THE FIRST WOMAN JOURNALIST.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 27 (Supplement)

THE FIRST WOMAN JOURNALIST.

The first woman journalist was an Italian. Though known as “ Christine of Pisa,” she was born in Venice in 1364, but she lived nearly all her life in France, and always wrote in French, says a writer in “ Books and Authors.” Her father was astrologer and physician to Charles V. of France, the son of that King John who was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Poictiers. Christine was brought up at the French Court, and married the King’s notary, Etienne du Castel. At 25 she was left a widow, with three small children. In her grief she turned for consolation to the -writing of ballads and other trifles, but finding that she had considerable talent for versification, she made use of it to secure advancement at the court, and it was not long before she turned seriously to her pen to gain a livelihood for herself and her children. Much that she wrote, being essentially topical, has been lost. The best of her work which has survived is “ The Book of the Three Virtues ” —an allegory in the fashion of the time; “The City of Ladies,” which contains many portraits of people of her day, and a “ Book of the Good Deeds and Character of Charles V.” Christine of Pisa is thrice linked to England. She was invited by Henry IV to live at his Court, but she refused his invitation and never left France. It is, nevertheless, very probable that she knew Chaucer, who was often at the French court. In 1429 she wrote a poem in honour of Joan of Arc, the MS. of which is still in existence. She died in the same year as her heroine. In the Harleian Collection of Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum there is a copy of the poems of Christine of Pisa containing a portrait of the authoress presenting the book to Isabeau, wife of Charles V. The Queen seated on a sofa in her bedroom, the casement window of : which opens inward; Christine kneels at her feet. Six ladies in waiting stand behind the Queen, all dressed in sober replicas of the flowered dresses worn by the Queen and the poetess, and with similar, but smaller, double coifs. The Queen’s dress is trimmed with the royal minniver or ermine. The floor is carpeted, the walls are hung with the royal fleur-de-lys, and there is a quilt of the same pattern on the bed.