The first woman in history to make a living with her pen, thanks to the poems she wrote and published, was Christine da Pizzano, an Italian who lived in France during the period of transition between the darkness of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the enlightenment. Having been plunged by fate from affluence to poverty, and with two small children to support, she overcame hunger, fear and desperation, winning fame as a poetess who spoke of simple things, of the disadvantaged and of women, all in a male-dominated culture. A drama with light-hearted touches as well, Christine’s story includes the two men who served as her mentors: Charleton, a tavern songster who introduced her to the common folk that fill her poems, and Gerson, a refined theologian torn between his love of Christ and his feelings for Christine.