“Necessary for all women”

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“Necessary for all women”

The Discourse on and Practice of Female Reading in England, Scotland and the Low Countries,

1500-1650

Jessie Pietens, s2619091 Supervisor: Prof. S. Corbellini

Research Master Thesis Classical Medieval and Early Modern Studies 13 January 2021

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the Allard Pierson Special Collections in Amsterdam for aiding me in my research of some of the Dutch translated works in this thesis. Moreover, I would like to thank Dr. Van der Laan at the Special Collections of the University Library Groningen as well as Dr. Tholen at the Library of Rotterdam for guiding me in an interesting (though unfruitful) search for an English translation of Erasmus’ Institutio Christiani matromonii. A thank you to Judith Bleeker is in order, for her helpful feedback on my chapters and for her company. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I am profoundly grateful to my thesis supervisor Prof. Corbellini, without whose valuable guidance and useful feedback this research and thesis would not have been possible.

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1

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing truer than this: reading, conversation, and reflection are the three most beautiful and useful things in the world. Through reading, we speak with the dead, through conversation we speak with the living, and trough reflection we speak with ourselves. Reading enriches memory; conversation polishes the mind; and reflection develops judgement. But among these noble occupations of the soul, to state here which is the most important, we must confess that reading fosters the other two, and without it, reflection bears no fruit and conversation lacks pleasure.1

This passage is taken from Jacques Du Bosc’s French work titled L’Honnête femme (1632), a popular guide to women’s behaviour. It was translated into English by an anonymous translator and published there as The Compleat Woman (1639). This same work would also be translated into Dutch, with the title De deugdelyke vrou (1643). Du Bosc’s work was published in France, England and the Low Countries well into the eighteenth-century.2_{The quote above must be viewed within an early modern discourse on women’s education in}

Western Europe. Some of Europe’s leading scholars of the time discussed whether and to what extent reading should play a role in women’s education. They argued to what end and women should read and some mentioned what genres or specific books should be read or should be avoided. In his work, Du Bosc states that reading was to be encouraged in women and that is was even ‘necessary for all women.’3

The most renowned scholar contributing to the discourse on women’s education was the Spaniard Juan Luis Vives. In 1523, he wrote the treatise De institutione feminae Christiane (The Education of a Christian Woman), which soon became the most popular conduct book for women during the sixteenth century and beyond. It was first translated into Castilian (1528), after which Richard Hyrde translated it into English as the Instruction of a Christen Woman (1529).4_{Like Du Bosc, Vives’ work also had a Dutch translation – based}

on the French translation (1548) – which was titled Die institutie ende leeringe van een christelijcke vrouwe (1554).5

Vives’ work went through over forty editions and translations (English, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish) before the end of the century.6_{Another prominent scholar that engaged with the discourse on}

female reading was Desiderius Erasmus. He touched upon the subject of female reading in his Christiani matrimonii institutio (The Institution of Christian Marriage, 1526) and in his shorter colloquies titled Coniugium (Marriage, 1523) and Abbatis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Lady, 1524). While previous research has mentioned the subject of female reading in the works of Du Bosc, Vives and Erasmus, these mentions

1_{Jacques Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by}

Contemporary Women, trans. and eds. Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang (Toronto: Iter Inc., 2014), 47.

2_{Colleen Fitzgerald, “To Educate or Instruct? Du Bosc and Fénelon on Women,” in Women’s Education in Early Modern}

Europe: A History, 1500 to 1800, ed. Barbara Whitehead (New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 1999), 162.

3_{Suzanne Hull, Chaste, Silent & Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640 (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1982),} 59.

4_{Juan Luis Vives, The Education of a Chirstian woman: A sixteenth century manual, trans. Charles Fantazzi (Chicago: Chicago} University Press, 2000), 30; Jessica C. Murphy, Virtuous Necessity: Conduct Literature and the Making of the Virtuous Woman

in Early Modern England (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2015), 4.

5_{Vives, The Education of a Christian Woman, 33.}

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2 are often brief and occur solely in the context of female education, as a result of which female reading is not treated as a topic in its own right. Moreover, the aforementioned works have not yet been thoroughly compared. While the early modern discourse on female reading has not remained unmentioned, research has often favoured showing a broader ‘European’ overview of some of the most common standpoints within the early modern discourse. While there are clear commonalities between the different attitudes in female reading, specific stances belonging to specific scholars or cultures are often overlooked or downplayed in favour of these commonalities.

Erasmus, Vives and Du Bosc were all greatly influenced by Humanism. As a new approach, humanism promoted classical literature and learning, as well as philosophy and rhetoric, and transformed the European intellectual world. It differed in that sense from Scholasticism - its abstract and logical medieval predecessor.7_{Humanists made strategic use of the book, which ‘was often the vehicle of an alliance}

between culture and power.’8_{Reading, then, can be seen as an expression of cultural capital and power. As}

in many periods in time, women’s social and cultural capital, power and agency were constantly renegotiated and in flux. An analysis of the early modern discourse on female reading helps us to understand the role reading played in this negotiation, as it gives us insight into women’s intellectual history, as well as the early modern discourse on agency in gender expression. Although the history of early modern reading has gained growing interest since the last quarter of the twentieth century, the history of female reading has often played second fiddle to that of men or a more generalised perspective of ‘readers’. Yet, according to the early modern discourse, reading seems to have been a rather gendered issue. From the 1980s onwards, there has been an increase in studies that focus on women’s reading cultures. This research has proven difficult to undertake, as the women of the past and their actions are often hard to trace. Studies done by, among others, Susan Hull, Margaret Ferguson, Helen Wilcox and Edith Snook have been of immeasurable importance in reconstructing the reading cultures of early modern women. In Women, Reading and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England (2005), Snook states that ‘the historicity of reading is particularly valuable in understanding the history of women because the multivalent significance of reading provides women with a unique opportunity to constitute both knowledge about themselves and their relationship to others – in family, community and nation.’9

Much of the research into female reading cultures is focussed on England and although this research has provided us with much valuable information, we must not and cannot assume the reading cultures of other countries to be the same as that of England. This is especially the case for the reading cultures of early modern women (or all people who ranked below the social status of gentry), as often their social, cultural or economic circumstances meant they had no access to the texts, languages, and cultural practices that were shared by the higher classes of Western Europe. Quite some of the existing material on early modern women’s reading in Western Europe focuses on specific and often (groups of) elite female readers, as

7_{Ursula Vollerthun and J.L. Richardson, The idea of International Society: Erasmus, Vitoria, Gentili and Grotius (Cambridge:} Cambridge University Press, 2017), 29-30.

8_{Martin Davies, “Humanism in script and print in the fifteenth century,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance}

Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 47.

