152 Beyond Their Sex devs fare, ol far volontiet, volontei olntiesisio, perch fo non 1 pordo niente” (Sebastiano Seren, 8. Gregorio Barbar © la ea spi= {tute cultuale nel suo Seminars a Padova [Padua 1963], 1 215-10) 157, De Santi, 5151. On Elena's doctorate ee Maschitto pp. 105.0. [55 “Liomamento che rande gratiose Te Donne, famnosssine de por tutto, & il slenzio; ne sono fate, che per Ista in cas, non per andar ‘vagando” (Bacchi. 194. Se do Sant, : 43538, on her book i pate ofthe Jost preacher An earlier work, «taltion ofa devotional text, forthe Spanish version, woot through fie editions I i possible tat the salve of her writings would be greater ha many not buen destroyed by ter command (Macht, pp. 159-5) 59. A contemporary write and designer of engravings had this to sy shoot er "Recast ed: resasi] aunque superire al seo sino da pinept Ulla sua goventi” La vit loc, ere dame parle dt Vento Jamose por nasca, per letere, per arm. per castum, stampato da Cio ‘ani Port Kiveo alsa della Fortuna (Venice, 168), p- 186. The “wor of her cenotaph contra a similar rejection of her fern "Tn ‘raster som, nil mulishre / Sub deleatis Puellae membris robusta ‘umm serv (Pompe fenebn,p. 187) One biographer, Bacchi’, ‘wrote that se had an “Ingeniu supra sexe a mama tun” (p. 244) ad another, Lp Hatt was entirely Biting that Venice, whi had but {0 ezpire upon the fragile waters, shoud give bith to soul who hed ‘overeome the weakness f her sex (4, 0. There wes considerable concern at Padua tat Elen’sprocednt not bo too easly invoked, a the following directive from the formato to the ctr of Pacha bears witness "VV.RE st complacerano fa intendere alli President de Colla talus Profesor, che cceorese, ce non deb- Taso admetere alla Lares dotorale Fomine di qual xia condone, ne ‘meno far past che attendino a questo fe, senza previa notte aes) dl Maglsrato nestro." Pebrury 1, 679, in Busta 75 ofthe “Lettre de" Tifrmator dello studio i Padova,” Archivio di Stato of Venice. A French profesor of mediine at Padua had sought a sillar hooor for his own ‘ughte, an endeavor vigorosly and succesfully oppored by Giambat- ‘sta Corr, Indeed, Elena Cocoao'sprecedeot was ot followed at the Univonityof Pad fora east seventy years thereto. (CHAPTER 8 Gender and Genre: Women As Historical Writers, 1400-1820 ‘Natalie Zemon Davis * Whea George Ballard published in 1752 his Memoirs of Several Ladies of Creat Britain who have been celebrated for their Writings, there was only one lady included who could be considered a histo. ‘an, namely the duchess of Neweastle, with her Life. of the Noble... William Cavendish. In another ten years or 6, the fist volume of Catharine Macaulay's History of England would have appeared, but even that doesnot raise the number very high. The biographical dictionaries of French literary women compiled inthe eighteenth century do yield more historleal publications then in England, but they were still much surpassed by sores, romances, ‘and pocms fromthe female pen. Al of this makes no diferenee 9 ime, however, for Ido not write to “lustrate” woman, a the early feminists wsed to sy, or to extol her skils against her detractors. 1 gst tothe Humans Research Council fhe Univesity of Cao tin Beta; te Comaattes on Herr nthe Hlutatis no Seta Seco ‘of Prneton Unveiyy and the Tnettute fr Advanced Sly for teense tovntd the research ad peepartion of hs ey Of the many fied oe gus wha have ofr seer oth work, perl wat to thank Lice! Gasman an Ore Rann, 15318 Beyond Their Sex will not even ask whether a woman could have produced Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Uhough I cannot resist not ing that fn her day Catharine Macaulay was thought by some to be good a historian as Hume). My goal is more modest. I want to consider what prompted a few women in the fifteenth through the tightecath centuries to da research and writing on the past or on the history of their own time. What were the subjects of female historians? Did they have a distinctive voice or not@And how was ther work viewed by contemporaries? Such an inguiry may help us Understand some ofthe limits of female learning inthe early mod fem period, as well as the challenges faced by anyone not