Madeleine Lazard. Les Avenues de Femynie: Les femmes et la Renaissance.

Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2001. 437 pp. bibl. index. 23 [euro]. ISBN: 2-213-61022-3.

In her twelfth book on the French Renaissance, Madeleine Lazard has brought together a summa of information about women in this period. Unlike her previous study of women (Images litteaires de la femme a la Renaissance [1985]), this four-hundred-page, twenty-chapter book covers the reality of women as well as the image, and often finds conflict or discrepancy between the two.

While the prelude states that she will not study princesses but women of lower estate, actually the book does both, and quite successfully. The first three chapters treat theoretical issues: theological, medical, judicial, philosophical (the "Quarrel of Women"), and legal (in particular with respect to changing laws on marriage). Successive chapters try to show the reality behind some of the theory: abuse of women within marriage (chap. 4); and de-emphasis of virginity and Neoplatonism in lower classes and rural life (chap. 5), for example. Chapters 6 to 9 treat various professions and trades for women, and are some of the most interesting in the book: the role of widows in carrying on a family business (chap. 6); the work of lower-class women (servants, farm women, textile and sewing industries, the special role of women in the printing industry, chap. 7); the profession of midwife (chap. 8); the exclusively female profession of wet-nurse (chap. 9); and a very interesting chapter on prostitution and pimping, which filled a social function and were not so stigmatized as one might think (chap. 10). Chapter 11 treats old age and sorcery, presenting this as part of the "problem" of women.

With chapter 12, we begin to climb back up the social ladder to study middle and upper-class women and some of the issues which have already received a lot of attention recently in literary and historical circles: education (chap. 12); writing (chap. 13); court-life (chap. 14); queens and princesses (chap. 15); salons in the sixteenth century (chap. 16). Much of this information appears to come from Brantome's work on women.

Chapters 17 and 18 treat the role of women in the Reformation and Counter Reformation, and are among some of the best in the book. There is a discussion of convent life, the closing of the "Clarisses" in Geneva, and an interesting comparison of Marguerite de Navarre and Renee de Ferrare, both of whom wanted reform within the church and who were therefore distrusted by both sides (chap. 17). The next chapter contrasts Jeanne de Jussie (Catholic) and Marie Dentiere (Protestant), concluding that it is hard to find "progress" for women on either side of the religious controversies (chap. 18).

The last two chapters come back to consider issues of power for women: Salic Law and Regency (chap. 19); and women who had influence despite having no official role (Guise women; royal mistresses such as Diane de Poitiers; and more consideration of the difficulties of Regency, chap. 20).

The conclusion is short and somewhat disappointing. The author has presented a plethora of information about women in the sixteenth century, but has not been able to sift it all and interpret it for the reader. Certain earlier themes are repeated (for example, the idea that feminist dreams at the start of the century are not realized by the end), but these themes are not developed.

One other criticism concerns the use of documentation: rather than footnotes, the book has a bibliography of primary and secondary sources for each chapter. This feature makes the work readable--one is not constantly jumping back and forth to consult footnotes. On the other hand, the lack of footnotes also means that we never really know whose opinion is being expressed in any given sentence: Brantome? Natalie Zemon Davis? Madeleine Lazard herself? Sometimes the mixture of history, fiction, opinion, and myth becomes confusing, especially when a historical figure appears several times in different lights. An example of this problem is the presentation of Catherine de Medicis, who is featured in three or four chapters (as wife, mother, widow, Regent, etc.), and whose profile changes as the sources for the various chapters shift. At times it seems that Lazard has not really made up her mind on some issues but lets her sources dictate the argumentation.

Despite these criticisms, the book remains a useful compendium of information on women in sixteenth-century France. The social history, in particular, is new for Lazard, and makes fascinating reading. The bibliographies contain much additional documentation for the student of women in the Renaissance.

CATHLEEN M. BAUSCHATZ

University of Maine