Quand les femmes sont faites théologiennes: «Les Dames illustres» (1665) de Jacquette Guillaume

Abstract

In Les Dames illustres (1665), Jacquette Guillaume advocates in favour of women’s knowledge, by presenting a vast gallery of women that have been selected for their virtue as well as their erudition. But above all, she revolutionized the traditional “querelle des femmes” by combining it with an inherently religious dispute, in which she simultaneously attacks several “heresiarchs” by drawing on (the ideas of) a “brigade” of female theologians. Our study of this rich collection reveals the many subversive strategies deployed by an author who is at once a compiler and a mystifier.

Keywords

• querelle des femmes

• Jacquette Guillaume

• Christine de Suède

• Pierre Le Moyne

• Jean de Labadie