Les Aveux was apparently even censored in the nineteenth century. According to one bibliographer, it was placed on the index and seized by the administration at the Bergeret sale in 1859. [Jules Gay], Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l’amour, aux femmes, au mariage. Et des livres facétieux, pantagruéliques, scatalogiques, satyriques, etc., 4th ed. (Paris: Lemonnyer and Gillet, 1894–1900), 1:334–35. Cornélie Wouters, Le Nouveau continent (London and Paris [i.e. Paris?]: les marchands de nouveautés [la veuve Ballard & Fils], 1783). Cornélie Wouters, Le Char volant, ou voyage dans la lune (London and Paris [i.e. Paris?]: la veuve Ballard & Fils. Mérigot l’aîné. Mérigot le jeune [and two others], 1783). Le Char volant was reprinted during Wouters’ lifetime and translated into German by Theophilus Friedrich Ehrmann in 1784. The German translation, Der Luftwagen oder Reise in den Mond, aus dem Franz. der Freyfrau von V ***übersetzt (Strasbourg: Akademischen Buchhandlung, 1784), is cited by Carl von Klinckowstroem, “Luftfahrten in der Literatur,” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 3, no. 2 (1911–12): 264. The only extant copy of this translation of which I am aware is at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich [Sigel: 210]. Cornélie Wouters, trans., Les Imprudences de la jeunesse, par l’auteur de Cécilia [sic] (London and Paris [i.e. Paris?]: Chez Buisson, 1788). This work is a translation of Agnes Maria Bennett, Juvenile Indiscretions. A Novel (1786), erroneously attributed here to Frances Burney, author of Cecilia: Or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782). Cornélie Wouters, trans., Le Mariage platonique (Amsterdam and Paris: Maradan, 1789). Cornélie Wouters and Marie Wouters, trans., Traduction du théâtre anglois depuis l’origine des spectacles jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Vve Ballard et fils, 1784–87). This text was dedicated to Prince Henry of Prussia, younger brother of King Frederick II of Prussia. Cornélie Wouters, trans., Vie des hommes illustres d’Angleterre, d’Écosse et d’Irlande, ou le Plutarque anglois (Paris: Couturier, 1785–87). This text was dedicated to King Gustave III of Sweden, who awarded Wouters a gold medal for her efforts. Cornélie Wouters, La Famille Émigrée, ou le procédé généreux (Nivelles: E.-H.-J. Plon, 1793). Cornélie Wouters, trans., La Belle indienne ou les aventures de la petite fille du Grand Mogol traduit de l’anglais par Cornélie de Vasse orné de figures (Paris: Lepetit, An VI [1798]). Copies of the text are held at the Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles [Cote et fonds 111321–22, ancien.], the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen [8 FAB IX, 773/x], and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich [P.o.angl. 180–1,2]. I have come across only one copy of a text that lists a publisher by name in London: a 1783 edition of Les Aveux published by John Nourse. Nourse, known for printing books in French, had actually died in 1780; Francis Wingrave took over the deceased John Nourse’s printing shop and published under his name until John’s brother Charles died in 1789, at which point Wingrave began to publish under his own name. Ian Maxted, The London Book Trades, 1775–1800: A Preliminary Checklist of Members (Folkstone, Kent: Dawson, 1977), 164, 251; Henry R. Plomer, G.H. Bushnell, and E.R. McC. Dix,

