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Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) on the Education of Girls. An Investigation into his Medieval and Spanish Sources

1995; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00309230.1995.11864692

1477-674X

Leuven Jan Papy,

Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books

Due to his treatise on the education of girls and women, the “De institutione foeminae christianae” (1524), the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) is repeatedly labelled as “an advocate of woman's education” or “revolutionary feminist”. But, Vives’ treatise must be judged on other grounds than feminist or antifeminist, and must be confronted with patristic, medieval and humanistic ideas to give a clear outline of his personal emphases.Therefore, Vives’ views are confronted in the first place with those of patristic authors like Jerome and Augustine and medieval moralists like Vincent of Beauvais, Aegidius Romanus, Francesco da Barberino, Christine de Pisan and Konrad Bitschin. Secondly, the circumstances of his treatise are compared with those of Italian pedagogues as Vergerio, Brunt and Piccolomini, and a special link is made with the dedication-process of books of houres from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Conclusion is that Vives’ work was equally influenced by the circumstances of the time of writing and the identity of his addressee, i.e. Catherine of Aragon, “the Spanish Queen in England”, as Vives called her. The impact of Thomas More’s humanist circle on Vives’ treatise is also of great importance.But scholars have — for several reasons — overlooked the great influence of Vives’ Spanish background, and especially the direct influence of the Catalan Minorite Francesc Eiximenis (ca. 1340- 1409). Not only Vives’ “Institutio” shows many parallels in contenance and style with Eiximenis’ “Llibre de les clones”, there seems to be also an influence of Eiximenis on Vives’ political views in his “De subventione pauperum”. The comparison between Eixmenis and Vives’ views on education of women will preserve tomorrow’s Vives specialists from making rashly attributed claims of originality and will open the eyes for Spanish medieval sources in a so-called “humanist” treatise.