Karen Green
Christine de Pizan and the Prophetic Tradition
In the Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc Christine de Pizan refers to the prophecies of the sibyls, Joachim and Bede who have foretold Joan’s appearance. This is not the first reference in her work to this prophetic tradition. It is also alluded to in Le Livre de l’advision Cristine, Le Livre du Chemin de longue etude and L’Epistre Othea.
Since echoes of this tradition can also be found in the works of Dante, who Christine clearly admired, the study of Christine’s familiarity with the prophetic tradition is connected to the issue of Dante’s influence on her thought. Margery Reeves has argued that Dante was influenced in his interpretation of history by the prophetic writings of Joachim of Fiore, and this paper argues that Christine was also familiar with a tradition of prophecy that had come to be associated with Joachim.
In order to fill out the contours of the Joachite tradition as it was known in the circles in which Christine moved, this paper examines the works of pseudo-Joachim found in two manuscripts, BNF MS lat. 13428 and MS lat. 3319 which belonged to Charles of Orléans. The first of these manuscripts contains the ‘Expositio abbatis Joachim super Jheremiam’ [Abbot Joachim’s exposition of Jeremiah] allegedly written by Joachim for Henry VI. The second of contains at f. 9v-25 an ‘Exposito Abbatus Joachim super Sibillis et merlino’ [Abbot Joachim’s exposition of the sibyls and Merlin] which is also preceded by a prologue addressed to Henry VI. Since some of the prophecies circulating at the time of Joan’s appearance are found in the second of these manuscripts, this study throws considerable light on the allusion to Joachim, the sibyls and Bede found in Christine’s Ditié.