called to political responsiblity who wants to Write about it nonethles. ‘Let us begin by atking what is needed for @ person to write istry. And I woold say that @ porson, ora learned woman, needs ‘more than Virginia Woolf's room of her own and £500 a year. She ince fst of al some access to materials about her subject, writen, Printed, or oral; and she needs enough public life to be able to go land ask people questions or to observe intrigue, confit, and de bate, She ight need to travel to find manuscripts oto see mon ‘ments, runs, and insriptions. Now, ths was not always 0 easy to lrrange. A woman was n0t likely to fnd herself chancellor of the Florentine Republic, ar were the historians Leonardo Bruni and Nicola Machiavelli, not likely to be Florentine ambassador to Spain or Governor of Modena, as was Francesco Guiceardini; not likely to be keeper of the king's archives or councillor in the Parle= tment of Paris, as were Pierre Pithow and Etienne Pasquier in six- teenth-century France. She might have printed chronicles and histories near at hand, especialy if she were the daughter or wife of 4 lawyer: but the great collections in the monastic Mbraries and in ‘university Hbraries would ordinarily be closed to her. The female historian would have to fashion her sbjoct accordingly. Second, the historiin needs access to the genres of historical ‘writing {0 the niles for ordering and expressing historical materia Sven the most innovative wsually begin with some familiarity with the accepted modes of historialdiseounse. Some of these could be soqpited easily enough from historeal texts likely to be in the I= brary of any learned person. But women were not always taught Women As Historical Writers 155 composition and were even advised by so liberal a pedagogue as tho fifteenth century humanist Brunt not to learn the thetorieal evices used in certain kinds of historical writing? By the lte reventoenth century, to be sure, Archbishop Fénelon was advising ‘wollbor mothers to expose their daughters to “the history of France . and of other neighboring countries,” for this would “elevate their minds ard stimulate them to nable thoughts” A few of the boarding schools for wealthy girls in France and England ‘began to inchude history in their advanced clases, basing ts study at leet on vernacular texts, if not the Latin ones wed in the gran ‘mar schools and Jest colleges for boys* By the mid-eighteonth ‘century, popular history books were being advertised in the naw periodicals for women. ‘The Ladies’ Magazine ran a History of En land by Question and Answer asx tworyear seri! in 1749450, snd Eliza Haywood, editor of the Female Spectator, recommended alley’s Dictionary for ladies who wanted not too much informa tion about one period, but "a general notion of al.” "There never was place,” she said, "a person, nor annetion of ny note fom the Creation down to the time ofits being published but what (Bailey's Dictionary) gives « general account of [f." Among the books ex- cerpted or advertised by the women editors of the Journal des Dames inthe 1760s wore Histoire des Tartares, Histoire générale de Hongric and» Histoire des Amazones4+ These books varied in agualty and of course in their nehilness as models for seriou histor. ‘eal writing. The question is, Could they compete with the kind of tuaining Gibbon bad with his tutor? With repeated translation of texts from Latin and Fronch, and systematic reading of Latia phi- lowophers and historians, "studied fas Gibbon sai] to imbibe the spirit most useful to my own"? ‘To return then to the needs of onr would-be historian, 1 would say third, and especially important, she needs a sense of connec tion, through some activity or deep concern of her own, with the reas of public life then coasidered suitable for historical waiting — namely, the political and the religious. And furthermore she wants, to have an audience who will take seriously her publications on ‘hese topics. All the mejor historians ofthe late fifteenth and the Snteenth century had this “connectedness” with the sues of pub-156 Beyond Their Sex 1c fewhether they were Florentine secretaries tying to st off thei ciy-state from pera treltioas and