UC Irvine

This study explores the historiographical significance of the influential medieval misogynist Jean Gerson’s personification of the all-male University of Paris as a female figure called the daughter of the king. Gerson’s voluntary assumption of a female identity for this seemingly powerful institution reveals the gendered nature of the university’s political and epistemological position in relation to the French royal court, suggesting that the university found itself in competition for the king’s protection and attention with the king’s most powerful female relations: Queen Isabeau, Duchess Valentina Visconti, and Princess Isabelle of France. Gerson’s famous misogynist polemics may be at least in part explained by the fact that he sought to win this competition by characterizing his competitors as the embodiments of deadly sin for the purpose of solidifying the university’s claim to speak with the voice of wisdom and prudent counsel. More significantly, the fact that he took this competition seriously emphasizes both the important role contemporaries perceived that royal women played in the government of the realm and the extent to which prevailing gender discourses influenced the development of male intellectual authority.