Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Mathéolus

The bad guy who sets off all the conflict in this book is a dude named Mathéolus, who wrote a book called Lamentations back in Christine de Pizan's time and talked at length about how inferior women were to men. Christine's entire project in City of Ladies is to argue against dirtbag men like Mathéolus and to shut them up. She also takes several opportunities to argue against a book called Romance of the Rose, which was written around her time by a dude named Jean de Meun.