Shocked and distressed by a male writer’s vilification of women, Christine de Pizan has a powerful dreamlike vision in which she is visited by three personified Virtues: Reason, Rectitude and Justice. They tell her she has been chosen to write a book which will be like a city, housing virtuous women and protecting them from feminist attack. Heroines past and present form the foundations of this city – biblical and mythical heroines, ruling queens, Christian saints, and inventors are among them.

Partly myth, partly fact, The Book of the City of Ladies is an extraordinary, pioneering and impassioned defence of women that set out to shatter medieval misogynist clichés, and serve to instill self-worth in its female readers of the time.