Belonging to the Germanic languages branch within the Indo-European language family, Dutch shares a common lineage with languages such as English, German, and Scandinavian languages. Today, Dutch is spoken primarily in the Netherlands and Belgium. During the Middle Ages, Dutch was spoken in the Low Countries, which roughly correspond to modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of northern France and western Germany.
Dutch (Nederlands in Dutch, Dietsch in Middle High Dutch) is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, such as English, Scottish, Frisian, Low German and Old German. For the medieval period, we distinguish two phases. During the period from around the 6th or 9th to the 12th century, Old Dutch (Oudnederlands in Modern Dutch) or Old Low Franconian (Oudnederfrankisch in Modern Dutch) was the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Ancient Low Countries, a historical region which corresponds to actual states of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and ta part of northern France. During the period from the 12th to the end of the 15th century, Middle Dutch was the set of dialects that evolved from Old Dutch and was used in the same region. While Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, a rich literature was developed in Middle Dutch. Middle Dutch consisted of a simplification and standardization of the language.
Listen to the sound of Middle Dutch.
Old and Middle Dutch used the Latin alphabet which was not designed to write Old and Middle Dutch. The orthography was not standardized. Different scribes used different methods of representing the sounds of their language in writing. The spelling was generally phonetic, and words were written based on how they were spoken rather than based on underlying phonemes or morphology.
Until the 11th century, literature was mostly oral. The emergence of a rich literature written in Dutch goes along with the replacement of Old Dutch by Middle Dutch. Poetry and courtly romance were the most popular genres during the Middle Ages. The most famous works of the time such as the Alexander or Eneas romances, the Chronicle of Troya, the Arthurian legend, etc. were translated and/or adapted into Middle Dutch. From the end of 13th century, literature became more didactic and developed a national character, as it was written for the bourgeoisie. This was a response to political transformation. The towns began to prosper economically and politically. The new political balance was legitimized by the production of a new type of vernacular literature that communicated their values exclusively in Dutch, while the nobility and the court had strongly promoted the use of French in the 13th century. Around 1440, literary guilds called “rederijkerskamers” (Chambers of Rhetoric) arose which were usually middle-class in tone.
Most notable anonymous works
Van den vos Reynaerde (Of Reynaert the Fox) is the Middle Dutch version of the story of Reynard, as written by the so-called “Willem die Madoc maecte,” as indicated in the first line of the poem. The author introduces himself as the same Willem who had previously written a work called Madoc, but he could not be identified. The poem dates from around 1250. Willem based his story of Van den vos Reinaerde on the French epic poem Le Plaid, the first story of a larger collection of fox tales known as the Roman de Renard - written by Perrout de Saint Cloude in 1160. He freely adapted and developed the original source; his adaptation is considered the best of all the stories of that type. This Dutch version was even translated into Latin.
Most notable authors and their works
Hendrik van Veldeke (c. 1150-1184), born near Hasselt, in Limbourg (actual Belgium). is the first writer in the Low Countries known by name who wrote in a European language other than Latin. He was a poet and a Minnesinger.
Beatrice of Nazareth (1200–1268) was a Flemish Cistercian nun and the first known prose writer in the Dutch language. She was born in Tienen, in Brabant (actual Belgium).
Jakob van Maerlant (c. 1230/40-c. 1288/1300), born near Burges, Flanders (actual Belgium). initially worked as a sacristan in Maerlant, located on the island of Oostvoorne. Afterward, he moved to Damme, near Bruges, where he is believed to have served as the town clerk. Considered the father of the Dutch written literature, he wrote more than 230,000 verses. His most famous works are:
Melis Stoke (1235-1305), a monk of Egmond, probably borne in Zeeland. He wrote the history of the Countee of Holland until the year of his birth, 1305.
Jan van Boendale (1280-1351), born in Tervueren, Brabant (actual Belgium). Formerly sometimes known as “Jan De Klerk” (Jan the Clerk), he was a a town clerk in Antwerp closely connected with the Brabantine political urban elites.
Jan van Ruusbroec (1293/4–1381), a Brussel’s friar, is considered the “father of Dutch prose”. He was an Augustinian canon and one of the most important of the medieval mystics of the Low Countries. Among his most famous works, we can find:
Anna Bijns (c. 1494–1575), believed to have been born at Antwerp, was a schoolteacher at that city; later, she still instructed young people in the Catholic religion. Her works are said to mark the birth of Modern Dutch literature. Anna Bijns wrote refreinen (refrains), a specific form of poem that was popular with the rhetoricians of her time. Refrains deal with three themes: love (called 'het amoureuze'), wisdom (called 'het vroede') and the crazy or comical (called 'het zotte'). She spearheaded the counter-reformation movement in the Low Countries.
https://www.dbnl.org/auteurs/index.php
https://www.literatuurgeschiedenis.org/
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