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A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726–75 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 183, 267. According to three of her nineteenth-century biographers, in 1790 Wouters also began a periodical entitled the Constitutions des empires, royaumes et républiques de l’Europe, avec un Précis de leurs finances, dettes nationales, ressources, commerce, etc. [Constitutions of the empires, kingdoms, and republics of Europe, with a Précis of their finances, national debts, resources, trade, etc.]. I have found no trace of this periodical, although Carla Hesse includes it in her bibliography of French women writers of the revolutionary period and indicates that twenty-four issues were published. Carla Hesse, The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 218. See also Briquet, Dictionnaire Historique, 342–43; Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale, 46: 986–87; and Des Essarts, Les Siècles littéraires, 6:327–28. Mirabeau, Sur Moses Mendelssohn, 66: “On ne peut pas douter de bonne foi que des traitemens meilleurs n’extirpassent les préjugés de religion qui empêchent les enfans de Moyse d’être plus sociables. Le juif est plus homme encore qu’il n’est juif.” Thiéry, Dissertation sur cette question: ‘Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus utiles et plus heureux en France?, 61–2: “Disons-le donc, et disons-le avec l’histoire, par-tout où l’on a fait des Juifs des Citoyens et des hommes, on les a trouvés laborieux et éclairés; par-tout ils ont donné des preuves de génie, de courage et de délicatesse que la Philosophie a plus d’une fois jugées dignes d’être transmises à la postérité.” Grégoire, Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs, 33, 43–4: “[Les] Juifs estimés sont incontestablement estimables”; and “Leur crainte est un fruit de l’esclavage, la misere a flétri leur coeur, le désespoir a provoqué leur aversion, & les a conduits à la vengeance. Telle est la généalogie incontestable de bien des crimes, & la marche presqu’infaillible de la nature humaine en pareil cas. Mais les torts des Juifs, leurs malheurs accusent notre conduite à leur égard. Nations, avouez en gémissant que c’est là votre ouvrage! les Juifs ont produit les effets, vous aviez posé les causes: qui sont les plus coupables?” Hourwitz, Apologie des Juifs, 1–2: “Le moyen de rendre les Juifs heureux & utiles? le voici, cesser de les rendre malheureux & inutiles”; and “en leur accordant, ou plutôt en leur rendant le droit de citoyen, dont vous les avez privés contre toutes les loix divines & humaines, & contre vos propres intérêts, comme un homme qui, de gaieté de coeur, se rendroit perclus d’un de ses membres.” Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 1–2: “Vous avez décrété que tous les hommes sont égaux en droits; & ce décret seul vous rend immortels”; and “Mais tandis que tous les jours sont marqués par quelques nouveaux bienfaits qui émanent de votre sagesse, les Juifs seuls demeurent incertains sur leur sort. Ah! ne les laissez pas davantage en suspens! songez combien celui qui entrevoit le bonheur après tant de siècles d’infortunes, de persécutions, de mauvais traitemens, est impatient d’en jouir! songez qu’en couronnant votre ouvrage par cet acte de justice, vous allez répandre la joie dans des coeurs opprimés par la douleur, & rendre à l’homme ce qu’il a droit d’attendre de vous.” Ibid., 9: “auxquels ils peuvent prétendre en leur qualité d’homme.” Ibid., 4: “N’a-t-elle [l’Assemblée nationale] pas déja rapproché des hommes qui étoient, il n’y a pas quinze mois, distans les uns des autres à plus de mille lieues, par le régime féodal?” and “Ceux qui ont le pouvoir de rapprocher le Cultivateur du puissant Propriétaire des fiefs, l’humble Pasteur d’un Village du superbe Prince de l’Eglise, ont sans doute aussi le pouvoir de rendre aux Juifs les droits que la Nature a accordés à tous ses enfants, & que la Religion approuve, en nous recommandant la charité universelle.” Ibid., 4–5: “Qu’est-ce que cette maxime de l’Evangile: Aimez votre prochain comme vous-même, sinon un ordre de regarder tous les hommes comme frères? Qu’est-ce que cette autre maxime: Ne faites point à autrui ce que vous ne voudriez pas que l’on vous fît?” The first of these maxims appears in Leviticus 19:18 and is then quoted seven times in the New Testament (Matthew 19:19, 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; and James 2:8). The second maxim is similar to Luke 6:31, “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.” Hertzberg, French Enlightenment, 334. Ibid.

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50 Ibid., 335. 51 Ibid. 52 Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2004), 170. 53 Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 5: “Mais de quel droit osons-nous prononcer anathême contre ceux

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qui suivent un culte différent du nôtre? La foi n’est-elle pas un don du Ciel? Est-ce à nous de l’accorder, quand le Maître suprême de ce vaste univers s’est réservé le droit d’en être le dispensateur?” Ibid: “Jetons les yeux sur les astres qui roulent sur nos têtes: ils ne sont que la foible image d’une immensité de mondes où l’oeil de l’homme ne peut pénétrer.” Ibid., 6: “Voyez si l’ordre admirable avec lequel il régit toute la Nature, est troublée parce que nous ne l’adorons pas sur les mêmes Autels, & parce que nous ne lui présentons pas dans un même langage l’offrande de nos tributs. Si le grand Architecte de l’Univers manifeste ainsi son amour pour l’ordre, cet amour s’étend sur la création entière, & sans doute nous devons l’offenser en opprimant les Juifs qui sont nos frères.” Ibid: “En nous élevant les uns contre les autres pour des opinions religieuses, nous nous faisons beaucoup de mal; & malgré notre orgueil, ces guerres, ces discussions qui troublent la paix & l’ordre, ne sont tout au plus aux yeux de l’Eternel, que ce que seroit pour nous la guerre civile des fourmis pour un grain de bled.” Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet], Micromégas (1752), trans. H.I. Woolf, in The Portable Voltaire, ed. Ben Ray Redman (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), 431. Voltaire was a strong influence in Wouters’ earlier works as well, particularly her Nouveau Continent. Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 2: “Il n’y a pas un instant à perdre. Vous rivaux & vos émules en mérite, & que vous surpassez déjà en talens, s’occupent d’un projet qui vous enlevera la gloire de les avoir aussi surpassés en lumières. Oui, le Parlement d’Angleterre s’apprête à accorder aux Juifs les priviléges dont jouissent tous les Anglois.” Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews in England, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964). On the 1753 bill, see ibid., esp. 212–23. On Jews’ long-awaited political emancipation in 1858, see ibid, esp. 253–66. Ibid., 253. Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 2–3: “Vous vous verrez non-seulement enlever l’honneur d’avoir été plus justes qu’eux, mais vous enrichirez cette Nation du commerce d’un peuple industrieux, & vous perdrez en un moment ce qui coûtera à la France des siècles de regrets. En vain reviendrez-vous sur vos pas, & accorderez-vous ce que les Anglois auront accordé avant vous; l’occasion sera perdue, & les familles Juives de la Grande-Bretagne, de la Hollande, de la Pologne, de l’Espagne, de l’Italie, de l’Allemagne, qui vous auroient apporté leurs trésors, les verseront dans les trésors du peuple qui le premier leur aura montré des sentimens de frères.” Ibid., 3: “Pour connoître toute l’étendue des maux que l’intolérance a faits aux François, jetez les yeux sur l’Allemagne, sur la Prusse, sur l’Empire, & sur cette même Angleterre déjà jalouse de votre liberté.” Ibid., 6–7: “Croyez-moi, François; consolidez votre bonheur par la tolérance; elle est le triomphe de la raison. Ne permettez pas aux Anglois de vous dépouiller des trésors que les Juifs apporteront dans la France, & qui aideront à vous dédommager des pertes que vous avez déjà essuyées.” Ibid., 7; “Je connais trois familles Juives qui n’attendent que le Décret de l’auguste Sénat, pour quitter l’Angleterre, & s’établir chez un peuple doux, aimable, chez un peuple qui n’a plus qu’un pas à faire pour être le plus grand, dont l’Histoire ait fait, ou puisse jamais faire mention.” Ibid.: “Mais vous ferez ce pas; non, vous ne resterez pas en chemin, après avoir si glorieusement approché du but de la véritable grandeur.” Ibid., 9. This play was written in 1785 and performed at the Comédie Française in 1789. Joan Wallach Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’: Olympe de Gouge’s Declarations,” in The French Revolution: The Essential Readings, ed. Ronald Schechter (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 230–31.