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3 opposed to placing these specific female readers into a broader reading culture.10_{These female readers –}

such as the English Lady Margaret Hoby, Lady Anne Clifford and Elizabeth I, the Scottish Queen Mary and the Dutch polyglot Anna Maria van Schurman – often belong to at least the upper class, but are usually of aristocratic or even noble birth. Although the research into the personal reading cultures of these women is of great importance, this focus tells us little about the ‘average’ reading woman before 1650. Femke Molekamp states that it remains problematic to assume that women like Elizabeth I, or for example her stepmother Katherine Parr, empowered women readers by example. Molekamp underscores that women such as Elizabeth or Katherine Parr were extraordinary not only in the education they received, but also in the public application of their learning.11

Another line of research has focussed on book ownership. In her book Popular Reading in English c. 1400-1600 (2012), Elizabeth Salter refers to some of these pioneering studies that often look into the gentry or urban elite. Yet, she argues that evidence of ownership is not necessarily evidence for reading. She adds that while studies on book ownership have been necessary precursors, she seeks ‘to prioritise reading practice for readers whose identity is not necessarily known by name and social group.’ In this vein, this thesis will offer an insight into these ‘anonymous reading cultures’ through a detailed analysis of texts, as well as the works that may have been available to early modern women.12_{Since there is significantly less}

work done on women below the status of gentry outside of England, this thesis strives to offer an international, cross-class perspective into the discourse on and practice of female reading in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. This research encourages the thinking in both – for lack of a less anachronistic term – national and transnational reading cultures. While this transnational perspective is often overlooked within the field, it may benefit our understanding of trends and whether they were national or international of character. Moreover, this approach also offers insight into particularities within the discourse and practice that show us just how rich, diverse and dynamic this discourse and practice was.

As a case study, this thesis will discuss and compare the female reading cultures of England, Scotland and the Low Countries. Their geographical proximity and shared Protestant religion – albeit with national, regional and local differences – means these countries lend themselves particularly well for such a comparative study. Scotland and England share (at least part of) a language and both have had great political, cultural and economic interactions with each other, as well as with the Low Countries. The reading culture of Scottish women has, often unrightfully so, been incorporated with that of England. Yet when this is

10_{Some examples of these studies: Julie Crawford, “Reconsidering Early Modern Women’s Reading, or, How Margaret} Hoby Read Her de Mornay,” Huntington Library Quarterly 73, 2 (June 2010): 193-223; Mary Ellen Lamb, “The Agency of the Split Subject: Lady Anne Clifford and the Uses of Reading,” English Literary Renaissance 22, 3 (September 1992): 347-368; Andrew Cambers, “Readers’ marks and religious practice: Margaret Hoby’s marginalia,” in Tudor Books and

Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning, ed. John N. King, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010);

Rosalind Smith, “‘Le pouvoir de faire dire’: Marginalia in Mary Queen of Scots’ Book of Hours,” in Material Cultures of

Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. P. Pender and R. Smith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Julian Sharman, The Library of Mary, Queen of Scots (London: E. Stock, 1889); J. Durkan, ‘The Library of Mary, Queen of Scots,’ in Mary Stewart: Queen in Three Kingdoms, ed. M. Lynch (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 71-104.

11_{Femke Molekamp, Women and the Bible in Early Modern England: Religious Reading and Writing (Oxford: Oxford} University Press, 2013), 3.

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4 done, for example in Helen Wilcox’s Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700, Scotland often gets little to no particular mention. Priscilla Bawcutt and Jane Stevenson have both written on late medieval and early modern Scottish women’s reading and writing and emphasize the significant difference between England and Scotland in this regard. In “Reading, Writing and Gender in Early Modern Scotland” (2012), Stevenson states that ‘it is too easy to extrapolate from the better evidenced […] cultural history of early modern England and assume that literacy and print-culture in Scotland developed on roughly similar lines.’ Scotland’s culture was in fact distinct and seems to have presented particular difficulties to women.13_While

there exists some research into early modern women’s reading cultures, it is – much like for Scotland - not as extensive as the work done for England. Women’s reading is briefly mentioned in Martine van Elk’s Early Modern Women's Writing: Domesticity, Privacy, and the Public Sphere in England and the Dutch Republic (2017), but there seems to be no monograph that covers the subject in its own right. The research into women’s reading cultures often pre- or postdates the period chosen for this thesis, 1500-1650, such as Thérèse de Hemptinne’s “Reading, Writing and Devotional Practices: Lay and Religious Women and the Written Word in the Low Countries (1350-1550)” (2004) or Rindert Jagersma and Joanna Rozendaal’s “Female Book Ownership in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic: The Book Collection of Paper-Cutting Artist Joanna Koerten (1650-1715)” (2020). G.D.J. Schotel’s Vaderlandsche volksboeken en volkssprookjes van de vroegste tijden tot het einde der 18e eeuw, deel twee (1975) has a particular chapter on ‘books for women’, though this only seems to pay particular attention to books about women. P.G. Hoftijzer’s “Boekbezit van vrouwen in Leiden gedurende de Gouden Eeuw,” (2005) seems to be the only article that goes into some detail on female book ownership, particularly in the Dutch city of Leiden during the seventeenth century. In this article, Hoftijzer states that there is still much to track down with regard to Dutch women’s reading prescriptions and cultures.14

This thesis strives to offer a dynamic overview, pointing out the similarities between the English, Scottish, and Dutch reading cultures, while also respecting and highlighting what makes each of these reading cultures unique. Compared to the research into early modern women’s reading cultures in England, the studies into Scotland and the Low Countries are underrepresented in today’s discourse. This underrepresentation in the field can be partly explained by the fact that the data on female reading in Scotland and the Low Countries before 1650 is scattered and spread over the decades and centuries. There is significantly more data and material available for each of these countries after 1650, which subsequently means that the period before 1650 gets less attention. Nevertheless, as Priscilla Bawcutt aptly remarks in her pioneering article “‘My bright buke’: Women and their Books in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland”, ‘more survives than is often realised.’15_{This thesis will discuss the discourse on and practice of female reading in}

13_{Jane Stevenson, “Reading, Writing and Gender in Early Modern Scotland,” Seventeenth Century 27, 3 (2012): 335-374.} 14_{P.G. Hoftijzer, “Boekbezit van vrouwen in Leiden gedurende de Gouden Eeuw,” Jaarboek voor de Nederlandse}

Boekgeschiedenis 12 (2005): 33.

15_{Priscilla Bawcutt, “‘My bright buke,’: Women and their Books in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland,” in Medieval}

Women – Texts and Cotexts in Late Medieval Britain: Essays for Felicity Riddy, eds. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Rosalynn Voaden,

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5 England, Scotland and the Low Countries between ca. 1500- ca. 1650, paying specific attention to the similarities and differences in the discourse and practice.

