answers Christine's questions about why some men slander women, helping Christine to prepare the ground on which the city will be built. She tells Christine to "take the spade of [her] intelligence and dig deep to make a trench all around [the city] … [and Reason will] help to carry away the hods of earth on [her] shoulders." These "hods of earth" are the past beliefs Christine has held. Christine, in the beginning of the text, believed that women must truly be bad because she "could scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex. [Therefore she] had to accept [these authors] unfavourable opinion[s] of women since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions." Christine is not using reason to discover the merits of women. She believes all that she reads instead of putting her mind to listing all the great deeds women have accomplished. To help Christine see reason, Lady Reason comes and teaches Christine. She helps Christine dispel her own self-consciousness and the negative thoughts of past writers. By creating Lady Reason, Christine not only teaches her own allegorical self, but also her readers. She gives not only herself reason, but also gives readers, and women, reason to believe that women are not evil or useless creatures but instead have a significant place within society. Women discussed The following 36 women are discussed in Part I of the Book of the City of Ladies. Mary Magdalene Queen of Sheba Fredegund Blanche of Castile Jeanne d'Évreux Blanche of France Marie of Blois, Duchess of Anjou Semiramis Amazons: Thamiris, Menalippe, Hippolyta, Penthesilea, Synoppe, Lampheto, Marpesia, Orithyia (Amazon) Zenobia Artemisia II of Caria Lilia, mother of Theodoric Camilla Laodice of Cappadocia Cloelia Cornificia Faltonia Betitia Proba Sappho Manto Medea Circe Carmenta Minerva Ceres Isis Arachne Pamphile Thamaris Irene Iaia Sempronia Woman of Valor Gaia Cirilla (also known as Tanaquil) Dido Ops Lavinia Part II In Part II, Lady Rectitude says she will help Christine "construct the houses and buildings inside the walls of the City of Ladies" and fill it with inhabitants who are "valiant ladies of great renown". As they build, Lady Rectitude informs Christine with examples and "stories of pagan, Hebrew, and Christian ladies"