Part 38

The letter _o_ represents three sounds:--(1) the short sharp _o_ and (2) the short soft _o_, the former like the _o_ in English not and French _soldat_ (Dutch _bod_, _belofte_, _tocht_, _kolf_), the latter like the English _o_ in don, the French _o_ in _ballon_ (Dutch _dof_, _ploffen_, _ochtend_, _vol_), and (3) the full, clear _o_ as in English note, French _noter_ (Dutch _kolen_, _sloten_, _verloren_). The sharp clear _oo_, in _stroom_, _dood_, has almost the same sound as the full _o_, in some dialects (among others the Saxon) it is pronounced as _o_ with a glide _o_, in others (Flemish and Hollandsch) somewhat like _au_. In Middle Dutch, the lengthening of the vowels was frequently indicated by _e_ (before _r_ sometimes by _i_, as in _oir_); hence _ae_ for _a_, _oe_ for _o_. Where _oe_ occurs in the modern language, it has the sound of _u_ (pronounced like the _u_ in High German, and answering to the Gothic _o_), which in Middle Dutch was frequently represented by _ou_. _oe_ is pronounced _ou_ (_au_; Sweet, p. 6) in West Flemish and the Groningen dialects. Before labials and gutturals _oe_ in Middle Dutch was expressed by _ue_ and _oe_ (_bouc_, _souken_, and also _guet_, but usually _goet_, _soeken_, _boec_). The Saxon dialects still preserve an _o_ sound which agrees with the Dutch _oe_ (_bok_, _moder_); in two words--_romer_ (_roemer_, however, is also used) and _spook_--_o_ has passed from these dialects into Dutch. As the _u_ (Old German _u_), which in the Dutch tongue has passed into _ui_ except before _r_ and _w_, retains the _u_-sound in the Saxon districts, some words have come into Dutch from these dialects, being written with _oe_ from the similar sound of _oe_ (from _o_) in Dutch and _u_ in Saxon (_snoet_, _boer_, _soezen_), by the side of which are Frankish words (_snuit_, _suizen_, &c.).

In the language of the people _oe_ before _m_ is often pronounced as _o_, for instance _bloem_ and _blom_.

_Eu_ is not a diphthong, but the modification (_Umlaut_) of the clear _o_; it has the same sound as German _o_ in _schon_; so in _vleugel_, _leugen_, _keuken_.

_U_ before a double consonant or before a consonant in monosyllables has about the same pronunciation as in English stuff, rug; so in _kunnen_, _snurken_, _put_. When used in open syllables it has the same sound as in French _nature_.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Middle Dutch _u_ passed over through _oi_ into _ui_ by the influence of the Holland dialect. In the Saxon districts _u_ kept the old pronunciation, but only in the language of the peasants. The common language has everywhere _ui_, pronounced nearly as German _eu_, English _oy_; so in _duizend_, _vuil_, _buigen_, &c.

_Ou_ and _au_ in _vrouw_ and _blauw_ are nearly pronounced in the same way, very much like English _ow_ in crowd.

AUTHORITIES.--For a full survey of a history of the Dutch language the reader is referred to Jan te Winkel, "Geschichte der niederlandischen Sprache," _Grundriss der germ. Philologie_, 2, p. 704 (Strassburg, K. Grubner). Here an elaborate account may be found on p. 704 of the different works on the grammar and phonology of the various periods of the Dutch language. For explanation and history of words of the current language see the _Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal_, by De Vries and Te Winkel, continued by A. Kluyver, A. Beets, for a time by J.W. Muller and De Vreese, who left at their nomination as professors at Utrecht and Ghent. The Middle Dutch language may be known from the _Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek_, first by E. Verwys and J. Verdam, after the death of Verwys by Verdam alone. For the dialects the different grammars and glossaries issued at Martinus Nyhoff (The Hague) and Kemink & Son (Utrecht) are of great importance. The Flemish dialect may be found in De Bo, _Westvlaamsch Idioticon_; other Belgian dialects are recorded in the publications of the _Vlaamsche Academie_ (Ghent). Phonetic explanations are given in Roorda's or in ten Bruggencate's _Phonetic Works_, and a survey of the pronunciation in Branco van Dantzig's _Dutch Pronunciation_ and Dykstra's _Dutch Grammar_. (J. H. G.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] i.e. "Within a few years our language has been gradually skimmed of bastard words and non-Dutch elements."