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69 Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1988), 124. 70 [Anonymous], An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696; repr., New York: Source Book Press,

1970), 39. 71 Mary Astell, The First English Feminist: “Reflections On Marriage” and other writings by Mary

Astell, ed. Bridget Hill (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), 76. 72 Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, 81. 73 Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 1: “Quoique je sois femme, j’ose me mêler à ceux qui ont parlé en

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faveur des Juifs. Quand il s’agit de plaider la cause de la justice, il n’y a plus de distinction de rang ni de sexes; tout le monde peut également se présenter au Tribunal, & je me présente à celui de la Nation la plus éclairée de la terre.” Scott, “French Feminists,” 213. Ibid. To be fair, Jews’ progress after their formal recognition was slow. See Benbassa, The Jews of France, 82–3. The first French elections in which women cast votes were held in 1945. Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 201. Hunt, The Family Romance, 43. Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, 40. Hunt, The Family Romance, 94. Hunt also observes that allegorised women (representing such concepts as liberty, reason, wisdom, victory, and force) were common in revolutionary rhetoric and imagery, but that living and breathing “[w]omen who acted in the public sphere of politics would be described as transgressing sexual boundaries and contributing to the blurring of sexual differentiation. Their actions made them look like men; they were seen as taking on a sex not their own” (ibid., 82). Hesse argues that the reason for the exclusion of women from political life was that they were seen as incapable of thinking abstractly and universally, of taking into account concerns beyond the particular (Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, xiv–v). Hunt, The Family Romance, 118. Wouters, La Famille Émigrée, 4. Ibid., 17. Wouters, Mémoire à l’Assemblée, 4: “Si l’intolérance est l’enfant de l’ignorance, peut-elle exister dans un siècle comme le nôtre?”

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INDEX

Abigail 88, 125 Achinstein, Sharon 131 Adam and Eve 45 Alan of Lille 25, 32 Amazons, the 29 Anne, Queen of England xxii Aquinas, Thomas 3 Arendt, Hannah 162 Arienti, Giovanni Sabadino degli 59–61 Aristotle 24, 25, 27–29, 34–37, 39, 117 on prudence (phronesis), 24, 27 on women 27 Astell, Mary 78, 85, 89, 90, 111, 139, 180, 181 and John Locke 128 on biblical women 125, 126 on liberal theory 90, 124, 127–130 on liberty 123, 130–133 on marriage 90, 130 on the state of nature 131 on toleration 128, 129, 132 on women rulers 126 on women’s political status 125–127, 130, 133 political theology of 123, 127, 129–133 works A Fair Way with the Dissenters 128 An Impartial Enquiry 128 Letters concerning the Love of God 138 Moderation Truly Stated 124, 128 Reflections upon Marriage 124, 128 The Christian Religion as Profess’d by a Daughter of the Church of England 124 Augustine, St 3

Barbara of Brandenburg 61 Beauvoir, Simone de 162 Bell, Susan Groag 23 Belsey, Catherine 133 Benbassa, Esther 172 Benson, Elizabeth 139 Bentivoglio, Giovanna 60 Berger, Élie 4