The first chapter will focus on the aforementioned texts by Du Bosc, Vives and Erasmus, offering a comparative overview of their position on female reading. While most of these works are dedicated to noble women, all of them are said to have gained considerable if not immense popularity with a wider audience, as will become evident from the first chapter. Additionally, this chapter will offer a comparison of these texts to their early modern English and Dutch translations – the latter of which have not been analysed before in previous research. This comparison offers a transition from a broader European context into the more local perspective of the second chapter. The second chapter offers an analysis of texts that were – more or less – only available in their respective vernacular tongues, English, Scottish and Dutch. This chapter will show that these works differ from their more ‘European’ counterparts that are described in the first chapter, as they seem to have been tailored to fit the specific culture in that country. For England, this thesis will analyse Thomas Salter’s A Mirrhor mete for all Mothers, Matrones, and Maidens entituled the Mirrhor of Modestie (1579) and Mulcaster’s Positions vvherin those primitiue circumstances be examined, which are necessarie for the training vp of children, either for shill in their booke, or health in their bodie (1581). Gerard Goossens’ Cieraet der Vrouwen (Jewel of Women, 1566), Jacob Cats’ Houwelyck, dat is De gansche gelegentheyt des Echten staets (Marriage, That is the Entire Governance of the State of Matrimony, 1625) and Johan van Beverwijck’s Van de vvtnementheyt des vrouwelicken Geslachts (Of the Excellence of the Female Gender, 1639) will offer an insight into the discourse on female reading in the Low Countries. Finally, for Scotland we will look at William Dunbar’s poem The Tretis Of The Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo (The Treatise of the Two Married Women and the Widow 1507/8).

The third chapter will focus on the reading material that seems to have been available to women. This will offer an overview of broader trends shared between these countries, while also offering a glimpse into the available texts and genres. Moreover, this chapter will evaluate how the discourse from the previous two chapters clashed or corresponded to the market, to see if and how their discourse and prescriptions were implemented in everyday life. While the impact of manuscripts must not be underestimated or overlooked, this chapter will focus on printed works. While including manuscript culture into this research would be valuable – and may be interesting for future research – this oversteps the scope of this thesis, as there is no transnational database or catalogue for manuscripts available similar to the one there is for printed books through the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC). The latter was consulted and used throughout the third chapter for each of the three countries for any works that may have been of female interest and as a primary source to determine whether certain works were available or not. In addition to the USTC, the research into available material was supplemented by works of several scholars of early modern reading cultures, such as Susan Hull, Priscilla Bawcutt, Jane Stevenson, P.G. Hoftijzer and G.D.J. Schotel, to name a few.16_{This chapter will shine a light on the different positions women had within these countries and how}

16_{the available material in England was supplemented by Susan Hull’s pivotal work Chaste, Silent and Obedient: English}

Books for Women, 1475-1640 (1982), Jacqueline Eales’ Women in Early Modern England, 1500-1700 (1998), Caroline Lucas’s Writing for Women: The Example of Woman as Reader in Elizabethan Romance (1989) and several chapters from Helen

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6 their positions influenced the dynamic between the discourse on female reading and its everyday practice. Women in the Low Countries were known for their freedom and agency. They took care of the household and were often merchants. English and French visitors were in awe of how much agency the Dutch women had.17_{Was this reflected in the discourse on female reading and everyday reading practices? According to}

Stevenson, women in Scotland seem to have been at a disadvantage with regards to available reading material, but is this only the case when we compare this to the Englishwoman, or does that statement still hold true when compared to the Dutchwomen of their time? By exploring the similarities and discrepancies, the ideal and the reality, between the discourse on and everyday practice of female reading, we will be able to better understand the history of women’s knowledge and intellect, and their agency and gender expression.

Wilcox’s Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (1996). For Scotland, this chapter uses the extensive work that was already done by Bawcutt and Stevenson in their aforementioned articles, as well as M. A. Bald’s “Vernacular Books Imported into Scotland: 1500 to 1625,” and Adam Fox’s The Press and the People: Cheap Print and Society in Scotland (2020). Moreover, the digitised version of H. G. Aldis’ A list of books printed in Scotland before 1701 (1904) and the inventories in the wills and testaments of booksellers, printers, publishers and librarians as transcribed in The Bannatyne Miscellany

containing original papers and tracts chiefly relating to the history and literature of Scotland, Volume II (1836) will offer an overview

of the works available to the Scottish public. Lastly, the aforementioned work by Hoftijzer and Schotel, Herman Pleij’s

Het Gevleugelde Woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Literatuur, 1400-1560 (2007), Karel Porteman and Mieke B.

Smit-Veldt’s Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Literatuur 1560-1700 (2016), C. Kruyskamp’s

Nederlandse Volksboeken (1942) and Luc Debaene’s De Nederlandse Volksboeken (1951) will offer an overview of the

available reading material in the Low Countries.

17_{Els Kloek, “De Vrouw,” in Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw: Een Hollands Groepsportret, eds. H.M. Beliën and A.Th. van} Deursen (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1995), 347-8.

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CHAPTER 1: THE EUROPEAN DISCOURSE ON FEMALE READING

To better understand the reading cultures of early modern women, we must first understand the early modern scholarly discourse that possibly influenced and shaped these reading cultures. This chapter will offer an overview of the discourse on female reading according to some of Europe’s leading early modern scholars: Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540) and Jacques Du Bosc (1600-1669). The works analysed in this chapter will be Erasmus’ colloquies Coniugium (Marriage, 1523) and Abbatis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Lady, 1524) and his treatise titled Institutio Christiani matrimonii (The Institution of Christian Matrimony, 1526), Vives’ De institutione feminae Christianae (The Instruction of a Christian Woman, 1523) and Du Bosc’s L’ Honnête femme (The Complete Woman, 1632).18_{During the}

sixteenth and seventeenth century, these texts were both significant to and prominent in the debate on women’s education – evident from their wide dissemination in Latin and the vernacular. They all pay specific attention to the question whether a woman should be reading and how and what she should read. Through analysing these works, this chapter will offer an overview of the general discourse on female reading that was prevalent throughout most of Europe. Additionally, this chapter will analyse some of the differences that can be found in the early modern English and Dutch translations of these works, offering a brief glimpse into the second chapter, which will compare the more local works that discuss female reading from early modern England, Scotland, and the Low Countries. This thesis is not the first to mention or critically analyse the aforementioned works, though the Dutch translations of Du Bosc and Vives have not been previously analysed by any of the studies within the field. Previous research has analysed the other texts in the context of women’s education, and while female reading is often mentioned, it is never the central focus of the research. This chapter will offer an in-depth analysis of what Erasmus, Vives and Du Bosc said about female reading and the role reading should have in women’s lives as good daughters, wives, mothers and widows.

