Book of the Body Politic

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Translation of the Month, October 2022

Christine de Pizan’s Book of the Body Politic (1406–1407) is the first political treatise to have been written not just by a woman, but by a woman capable of holding her own in a normally male domain. It advises not just the prince, as was traditional, but also nobles, knights, and the common people, promoting the ideals of interdependence and social responsibility. Rooted in the mind-set of medieval Christendom, it heralds the humanism of the Renaissance, highlighting classical culture and Roman civic virtues. The Book of the Body Politic resounds still today, urging the need for probity in public life and the importance of responsibilities as well as rights.

"Angus J. Kennedy’s new edition and translation of Christine’s Livre du corps de policie offers a copiously annotated introduction which covers Christine as political writer in this and other treatises; her extraordinary career as a woman writer claiming a voice equal to that of her male contemporaries; and the manuscripts of the Livre, its dating, its historico-political context, and its sources. The translation, which highlights, in Kennedy’s words, “Christine’s uncompromising, labyrinthine, muscular style,” closely follows the words and the sentence structure of the original. Together, edition and translation provide readers with an entirely reliable text and a meticulous translation of one of the most important works of lay political thought at the end of the Middle Ages in France."
-Jane Taylor, Professor, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University

ANGUS J. KENNEDY, Emeritus Stevenson Professor of French at the University of Glasgow, has received three awards from the French Government for services to French culture, being created Officier (1991) then Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (2001), and Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2004).

REVIEWS

Choice 60.5 (January 2023). Reviewed by E. R. Gill.
Early Modern Women 18.1 (2023): 171–174. Reviewed by Geri L. Smith.
Medieval Feminist Forum 58.2 (2023): 169–171. Reviewed by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski.
Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 47.2 (Spring / printemps 2024): 257–259. Reviewed by Johanna Vernqvist.
Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 98.3 (July 2023): 852–853. Reviewed by Tracy Adams.
Women in French Studies 30 (2022): 195–198. Reviewed by Lynn R. Wilkinson.