Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/96

84 HOLLAND [LANGUAGE. a moderate, liberal, and entirely Protestant cabinet, and in the main the Protestant-liberal party has guided the country for the last quarter of a century. The Dutch took but a secondary part in the disputes between France and Germany as to Dutch Luxembourg, which by the treaty of London (1867) was declared neutral, and guaranteed to Holland. Recently they have been engaged in a very vexatious and wasteful war with the sultan of Acheen, their neighbour on the island of Sumatra, The chief of the older authorities for the history of Holland are: Melis Stoke (c. 1305) ; Willelmus Procurator, 1332; Beka, Chronicon Vltrajcct, 1350; John of Lej den ; Froissart; Monstrelet; Velius, Chronyk van Hoorn; Corte Chronijkje van Hollant, 973-1466; Groote Ohronyk van Holland; Annalcs rerum gcstarum in Holla adia, 1481-83; Olivier de la Marche, Memoires; Meteren, Historia, Belgica, nostri potissimum tcmporis, 1597; Tlmanus, Historia sui tetnporis, libri Ixxx. ; Grotius, DC ant i quit ate rcip. Batavicce, 1610 ; Guicciartliai, Omnis Bclgii, sive inferioris Germanicce rcgionis, descriptio, 1613; Hollandice Selandixqucdcscriinio, 1630; Snoygou- danus (Snoius), De rcpubl. Batav. libri xiii., 1620; Boxhoorn, Tlicatrtim, sen, Hollandice comitatus et urbium nova descriptio, 1632 ; Politijk, Hnndtbockskn van der Sto.at van t Ncdcrlandt, 1650 ; Strada, Delia guerra di Fiandra, 1638 ; Hooft, Nedcrlandsche Historic ; Bor, Oorsprong, Begin, en Vervolghdcr Ncderlandschc Oorlogcn ; Aitzema, Saken van Staat en Oorlogh in cnde omtrent de Verccniyde Ncde rlanden (1621-69), 1669-72; Brandt, Lijf en Bcdrijf van Michiel de Ruiter, 1687; Historiederltcformatic,I67l-l70i; DeWitt, Brievcn. Among the more modern works are Wicq^iefort, L Hintoirc des Provinces Unics des Pays-Bas (the Hague, 1719-43, 2 vols., with a large collection of diplomatic documents ; new edition, by Chais van Buren, Amsterd. , 1861-75); Wagenaar, DC Vadcrlandsche Historic (Amsterd., 1749- 1760, 21 vols.; supplement to 1790, ibid. 1789-90, 3 vols.; and continuation from 1776 to 1802, ibid. 1788-1810, 48 vols.); Bil- derdijk, Gcschiedcnis des Vadcrlands (Leyden, 1832-39, 12 vols.); Leo, Zwolf Biichcr Nicdcrldndischer Gcschichtc (Halle, 1832-35, 2 vols. ); J. C. de Jonge, Gcschicdenis van hct Ned. Zcewezen (the Hague, 1833-48, 10 vols.); J. P. Arcnd, Algemeenc Gcschicdenis des Vadcrlands (Amsterd., 1840, &c., continued by L ces, Brill, and VanVloten); Groenvaii Prinsterer, Gcschicdenis van hct Vadcrland (Leyden, 1846, 4th ed., Amsterd., 1874, 4 vols., from a Calvinistic point of view); and Archives ou Corrcspondance ineditc de la Maison d Orange-Nassau (Leyden, 1841-62); Gerlache, Essai sur Ics grandcs fipoqvcs de noire histoire nationalc (1852), undHisloire du royaumc des Pays-Bas depuis 1814 jusqu en 1830 (3 vols., 1859) ; Nuijens, Algcmcenc Gcschicd. des Ncderlandsclicn Volks (Amsterd., 1872-78, 15 vols., from the Roman Catholic point of view); J. van Lennip, DC Gcsch. van Ncderland (Leyden, 1878); W. Moll and J. ter Gouv, Ncdcrland. Gesch. en Volkslcuen (Leyden, 1878 ; this and the pre vious work are of a popular cast); J. A. Fruin, DC Ncderlandschc Wetboekentot op 1 Jan. 1876 (Utrecht, 1878); Nippold, Dicromisch- k&amp;lt;itholische Kirche im Konigreich der Ncdcrlandc (Ldpsic, 1877); &quot;Wenzelberger, Gcsch. der Niedcrlande (in Heeren and Uckert s si-lies, Gotha, 1878-79); Kemper, Gcsch. van Niederland na 1830 (Amsterd., 1873-76). For English readers the older works of Giattan, History of the Netherlands (Lardner s series), and Davies, History of Holland (3 vols., 1841), have been cast completely into the shade by Motley s Rise of the Dutch Republic (Lond., 1856), ami The United Netherlands (Lond., 1861-68). A Rcpcrtorium der vcrhandl. en bijdragcn bctr. de gcsch. des vadcrlands in tijdsch. verschcncn appeared at Leyden, 1863, and a Register van acad. dis- scrtatien, having the same scope, in 1866. (G. W. K.) PART III. LANGUAGE. . Of the Low German tribes the Old Saxons, the Anglo- Saxons, the Franks, and the Frisians played a specially important part both in north-western Europe in general arid in the Low Countries in particular ; and accordingly it is