I found a great little book at the thrift store last week: The Medieval Woman: an illuminated Book of Days. It's a hardcover datebook packed with vibrant illuminations of women doing all sorts of work. This includes traditional occupations such as textile work (from cultivating silk worms to tailoring), farm work, cooking, nursing, and midwifery, to nontraditional work such as trade (often alongside their husbands), painting, sculpture, musical performance, and even masonry, smithing, mining, and castle defense. I've scanned a few of the more bookish women to present here.
Christine de Pisan, Writing
Collected Works of Christine de Pisan,
MS. Harley 4431, f. 4
French, fifteenth century
British Library, London
Writer
Giovanni Boccacio. Le livre des femmes nobles et renommées.
MS. Fr. 598, f. 43r
French, fifteenth century
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Woman Teaching
Giovanni Boccaccio. Le livre des femmes nobles et renommées.
MS. Fr. 598, f. 71v
French, fifteenth century
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
I particularly enjoy the scholar with her multiple book stands. Perhaps if she were working today she'd have multiple monitors. I also must find out more about Christine de Pisan. According to the book she is the earliest known French female author. There is one illustration in the book of two fine ladies building a city wall from a work called "Cité des Dames" by Christine de Pisan. Could it be a fifteenth century feminist utopia? I must find out!