Erasmus: Women Reading in the

Colloquies

and

Institutio Christiani

matrimonii

As Margaret Mann Philips states in Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance (1981), ‘there are some aspects of [Erasmus’] world not reflected in his work; but there are few, if any, of his leading ideas which did not sow themselves far and wide and penetrate into the very lives and mental outlook of his contemporaries.’19

Erasmus writings were often controversial in his own time, praised by some and denounced by others. However, according to Erika Rummel in Erasmus on Women (1996), ‘there can be no doubt […] that the wide dissemination of his writings make him an important witness to the social thought of the sixteenth century’.20

In his Colloquies (dialogues), Erasmus touched on the subject of female reading. This work, originally titled, Familiarum colloquiorum formulae, et alia quaedam, was published by Johannes Froben in Basel in 1518. The book

18_{The abbreviations and suspensions of the early modern texts have been silently resolved to improve readability.} Moreover, the years mentioned after early modern texts are of their first printing, unless otherwise specified. 19_{Margaret Mann Philips, Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1981), 1.}

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8 was a great success and was reprinted often throughout Europe. No major additions to the work were made until 1522. Over time it would grow about twice as big and would – for the next two centuries – double as a schoolbook and as literary entertainment. The colloquies did receive criticism, as they were censured by the Church during Erasmus’ life and long after his death.21_{Perhaps the popularity of the work was prompted}

by its censuring, making it into a book that was all the more interesting to read. This was, apparently somewhat of a problem during the period, as Du Bosc mentions in his L’Honnête femme that ‘it is extremely unfortunate to see today that merely knowing a book is forbidden is enough to make a person curious about reading it.’22_{Erasmus’ dialogue titled Coniugium (Marriage, 1523) would become one of his most popular}

dialogues. Over the course of the sixteenth century, it was translated into Spanish, English, French, Italian, German and Dutch.23_{The dialogue consists of two women discussing marriage. Eulalia (whose name means}

‘sweetly speaking’) explains to Xanthippe (whose name comes from the supposedly shrewish wife of Socrates), how to keep one’s husband happy

I’m well acquainted with a certain nobleman, a learned and remarkably clever man. He married a girl of seventeen who had been reared wholly in her parents’ country home (since nobles generally like to live in the country, for the sake of hunting and hawking). Her lack of sophistication recommended her, because he would fashion her to his tastes more readily. He undertook to teach her literature and music and gradually accustom her to repeating what she had heard in sermon, and by other devices train her in what would be of later use.24

In this quote, the husband that Eulalia describes to Xanthippe marries a woman who seems to be somewhat of a ‘blank canvas’.25_{To ‘fashion her to his tastes,’ he decides to ‘teach her literature and music’. This bears}

witness to a certain importance that was given to a woman’s literacy in becoming a good wife. Additionally, we see that the husband carries an important duty as her compass and tutor in literature and music.

In 1524, another of Erasmus dialogues was printed, titled Abbatis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Lady). Among other languages, this work was translated into Dutch. The abbot, Antronius, supposedly takes his name from the city of Antron, a town in Thessaly where big, asinine donkeys were bred.26_{It is often thought that the character of Magdalia, the titular learned lady, is drawn with Margaret}

Roper – the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More - in mind. According to Craig R. Thompson in the introduction to his modern translation of Abbatis et eruditae, ‘there was no other learned woman whom

21_{Craig R. Thompson, The Colloquies of Erasmus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), xxi, xxv, xxx.} 22_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête femme, 57.}

23_{Desiderius Erasmus, “Marriage (Coniugium),” in Collected Works of Erasmus: Colloquies 39, trans. and ed. Craig R.} Thompson (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1997), 306, 309.

24_{Erasmus, “Marriage,” 314.}

25_{According to Craig. R. Thompson in his introduction to Coniugium (1965) the husband Eulalia talks about is,} supposedly, modelled after Sit Thomas More. Although he is not named, the character sketch apparently sits very close to a biographical sketch of More by Erasmus, written in 1519.

26_{Desiderius Erasmus, “The Abbot and the Learned Lady (Abbatis et eruditae),” in Collected works of Erasmus: Colloquies} 39, trans. and ed. Craig R. Thompson (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1997) 505 footnote 1; The 1622 Dutch translation reads: ‘Erasmus schiet hier op de stadt Antron daer grove ende grootse esels vandaen quamen.’

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9 Erasmus knew so well or esteemed so highly.’27_{At the start of the dialogue, Antronius enters Magdalia’s}

house and sees a vast array of books. He finds this to be unfit for women and young daughters. As Antronius agrees with Magdalia that it is a wife’s business to manage the household and rear the children, she explains that she needs wisdom to do this and that she needs books to obtain that wisdom. Antronius says that he could ‘put up with books, but not Latin ones,’ because ‘the language isn’t fit for women’ since it ‘does little to protect their chastity.’ Magdalia then argues that French books – which Antronius approved of earlier – are full of ‘frivolous stories,’ questioning if they promote chastity. According to Magdalia, a woman should be able to learn Latin, because it would allow her to ‘converse daily’ with ‘authors so numerous, so eloquent, so learned, so wise.’ Antronius, who is rather fickle in his argument, then retracts his earlier condonement of books and says that ‘books ruin women’s wits, which are none to plentiful anyway.’ Moreover he argues that he would not want a learned wife. Magdalia answers that she congratulates herself with her husband, for learning endears her more to him and him to her.28

From this dialogue, we get a more detailed account of Erasmus standpoint in the discourse on female reading. Antronius represents a side of the discourse that seems to be opposed to the idea of women reading anything other than their Books of Hours. Magdalia – and her husband, whom she fleetingly mentions – represent a side of the discourse that was in favour of female reading, even beyond the mandatory religious works. Rummel argues that it is ‘particularly difficult to discern Erasmus’ voice in the Colloquies, since the genre allows the use of arguments on both sides of a question.’29_{While it is true that}

Erasmus gives the arguments for both sides of the question on female reading, it is clear that Erasmus has the intention to make the reader side with Magdalia, as she is presented as the more reasonable of the two. Antronius is – quite literally – pictured as asinine. This becomes even more evident when Magdalia asks what Antronius thinks of the Virgin Mother. As Antronius states that he reverences her, Magdalia then asks: ‘Didn’t she read books?.’ Antronius argues that Mary read the canonical hours, according to the Benedictine use.30_{This – of course - shows the abbot’s stupidity, as the Virgin Mother would not have been reading the}

hours, especially not those written according to the Benedictine rule. It is evident from Erasmus’ negative characterisation of Antronius, who the reader is supposed to side with. Antronius represents not only Erasmus frustration with the unlearned and corrupted clergy, but additionally with those who deem women unfit for reading. From this dialogue we can gather that Erasmus approves of female reading, and in many languages too, although they should steer clear of frivolous stories such as can be found in French books.

