\[To be clear, I’m using ‘Flemish’ in the modern sense – i.e. the Dutch speaking part of Belgium or the Habsburg Netherlands.\]

The way the history of Flemish literature is usually being told, is like this:

* There were some important medieval texts.
* All the smart people moved to Holland after 1580, so nothing was written for 250 years.
* Hendrik Conscience reinvented Flemish literature in 1838 when he wrote “De leeuw van Vlaanderen”.

For instance, in the [50 essential works of Dutch literature](https://literairecanon.be/nl/werken), we get a bunch of medieval texts (mostly Flemish) until 1544. Then we get five books that were all written in Holland, between 1617 and 1658. Then there’s a 150 year gap until 1838.

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While I don’t doubt that literary production decreased in this period, surely it didn’t completely disappear?

So far, I’ve only managed to find two notable authors:

* [Michiel de Swaen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Swaen) was a playwright from Duinkerke who wrote several notable works in the late 17th and early 18th century. He’s the only notable ‘rederijker’ from his era that I’ve been able to find. While these organisations were still very active in the 17th and 18th century, the vast majority of original works comes from the 15th and 16th century.
* [Karel Broeckaert](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Broeckaert) is an author from Ghent whose only notable work is ‘Jellen en Mietje’ (1811).

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Does anyone know any names that can be added to this very short list?

by Flilix

1 comment

  1. So it’s important to disentangle the use of “Flemish” for this period, as what we know now as the Flemish region was completely meaningless at this time, both politically and linguistically. The “Dutch speaking part” (which is a heavy anachronism) of the Habsburg Netherlands roughly corresponded to Brabant and Flanders, Limburg was part of the Principality of Liège.

    In Flanders and Brabant, it was mostly Antwerp that dominated printed literature as most printing presses were there. After the fall of Antwerp, and with the advent of the Dutch golden age, this was completely outshadowed by Hollandic printing presses. So naively you would think that Limburg/Loon was unaffected, and this true to a certain extent, but especially the end of the 80 years’ war physically wiped out a lot of the commercial literature produced in cities like Maastricht/Liège/Hasselt, apart from manuscripts that were kept in religious places. Then there’s also the general thing that Brabant/Flanders/Loon were largely Catholic, and weren’t really interested as much in the “vulgar language” (i.e. the language of common people) and mostly printed and wrote in Latin or French. In Holland, protestants were generally much more keen on printing in the local language (to counter the Catholic church’s use of Latin and as an evangelization strategy). Due to the massive influence of Hollandic prints, the Hollandic spelling conventions slowly started reaching printers in Brabant/Flanders/Limburg and printers started picking up this spelling, even though it didn’t really work for their native languages. To a certain extent, High German spelling was even used in Limburg for a while, due to the influence of printers in Cologne.

    So it’s not like literature died out at all. This misconception mostly comes from the large disparity between available “Dutch” vs. “Belgian” literature and the fact that the “integrationists” (who wanted Belgium to completely adapt the Hollandic language and remove our own indigenous languages) like to tell the story of Belgium entering a linguistic dark age, until the Flemish Movement saved the day and “purified” our filthy Frenchified dialects in favor of Civilized Dutch. I don’t have time to give you a very extensive list, but here’s a starting point for more literature:

    [Brabant (1) 1550-1700](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?c=17&prov=vbr)

    [Brabant (2) 1550-1700](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?c=17&prov=ant)

    [Brabant (3) 1550-1700: although this is only Nijvel](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?prov=wbr)

    [Flanders (1) 1550-1700](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?c=17&prov=wvl)

    [Flanders (2) 1550-1700](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?c=17&prov=ovl)

    [Limburg (1) 1550-1700](https://www.dbnl.org/atlas/plaatsen.php?c=17&prov=lib)

    I have left out all regions that don’t correspond to the current Flemish region, like Maastricht, Dutch-Limburg and the Limburgish-speaking towns in Liège for Limburg, French-Flanders for Flanders and North-Brabant for Brabant. There’s a shit ton more literature that’s not digitized and sits to rot in local archives and libraries.

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