fom Rome, French lawyers toying to fad the medieval oot of «ditntive national Conttution, or Protestant reformers tying to Bd thee precursors tswong the medival heretic, Even when writing from ele, they Gc fad boon close fo the workings of pleat power. Consider the eave of Fanceao Cuicardin. A lawyer descent of fim Ay that had Tong served the Florentine sat, and older himself of ‘oveal important ofces, Gaicirdn! wrote ft a funy chron Sintered a ho a oon the cy and perpetuate the gory of the familys then a Htetory of Florence or whieh his faly’s Cxperince eal bea major source and seen he 15306 Sel ead History ofl, im which (as ne recent comoen torhasoberved) he could asics his own pola! deeds “a small tof the genoa alr of ean statenmanship." © ef conta, women ha fe politcal respite i the early tmodoen peri, eithr ascites or as subjects, In rance fo Stance, a propertied widow, as head of «household, might be ox- ‘ected top tne or prodace a man for the crban mit, but she fas not any Longer called to village or civic asembies nobe- Soman witha fe might be eonvoked to meetings ofthe provinal Bates, but they rarely came, sending bails tha stead. (Por hap they agreed with Madame de Sevign, who sid ofthe Eats of Bitany in 1671, “the [meeting] won't be long Theres ony the {king what th ling wants, No one sys a word) So longa his frase ese—and it was 0 in France throughout the whole ances no Tong as queens were the nly women with story to ‘Eee on poll attr, and pul tera on poly by ‘ther women was sanctioned only when they fel info sh estate trance or ba visions of angele-and this wes ordinary mo a lost tl the midseventcenth contywvhy, 20 Tong wl you fed the relation of women to the clasteal subjects of Wstorlal Inquiry Somewhat temnus. A female matic might wit her autobiog lady maneuvering tn pois from the court or salon might eho ern Toba ri Hoe ot wot sythng a at Until the eighteenth century, then, the learned woman inter- Women As Historical Writers 1st ‘sted in the past was lod most often to write about the world she Jnew—ay, the history of her family or of her eitcle at court or of har religious order—a world that might have a temporal rhythm of its own, dilforont from those of kings and revolutions. but a world bout which her statements had some authority. As the soven- tcenth-ceatury duchess of Newcastle was to sayin her biography of her husband, T write “a particular history,” which is "the most secure, hecase it goes not out ofits own cltele, but turns on its, own axis, and for the most part keeps within the circumference of truth."* ‘What we will see here is the expansion of that circumference of luuth, the regularizing by the late eighteenth century ofthe learned woman's relations with the various aspects uf the historian’s erat with ts soures, style, and subjects, not wholly with it audience One could begin the story with the cleventh-century Byzantine princess Anna Comnena,? but since her historical work Wat not ‘known inthe west until the early seventeenth century, we will start ‘with Christine de Pisn. Apart from this extraordinary figure, who ‘wrote inthe era before printing, the process of women's familiari= ‘ng themsclves to historical writing was a gradual one. And I will offer the following arguments about it: what brought learned women into the so-called mainstream of historical writing was some strong connection or concer with the politics of ther time, but what they contributed tothe rvulets of historical writing was rot without value and had some effect on the later ditection of historical ingury lrstine de Pisan's unnsual career inthe late fourteenth and the carly tenth century ustrates concretely the circumstances that could move a woman to write history. She was brought from Bologna to the Fronch court by her father, who was phiyslcan astiologer, and important councillor to Charles V. Though her ‘mother thought girl should spin, her father thought thes none the worse for letters and gave her a good vernacular education fn Ital- jan and French and the rudiments of Latin learning. Widowed ‘young from her marrige toa royal secretary, Christine decided not to remarry, as most women would have dane in her day, but instead