Queeste - Volume 27, Issue 2, 2020

This article concerns the Dendermond appropriation of the medieval legend of the steed Bayard and the four sons (the ‘Heems children’) of Aymon, lord of Dordoen. The story of Bayard and Aymon’s sons was popular in the Low Countries during the Middle Ages. In many towns and cities, a giant wooden Horse Bayard was part of processions and parades. In some cases, the tradition persists to this day. This is especially the case in Dendermonde, where a local version of the story exists. The nineteenth-century archivist of the city, Prudens Van Duyse, is probably responsible for this remarkable tradition. His assumptions about the Dendermond roots of Aymon of Dordoen and the resulting local narrative tradition are based on a very free interpretation of the toponyms in the Middle Dutch prose story and on an equally free reading of the writings of a number of seventeenth-century historians. While, after Van Duyse’s passing, there was some debate among historians concerning the credibility of his theories, storytellers embraced the regional variant that he invented. To this day, Van Duyse continues to influence Dendermond folklore.

Margriet Boelen, who hailed from Amsterdam, is known to have commissioned a painting from Jacob Cornelisz in 1512 with the Nativity and devotional portraits of her and her family members. This contribution attempts at portraying Margriet as an owner and reader of books. Her (family’s) books provide additional information about the Boelens as well as about Margriet’s devotional interests and religious practice. Margriet’s book(s) – and more in general the increasing information about ownership of early printed books – also trigger questions regarding the role of the early printed book within a wider array of media, and the relationship between text and image in late medieval lay devotional culture in particular. When applied to viewing as well as reading, the concept of ‘ethical reading’ introduced by John Dagenais can be helpful in providing an indication of the way(s) in which lay readers and viewers connected both texts and images to their every day lives and used both media to advance their devotion.

Irish kings eager to conquer Britain are rare in episodic Arthurian romance. Even so, belligerent rulers of Ireland show up in the thirteenth-century Moriaen and Die Riddere metter Mouwen (‘the Knight with the Sleeve’). The Irish king’s appearance in the Flemish Moriaen derives from an episode in the Lancelot propre (cf. Besamusca 1991 and 1993, 110-114), while his similar role in the second romance may be attributed to an adapter, the compiler of the Lancelot Compilation, who probably inserted four additional adventures in his reworking of the Flemish original. The episode of Arthur’s war against the Irish in Die Riddere metter Mouwen differs significantly from the story as told so far. When the hero is sidetracked in a separate adventure, a dozen knights of the Round Table suddenly take center stage in an interlaced episode that perfectly fits with the narrative style of the ‘historical’ Lancelot-Grail Cycle. In this dark episode, King Arthur appears as a vulnerable and negligent sovereign, in need of reproach by his illustrious nephew Walewein (Gawain), the Round Table’s foremost knight and the prime guardian of courtly values. Apparently, the compiler intended to align the Flemish romance with the cycle’s content and narrative technique of interlace, to revitalize the character of Walewein (until then only a pale version of his former self), and to expose a crack in the Round Table in order to foreshadow the final demise of Arthur’s kingdom. If we accept this hypothesis, one important question remains: what did the Flemish Riddere metter Mouwen look like before the compiler reworked the story, added new episodes and, in the process, maybe even changed the storyline?

From 29 October 2021 until 23 January 23 2022, the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library in Antwerp will host the exhibition ‘Knights in armour. Chivalric tales from Karel ende Elegast to Don Quichot’. The emphasis will be on printed romances from the 15th and 16th centuries, though attention will also be given to the manuscript transmission, themes and structure of many of the narratives; to woodcuts, the afterlife of some stories into the 19th century, the importance of the romances for our cultural heritage, the European scope of certain subject matters, the invention of printing and Antwerp as a printing centre. Even though the promised loans of the Library of Congress in Washington are still pending due to the pandemic, the recently purchased romances from the Heritage Library as well as loans of rare books from many European institutions are well worth a visit.

Mmmonk stands for Medieval monastic manuscripts – open – network – knowledge. It is a collaborative project between Bruges Public Library, Ghent University Library, the Major Seminary Ten Duinen in Bruges and the Diocese of Ghent. The project has been awarded grants from the Flemish Government (Department of Culture, Youth and Media).

The project aims to provide digital access to the c. 760 extant medieval manuscripts of the abbeys of Ten Duinen, Ter Doest, Saint Peter’s and Saint Bavo’s. The images and metadata of the manuscripts will be gathered and presented on the mmmonk platform in a sustainable and open manner using the International Image Interoperability Framework (iiif). The platform will gather existing knowledge, present educational content, and encourage further research on the monastic manuscripts. mmmonk will contribute to the development and implementation of iiif for complex book materials.

Het kartuizerklooster van Herne heeft de culturele geschiedenis van de Lage Landen diepgaand beiïnvloed. In een tijd waarin literatuur nog veelal in het Latijn werd geschreven, fungeerde dit klooster als een ware hotspot in de productie en verspreiding van volkstalige teksten. In een relatief korte tijdspanne (ca. 1350-1400) kopieerde deze gemeenschap een imposante verzameling van meer dan 25 Middelnederlandse en Latijnse manuscripten, waarvan velen unieke teksten bevatten. De kartuizers van Herne, die zich bij toetreding schikken naar een leven in stilte, waren buitengewoon productieve en bescheiden kopiisten. Nauwelijks vinden we toe-eigeningen in de vele teksten die door hen werden geproduceerd. Het is daarom enigszins anachronistisch dat de recente literatuurwetenschap haast uitsluitend gericht is geweest op de identificatie van specifieke personen in het klooster (zoals de beroemde Bijbelvertaler van 1360). In het recent opgestarte project Stille Stemmen bestuderen wij het kartuizerklooster van Herne als een kopiistencollectief, gedreven door een gemeenschappelijk doel. Hiertoe zullen we ons concentreren op de kopieerpraktijk, die een zeldzame toegang verschaft tot de samenwerkingen tussen de monniken. Via stylochronometrie zullen we de evolutie en convergentie in de lokale kopieerpraktijk beter kunnen bestuderen en duiden. De ontsluiting van deze belangrijke bronnen (in vrij raadpleegbare diplomatische transcripties) zal bovendien verbeterd worden via de toepassing van handgeschreven tekstherkenning.