Middle Dutch

Dating texts is one of the most important challenges for research into literary history. Only through a chronological ranking of texts, one can gain insight into the development of literature through time. Dating Middle Dutch chivalric epics is a complex issue, on which little agreement has been reached. Situating texts is often difficult because the original authors’ texts rarely survive and researchers have to work with much younger, often fragmentary copies. In this contribution, we present a critical state-of-the-art of recent research into dating
Middle Dutch chivalric epics. After a short discussion of the main dating methods, we present a chronological overview of Middle Dutch chivalric epics, based on a critical scrutiny of secondary literature. We hope to reach a synthesis as a point of reference for future research.

In two little-studied Middle Dutch texts, the authors present their readers with the distaff and the activities of spinning and cloth-making as a metaphor for Christ’s Passion, and, as such, as a meditative object and activity. These texts represent the ultimate conjunction of ora et labora, but their transmission suggests that the meditative practice was not limited to religious communities. This article explores these texts in their broader cultural and religious context as tools for meditation and expressions of (religious) power relations between men and women in the transitional age between the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.

In dit artikel wordt de opvatting naar voren gebracht dat de pays aan het slot van 'Van den vos Reynaerde' beschouwd moet worden als een echte verzoening is tussen koning Nobel en zijn baronnen Bruun en Isegrim. De zoen die gemaakt wordt, voorkomt een allesvernietigende vete tussen de koning en zijn machtige baronnen.
P.s Het exemplaar dat gebruikt is afkomstig uit de UB. De aantekeningen zijn niet van mijn hand.

(French and Dutch below)

ABSTRACT - The report of the voyage undertaken by the Flemish nobleman Joos van Ghistele at the end of the fifteenth century, is considered to be one of the most valuable European travel narratives. The text is unique, not only because of the voyage it contains – a four-year expedition that brought the travellers to the far north of Iran and to the southernmost point of the Red Sea – but especially due to the enormous amount of information it offers, and thanks to its critical character. The manuscript Brussels, RMAH, ms. 55.473, containing the narrative, is chronologically close to the text’s time of emergence. One would expect the identity and status of the noble traveller to be used as a way of authenticating the narrative. Surprisingly, the travellers remain anonymous in this manuscript. This is the case as well in the two other known manuscripts, while the status of the traveller could have caused for a considerable increase in the text’s credibility. It is not the social position, but the literary knowledge of the traveller and his capacity for empirical observation that are placed central. When the text is printed seventy years later, the traveller’s identity and status are elaborately used to promote the travel narrative. The analysis of this issue is followed by a guided tour of the voyage and of the narrative.

RÉSUMÉ – Le récit qui raconte le voyage du noble flamand Joos van Ghistele à la fin du quinzième siècle, est estimé être un des récits de voyage européens les plus riches. C’est un texte exceptionnel, non seulement en raison du voyage qu’il raconte – une épopée de quatre ans qui va mener les voyageurs jusqu’au nord de l’Iran et au sud de la Mer Rouge – mais surtout à cause de l’énorme quantité d’informations qu’il contient, et de sa nature critique. Le manuscrit Bruxelles, Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, ms. 55.473 contenant le récit du voyage de Joos van Ghistele a été copié peu de temps après la rédaction du Voyage, probablement dans la même décade. Contre toute attente, les voyageurs restent anonymes tout au long du texte, et ce en dépit du fait que la mention de la position sociale des voyageurs aurait pu renforcer la crédibilité du récit. Au lieu de son statut, c’est la connaissance littéraire et la capacité d’observation des voyageurs qui sont mis en avant. À l’inverse, quand le récit sera imprimé un demi-siècle plus tard, l’imprimeur ne cachera ni l’identité de joos van Ghistele, ni celle de ses compagnons : il utilisera le prestige du noble voyageur pour promouvoir son livre. Faisant suite à l’analyse de ce problème, cet article esquisse un aperçu du récit, tout en offrant un l’éclaircissement sur le contexte historique
et les objectifs des voyageurs.

SAMENVATTING – Het verslag van de reis die de Vlaamse edelman Joos van Ghistele aan het einde van de vijftiende eeuw ondernam, wordt beschouwd als een van de meest waardevolle Europese reisverhalen. De tekst is uniek, niet alleen omwille van de reis die hij verhaalt – een expeditie van vier jaar die de reizigers tot in het verre noorden van Iran, en het zuidelijkste punt van de Rode Zee bracht – maar bovenal dankzij de enorme hoeveelheid informatie die hij biedt, en dankzij zijn kritische karakter. Het handschrift Brussel, KMKG, hs. 55.473 staat chronologisch dicht bij het ontstaan van de tekst. In tegenstelling tot de te verwachten aandacht voor de status van joos van Ghistele blijven de reizigers in dit handschrift voor de lezer onbekend. Dat is eveneens het geval in de twee andere bekende handschriften. Nochtans had de status van de reiziger de geloofwaardigheid van de tekst aanzienlijk kunnen versterken. In de plaats van maatschappelijk aanzien wordt de literaire kennis en de capaciteit van de reiziger voor empirische waarneming in de schijnwerpers gezet. Bij de uitgave in druk van de tekst een halve eeuw later, wordt de identiteit van joos van Ghistele en van zijn reisgenoten wel meegedeeld; er wordt van zijn status zelfs uitgebreid gebruikt gemaakt om het reisverhaal te promoten. Volgend op de analyse van dit vraagstuk schetst dit artikel een beeld van het reisverhaal, vergezeld van toelichting over de historische context en de ideeën en intenties van de reizigers.

