The Paradoxical Reception of Crusading Literature in the Medieval Northern Low Countries
The purpose of this paper is to examine a double paradox. Despite active participation in the crusades in the Medieval Northern Low Countries (corresponding to the present-day Netherlands), there is a conspicuous absence of literature on the crusades or the military orders in the region, with only a few surviving manuscripts. Then suddenly, in the late fifteenth century, within a decade or so of each other, two new and quite substantial chronicles were produced: the Utrecht Chronicle of the Teutonic Order by Johan van Drongelen and the Liber Bellorum Dei by Theodericus Pauli. Out of the blue, it seemed, both authors had gained access to a wealth of European crusade literature.
This paper will draw on a variety of sources to provide a nuanced understanding of the circulation of crusade literature in the Northern Low Countries over a longer period. Particular attention will be paid to the international context of the apparent upsurge of interest in crusades at the end of the fifteenth century.
Rombert Stapel is a senior researcher at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. In 2017 he defended his dissertation on the historiography of the Teutonic Order at Leiden University with the highest distinction (cum laude). In early 2021 he published Medieval Authorship and Cultural Exchange in the Late Fifteenth Century: The Utrecht Chronicle of the Teutonic Order. A new edition and translation of this text appeared in September 2023 in the same Military Religious Orders series (Routledge). He is currently leading a project to reconstruct the population geography of the Medieval and Early Modern Netherlands using GIS and digitised historical censuses.
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