Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/102

90 90 HOLLAND PART IV. LITERATURE As has been shown above, the language now known as Dutch or Flemish did not begin to take distinct shape till about, the end of the 1 1 th century. From a few existing frag ments two incantations from the 8th century, a version of the Psalms from the 9th century, and several charters a supposed OldDutchlanguage has been recognized; butDutch literature actually commences in the 13th century, as Middle Dutch, the creation of the first national movement in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand. From the wreck of Fr mkish anarchy no genuine folk-tales of Dutch antiquity have come down to us, and scarcely any echoes of German myth. On the other hand, the sagas of Charlemagne and Arthur appear immediately in Middle Dutch forms. These were evidently introduced by wandering minstrels and jongleurs, and translated to gratify the curiosity of the noble women. It is rarely that the name of such a translator has reached us, but we happen to know that the fragments we possess of the French romance of William of Orange were written in Dutch by a certain Klaas van Haarlem, between 1191 and 1217.. The Chanson de Roland was translated about the same time, and considerably later Parihenopeus de Blois. The Flemish minstrel Diederic van Assenede completed his version of Floris tt BlancJie-fleur about 1250. The Arthurian legends appear to have been brought to Flanders by some Flemish colonists in Wales, on their return to their mother-country. About 1250 a Brabantine minstrel translated Walter Map s Lancelot du Lac at the command of his liege, Lodewijk van Velthem. The Gauvain was translated by Pennine and Vostaert before 1260, while the first original Dutch writer, the famous Jakob van Maerlant, occupied himself about 1260 with several romances dealing with Merlin and the Holy Grail. The earliest existing fragments of the epic of Reynard the Fox were written in Latin by Flemish priests, and about 1250 a very important version in Dutch was made by Willem Willem the Minstrel, of whom it is unfortunate that we the know no more, save that he was the translator of a lost nstrel. romancej Madoc. In his existing work the author follows Pierre de Saint-Cloud, but not slavishly ; and he is the first really admirable writer that we meet with in Dutch litera ture. It is not necessary to dwell at any length on the monkish legends and the hymns to the Virgin Mary which were abundantly produced during the 13th century, and which, though destitute of all literary merit, were of use as exercises in the infancy of the language. The first lyrical John I., writer of Holland was John I., duke of Brabant, who practised the minnelied with success, but whose songs are only known to us through a Swabian version of a few of them. In 1544 the earliest collection of Dutch folk-songs saw the light, and in this volume one or two romances of the 14th century are preserved, of which Het Daghet in den Oosten is the best known. Almost the earliest frag ment of Dutch popular poetry, but of later time, is an historical ballad describing the murder of Count Floris V. in 1296. A very curious collection of mystical mediaeval hymns by Sister Hadewych, a nun of Brabant, was first printed in 1877. Hitherto, as we have seen, the Middle Dutch language had placed itself at the service of the aristocratic and monastic orders, flattering the traditions of chivalry and of religion, but scarcely finding anything to say to the bulk of the population. With the close of the 13th century a change came over the face of Dutch literature. The Flemish towns began to prosper and to assert their com mercial supremacy over the North Sea. Under such mild rulers as William II. and Floris V., Dort, Amsterdam, and other cities contrived to win such privileges as amounted aloiost to political independence, and with this liberty j there arose a new sort of literary expression. The founder and creator of this original Dutch literature was Jakob van Maer. Maerlant, born near Bruges between 1225 and 1250. His lant - youth was spent in Holland, and probably in connexion with the court, but in 1261 he returned to Flanders, where he died about thirty years later. Maerlant commenced, as his predecessors had done, by translating the courtly romances of the French, but when he returned to Flanders he began to take his true position as an original didactic poet. His Floivers of Natiire. written about 1263, forms an epoch in Dutch literature ; it is a collection of moral and satirical addresses to all classes of society. With his Rijmbijbd (Rhyming Bible) he nearly brought down on his too secular head, in 1270, the chastisement of the bishop of Utrecht, and thus early in Dutch history foreshadowed the courage and free-thought of the Reformation. It was not until 1284 that he commenced his masterpiece, De Spiegliel Historiael (The Mirror of History), at the command of Count Floris V. After writing a great many important works, lyrical and didactic, Maerlant died at Damme, about 1291. Of his disciples, the most considerable in South Holland was Jan van Boendale (128Q-13G5). He Boendi was a politician of considerable influence, and his works are historical and moral in character. In him the last trace of the old chivalric and romantic element has disappeared. He completed his famous rhyme chronicle, the Brabantsche Yeesten, in 1315 ; it contains the history of Brabant down to the times of the author himself. For English readers it is disappointing- that Boendale s other great historical work, an account of Edward III. and his expedition to Flanders in 1338, has survived only in some fragments. The remainder of Boendale s works are didactic poems, pursuing still further the moral thread first taken up by Maerlant, and founded on mediaeval scholastic literature. In Ypres the school of Maerlant was represented by Jan de Weert Weert, a surgeon, who died in 1362, and who was the author of two remarkable works of moral satire and exhorta tion. In North Holland a greater talent than that of Weert or of Boendale was exhibited by Melis Stoke, a Stoke, monk of Egmond. who wrote the history of the state of Holland to the year 1305 ; this work, the Rijmkromk, was printed in 1591, and for its exactitude and minute detail has proved of inestimable service to later historians. With the middle of the 14th century the chivalric spirit came once more into fashion. A certain revival of the forms of feudal life made its appearance under William III. and his successors. Knightly romances came once more into vogue, but the new-born didactic poetry contended vigorously against the supremacy of what was lyrical and epical. It will be seen that from the very first the literary spirit in Holland began to assert itself in a homely and utilitarian spirit. Jan van Heelu, a Brabanter, was the Heelu, author of an epic poem on the battle of Woeronc (1288), and to him has been attributed the still finer romance of the War of Grimbergen. Still more thoroughly aristocratic in feeling was Hein van Aken, a priest of Louvain, who Aken. lived about 1255-1330, and who combined to a very curious extent the romantic and didactic elements. As early as 12SO he had completed his translation of the Roman de la Rose, which he must have commenced in the lifetime of Jean de Meung. More remarkable than any of his trans lated works, however, is his original romance Ile.inric en Margriete, upon which he was at work for thirty -se yen years. During the Bavarian period (1349-1433) very