Kate Langdon Forhan – författare

A textbook anthology of important works of political thought revealing the development of ideas from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Includes new translations of both well-known and ignored writers, and an introductory overview.

Christine de Pizan was born in Venice and raised in Paris at the court of Charles V of France. Widowed at the age of twenty-five, she turned to writing as a source of comfort and income, and went on to produce a remarkable series of books, including poetry, politics, chivalry, warfare, religion and philosophy. She is considered to be France's first female professional writer. This was the first translation into modern English of Christine de Pizan's major political work, The Book of the Body Politic. Written during the Hundred Years' War, it discusses the education and behaviour appropriate for princes, nobility and common people, so that all classes can understand their responsibilities towards society as a whole. A product of a time of civil unrest, The Book of the Body Politic offers a medieval political theory of interdependence and social responsibility from the perspective of an educated woman.

Few medieval or Renaissance political writers, male or female, wrote more works on politics than Christine de Pizan; none of them addressed audiences so varied in class or gender. Yet until now there has been no comprehensive full-length study of Christine de Pizan's political thought. With The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan, Kate Forhan rectifies this oversight, situating de Pizan in the history of political thought while discussing traditional concerns of political theorists, such as justice, obligation, law, equality, and just war. Forhan also addresses the question of whether Pizan's work is original or derivative; whether she is a theorist or "merely" a political writer. Between 1400 and 1429, at a time of great civil strife in France, Christine de Pizan wrote ten books for the instruction and guidance of those engaged in political life. Her theory is focused on a "politics of inclusion," which validates the essential contribution of each member of the body politic to the whole, despite socially and politically mandated difference of class, nationality, and gender-ideas not without significance to the modern era. As Forhan demonstrates through analysis of her work, the thought of Christine de Pizan has true relevance for modern times. First, hers was a society in transition: new class structures, new occupations, and new aspirations were appearing behind the crumbling structures of the late medieval world. Secondly, Christine de Pizan was an outsider; a woman in a world dominated by men, an Italian in France, a member of the "meritocracy" at a court that was rigidly hierarchical. Her "difference" gave her the perspective to observe her society objectively. Her personal vulnerability allowed her to see politics more clearly, as those who are most vulnerable might see our own. Thirdly, she was a shrewd observer in a country that was emerging as a nation-state, where new concepts and practices of law, justice, administration, and politics in general were in the process of development. This book will be of interest to political theorists and political scientists; medieval historians; historians of women and gender; and scholars of comparative literature.

A reprint of the Routledge edition of Medieval Political Theory, a Reader: The Quest for the Body Politic, 1100-1400.This anthology includes writings of both well-known theorists such as Thomas Aquinas and John of Salisbury as well as those lesser known, including Christine de Pisan and Marie de France, and will be of value to students of the history of political theory as well as those of medieval intellectual history.

A textbook anthology of important works of political thought revealing the development of ideas from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Includes new translations of both well-known and ignored writers, and an introductory overview.

This title was first published in 2002: Christine de Pizan held no political office and her work was not influencial on any political theorist living today. However, in the disciplines of women's studies and French literature she has inspired intellectual debate, so much that the two sides of the debate are referred to as Christinophiles and Christinoclasts. This book persents the political paradoxes of Christine de Pizan. She was a woman in a man's world, an Italian at a French court, and the daughter of a civil servant in a world structured by social class. Her corpus of political works include five works designed to educate the male ruling class, two works expressly princesses and a treatise on warfare. The goal of this book is to outline the political theory of Christine de Pizan and situate her ideas within the history of political ideas in general.