Brabantsche Yeesten
The Brabantsche Yeesten (or Gestes de Brabant) is a rhyming chronicle of some 46,000 verses written in the 14th and 15th centuries in the Middle Dutch language.
It is a history of the Duchy of Brabant. Author of the original five volumes is Jan van Boendale (c. 1280–c. 1351) of Antwerp; his text was later extended to seven volumes.
Van Boendale's text was written between c. 1318 and c. 1350 in commission for a member of the Antwerp patriciate; it extends to 16,318 verses. Boendale's main sources were the Chronica de origine ducum Brabantiae of 1294 and Spieghel Historiael of Jacob van Maerlant. Much of the text of the first three books are nearly taken from van Mearlant nearly verbatim. The events in book five are from Boendale's own lifetime. Books six and seven are anonymous; they extend the scope of the chronicled events to 1440. Book five is dated 1432 and book six is dated 1440; this latter date is also the approximate age of the oldest extant manuscripts of the text. There are seven extant manuscript copies. Two 15th-century mss. are held by the royal library in Brussels (mss. IV 684 and IV 685). The text was first edited by Jan Frans Willems and Jean Henri Bormans beginning in 1839.
Literature
- Jan Frans Willems: De Brabantsche Yeesten; 3 vols., Brussels 1839, 1843, 1869.
- Katell De Groote: Jan Van Boendaele, Brabantse Yeesten, XXIV. Scriptie voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Academiejaar: 2002-2003
External links
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