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Moral Lessons For Women Readers Of Jean Lemaire De Belges's Les Illustrations De Gaule Et Singularitez De Troye, Judy Kem

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Jean Lemaire de Belges (1473-1525), poet and historiographer of the French and Burgundian courts of the early Renaissance, wrote his epic history of Troy, Les Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye (1511-1513), at the request of his patron, Margaret of Austria, to offer an "occupation voluptueuse, et non pas inutile" [sensual yet useful occupation] to the ladies of France (1:11). Lemaire dedicated each of the three books of his epic to a different noblewoman. Mercury, who narrates the prologues of all three volumes, identifies each noblewoman with one of the three goddesses of the Judgment of Paris: Margaret of …