The Vision of Money in the Writings of Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan’s economic thought matured and developed over the fourteen years of her career, during which she turned from allegory, poetry, and the citation of authorities toward realistic description, prose, and original theorizing. Her earliest representations of wealth pit the evils of greed and riches against the higher values of wisdom and virtue. In writing the biography of Charles V, she came to recognize that the circulation of money is an important means for fostering the health of the body politic. As a result, in subsequent writings, she insisted that economic management and good public administration should strive to ensure that money’s circulation does not encourage vice but instead fosters and rewards virtue.