Christine composed 'L'Épistre au Dieu d'amours' in 1399, considered one of the first explicitly feminist literary works in Europe.
By 1399, Christine de Pizan had composed L'Épistre au Dieu d'amours (Letter to the God of Loves), a landmark poem that directly challenged the misogynist tropes prevalent in contemporary courtly literature, especially works like the popular Roman de la Rose.
In the poem, the God of Love himself hears complaints from women about how men slander and mistreat them in literature and life, and issues a defense of women's honor. This inversion of the conventional courtly love genre allowed Christine to critique misogyny from within an accepted literary form, making her argument palatable to a court audience while still being radical in substance.
Modern scholars widely regard this work as one of the earliest explicitly feminist texts in European literature, predating later, more famous feminist writings by centuries. It ignited the so-called Querelle de la Rose (Quarrel of the Rose), a literary debate in which Christine publicly argued against prominent male scholars over the treatment of women in literature.
This was a bold and unusual act for a woman of her era: engaging in public intellectual debate with established male authors, in writing, under her own name. It marked Christine's emergence as not just a court poet but a serious voice on women's dignity and representation.