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In writing Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (1404-1407), Christine de Pizan does not present herself to the reader as an auctor, but rather as a compilator.1 Given that the medieval definition of mventio relies largely on an author's reworking of previously written material, one might legitimately wonder whether the distinction between these two technical terms is of any great importance to a reader; however, the audor, as the author of new and original works, is both an authority on his subject matter and one morally responsible for the contents of the literary creation. In fact, the auctor gains the status of authenticity only when "later writers used extracts from his works as sententious statements or audoriiaies... or employed them as literary models."1 In contrast, the compilator is accountable only for the manner in which he or she arranges the statements of other writers, and is not morally answerable for repeating the opinions or revising the stories of the auctor.3 Thus the compilator enjoys a certain freedom of expression - and release from criticism - that the oacfordoes not have.
Since the Cité des Dames (1404-1407 - henceforth: Cite) is an anthology of stories about the lives of notable pagan and Christian women framed by an allegorical debat which argues that women are naturally virtuous and intellectually equal to men, Christine's claim to be a simple compilator docs not strain credulity. In fact, although she is building her city in response to Matheolus, Jean de Meun, and other critics of female behavior and ethics, the principal sources that she uses in the composition of the Cité are: Le Livre de Leesce by Jean le Fèvre de Ressons; De Clans Mulieribus, the Decameron, and De Casibus Vvrorvm Ittustrium by Boccaccio; L'Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César, Faits des Romains; Le Roman d'Alexandre; the Ovide moralisé, Les Grandes Chroniques de France; Vincent de Beauvais's Speculum Historiale; the Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier de Coincy; and the Bible.5
Yet Christine's claim to be a compilator cannot be attributed to false modesty; rather, by positing her own role as that of an assembler of others' work, she successfully integrates the compiler's written practice with an auctor's authority. In doing so, her own work assumes both the credibility of the...