Research seminar: Re-Assessing the 'querelle des femmes' (the 'debate about women') at the turn of the sixteenth century

This paper looks at ways in which the on-going querelle des femmes – the debate about the nature and roles of women in society – was played out in different literary and visual sources at the turn of the sixteenth century in France. The debate took off in France in the 1400s with Christine de Pizan’s criticism of the allegorical poem, The Romance of the Rose, which circulated widely in illuminated manuscripts. Christine took issue with the misogynistic tropes in Jean de Meun’s continuation of Guillaume de Lorris’s tale. As a means of defending women, Christine later penned her City of Ladies, an allegorical city populated with virtuous and powerful women. The catalogue format of her work drew on Boccaccio’s On Famous Women, itself (purportedly) a celebration of women’s achievements  and the format was taken up by other (male) authors seeking to defend the female. This paper suggests that we might expand our idea of what constitutes a querelle text or a defence of women by looking at a range of works that were written by or for women: these texts, including those by Catherine d’Amboise and Anne de Graville, contributed to the querelle not only (or always) through their format but also through other allusions to the debate including particular heroines. I would like to argue that by opening up our idea of what constitutes a querelle text we can more easily perceive how women – and indeed men – intervened in an active and positive way to the defence of women around 1500.

Elizabeth L’Estrange is Associate Professor in History of Art in the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham. She did all her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds, including an MA in Medieval Studies and a PhD in Art History. Dr L’Estrange researches the art and culture of the late medieval and early modern period, focusing specifically on women as subjects and consumers of visual cultures. Her first award-winning book was Holy Motherhood: Gender, Dynasty and Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Manchester University Press, 2008). Her most recent book is Anne de Graville: Women’s Literary Networks in Early Modern France (Boydell and Brewer, 2023).