Erasmus Institutio Christiani matrimonii (The Institution of Christian Marriage, 1526) was a controversial and lengthy work. The text was translated into German (1542), Italian (1550), English (1568

27_{Thompson, The Colloquies of Erasmus, 218.} 28_{Erasmus, “The Abbot,” 502-3.}

29_{Rummel, Erasmus on Women, 3.} 30_{Erasmus, “The Abbot,” 504.}

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10 and another undated sixteenth-century version, although these dates are contested),31_{and French (1714).}32

The work was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon to aid her in the upbringing of the ten-year-old Princess Mary. According to Michael J. Heath, the modern translator of the Institutio, ‘the mother’s role in the education of her (female) children is an important topic of the Institutio.’33_{While it is true that the role of}

the parents in the education of their children is mentioned, there seems to be no specific emphasis on the role of the mother. The role of the parents seems to be to discipline their children and to teach them vice from virtue, rather than giving them a formal education themselves. Erasmus mentions that regardless of ‘the system of training adopted, it is essential that all children be taught first to speak clearly and accurately; then they must learn to read and write fluently. Books are a major source not only of instruction but of recreation, but no one can take much pleasure in reading if he cannot read quickly.’34_{Later on in the treatise,}

Erasmus underscores the importance of choosing the right tutor, stating that ‘teaching the very young is no mean skill, and educating adolescents requires outstanding talent.’ He furthermore states that when ‘you find a suitable candidate,’ you should not ‘put the whole burden on him and abdicate your own responsibility.’ The parents should ‘act like an overseer, and look in from time to time to see how your child is getting on.’35_{Although it is evident from the text that the mother has an important role in the life of her}

child and in its upbringing, her role as a formal educator or informal instructor in reading is nowhere stated or implied in the Institutio.

Nevertheless, the Institutio does mention much on the subject of female reading. Erasmus states, for example, the importance of parents to ‘let their daughters learn a trade,’ but moreover ‘they would do even better to have them instructed in the humanities’.36_{While, according to Erasmus, occupations such as}

weaving leave the mind free to listen to banter, ‘a girl intent on her books has no thought for anything else’.37_{Erasmus goes on to say that other occupations ‘may discourage idleness, but study has the advantage}

that the more you do the greater the pleasure you obtain, and it will keep you occupied even into old age. Finally, reading good books not only forestalls idleness but also fills girls’ minds with the best of principles and inculcates virtue.’38_{Erasmus is not very particular when it comes to which books he considers to be}

‘good.’ In Abbatis he mentioned the danger of frivolous stories as those found in French works. In the

31_{The English translation of this work is listed in the Erasmus Online Database (EOL 2249). This is the translation to} which most academic works refer. The main source for this seems to be the bibliography by Van der Haeghen (Devereaux never mentions the translation). I was unable to locate an edition of this translation in the USTC, Worldcat, EEBO or Google. The 1568 translation Heath refers to is in fact an English translation of one of Erasmus colloquies on marriage (EOL 306). It is likely that there was and English translation that is possibly mentioned in an old source on which Van der Haeghen bases his information. Some contact via email with John Tholen, conservator at the Library of Rotterdam, has brought up that this could, for example, be a reference to a written translation in a correspondence. Right now, it seems to be a ‘lost book’, but per chance some research into library catalogues will pay off.

32_{Desiderius Erasmus, “The Institution of Christian Matrimony (Institutio christiani matrimonii),” trans. Michael J.} Heath, in Collected Works of Erasmus 69: Spiritualia and Pastoralia, ed. John W. O’Malley and Louis Perraud (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 212.

33_{Erasmus, “The Institution,” 204.} 34_{Ibid., 421-2.}

35_{Ibid., 420-1.}

36_{Notice here that the quote reads ‘have them instructed’ rather than ‘instruct them’; Erasmus, “The Institution,” 319.} 37_{Erasmus, “The Institution,” 319.}

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11 Institutio he mentions the particular danger of love stories, which are ‘influential with the young,’ and they ‘very easily take hold of immature minds.’ Supposedly, these ‘poisonous stories’ should be kept far from innocent minds, particularly those of young girls. Additionally, Erasmus strongly condemns the ‘poisonous’, ‘filthy’ and suggestive songs that are published for girls to learn in some countries. He particularly mentions Flanders, where ‘a lot of people […] earn a living from such stuff.’ 39_{These songs seem to have ‘similar}

themes’ as the love stories do – a husband deceived by his wife, a girl escaping the vigilance of her parents, a secret tryst arranged with a lover – and the songs recount all of these tricks with approval. Although Erasmus is not necessarily particular about giving any specific titles that he finds unfit for girls or women to read, he gives an overview of a genre that is to be avoided.

In the dialogue Coniugium Erasmus introduced the reader to the idea of the husband’s responsibility in educating his wife. In the Institutio, Erasmus expands upon this subject, stating that a ‘wife’s education is of great importance in sealing love between [her and her husband], but [her education] is also largely the husband’s responsibility.’ 40_{Erasmus goes on to state that it must be the husband’s}

first and most important concern […] to imbue his wife with the precepts of Christian philosophy, gradually instilling in her a love of study and of true virtue. If their circumstances allow her the time, it will be most valuable for the girl to be instructed in Greek and Latin. If slender resources mean that she must work with her hands, still she must be instructed to the extent that she can read the vernacular language fluently; no little wisdom can be imbibed from translations. To prevent her thoughts drifting off, as women's do, into idle dreams, her husband must prepare her for reading by expounding certain basic principles himself, and must supervise her reading until she is used to swimming without a lifebelt.41

The importance of reading – in several languages, but at the very least in the vernacular – is here yet again emphasized. The role of the husband in this process is then again underscored, saying that ‘if there is to be no reading, then her husband, her tutor, will take the place of books, and he must train her to understand what she hears but also to remember it.’42_{According to Erasmus, ‘a husband has done his duty if he has}

persuaded his wife to despise fine clothes, gold and jewels, […]; to agree that it is pleasanter to read a book in a quiet corner than to go to dances and wild, noisy parties […].’43_{According to Erasmus’ statements}

about female reading in The Abbot and The Institution, there were still people that – during his lifetime – considered it ‘a waste of time to give girls a literary education.’ Nevertheless, Erasmus says that ‘wiser heads know that there is no better way to improve their minds and safeguard their virtue.’44

39_{Erasmus, “The Institution,” 426.} 40_{Ibid., 373.}

41_{Ibid., 373.} 42_{Ibid., 374.} 43_{Ibid., 376.} 44_{Ibid., 423.}

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12

Vives: Women Reading in

De institutione feminae Christianae

In 1523, Juan Luis Vives wrote his De institutione feminae Christianae (The Education of a Christian Woman), and dedicated it to Catherine of Aragon. In first instance, it was written for the education of her daughter Princess Mary, but the Institutione enjoyed an enormous popularity and was generally regarded as the most authoritative statement on the subject of women’s education throughout the sixteenth century. Its immense popularity is illustrated by its many editions and translations (Castilian, English, Dutch, French, German, and Italian), more than a hundred of which appeared before 1600. In England alone it was published in nine editions.45_{The Institutione mimics – in both form and content – the well-established medieval genre of the}

educational treatise. Where conventionally the instruction of girls would run anywhere from a quarter to the whole of an educational treatise, Vives expands his brief segment to a book-length text, adopting many formal features of the genre and some of its key ideas.46