Article in Dutch "Did Philip the Good read in Dutch at times? ‘Small languages’ in the Burgundian Library". The 15th-century library of the Burgundian dukes consisted of 80 % French and 15 % Latin manuscripts. The manuscripts in other languages, though a small group, are in fact very interesting for the sake of the constitution and the sources of the book collection and thus for research on cultural exchange in later medieval Western Europe. There are six known in English, seven in (High) German and fifteen in Dutch. This article discusses their contents and several hypotheses about their origins.

Article in Dutch about the books and reading interests of the Holland nobleman Frank of Borssele (ca. 1395-1470). What we know about his library is relatively limited, but thanks to a series of archival mentions nevertheless interesting. His books mirror his place in society.
Frank had a specific book taste: an interest in illustrated manuscripts in the years 1455-1465 and an interest in certain texts translated into Dutch for his personal use. This seems to show an influence of the Burgundian court. Indeed, we should not forget that Frank was a knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece and a friend and relative of primordial courtiers like Louis of Bruges, lord of Gruuthuse and of Wolfert of Borssele, lord of Veere. However, Frank’s taste also shows that he deliberately differed from the Burgundian book fashion, since he had a preference for reading in Dutch, had his books made locally in Holland (the city of Delft seems to have been especially important), and had a very specific interest in historiographical and geographical texts, that we do not find at the court of the duke of Burgundy. Frank was a high nobleman, but one without a legitimate heir and one whose aspirations from the 1420s and 1430s had shattered against the Realpolitik of duke Philip the Good. In his cultural taste and independence, however, he still showed himself a member of the highest European circles.
Although it must remain a conjecture, an analysis of the sources suggest that Frank of Borssele might have had translated into Dutch (by a certain Martijn van Tholen and by Jan Keyl, who later became his medical doctor) the Latin version of Marco Polo’s travel account: De mirabilibus mundi. If this hypothesis would proof true, it would be a trace of a now lost far older translation that the currently first known seventeenth century one.

Around 1270 the Flemish author Jacob van Maerlant made an adaptation of Thomas of Cantimpré’s De natura rerum, called Der naturen bloeme. To date, 27 manuscripts of this text were known to scholars, both complete manuscripts and fragments. This article introduces a 28th witness, the fragmentary remains of a fourteenth-century manuscript. It consists of two snippets, with text from the fourth book (which is about ‘sea monsters’). Further analysis of the fragment shows that it derives from an illustrated manuscript in two columns, probably written in the duchy of Brabant in the second half of the fourteenth century. As small as it is, the fragment contains some unique variants.

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Discussion (in Dutch) about a number of medieval manuscript fragments found in books in the Utrecht University Library. Includes a discussion of a fragment of the Vita Sancti Martini (10/11th c.) from St Paul's Abbey in Utrecht; a kalender of saints from Echternach (11/12th c.); and a Middle Dutch exegetical (mystical) text on Genesis and Exodus (15th c.) form the Carthusians in Utrecht.

This paper examines the relationship between the specific form (i.e. diminutive, augmentative, abbreviated of full form) of a (male) first name and the age of the namesake in late medieval (1375-1550) administrative sources (accounts, registers) for three cities in the county of Flanders (Bruges, Courtrai and Ghent).

Christina of Hane is a unique and little-known mystic. This is the very first comprehensive study on the late medieval text transmitting her Life. Adopting a multi-perspective approach, the first part of the study considers the handwritten manuscript while also discussing performative aspects of the mystic text. The second part of the study offers a new edition of the Life.

"The story of Jonathas ende Rosafiere has been transmitted in fragmentary form in five text witnesses in Middle Dutch dating from the 14th to the 16th centuries, two of which are studied in this article. Here it is demonstrated that the printed Amsterdam fragments (Amsterdam, UB, OK 66-211) are the remains of a misprint with a disrupted text order. Therefore, the fragments of this postincunable cannot be used to establish the order of another text witness, the Borgloon manuscript, in particular as to the inversion of fol. XIX and fol. XX (19th-century foliation) as argued by D.J. Huizinga (1975) and accepted in all recent scholarship on the topic. This article shows that we get a better understanding of the story and the gaps therein if we return to the order given to the Borgloon manuscript in the 19th century and rearrange the verses of the printed Amsterdam fragments differently. This opens up new avenues for further analysis of the story and for a better reconstruction of the textual history.
"

A great many epic texts from the Low Countries, also those contained in non-Flemish manuscripts, seem to have been written in Flanders. At the same time, texts written in Brabant or further eastward in the Rhine-Meuse area, seem not to have been read or copied in Flanders. This article combines data on the origin in time and place of manuscripts and auctorial texts, in order to provide an empirical base for these assumptions. It proves that epic literature moved from west to east, and attempts to place this conclusion in a historical context.

... 10 Wij danken voorts iedereen die deelgenomen heeft aan de bijeenkomsten van onze werkgroep of op afstand heeft bijgedragen: Jos Biemans, Joost van Driel, Anneke Mulder-Bakker, Jan Willem Klein, Ad Putter, Robert Stein, Jaap Tigelaar en Rudolf Kilian Weigand. ...

Pourquoi, apres des siecles d'une hegemonie absolue, le latin ecrit est-il remplace par des langues vernaculaires? Catharina Peersman examine cette evolution medievale fascinante en se penchant sur un lieu de rencontre entre le latin et deux langues vernaculaires bien differentes, l’une romane et l’autre germanique, a savoir l’ancien francais et le moyen neerlandais. Par le biais de son approche sociolinguistique, elle evalue le statut respectif de ces dernieres face au latin et la qualite de leur maitrise en region de frontiere linguistique. A cette fin, les chartes de l’abbaye de Ninove constituent un observatoire linguistique exceptionnellement riche. En effet, les resultats de l'enquete ouvrent des perspectives nouvelles sur le passage a l'ecrit des langues vernaculaires, evolution fondamentale qui mene tout droit a notre societe moderne.