The Excellence and Nobility of Women
A Defense of Women for the Women of Belgica. A Bilingual Edition
9781649591401
Distributed for Iter Press
The Excellence and Nobility of Women
A Defense of Women for the Women of Belgica. A Bilingual Edition
The first published defense of women by a Netherlandish author.
Jehan Baptista Houwaert’s Excellence and Nobility of Women constitutes the eighth book of his Plain of the Nine Muses, or The Pleasure Garden of Virtuous Women (1583–1583), an immense conduct book for women in rhymed verse based on the many querelle texts of the French and Burgundian tradition but especially, in its French translation, on the pathbreaking Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex (1529) by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.
Like its model, Houwaert’s work asserts not merely the equality but the superiority of women. It is unique in that it is addressed not to a wealthy noblewoman or princess, as were most such defenses, but more democratically to the “girls, unmarried women, wives, and widows of Belgica”—all of them!
Jehan Baptista Houwaert’s Excellence and Nobility of Women constitutes the eighth book of his Plain of the Nine Muses, or The Pleasure Garden of Virtuous Women (1583–1583), an immense conduct book for women in rhymed verse based on the many querelle texts of the French and Burgundian tradition but especially, in its French translation, on the pathbreaking Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex (1529) by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.
Like its model, Houwaert’s work asserts not merely the equality but the superiority of women. It is unique in that it is addressed not to a wealthy noblewoman or princess, as were most such defenses, but more democratically to the “girls, unmarried women, wives, and widows of Belgica”—all of them!
324 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2025
The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: Germanic Languages
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Introduction
The Other Voice
The Defense of Women, a Court Genre in the Burgundian Netherlands
Pegasides Pleyn, ende den Lust-Hof der Maeghden: Houwaert’s
Magnum Opus
Life and Works of Jehan Baptista Houwaert
Reading On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Instructions for the Education of Women in the Netherlands
The Defense of Women: On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Houwaert’s Auctorial Interventions
Houwaert and Morality
Houwaert and Politics
Houwaert and Religion
Houwaert and Deiphyle
Note on the Text
Pegasides Pleyn, ende den Lust-Hof der Maeghden
Dedication Letter and Poems (excerpt)
Book 7: Die manieren van die gracieuse maeghden (excerpt)
Book 8: D’excellentie van d’edele maeghden
Plain of the Nine Muses, or, The Pleasure Garden of Virtuous Women
Dedication Letter and Poems (excerpt)
Book 7: On the Gracious Behavior of Women (excerpt)
Book 8: On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Introduction
The Other Voice
The Defense of Women, a Court Genre in the Burgundian Netherlands
Pegasides Pleyn, ende den Lust-Hof der Maeghden: Houwaert’s
Magnum Opus
Life and Works of Jehan Baptista Houwaert
Reading On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Instructions for the Education of Women in the Netherlands
The Defense of Women: On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Houwaert’s Auctorial Interventions
Houwaert and Morality
Houwaert and Politics
Houwaert and Religion
Houwaert and Deiphyle
Note on the Text
Pegasides Pleyn, ende den Lust-Hof der Maeghden
Dedication Letter and Poems (excerpt)
Book 7: Die manieren van die gracieuse maeghden (excerpt)
Book 8: D’excellentie van d’edele maeghden
Plain of the Nine Muses, or, The Pleasure Garden of Virtuous Women
Dedication Letter and Poems (excerpt)
Book 7: On the Gracious Behavior of Women (excerpt)
Book 8: On the Excellence and Nobility of Women
Bibliography
Index