We know that Vives and Erasmus respected each other, that they corresponded and that they probably read each other’s books.47_{Since Erasmus’ Institutio and Vives’ De Institutione were published in such}

close proximity to each other, they may have influenced each other’s contents. Both works were dedicated to Queen Catherine of England and Vives and Erasmus shared several ideas on the proper behaviour of the ideal Christian woman. They agree that the most important role of reading in a woman’s life was to obtain and maintain virtue. The way Vives links reading to virtue is evident all throughout his text, for example when he opens his chapter on the virtues of the woman by stating that ‘The young woman will learn of the virtues of her sex from books she will read or hear read to her.’48_{According to Vives, the principle female}

virtue is chastity, and reading seems to play a vital role in this as well. In the chapter ‘On love affairs,’ we read how it is better to steer clear of men who makes indecent proposals. To keep a woman from succumbing to temptation and vice, Vives suggests to ‘return to your task. Be sure not to see the beloved object or hear anything about it. If it comes to mind, divert your attention elsewhere, either by reading or prayer or conversation or even an uplifting song or the thought of something pleasant, provided it be pure and chaste.’49_{Through reading – among other things – a woman can thus safeguard and maintain her prime}

virtue, chastity.

When it comes to what books a woman should read, Vives’ advice is more elaborate and specific than that of Erasmus. On books, Vives gives the following advice:

As for what books should be read (for someone will ask me this), there are some on which everyone is agreed, as the Gospels of the Lord, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, the historical and moral books of the Old Testament, Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Hilary,

45_{Vives, The Education, 1, 3, 14, 31.}

46_{Juan Luis Vives and Richard Hyrde, The Instruction of a Christen Woman, eds. Virginia Walcott Beauchamp, Elizabeth} H. Hageman and Margaret Mikesell (Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002), xl-xli.

47_{Erasmus, “The Abbot,” 500.} 48_{Vives, The Education, 116.} 49_{Ibid., 150.}

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13 Gregory, Boethius, Fulgentius, Tertullian, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and other such authors. But in the case of certain books, the advice of learned and sensible men must be sought. A woman must not rashly follow her own judgement, lest with her slight initiation into learning and the study of letters she mistake false for true, harmful for salutary, foolish and senseless for serious and commendable.50

While Vives is much more elaborate on the specific books a woman should read, he does share the opinions with Erasmus. A woman should ask ‘a learned and sensible’ man to guide her in the choosing of good books, obviously excluding those he has just mentioned. While Erasmus is quite precise that this learned and sensible man should be the woman’s husband, Vives leaves the relationship between the man and woman unspecified. Nevertheless, it may be assumed that he alludes to a father, husband or perhaps a brother, as Vives wishes women to stay inside their homes as much as possible.51

Vives also speaks of books that are to be avoided, pointing out the ‘pestilence’ of books on love and war, stating that these books are like placing ‘straw and dry kindling wood on the fire.’ He states that ‘these books are written for those who have nothing to do.’52_{Some girls who find pleasure and gratification}

from such stories are, according to Vives, better off not having learned literature as well as losing their eyes so that they could not see and losing their ears so that they could not hear.53_{While summing up books that}

are to be avoided, he mentions the countries of origin: Spain, France and Flanders, the latter being the country where he lives when he writes his Institutione. Additionally, Vives argues that women should steer clear from reading the classic poets, such as Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon, Sappho, Tibullus, Propertius and Cornelius Callus.54_{However, if a woman does enjoy reading poetry, Vives advises them to read some}

of the early Christian poets, such as Prudentius, Arator, Prosper, Juvencus and Paulinus.55_{An overview of}

books that women should read or avoid – including several variations in the English, Dutch and French translations of the Institutione – can be found in Appendix 1.

Reading was, however, not the only way to promote and maintain virtue and chastity. Vives’ work is littered with references to holy virgins and female martyrs and, as his chapter on exempla shows, following the examples of these women played a significant role in becoming virtuous. Vives states that

The young woman will collect examples of virgins from what she hears and reads, which she will hold up to herself for imitation. She will desire to be like them and will make every effort to bring this about. The first model to place before herself, as I have said, is the queen and glory of virginity,

50_{Vives, The Education, 78.} 51_{Ibid., 137, 243.}

52_{Ibid., 73.} 53_{Ibid., 74.} 54_{Ibid., 73.} 55_{Ibid., 78.}

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14 Mary, the mother of Christ, God and man, whose life should be exemplar not only for virgins to follow but for married women and widows as well.56

Although it is not uncommon for a sixteenth-century book to reference Mary as the ultimate example for womanly virtue, we should inspect this reference further in light of the importance Vives grants to reading. In The Virgin Mary’s Book at the Annunciation: Reading, Interpretation and Devotion in Medieval England (2020), Laura Saetveit Miles introduces the importance of the iconography of the book in Mary’s hand as a symbol for not only medieval, but early modern women’s reading practices. Seatveit Miles argues that, ‘in a society where women generally had more limited access to education and books than men, such a female model of independent literacy could be taken literally by female readers who otherwise had few precedents of literate women.’57_{Thus, Vives’ reference to Mary must not just be read as just any regular exemplum, but as an}

exemplum of a reading woman that women should aspire to emulate.

In the chapter titled ‘How she should behave at home,’ Vives dedicates a few words on the importance of reading for maidservants. He states that ‘they should read now and then something that will improve their mind and their morals. If they cannot read, they can listen attentively to others who read to them.’ The mistress or her daughters ‘may tell them things they have heard or read so that [the maidservants] may come away more sensible and morally better.’58_{Through this passage, Vives includes advice for}

different social classes. Additionally, this shows the importance of reading for mothers, mistresses and daughters, since their reading may ‘rub off’ on the maidservants. In Abbatis et Eruditae we could already see the importance that was given to reading in helping a woman to run her household and raise her children. This sentiment is considered in more detail in Vives Institutione. Reading is not only important for a woman’s virtue, but it also gives her tools of knowledge to make use of in everyday life. Vives states that a woman should be

Familiar with the remedies for frequent and everyday illnesses […]. Add to this the regulation of the daily diet, of greatest importance for the maintenance of good health […]. She can learn this skill from the experience of other prudent matrons rather than from the advice of some nearby physician, or some simple handbook on that subject rather than from big, detailed medical tomes.59

Reading thus is not just essential for a woman’s mental and spiritual wellbeing, but also for the wellbeing of those who are part of her household. If in a household library small works of medicine are found, we can ask ourselves who in the household would have used such volumes. Vives not only instructs women how to be good housewives, but also gives them the incentive and encouragement necessary to use their knowledge and, through this, obtain agency in their position as a housewife. This emphasis on the woman’s

56_{Vives, The Education, 119.}

57_{Laura Saetveit Miles, The Virgin Mary’s Book at the Annunciation: Reading, Interpretation, and Devotion in Medieval England} (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020), 5, 254.