DUTCH LITERATURE. The languages now known as Dutch and Flemish did not begin to take distinct shape till about the end of the 11th century. From a few existing fragments--two incantations from the 8th century, a version of the Psalms from the 9th century, and several charters--a supposed Old Dutch language has been recognized; but Dutch literature actually commences in the 13th century, as Middle Dutch, the creation of the first national movement in Brabant, Flanders, Holland and Zealand.

Willem the Minstrel.

From the wreck of Frankish 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 _Parthenopeus de Blois_. The Flemish minstrel Diederic van Assenede completed his version of _Floris et Blanchefleur_ 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 Penninc 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 the first part of a very important version in Dutch was made by Willem the Minstrel, of whom it is unfortunate that we know no more save that he was the translator of a lost romance, _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 literature. The second part was added by another hand at the end of the 14th century.

John I., duke of Brabant.

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 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 fragment 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 medieval hymns by Sister Hadewych, a nun of Brabant, was first printed in 1875 by Heremans and Ledeganck.

Maerlant.

Boendale.

Weert.

Stoke.

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 commercial 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 almost to political independence, and with this liberty there arose a new sort of literary expression. The founder and creator of this original Dutch literature was Jacob van Maerlant (q.v.). His _Naturen Bloeme_, 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 _Rijmbijbel_ (Rhyming Bible) he foreshadowed the courage and free-thought of the Reformation. It was not until 1284 that he began his masterpiece, _De Spieghel Historiael_ (The Mirror of History), at the command of Count Floris V. Of his disciples, the most considerable in South Holland was Jan van Boendale (1280-1365), known as Jan de Klerk. He was born in Brabant, and became clerk to the justices at Antwerp in 1310. He was entrusted with various important missions. 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 1350; it contains the history of Brabant down to that date, and was brought down to 1440 by an anonymous later writer. For English readers it is disappointing that Boendale's other great historical work (_Van den derden Edewaert, coninc van Ingelant ..._, ed. J.F. Willems, Ghent, 1840), 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 medieval scholastic literature. In Ypres the school of Maerlant was represented by Jan de Weert, a surgeon, who died in 1362, and who was the author of two remarkable works of moral satire and exhortation, the _Nieuwe Doctrinael of Spieghel der Sonden_, and a _Disputacie van Rogier end van Janne_. In the beginning of the 13th century Gielijs van Molhem wrote a Dutch version of part of the _Miserere_ of the Picard poet who concealed his identity under the name of the recluse of Moiliens. The poem consisted of meditations on the origin and destiny of man, and on the sins of pride, envy, &c. The translation, completed later by an author calling himself Heinrec, was critically edited (Groningen, 1893) by P. Leendertz. In North Holland a greater talent than that of Weert or of Boendale was exhibited by Melis Stoke, a monk of Egmond, who wrote the history of the state of Holland to the year 1305; this work, the _Rijmkronik_, was printed in 1591, and edited in 1885 for the Utrecht Historical Society; and for its exactitude and minute detail it has proved of inestimable service to later historians.

Heelu.

Aken.

Dirk Potter.

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 newborn 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 author of an epic poem[1] on the battle of Woeronc (1288), dedicated to Princess Margaret of England, and to him has been attributed the still finer romance of the _War of Grimbergen_.[2] Still more thoroughly aristocratic in feeling was Hein van Aken, a priest of Louvain, who lived about 1255-1330, and who combined to a very curious extent the romantic and didactic elements. As early as 1280 he had completed his translation[3] of the _Roman de la rose_, which he must have commenced in the lifetime of Jean de Meung. More remarkable than any of his translated works, however, is his original romance, completed in 1318, _Heinric en Margriete van Limborch_,[4] upon which he was at work for twenty-seven years. During the Bavarian period (1349-1433) very little original writing of much value was produced in Holland. Buodewijn van der Loren wrote one excellent piece on the Maid of Ghent, in 1389. Augustijnken van Dordt was a peripatetic minstrel of North Holland, who composed for the sheriff Aelbrecht and for the count of Blois from 1350 to 1370. Such of his verses as have been handed down to us are allegorical and moral. Willem van Hildegaersberch (1350-1408) was another northern poet, of a more strictly political cast. Many of his writings exist still unpublished, and are very rough in style and wanting in form. Towards the end of the 14th century an erotic poet of considerable power arose in the person of the lord of Waddinxsveen and Hubrechtsambacht, Dirk Potter van der Loo (c. 1365-1428), who was secretary at the court of the counts of Holland. During an embassy in Rome (1411-1412) this eminent diplomatist made himself acquainted with the writings of Boccaccio, and commenced a vast poem on the course of love, _Der Minnen Loep_,[5] which is a wonderful mixture of classical and Biblical instances of amorous adventures set in a framework of didactic philosophy. In Dirk Potter the last traces of the chivalric element died out of Dutch literature, and left poetry entirely in the hands of the school of Maerlant. Many early songs, with some of later date, are preserved in a _Liedekens-Boeck_ printed by Jan Roulans (Antwerp, 1544). The unique copy in the Wolfenbuttel library was edited by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in _Horae Belgicae_ (vol. xi., 1855).

