The Legal, Rhetorical, and Iconographic Aspects of the Concept of the accessoire in Christine de Pizan

The article explores how Christine de Pizan’s use of the term accessoire(s), a special case of “detail” in medieval culture affords a useful example of how her vocabulary literally echoes her linguistic situation at the interface of vernacular and Latin in the Parisian courtly circles which she frequented. The first two philologically oriented sections offer a clear contextualization of Christine’s two uses of this term, while the third, more speculative, section is based her use of the concept of an accessoire in the context of iconographic practice.