Bible, the on women’s inferiority 10 women and politics in 2, 14, 48, 88, 125 Blanche d’Anjou 13 Blanche de Castille 3, 5, 6, 12, 18, 19 Blanche de France 13 Bluestockings, the 140 Boccaccio, Giovanni 39, 48, 57, 70 Bodin, Jean 27, 34 Bouchet, Jean 31, 32 Brailsford, H.N. 77, 90 Broad, Jacqueline xix Burke, Edmund 140 Burnet, Elizabeth 138 Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury xvi

Cademan, Thomas 100, 101 Calvinism 111 Campbell, Stephen 66 Carter, Elizabeth xx and Catharine Macaulay 146 and Epictetus 139, 140, 142 and political reform 145 and women’s education 141, 145 her concept of God 140, 143 her translations 139, 142 on eternal and immutable morality 140 on Stoicism 137, 145 on virtue 140, 143, 145 Catholicism 112 Cavendish, Charles 97 Cavendish, Henry 102 Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle and Christianity 98, 100 and Christine de Pizan 97 and the false universal 97, 103, 105, 106 and William Cavendish 97, 103 feminism of 97, 106 on class inequality 97, 99 on marriage 105, 106 on nature 97, 98 on toleration/liberty of conscience 100

205

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INDEX

Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (Continued) on women’s political status 96, 107 royalism of 99 utilitarianism of 96, 99, 105, 107 works Life of William Cavendish 97 Observations upon Experimental Philosophy 95 Orations of Divers Sorts 96, 97, 104 Sociable Letters 96, 104 Cavendish, William 97, 103 Ceres 48 Champier, Symphorien 31 Chapone, Hester 139 Charrière, Isabelle de 174 Châtillon, Marie de 12 Chidley, Katherine 77 her defence of separatism 81, 85 on liberty as freedom from domination 82, 86 on marriage 86 on right of resistance 85–87 on spiritual liberty 81, 87 on toleration 81 works A New-Yeares-Gift 82 Justification of the Independant Churches 81 Christianity 99, 116, 119, 120, 131, 144 Christine de Pizan 1, 48, 133, 175 and Aegidius Romanus 10 and Blanche de Castille 5, 6 and Elizabeth I 23–24 and Hostiensis 10 and Margaret Cavendish 97 Mariology of 1, 12, 15 on prudence 25, 29 on regency 1 on women and power 12, 13 on women and regency 1, 12 works Book of Peace [Le Livre de Paix] 25 Book of Prudence [Livre de la Prod’hommie de l’homme] 25 Book of the Three Virtues [Livre des Trois Vertus] 25 City of Ladies [Cité des dames] 23, 25, 27–29, 31, 33, 34 Epistre à la Reine 6 Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles 1, 9, 10 Letter of Othea [Epistre Othea] 24, 29

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Chudleigh, Mary xxii Cicero 39, 142, 143 citizenship Jews’ inclusion/exclusion 171, 173, 177 women’s inclusion/exclusion 96, 104, 130, 131 civil war, women petitioners of the 77, 105 and right of resistance 78 and the Levellers 77, 78 liberal feminism of 78, 80, 84 on liberty 78, 80, 83, 84, 90 on liberty of conscience 77, 79, 84 works A True Copie of the Petition of the Gentlewomen, and Tradesmenswives 79 Humble Petition I (April 1649), 81, 83 Humble Petition II (May 1649), 81 Clark, Jonathan 138 Clarke, Samuel 145, 151 class inequality 97, 99 Cockburn, Catharine Trotter 138 Cohen, Margaret 174 Coke, Edward 83 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 96, 157 compatibilism 154, 161 contract theory (contractarianism) 85, 88, 90, 131, 137 Conway, Anne 177 Cudworth, Damaris. See Masham, Damaris Cudworth Cudworth, Ralph 111 d’Amboise, Catherine 175 and the Querelle des femmes 46, 48, 51 her consciousness of gender 40, 43, 44, 51 her use of exempla 51 Mariology of 39, 43, 47 on power relations between sexes 40, 51 on prudence 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51 on the divine 40, 42 on women’s education 31, 44, 52 works Book of the Prudent and Imprudent [Livre des Prudents et Imprudents] 52 Fainting Lady’s Complaint against Fortune [Complainte de la dame pasmee contre Fortune] 39, 45 d’Évreux, Jeanne 12 d’Aragona, Eleonora 57, 70 DeJean, Joan 174 Descartes, René 123, 124, 151, 157

