From She-Wolf to Martyr by Elizabeth Casteen

Author:Elizabeth Casteen [Casteen, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Memoir, Royalty, Nonfiction, History, Medieval
ISBN: 9781501700996
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2015-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

An “Especially Good Friend” to Saints

Friendship, Politics, and the Performance of Sovereignty

She truly loved God and was most highly wary of herself so no one might speak badly of her and that she might not give occasion for anyone to disparage her. Therefore she fled levities and places or persons for which she could be branded; and she had in her company honest handmaids and well-mannered companions.

Prior Peter of Alvastra and Master Peter of Skänninge, Vita of Birgitta of Sweden (1373)

Oh, what a very great treasure a princess or any other lady has who possesses an honourable reputation! Certainly there is nothing so great in this world that she could have and nothing she should so much love to accumulate… . She will get to know people of good and upright lives who are devoted to God, and she will want them to be her friends. She will receive them humbly and speak to them confidentially and very willingly hear them and ask them to pray for her. In this way the virtue of sobriety will rule the good princess.

Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies (ca. 1405)

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