58_{Vives, The Education, 259.} 59_{Ibid., 263.}

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15 role as mother and housewife is again exemplified in the chapter ‘On children and the care that must be taken of them,’ wherein Vives states

If the mother knows literature, she should teach her children when they are small so that they have the same person as mother, nurse, and teacher. […] As for her daughters, in addition to letters, she will instruct them in the skills proper to their sex: how to work wool and flax, to spin, to weave, to sew, and the care and administration of domestic affairs. A pious mother will not think it a burden to consecrate some moments of leisure to literature or to the reading of wise and holy books, if not for her own sake, at least for the sake of her children, so that she may teach them and make them better.60

A woman’s reading, therefore, does not only influence her own virtues, but the virtues of those around her. While Erasmus Intitutio was not really clear on who should teach a woman how to read (although the influence and importance of the husband is highlighted), Vives clearly sees this task to be within the mother’s field of expertise, both for her male and female children as well as for her maids. Nevertheless, Vives also speaks of teachers and formal education. In the chapter ‘On the instruction of young girls,’ Vives states that ‘if it is possible to find a woman who is both pious and learned to teach the young girl,’ then that is preferable. Nevertheless, if no such women can be found, a married man ‘of proven virtue’ who is married and whose wife ‘is dear to him,’ so that he will be less inclined to ‘conceive a passion for other men’s wives,’ should become the teacher. Vives’s argumentation is built around the one ruling principal, that he deems to be the only concern in the education of a woman: ‘the preservation of chastity’.61_{According to Vives,}

reading does not only make one a better woman, but a better mistress, wife, housewife and mother.

Du Bosc: Women Reading in

L’ Honnête femme

We know very little about Jacques Du Bosc, a French Franciscan priest, who established himself as a director of conscience.62_{In “The Compleat Woman: A Seventeenth Century View of women,” Margaret Belcher}

remarks that Du Bosc was interested in the moral problems faced by women in society.63_{With his L’Honnête}

femme (1632), Du Bosc attempted – much like Erasmus and Vives – to establish a model of respectable and virtuous conduct for women. This work would remain the most popular of his works and it was part of the debates concerning the nature and status of women called the querelle des femmes.64_{Although the first edition}

of the work was published in 1632, this thesis will use the 1633 edition. This edition was reviewed, corrected and augmented by the author and holds the chapter ‘On Reading.’ Moreover, it was the base text for the English and Dutch translations as will become evident later on. This text remains an important artefact to

60_{Vives, The Education, 270.} 61_{Ibid., 71.}

62_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 1.}

63_{Margaret Belcher, “The Compleat Woman: A Seventeenth Century View of Women,” Atlantis 2 (Spring 1977): 17.} 64_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 4.}

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16 the genre of the querelle des femmes, and could be considered a best-seller by modern standards. 65_According

to Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang in L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women (2014), ‘Du Bosc was of the opinion that there was no need for pious women to retreat to the convent, but that they could participate fully in secular polite society, without endangering their virtue.’66_{This is in contrast to Vives, who – as we have read earlier – stated that}

it was best for a woman to remain inside as much as possible.

Belcher argues that Du Bosc created an ideal for a social elite, rather than what in modern terms would be called the general public.67_{This argument is seconded by Nell and Wolfgang, who argue that Du}

Bosc’s honnête femme were ‘would-be society women.’68_{Belcher, Nell and Wolfgang base themselves on a}

rather incoherent paragraph in which Du Bosc states that ‘he is not describing a mother of a family who know how to give orders to her servants and who must comb her children’s hair.’69_{In this very same}

paragraph, Du Bosc, however, says that reading is important for women ‘from the countryside’ who otherwise talk of their sheep, as well as ‘women from the city’, who otherwise talk of fashion. While Du Bosc seems to say that housewives should not busy themselves with music, history or philosophy, he does not necessarily state that they should not read at all. Moreover, he states in his opening paragraph that reading is ‘necessary for all women’. While Du Bosc may have an upper-class audience in mind, this does not necessarily reflect the actual audience of the text. As Colleen Fitzgerald states in “To Educate or to Instruct? Du Bosc and Fénelon on Women,” Du Bosc’s ‘prescriptions are clearly intended to apply to everyone and every class, since such behaviours are, in principle, open to all, and most convincingly grounded in his understanding of law and nature.’70

In the opening paragraph of his very first chapter Du Bosc stresses the importance of reading stating that

There is nothing truer than this: reading, conversation, and reflection are the three most beautiful and useful things in the world. Through reading, we speak with the dead, through conversation we speak with the living, and through reflection we speak with ourselves. Reading enriches memory; conversation polishes the mind; and reflection develops judgement. But among these noble occupations of the soul, to state here which is the most important, we must confess that reading fosters the other two, and without it, reflection bears no fruit and conversation lacks pleasure.

Reading is necessary for all women no matter what kind of mind they may have, since it bestows yet another measure of brilliance on those who have an excellent mind, and it diminishes to a great extent the imperfections of those whose minds are less so. Reading makes the latter tolerable and the former admirable. Truly, reading reveals many things that reason could never

65_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 7.} 66_{Ibid., 1.}

67_{Belcher, “The Compleat woman,” 19.} 68_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 8.} 69_{Ibid., 98.}

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17 discover on its own; it gives us more solidity in our thoughts and more sweetness in our speech. It finishes what nature only begins.71

This passage - and the chapter on reading it is part of - emphasises the importance of reading in a woman’s life. Erasmus emphasises the role female reading and education plays in strengthening the bond between husband and wife and obtaining and maintaining virtue. Vives added to this the importance of a woman’s ability to read not only for herself, but also for those around her (e.g. her household and children). Du Bosc adds a new layer or perspective to these standpoints and is in a different way concerned with the woman’s inner world and how she is perceived by others. Vives is ‘not at all concerned with eloquence,’ because according to him it is ‘not shameful for a woman to be silent.’72_{This offers quite a contrast to Du Bosc’s}

standpoint, wherein reading makes conversation more ‘pleasurable’ and gives it more ‘sweetness.’ Nell and Wolfgang aptly remark that

this passage on reading encapsulates the overall theme of L’Honnête femme. Reading and by extension learning and education, are crucial in training a woman to become honnête73_{– to function in social}

situations, like conversation, and to develop skill in moral and critical thinking (“reflection”), which in turn will keep her respectable.74

Reading should then, in the context of Du Bosc’s argument, be seen as a tool to ‘succeed in society and to deserve the title of Honnête femme.’75_{According to Du Bosc, reading also benefits a woman in other areas,}

such as in recognising her defects. He states that ‘women must learn from the dead what the living dare not say to them. Only in books can they discover the imperfections of their minds, like those of their face in a mirror.’76_{According to Du Bosc, there is nothing that can be desired of the mind which cannot be found}

in books, since they hold truth and ‘teachings of all sorts and virtue in its many respects.’77_{Books are thus,}

as they are for Vives and Erasmus, necessary to obtain and maintain virtue, yet the specific emphasis Du Bosc puts on reflection seems to be – if not new – more precise than what was stated by Vives and Erasmus.