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INDEX d’Este, Isabella xix and defences of women 59, 67 and Francesco Gonzaga 63, 69 and prudence 57, 61, 67 and virtue 64, 66 her conception of a good ruler 62, 63 her studiolo paintings 67 political role models for 57, 58, 61, 63 political self-representation of 57, 62, 63, 66, 67, 70 Dido 27, 33 Dissenters, the 149 divine right theory 127 Drake, Judith xxii, 180 Du Cange, Charles Dufresne 1 du Châtelet, Émilie 140

education 149, 160 women’s inclusion/exclusion 31, 44, 52, 57, 68, 111, 137, 140, 141 Edwards, Thomas 81, 86 Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Christine de Pizan 23 and prudence 34 portraits of 24, 32 virginity of 24, 32, 33, 35 empiricism 114, 117 Engell, James 157 Epictetus 139, 140, 142–144 equality of Jews 171, 176 of men and women 23, 67, 68, 80, 83, 85, 89, 130, 133, 140, 141 Esther 2, 125 Eve 48 exempla, female 12, 27, 41, 51, 60, 68, 120, 125

false universal, the 97, 103, 105, 106, 181 feminism definition of 92 early modern 78, 84, 133 enlightenment 161 liberal 77, 80, 84, 90 Filmer, Robert 85, 89, 130, 138 Fredegund 12 free will and necessity 115, 162 and virtue 149 Catharine Macaulay on 150, 152 compatibilism 154, 161

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libertarianism 153, 161 Mary Wollstonecraft on 149, 151, 156, 162 physical and moral necessity 153 freedom. See liberty French Revolution, the 149, 181 Gaia Cirilla 27 gender, consciousness of 40, 43, 44, 51 Gillespie, Katharine 77, 80, 84, 87, 88 Giordani, Igino 15 God and human free will 152 and love 41, 112–114, 178 attributes of 113, 115, 118, 137, 139, 140, 143, 146, 149, 150 causal power of 112 existence of 114, 143 intellectualism 150 Stoic concept of 143 voluntarism 150 Goggio, Bartolommeo 59 Gonzaga, Francesco 57, 61, 63, 69 Gouges, Olympe de 180 Gournay, Marie le Jars de xxii, 133 Gratian 3, 16, 17 Green, Karen 156 Grégoire, Abbé Henri 173, 176, 177, 180 Hanley, Sarah 12 Hays, Mary xxii Hertzberg, Arthur 171, 173, 177 Hesse, Carla 181, 182 history of political thought traditional approaches in xv women’s inclusion/exclusion 90, 96, 137 Hobbes, Thomas 81, 82, 98, 107, 116, 123, 131, 152 Hostiensis 2, 3, 9, 11 Hourwitz, Zalkind 173, 176, 177 Hunt, Lynn 182 Hutton, Sarah 177 imagination, the 150, 158 Imlay, Gilbert 158–160 Irigaray, Luce xvi Isis 48

James, Carolyn xix James, Susan 95

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208

INDEX

Jews

118, 177, 182, See also under Wouters, Cornélie citizenship of xxi conversion of 177 in England 179 in Revolutionary France 182 toleration of 177–179, 182 John of Salisbury 27, 33

Klaus, Carrie xxi Kolbrener, William 132 Kolsky, Stephen 59, 67 Kristina, Queen of Sweden

xxii

Lamb, Charles 96 Landes, Joan 180 law, the and liberty 83 and women’s exclusion from power 3, 9, 34 Salic Law 3, 12, 34 Lehmann, Phyllis 64 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 152 Leslie, Charles 132 Levellers, the 77, 78, 88, 90, 98, 105 liberalism 84, 124, 130 libertarianism 153, 161 liberty and Stoicism 143 and the law 83 as freedom from domination 82, 84 as freedom from interference 82 liberal concept of 82, 83 of conscience 77, 79, 84, 131 republican or neo-roman concept of 82, 84 spiritual concept of 78, 79, 81, 131, 132 Lilburne, John 78 Locke, John 85, 90, 111, 114, 128, 132, 137, 138, 145 Louise of Savoy 32, 34 Luzio, Alessandro 57

Macaulay, Catharine and Elizabeth Carter 146 and Mary Wollstonecraft 146, 149–162 and political reform 145 her concept of God 141, 151 on eternal and immutable morality 141, 142, 152

BROAD:

on free will and necessity 150, 152 on liberty 139, 141, 145 on physical and moral necessity 153 on reason 152, 154, 155 on Stoicism 137, 145, 153 on the passions 154, 155 on the will 153 on virtue 142, 145, 154 on women petitioners 77 on women’s education 140, 141 on women’s equality with men 141 works A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth 141, 142, 150 History of England 77, 139 Letters on Education 140, 141, 142, 150 Observations on a Pamphlet 140 Observations on the Reflections of the Right Honourable Mr Edmund Burke 140 Malcolmson, Cristina 97 Marguerite de Navarre 42 Mariology (theology of the Virgin Mary) and arguments for women rulers/regents 2, 6, 12, 15 and Blanche de Castille 6 and Catherine d’Amboise 39, 43, 47 and Christine de Pizan 2 and Marian literature 6, 14 marriage and divorce 87, 88 and monarchy 35 and the social contract 78, 90, 130 as a partnership of equals 68, 70 criticisms of 68, 105, 106 Elizabeth Poole on 87 Katherine Chidley on 87 Mary Astell on 90 Masham, Damaris Cudworth 139, 141 and John Locke 111, 114 empiricism of 114, 117 on Christianity 114, 116, 118–120 on importance of social life 111, 113 on political stability 111, 115, 116, 120 on reason and revelation 117, 118 on the state of nature 116, 117 on virtue 114, 116 on women’s education 111, 116, 120 works A Discourse Concerning the Love of God 111–115