Religious drama.

It is now time to consider the growth of prose literature in the Low Countries. The oldest pieces of Dutch prose now in existence are charters of the towns of Flanders and Zealand, dated 1249, 1251 and 1254. A prose translation of the Old Testament was made about 1300, and there exists a _Life of Jesus_ about the same date. Of the mystical preachers whose religious writings have reached us, the Brussels friar, Jan van Ruysbroec (1294-1381), is the most important. But the most interesting relics of medieval Dutch prose, as far as the formation of the language is concerned, are the popular romances in which the romantic stories of the _trouveres_ and minstrels were translated for the benefit of the unlettered public into simple language. As in most European nations, the religious drama takes a prominent place in every survey of medieval literature in Holland. Unfortunately the text of all the earliest mysteries, the language of which would have an extraordinary interest for us, has been lost. We possess records of dramas having been played at various places--_Our Lord's Resurrection_, at the Hague, in 1400; _Our Lady the Virgin_, at Arnheim, in 1452; and _The Three Kings_, at Delft, in 1498. The earliest existing fragment, however, is part of a _Limburg-Maastricht Passover Play_[6] of about 1360. The latest Dutch miracle play was the _Mystery of the Holy Sacrament_, composed by a certain Smeken, at Breda, and performed on St John's day, 1500. This play was printed in 1867. With these purely theological dramas there were acted mundane farces, performed outside the churches by semi-religious companies; these curious moralities were known as "Abelespelen" and "Sotternieen." In these pieces we discover the first traces of that genius for low comedy which was afterwards to take perfect form in the dramas of Brederoo and the paintings of Teniers.

Chambers of Rhetoric.

The theatrical companies just alluded to, "Gesellen van den Spele," formed the germ out of which developed the famous "Chambers of Rhetoric"[7] which united within themselves all the literary movements that occupied the Low Countries during the 15th and 16th centuries. The poets of Holland had already discovered in late medieval times the value of gilds in promoting the arts and industrial handicrafts. The term "colleges de rhetorique" is supposed to have been introduced about 1440 to the courtiers of the Burgundian dynasty, but the institutions themselves existed long before. These literary gilds lasted till the end of the 16th century, and during the greater part of that time preserved a completely medieval character, even when the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation obliged them to modify in some degree their outward forms. They were in almost all cases absolutely middle-class in tone, and opposed to aristocratic ideas and tendencies in thought. Of these remarkable bodies the earliest were almost entirely engaged in preparing mysteries and miracle-plays for the populace. Each chamber, and in process of time every town in the Low Countries, possessed one, and took as its title some fanciful or heraldic sign. At Diest "The Eyes of Christ," dated from 1302, and an earlier one, the "Lily," is mentioned. "The Alpha and Omega," at Ypres, was founded about 1398; that of the "Violet," at Antwerp, followed in 1400; the "Book," at Brussels, in 1401; the "Berberry," at Courtrai, in 1427; the "Holy Ghost," at Bruges, in 1428; the "Floweret Jesse," at Middelburg, in 1430; the "Oak Tree," at Vlaardingen, in 1433; and the "Marigold," at Gouda, in 1437. The most celebrated of all the chambers, that of the "Eglantine" at Amsterdam, with its motto _In Liefde Bloeyende_ (Blossoming in Love), was not instituted until 1496. Among the most influential chambers not above mentioned should be included the "Fountain" at Dort, the "Corn Flower" at the Hague, the "White Columbine" at Leiden, the "Blue Columbine" at Rotterdam, the "Red Rose" at Schiedam, the "Thistle" at Zierikzee, "Jesus with the Balsam" at Ghent, and the "Garland of Mary" at Brussels. And not in these important places only, but in almost every little town, the rhetoricians exerted their influence, mainly in what we may call a social direction. Their wealth was in most cases considerable, and it very soon became evident that no festival or procession could take place in a town unless the "Kamer" patronized it. Towards the end of the 15th century the Ghent chamber of "Jesus with the Balsam" began to exercise a sovereign power over the other Flemish chambers, which was emulated later on in Holland by the "Eglantine" at Amsterdam. But this official recognition proved of no consequence in literature, and it was not in Ghent, but in Antwerp, that intellectual life first began to stir. In Holland the burghers only formed the chambers, while in Flanders the representatives of the noble families were honorary members, and assisted with their money at the arrangement of ecclesiastical or political pageants. Their pompous _landjuweelen_, or tournaments of rhetoric, at which rich prizes were contended for, were the great occasions upon which the members of the chambers distinguished themselves. Between 1426 and 1620 at least 66 of these festivals were held. There was a specially splendid _landjuweel_ at Antwerp in 1496, in which 28 chambers took part, but the gayest of all was that celebrated at Antwerp on the 3rd of August 1561. To this the "Book" at Brussels sent 340 members, all on horseback, and clad in crimson mantles. The town of Antwerp gave a ton of gold to be given in prizes, which were shared among 1893 rhetoricians. This was the zenith of the splendour of the "Kamers van Rhetorica," and after this time they soon fell into disfavour. We can trace the progress of literary composition under the chambers, although none of their official productions has descended to us. Their dramatic pieces were certainly of a didactic cast, with a strong farcical flavour, and continued the tradition of Maerlant and his school. They very rarely dealt with historical or even Biblical personages, but entirely with allegorical and moral abstractions, until the age of humanism introduced upon the stage the names without much of the spirit of mythology. Of the pure farces of the rhetorical chambers we can speak with still more confidence, for some of them have come down to us, and among the authors famed for their skill in this sort of writing are named Cornelis Everaert of Bruges and Laurens Janssen of Haarlem. The material of these farces is extremely raw, consisting of rough jests at the expense of priests and foolish husbands, silly old men and their light wives. Laurens Janssen is also deserving of remembrance for a satire against the clergy, written in 1583. The chambers also encouraged the composition of songs, but with very little success; they produced no lyrical genius more considerable than Matthijs de Casteleyn (1488-1550), the founder of the Flemish chamber of "Pax Vobiscum" at Oudenarde, and author of _De Conste van Rhetorijcken_ (Ghent, 1573), a personage whose influence as a fashioner of language would have been more healthy if his astounding metrical feats and harlequin _tours de force_ had not been performed in a dialect debased with all the worst bastard phrases of the Burgundian period.