According to Fitzgerald, Du Bosc was very much concerned with women’s interior life. Du Bosc ‘neither specified particular actions nor gave instructions, but assumed that his readers were capable of drawing their own conclusions and incorporating them into their lives, therefore embodying an educational,

71_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 47.} 72_{Vives, The Education, 71.}

73_{In their introduction to Du Bosc’s L’Honnête femme, Nell and Wolfgang state that the seventeenth-century term} ‘honnête’ was and still is fraught with controversy and multiple meanings. Due to these difficulties they have retained the French term instead of translating it into English and having to choose for terms such as ‘honest,’ ‘decent,’ or ‘honorable,’ as these don’t quite encapsulate the true meaning of the word and do not capture the multiple meanings the word had as it evolved over time.

74_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 11.} 75_{Ibid., 8.}

76_{Ibid., 49.} 77_{Ibid., 49.}

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18 rather than an instructional philosophy.’78_{This philosophy becomes evident throughout his work, for}

example when he refuses to give women a specific list of things to read. According to Du Bosc, not all books are excellent ‘since there are some which truly do not deserve to see the light of day.’79_{This also}

becomes evident from the works of Vives and Erasmus, but what makes Du Bosc different, is the agency he gives women in choosing what to read. Vives and Erasmus both deemed it necessary for a ‘learned and sensible man’ to help women in choosing their books. In L’Honnête femme we read: ‘If women do not trust themselves to choose books well, they should at least follow the counsel of the most knowledgeable and the most virtuous for fear of infecting their minds or corrupting their consciences.’80_{Although the modern}

reader may be inclined to see this advice as being the same, it is in fact slightly, though not insignificantly, different. Although he states a woman should ask someone who is knowledgeable and virtuous what books she should read, it is not specified if this pertains to a woman or a man. Moreover, Du Bosc first and foremost assumes the capability of women choosing for themselves.

Du Bosc argues that ‘quantity is not how the wise measure, and a single book, when it is good, can serve as a great library.’81_{While Vives and Erasmus are not particular on how many books a woman should}

read in her life, Du Bosc states that ‘in effect, reading just a few books, provided that they are useful and agreeable, is not to diminish the benefit, but to refine it.’ Reading just a few books, does not make a woman ‘less knowledgeable,’ but simply ‘less entangled.’82_{In addition to making a stance on reading fewer books,}

this statement also makes reading more accessible to those who may not have the money to acquire a vast library of books. As a result of such a statement, a woman could count herself part of a community of reading women, even though she may not have been of particularly high means. Accessibility seems to have been a matter of importance to Du Bosc, as we read earlier, but this is again exemplified in the chapter ‘On Learned Women.’ In this chapter he argues, among other things, that works of science are often too complex and wilfully obscure. According to Du Bosc, ‘nothing is truer than when learning is well understood, it can be expressed in any language and women are capable of comprehending it.’83

Du Bosc mainly advises to read the philosophers, historians, orators and poets.84_{Although Vives}

recommends some poets, there are also some he advises against. Moreover, neither Erasmus nor Vives recommend reading histories. As became evident before, Du Bosc offers women more agency in their reading choice if they wish to do so. This means that not being very specific on any particular books is more in line with his educational philosophy. While many early modern scholars cast aside ‘pagan’ authors, Du Bosc asks: ‘what danger is there in robbing the profane owners of their divine riches in order to put them to better use?’85_{Not only does Du Bosc trust his female audience to, initially, choose their own books, he}

also trusts them to take from these books what is good, while ignoring the rest. Nell and Wolfgang note

78_{Fitzgerald, “To Educate or to Instruct?” 160.} 79_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 49.}

80_{Ibid., 49-50.} 81_{Ibid., 50.} 82_{Ibid., 51.} 83_{Ibid., 99.} 84_{Ibid., 49.} 85_{Ibid., 52.}

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19 that – if the modern reader pays close attention – the works to which Du Bosc refers throughout L’Honnête femme – give us a good idea of the kind of the specific books he has in mind: those from classical antiquity, the bible and books by church fathers (particularly Saint Jerome).86_{Nevertheless, Du Bosc never specifically}

persuades his female audience to read these books and therefore stays true to his educational philosophy. In addition to mentioning the genres of which Du Bosc approves, the chapter ‘On Reading’ also offers an extensive argument for the rejection of novels. According to Du Bosc

There is some appearance of evil in the books of the ancients and there is only some appearance of good in novels […]. We must not abandon the ancients for so little evil; we must not embrace novels for so little good. It is enough to delete elements of the ancients, but we must renounce novels completely.87

Extracting good elements from the superfluous in the works of the ancients seems to teach the reader ‘vice from virtue.’88_{Yet novels seem to be corrupters of innocence that are based on imagination and false}

examples. According to Du Bosc, is nothing in novels that cannot be found in history, and histories offer entertainment without corrupting or imperilling the conscience.89_{Histories thus do not only offer guidance}

in virtue, but also satisfaction and entertainment. Vives had specific attention for the function a woman’s reading had for the interior and exterior benefit of her and those around her. While Du Bosc’s work has a similar focus, he puts the emphasis on conversation and reflection. In this he rather – intentionally or unintentionally – resembles Erasmus and his stance on education furthering the companionship between husband and wife, or, in the case of Du Bosc, between a woman and those around her.

Erasmus, Vives and Du Bosc in early modern English and Dutch

While the English and Dutch translations of Erasmus, Vives and Du Bosc are mostly true to the original text, there are some interesting differences that could point towards some more local particularities in the discourse on female reading. In 1557, the dialogue Coniugium was translated into English and titled A Mery Dialogue, declarying the properties of shrowde shrews & honest wyves. Its translator remains unknown. The 1523 Latin dialogue spoke of the husband’s wish to have a wife who was a ‘blank slate,’ so he could teach her ‘literature and music.’ In the English 1557 translation, this passage is slightly altered. Herein Eulalia says to Xanthippe: ‘This yong gentilman would haue one that were vnbroken, because he might soner breake her after hys own mind, he began to entre her in learning syngynge, and playing’.90_{While the passage is almost an exact}

translation of the original Latin, we see that the mention of teaching the wife literature has vanished, while

86_{Du Bosc, L’Honnête Femme, 11-12.} 87_{Ibid., 52.}

88_{Ibid., 53.} 89_{Ibid., 54.}

90_{Desiderius Erasmus, A Mery dialogue, declaring the propertyes of shrowde shrews, and honest wyues not onelie verie pleasaunte, but}

also not a lytle profitable: made by ye famous clerke D. Erasmus Roterodamus. Translated into Englyshe (London: In Paules churche

“Necessary for all women”