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INDEX Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life 111, 114, 120, 138 Mayerne, Theodore 100, 101 McCartney, Elizabeth 29 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 162 Michelson, Michael xx Mill, John Stuart xvi Milton, John 130 Minerva 48, 50, 65 Mirabeau, Comte de 173, 176, 177, 180 mirror of princes, genre of 24, 41, 58, 62 Montagu, Elizabeth 140 Montreuil, Jean 3, 12 morality eternal and immutable principles of 139, 140, 142, 151 motherhood 47, 105 Müller, Catherine xviii

necessity, See free will and necessity 151 Necheles, Ruth 172 Necker, Jacques 157 Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of. See Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle Nogarola, Isotta 48 Norris, John 112–114, 118

O’Neill, Eileen 95 obedience 130, 132 occasional conformity. See under toleration Okin, Susan Moller xvi Oresme, Nicole 9, 25, 27, 34 Overton, Mary 83, 84 Overton, Richard 78, 83

Pamphili, Olimpia 70 passions, the 115, 123, 143, 150, 152, 154, 158 and women 10, 120 Pateman, Carole 130, 137 patriarchalism 85–88 patriotism 178, 179 Perry, Ruth 123 Petition of Right 83 petitioners, women. See civil war, women petitioners of the

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Petrarch 33 Pettit, Philip 82 phronesis. See prudence Pink, Thomas 161 Pizan, Christine de. See Christine de Pizan Plato 117, 161 political thought definitions of xv–xvi genres of xv–xvi Poole, Elizabeth 77 and patriarchalism 87, 88 on marriage 87 on right of resistance 87–90 on spiritual liberty 88, 89 works A Vision Wherein is manifested the disease and cure of the Kingdome 87 An Alarum of War, Given to the Army 89 Another Alarum of War 89 power (political authority). See also Mariology; regency arguments against women rulers 3, 10, 27, 28 arguments for women rulers 24, 28, 59, 60, 63, 67, 126 women’s inclusion/exclusion 1–3, 10, 12, 23, 31, 58 power relations between men and women 40, 51 Price, Richard 145 prudence (phronesis) and Elizabeth I 32–34 and Isabella d’Este 57, 61, 67 and Louise of Savoy 31 and the divine 43 Aristotle on 24 as self-interest xvii Catherine d’Amboise on 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51 Christine de Pizan on 24, 25, 29 definitions of 24, 25, 32 symbols of 25, 29, 31, 32, 34, 65 visual images of 25, 29, 31, 34, 65 women’s capacity for 25, 31 women’s lack of 27

Quaker women xxii queens and queenship. See under Mariology; power; regency Querelle des femmes 40, 46, 48

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210

INDEX

reason 115 of women 119, 127 women’s lack of 10, 28, 120 regency and Mariology 6, 15 and the legal tradition 1, 3, 8–12 arguments against women regents 1 arguments for women regents 2, 12, 28, 29, 60, 63 origins of the term 1–8 religion and politics 78, 86, 115, 118, 123, 131, 137, 138 resistance, right of 78, 90 Reuter, Martina xxi Riccoboni, Marie-Jeanne 174 Richards, Earl Jeffrey xviii rights and rights theory 80, 137, 171, 177, 182 Roland de la Platiere, Jeanne Marie xxii Romanticism 157, 158 Romanus, Aegidius 10 Roth, Cecil 179 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 150, 155, 158–162

Salic Law 3, 12, 34 Scott, Joan 181 Scudéry, Madeleine de xxii Segar, William 32 self-governance 149 Semiramis 2, 28, 29, 37 separatism (religious non-conformity), 81 Sforza, Battista 60 Shklar, Judith 158, 160 Sidney, Algernon 85 slavery 82, 84, 90, 125, 130, 180 Smith, Hilda L. xix state of nature, concept of 116, 117, 131 Stoicism 137, 142–145 Stroll, Mary 6 Strong, Roy 32 subjecthood. See citizenship; obedience Suchon, Gabrielle xxii

Thickstun, Margaret Olofson 126 Thiéry, Claude-Antoine 173, 176, 177, 180 Toland, John 132 Toledo, Eleonora di 70