Houwaert.

In the middle of the 16th century a group of rhetoricians in Brabant and Flanders attempted to put a little new life into the stereotyped forms of the preceding age by introducing in original composition the new-found branches of Latin and Greek poetry. The leader of these men was Jean Baptista Houwaert[8] (1533-1599), a personage of considerable political influence in his generation. Houwaert held the title of "Counsellor and Master in Ordinary of the Exchequer to the Dukedom of Brabant"; he played a prominent part in the revolution of the Low Countries against Spain; and when the prince of Orange entered Brussels victoriously (Sept. 23rd, 1577), Houwaert met him in pomp at the head of the two chambers of rhetoric--the "Book" and the "Garland of Mary." He did not remain faithful to his convictions, for he composed in 1593 a poem in honour of the cardinal-archduke Ernest of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He considered himself a devout disciple of Matthijs de Casteleyn, but his great characteristic was his unbounded love of classical and mythological fancy. His didactic poems are composed in a wonderfully rococo style, and swarm with misplaced Latinities. In his bastard Burgundian tongue he boasted of having "poetelijck geinventeert ende rhetorijckelijck ghecomponeert" for the Brussels chamber such dramas as _Aeneas and Dido_, _Mars and Venus_, _Narcissus and Echo_, or _Leander and Hero_--named together the _Commerce of Amorosity_ (1583). But of all his writings, _Pegasides Pleyn_ (Antwerp, 1582-1583), or the Palace of Maidens, is the most remarkable; this is a didactic poem in sixteen books, dedicated to a discussion of the variety of earthly love. Houwaert's contemporaries nicknamed him "the Homer of Brabant"; later criticism has preferred to see in him an important link in that chain of homely didactic Dutch which ends in Cats. His writings are composed in a Burgundian so base that they hardly belong to Flemish literature at all. Into the same miserable dialect Cornelis van Ghistele of Antwerp translated, between 1555 and 1583, parts of Terence, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, while the painter Karel van Mander (1547-1609) put a French version of the _Iliad_ and of the _Eclogues_ of Virgil into an equally ill-fitting Flemish dress. In no country of Europe did the humanism of the 16th century at first affect the national literature so slightly or to so little purpose.

Psalms and hymns.

Battle-songs.