JAN VAN BOENDALE (ca. 1280–1351)
A Brabantine poet and a native of Tervuren, a small town
between Leuven and Brussels, Jan van Boendale spent
most of his working life as secretary to the aldermen
of the city of Antwerp. In this position he dealt with all
levels of society, an experience that affected his writing.
His oeuvre consists of some seven works, although some
of those texts cannot defi nitively be attributed to him.
Boendale wrote several versions of some of his works,
mainly updates of his historiography texts, which were
then dedicated to other patrons.
His fi rst work, the Brabantsche yeesten (Brabantine
Deeds), is a chronicle in coupled rhyme, dealing with
the history of the Brabantine ducal house in the period
from ca. 600 to ca. 1350. This chronicle is divided in
fi ve parts (“books”), of which the fi rst four describe the
history of Brabant before Boendale’s own lifetime, and
the fi fth is devoted to the three dukes contemporaneous
with him: Jan I (d. 1294), Jan II (d. 1312), and Jan III
(d. 1355). This voluminous work of some 16,000 lines
was not written in one effort; the fi rst version dates from
ca. 1316, the fi fth from 1347, and a sixth version may
have been written around 1351, each one providing an
updated version of the history of the duchy. This does
not imply that Boendale was completely original in
his chronicle. Large parts of his text were copied from
the Spiegel bistoriael (Mirror of History) by Jacob van
Maerlant—whom Boendale elsewhere called “the father
of all Dutch poets”—and the anonymous Chronica de
origine ducum Brabantiae (Chronicle of the Origins
of the Duchy of Brabant); only when writing about his
own lifetime is Boendale original.
After completing a second version of the Brabantsche
yeesten in 1318 he used the text in 1322 as the source
for a very short rhyme-chronicle, the so-called Korte
kroniek van Brabant (374 lines). He later wrote a second
version of this text too, in the years 1332–1333.
But between 1325–1330, he composed an extensive
didactic poem of more than 20,000 lines, called Der
leken spiegel (The Layman’s Mirror). In using this
title, Boendale explicitly addresses an audience of
non-readers (illiterati), offering them an encyclopedic
text, dealing with cosmology, the nature of human body
and soul, the history of the Old and New Testaments,
church history, devotional practice, etc. The poem is
structured according to the Heilsgeschichte (divine plan)
and divided into four books. Books one and two deal
with God’s Creation, the structure of the universe, and
the course of history; book three is concerned with the
present, and book four with the future. Der leken spiegel
contains the oldest poetical treatise in Dutch: in book
three, chapter fi fteen, Boendale presents, under the title
Hoe dichters dichten sullen ende wat si hantieren sullen
(How writers should write and what they should pay at-
tention to), his views on literature. This is not a treatise
on technical aspects of poetry, but a declaration by a
self-conscious author concerning the cultural responsi-
bilities inherent in authorship. Here, Boendale presents
his ideas on, among other topics, the prerequisites of
true authorship, the value of literary tradition, and the
relationship between genre and fi ctionality.
Between 1330–1334 Boendale wrote his Jans
teesteye (Jans testimony), a dialogue in some 4100 lines
of coupled rhyme. In this polemic-didactic dialogue
the participants are “Jan,” Boendale’s alter ego, and
“Wouter,” probably a fi ctitious person, playing the role
of the pupil. The topic of discussion is grosso modo, the
quality of life in their time. Jan takes a positive, but not
uncritical position; Wouter’s position is negative: he is
the “praiser of times past” (laudator temporis acti).
Shortly after 1340 Boendale wrote Van den derden
Eduwaert, describing in 2,018 lines the role of the Eng-
lish king Edward III (d. 1377) in continental European
politics. The poem was not only a tribute to this king,
whom Boendale probably had met in person; it was fi rst
and foremost a panegyric to Duke Jan III of Brabant, an
ally of the English king at the outbreak of the Hundred
Year’s War in 1337.
Boendale’s authorship of two poems is disputed.
The fi rst is the very short Hoemen ene stat regeren sal
(18 lines, before ca. 1350), a poem advising offi cials
on “how to rule a town.” The poem is known in several
versions, some written on the tie-beams of city halls,
including those in Brussels and Emmerich. The oldest
known version is incorporated in a manuscript of Der
leken spiegel (Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, manu-
script no. 15.658, fol. 122r).
The second disputed poem is called the Boec van
der wraken [The book of punishment (5,870 lines, ca.
1346)]. Reacting to the confl ict between Pope Clemens
VI and the German emperor Louis of Bavaria, in which
he chose the imperial side, Boendale has written a
pamphlet-like poem around the theme of God’s punish-
ment for human sinfulness, with strong eschatological
overtones. A second, updated version was written in
1351.
Typical of Boendale’s historiographic works is his
orientation on Brabantine history, apparent in the recur-
rent origo-motive (the tracing back of the origin of the
ducal house to the Trojans) and the reditus-motive (the
dukes of Brabant as the true inheritors of Charlemagne).
Boendale’s didactic perspective revolves around the
theme of the ghemeyn oirbaer (“the common good”),
which is the basis for his social criticism. Boendale
criticizes clergy, aristocracy, and commoners alike, but
evidently tends to identify himself with his urban envi-
ronment. This somewhat intermediate position shows
itself clearly in the dedications of his poems. Though
often explicitly intended for a broad audience of laymen,
many of the manuscripts contain dedications to membersJAN VAN BOENDALE