BROAD:

toleration 81, 84 and occasional conformity in England 128, 129 Katherine Chidley on 82 liberty of conscience 77 Margaret Cavendish on 100 Mary Astell on 128, 129, 132 of Jews 172, 177–179, 182 Tories and Toryism 123 universal, the. See false universal, the Vesey, Elizabeth 140 Viollet, Paul 2 Virgil 39 Virgin Mary, the. See Mariology virtue and the virtues 27, 29, See also under prudence and free will 140, 149 and political power 60 and political stability 115 and women 50, 59, 60, 137 charity 41 of a wife 59–61, 70 virginity 32, 33 Visconti, Caterina 60 von Wartburg, Walther 1 Weil, Rachel 132 Whale, John 156, 157 Whigs and Whiggism 90, 123, 124, 128–130, 132, 139, 141 Winstanley, Gerard 98 Wollstonecraft, Mary 77, 90, 137, 139, 145 and Catharine Macaulay 146, 149–162 and Gilbert Imlay 158–160 and Jean-Jacques Rousseau 155, 157, 158–162 feminism of 161 her concept of God 146, 149 her review of Macaulay’s Letters on Education 146, 150, 151, 154, 162 on free will and necessity 149, 151, 156, 162 on liberty 149 on reason 149, 150, 155, 156, 158, 161 on the imagination 154–156, 158–161 on the passions 154–156, 161 on the will 150, 162 on virtue 150, 154, 158, 160, 162 works A Vindication of the Rights of Men 156

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211

INDEX A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 137, 145, 149, 160 Letters Written during a Short Residence 158 Original Stories 158 The Wrongs of Woman 159, 160 Woolf, Virginia 95 Wouters, Cornélie and conversion of Jews 178 and women’s rights 180–182 her translations 175 on equality of Jews 176 on French patriotism 178 on natural and God-given rights 177, 178 on toleration of Jews 177–179, 182 L’art de corriger et de rendre les hommes constants [The Art of Correcting Men] 175

La Famille Émigrée [The Emigrant Family] 175 Le Char volant [The Flying Chariot] 175 Le Nouveau continent [The New Continent] 175 Les Aveux d’une femme galante [The Confessions of a Gallant Woman] 175 Mémoire à l’Assemblée nationale [Statement to the National Assembly] 174–182 Wouters, Marie 175

Yates, Frances

Zaret, David

23, 24, 32, 33

123

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The New Synthese Historical Library Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy Series Editor: Simo Knuuttila (University of Helsinki) 1. M.T. Beonio-Brocchieri Fumagalli: The Logic of Abelard. Translated from Italian by S. Pleasance. 1969 ISBN 90-277-0068-0 2. G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters. A Selection, translated and edited, with an Introduction, by L.E. Loemker. 2nd ed., 2nd printing. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0008-8 3. E. Mally: Logische Schriften. Grosses Logikfragment–Grundgesetze des Sollens. Herausgegeben von K. Wolf und P. Weingartner. 1971 ISBN 90-277-0174-1 4. L.W. Beck (ed.): Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress. 1972 ISBN 90-277-0188-1 5. B. Bolzano: Theory of Science. A Selection with an Introduction by J. Berg. Translated from German by B. Terrell. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0248-9 6. J.M.E. Moravcsik (ed.): Patterns in Plato’s Thought. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0286-1 7. Avicenna: The Propositional Logic. A Translation from Al-Shif a¯ ’: al-Qiy¯as, with Introduction, Commentary and Glossary by N. Shehaby. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0360-4 8. D.P. Henry: Commentary on De Grammatico. The Historical-Logical Dimensions of a Dialogue of St. Anselms’s. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0382-5 9. J. Corcoran (ed.): Ancient Logic and its Modern Interpretations. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0395-7 10. E.M. Barth: The Logic of the Articles in Traditional Philosophy. A Contribution to the Study of Conceptual Structures. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0350-7 11. J. Hintikka: Knowledge and the Known. Historical Perspectives in Epistemology. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0455-4 12. E.J. Ashworth: Language and Logic in the Post-Medieval Period. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0464-3 13. Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Translation with Commentaries and Glossary by H.G. Apostle. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0569-0 14. R.M. Dancy: Sense and Contradiction. A Study in Aristotle. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0565-8 15. W.R. Knorr: The Evolution of the Euclidean Elements. A Study of the Theory of Incommensurable Magnitudes and its Significance for Early Greek Geometry. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0509-7 16. Augustine: De Dialectica. Translated with Introduction and Notes by B.D. Jackson from the Text newly edited by J. Pinborg. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0538-9 17. Á. Szabó: The Beginnings of Greek Mathematics. Translated from German. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0819-3 18. Juan Luis Vives: Against the Pseudodialecticians. A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic. Texts (in Latin), with Translation, Introduction and Notes by R. Guerlac. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0900-9 19. Peter of Ailly: Concepts and Insolubles. An Annotated Translation (from Latin) by P.V. Spade. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1079-1 20. S. Knuuttila (ed.): Reforging the Great Chain of Being. Studies of the History of Modal Theories. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1125-9