with these tribes that we have in the first place to do when investigating the origin and development of the Dutch lan guage. A great many dialects formerly existed side by side on Dutch ground, and many of them still live on the lips of the people ; but they all belonged to one or other of three well-defined groups Frisian, Saxon, and Frankish. In the earliest times about which records have come down to us, the Frisian dialect, in various shades of differ ence indeed, occupied a very extensive area. It was the language universally spoken in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, and North Holland. But in Groningen the Frisian has been superseded by the Saxon, and in North Holland by the Low Frankish dialect; and the three leading dialects of the Dutch are now distributed in Holland nearly as follows: (1) Saxon in Groniugen, Drenthe, Overyssel, and the county of Zutphen ; (2) Frisian (more or less cor rupt in the towns) in Friesland; and (3) Low Frankish in Guelderland (excepting the county of Zutphen), Utrecht, North and South Holland, Zealand, North Brabant, and Limburg. In Groningen and North Holland the Frisian dialect has left more or less marked traces of its former pre dominance in the pronunciation, vocabulary, and phraseo logy of the present spoken language. During a considerable period laws, ordinances, contracts, and similar documents were drawn up in the various provinces in the peculiar dialect of each, and many of these documents, especially in Frisian, have come down to our time. The inhabitants of the northern provinces, however, had neither superiority of culture nor political preponderance enough to secure the assimilation of the adjoining populations. The occupants of the tract in which Low Frankish was spoken were much more favourably situated ; and that dialect has in the end ousted the two others, and become the speech, both oral and written, of cultured Dutchmen. From the documents collected by MiillenhofT and Scherer, and from many others, it is evident that between the 8th and the 12th century the different German dialects served as vehicles of literary composition, and this, it appears, must also have been the case in the Netherlands. It may therefore be safely taken for granted that, among the libri Teuthonice scripti referred to in the act given in the year 1202 by the papal legate Guido for the organization of the bishopric of Liege, there were some written in the vernacular, i.e., in Low Frankish, which after the sub jugation of the Frisians and Saxons by the Franks was the idiom of the victors. Whatever pains Charlemagne took to raise the dignity of the German language, the practice, prevailing at the time and long afterwards, of using Latin in official documents emanating from the authorities, pre vented the predominant form of speech from encroaching to any considerable extent on the other dialects. Still it is in this period that we must seek the first indications of the future victory of the Frankish dialect over the two others. And in course of time the Franks strengthened their political pre-eminence by a superiority of a different character, which, added to the first, went far to secure to the Frankish dialect the prerogative of being the universal vehicle of cultured thought, written and spoken, throughout the Netherlands. The barbarous victors could not resist the humanizing influence of the higher culture resulting from a lengthened intercourse with the Romans. And when, after a considerable lapse of time, the new idiom, thus born from Latin, began to be employed in the composition of literary productions, the influence of these writings soon made itself sensibly felt in the southern Nether lands. The inhabitants of ancient Belgium had always continued in close intercourse with their brethren in France ; and the literary productions put forth in France, especially after the crusades, soon began to engage the attention of the opulent citizens of the thriving towns of Flanders and other parts of the southern Netherlands, and were diligently translated by them into their own tongue. Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht in their turn were connected with the southern Netherlands by many close ties. The