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The New Synthese Historical Library Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy 21. J.V. Buroker: Space and Incongruence. The Origin of Kant’s Idealism. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1203-4 22. Marsilius of Inghen: Treatises on the Properties of Terms. A First Critical Edition of the Suppositiones, Ampliationes, Appellationes, Restrictiones and Alienationes with Introduction, Translation, Notes and Appendices by E.P. Bos. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1343-X 23. W.R. de Jong: The Semantics of John Stuart Mill. 1982 ISBN 90-277-1408-8 24. René Descartes: Principles of Philosophy. Translation with Explanatory Notes by V.R. Miller and R.P. Miller. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1451-7 25. T. Rudavsky (ed.): Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy. Islamic, Jewish and Christian Perspectives. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1750-8 26. William Heytesbury: On Maxima and Minima. Chapter V of Rules for Solving Sophismata, with an Anonymous 14th-century Discussion. Translation from Latin with an Introduction and Study by J. Longeway. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1868-7 27. Jean Buridan’s Logic. The Treatiseon Supposition. The Treatise on Consequences. Translation from Latin with a Philosophical Introduction by P. King. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1918-7 28. S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka (eds.): The Logic of Being. Historical Studies. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2019-3 29. E. Sosa (ed.): Essays on the Philosophy of George Berkeley. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2405-9 30. B. Brundell: Pierre Gassendi: From Aristotelianism to a New Natural Philosophy. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2428-8 31. Adam de Wodeham: Tractatus de indivisibilibus. A Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Textual Notes by R. Wood. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2424-5 32. N. Kretzmann (ed.): Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy. Studies in Memory of J. Pinborg (1937–1982). 1988 ISBN 90-277-2577-2 33. S. Knuuttila (ed.): ModernModalities. Studies of the History of Modal Theories from Medieval Nominalism to Logical Positivism. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2678-7 34. G.F. Scarre: Logic and Reality in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2739-2 35. J. van Rijen: Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0048-3 36. L. Baudry: The Quarrel over Future Contingents (Louvain 1465–1475). Unpublished Latin Texts collected and translated in French by L. Baudry. Translated from French by R. Guerlac. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0454-3 37. S. Payne: John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism. An Analysis of Sanjuanist Teaching and its Philosophical Implications for Contemporary Discussions of Mystical Experience. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0707-0 38. D.D. Merrill: Augustus De Morgan and the Logic of Relations. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0758-5 39. H.T. Goldstein (ed.): Averroes’ Questions in Physics. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-0997-9 40. C.H. Manekin: The Logic of Gersonides. A Translation of Seferha-Heqqeshha-Yashar (The Book of the Correct Syllogism) of Rabbi Levi ben Gershom with Introduction, Commentary, and Analytical Glossary. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1513-8


The New Synthese Historical Library Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy 41. George Berkeley: De Motu and The Analyst. A Modern Edition with Introductions and Commentary, edited en translated by Douglas M. Jesseph. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1520-0 42. John Duns Scotus: Contingency and Freedom. Lectura I 39. Introduction, Translation and Commentary by A. Vos Jaczn., H. Veldhuis, A.H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker and N.W. den Bok. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2707-1 43. Paul Thom: The Logic of Essentialism. An Interpretation of Aristotle’s Modal Syllogistic. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3987-8 44. P.M. Matthews: The Significance of Beauty. Kant on Feeling and the System of the Mind. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4764-1 45. N. Strobach: The Moment of Change. A Systematic History in the Philosophy of Space and Time. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5120-7 46. J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (eds.): The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5318-8 47. P.J. Bagley: Piety, Peace, and the Freedom to Philosophize. 1999 ISBN 0-7923-5984-4 48. M. Kusch (ed.): The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge. 2000 ISBN 0-7923-6150-4 49. M. Yrjönsuuri (ed.): Medieval Formal Logic. Obligations, Insolubles and Consequences. 2001 ISBN 0-7923-6674-3 50. J.C. Doig: Aquinas’s Philosophical Commentary on the Ethics. A Historical Perspective. 2001 ISBN 0-7923-6954-8 51. R. Pinzani: The Logical Grammar of Abelard. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1246-2 52. J.Yu: The Structure of Being in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1537-2 53. R.L. Friedman and L.O. Nielsen (eds.): The Medieval Heritage in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal Theory, 1400–1700. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1631-X 54. J. Maat: Philosophical Languages in the Seventeenth Century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz. 2004 ISBN 1-4020-1758-8 55. L. Alanen and C. Witt (eds.): Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy. 2004 ISBN 1-4020-2488-6 56. O. Harari: Knowledge and Demonstration. Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. 2004 ISBN 1-4020-2787-7 57. J. Kraye and R. Saarinen (eds.): Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity. 2004 ISBN 1-4020-3000-2 58. P. Phemister: Leibniz and the Natural World. Activity, Passivity and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz’s Philosophy. 2005 ISBN 1-4020-3400-8 59. V. Mäkinen and P. Korkman (eds.): Transformations in Medieval and Early-Modern Rights Discourse. 2005 ISBN 1-4020-4211-6 60. M. Dascal: G.W. Leibniz: The Art of Controversies. 2006 ISBN 1-4020-5227-8 61. O. Nachtomy: Possibility, Agency and Individuality in Leibniz’s Metaphysics. 2007 ISBN 978-1-4020-5244-6 62. P. Phemister and S. Brown (eds.): Leibniz and the English-Speaking World. 2007 ISBN 978-1-4020-5242-2 63. J. Broad and K. Green (eds.): Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration Political Ideas of European Women, 1400–1800. 2007 ISBN 978-1-4020-5894-3

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