Title Affiliations Abstract "The Measure of Middle Dutch: Rhythm and Prosody Reconstruction for Middle Dutch Literature, A Data-Driven Approach." "Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "What does it mean when the rhythm of a literary text is called 'snappy' or 'fluid'? And what are the characteristics of literature that is 'easily engraved on one's mind'? The rhythmical qualities of literature are often described on an intuitive basis, while using vague terms. This is especially true for Middle Dutch literature. The many rhymed texts of our literary history's earliest stages frequently receive labels like these. However, it is often unclear what is actually meant by them. With this research, it is my ambition to provide the highly necessary scientific backing to these intuitive – and therefore potentially biased – statements. Contrary to previous research, I will make use of computational techniques to investigate the rhythmical qualities of Middle Dutch literature. Because these techniques are unprejudiced, subjectivity can be ruled out. As a result, we will achieve a precise and understandable notion of the rhythmicities of literary texts. For the first time ever, we will be able to pinpoint precisely the reasons for certain intuitive observations. Also, by not restricting ourselves to the analysis of individual texts, we will compare the rhythms present in different genres of literature. Without losing ourselves in a jungle of vague impressions, we will therefore be able to put our finger on, for example, the rhythmical differences between the famous texts 'Van den vos Reynaerde' and 'Karel ende Elegast'." "Constrained. A Comparative Study of the Influence of Form on the Material Transmission of Middle Dutch Literature." "Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "Recent international research increasingly focuses on the spread and survival of medieval literature. During the Middle Ages, the material transmission of texts depended entirely on the manual transcription of literature, granting texts a fluid character. This project will investigate which coping mechanisms helped to guarantee the sustainable exchange of information in textual cultures that are characterized by unstable transmission modes. An important aspect of the survival of literature that deserves further empirical research is the text form. To examine whether formal aspects can be labelled as 'constraints' that limit changes, the complete transmission of two short 13th-century Middle Dutch texts will be compared in a digitally supported way, namely: the Martijn trilogy of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant, and Dietsche Catoen, a translation of the Latin Distichs of Cato. The results will be controlled with a control corpus, namely Maerlant's voluminous Scolastica (1271). Because the texts differ significantly in terms of formal characteristics, this project wants to examine whether and which formal aspects of a text (such as rhyme and text structure) can be considered as 'coping mechanisms' in the transmission. It can be expected, for instance, that the Martijn trilogy, which is built according to complex rhyme schemes, shows less variation in the transmission than Dietsche Catoen, in which the only formal requirements are the four-line stanzas and the paired rhyme." "The end rhyme in Middle Dutch epic literature (ca. 1200-1500): development and relationship to authorship and genres." "Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC), Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS), Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "Nearly all of Middle Dutch narrative literature (ca. 1200-1500) was written in rhyming couplets, which is why rhyme words are extremely suitable for the comparative study of Middle Dutch epic texts and authors. My research specifically focuses on three aspects: (a) the evolution of rhyme in the vernacular epic poetry of the medieval Low Countries; (b) the usefulness of rhyme words for authorship verification and attribution; (c) the correlation between rhyme word vocabulary and epic subgenres. My methodology is mainly borrowed from literary stylistics, computational stylometry and computational language technology. As such, this project envisages a quantitative study into the stylistic creativity of Middle Dutch epic poets." "The end rhyme in Middle Dutch epic literature (ca. 1200-1500): development and relationship to authorship and genres." "Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC), Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS), Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "Nearly all of Middle Dutch narrative literature (ca. 1200-1500) was written in rhyming couplets, which is why rhyme words are extremely suitable for the comparative study of Middle Dutch epic texts and authors. My research specifically focuses on three aspects: (a) the evolution of rhyme in the vernacular epic poetry of the medieval Low Countries; (b) the usefulness of rhyme words for authorship verification and attribution; (c) the correlation between rhyme word vocabulary and epic subgenres. My methodology is mainly borrowed from literary stylistics, computational stylometry and computational language technology. As such, this project envisages a quantitative study into the stylistic creativity of Middle Dutch epic poets." "Glorification and/or Annihilation? The Status of Humanity in the Highest Union (""sonder differencie"") with God in Middle Dutch Mystical Literature" "Rob Faesen" "Research Unit of History of Church and Theology, Universiteit Antwerpen" "The proposed project will research the status of humanity in Middle Dutch mystical literature, and particularly regarding the theme of the ‘highest union’ with God. Concerning humanity, these texts contain a remarkable paradox with far-reaching consequences. A number of indicators appear to suggest that according to these mystical authors, humanity disappears in God in this ultimate union (cf. 'union without difference', 'mystical annihilation', …). On the contrary, other (‘humanist’) passages appear to imply an extremely high appreciation for what is most genuinely human. This project thus aims to analyse the underlying anthropology in these mystical texts, and especially in Ruusbroec, to explore whether these two dimensions are contradictory or whether they display an inherent consistency on a more fundamental level. From a cultural-historical perspective, this issue is of particular importance because at the end of the Middle Ages, mystical literature became either highly contested or highly influential in religious milieus. In the majority of cases, the status of autonomous humanity was the problematic issue at stake. The project therefore also researches Ruusbroec’s influence on two later works, namely the ""Spieghel der volcomenheit"" by Hendrik Herp and the anonymous ""Evangelische peerle"", both of which enjoyed influence across Europe in their own right." "Fear. An Emotive Script in Middle Dutch Chivalric Romance (1250-1350)." "Remco Sleiderink" "Utrecht University, Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "In today's society, we can observe a growing societal problem with the emotion 'fear' and a tendency of increased attention to emotions in general. Within academia, the 1980's paradigm shift towards a view on emotions as culturally contingent has sparked the 'affective turn' across the humanities, including literary historical studies. This project turns to the literary imagination in the medieval period, and seeks to examine how the emotion of fear is shaped within Middle Dutch chivalric romance (1250-1350). For this purpose, it will draw on the recently developed concept of 'emotive scripts.' This theoretical framework suggests that texts have an underlying script which functions as a literary blueprint for shaping emotionality, and which prescribes certain rules for emotional behaviour. To decipher the 'scripting' of fear, this project will focus on three aspects: (1) emotive staging and representations, (2) character-specific patterns, and (3) intra-textual social conceptions. Via cross-cultural comparisons, this project will investigate how the script of the Middle Dutch romances relates to that of other medieval literary traditions, but it will also investigate whether an overarching script emerges within the Middle Dutch tradition, or whether traces of divergence can be observed." "The Theme of Deification in the Middle Dutch Works of the Groenendaal Authors: Jan van Ruusbroec, Jan van Leeuwen, Willem Jordaens and Godfried Wevel. Was Groenendaal a 'Textual Community' or an 'Authorial Community of Practice'?" "John Arblaster" "Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Research centre Ruusbroec Institute" "In the 14th century, the community of Groenendaal, in the Sonian Forest near Brussels, was home not only to the much-studied mystical author Jan van Ruusbroec, but also to three understudied Middle Dutch mystical writers: Jan van Leeuwen, Willem Jordaens, and Godfried Wevel. It is thus a unique hotspot of Middle Dutch mystical literature. Surprisingly, however, the (inter)relationships between these authors' texts have never been thoroughly researched. Since it forms the central 'crux' in Ruusbroec's works, this project will investigate the case study of deification in the four mystical writers from Groenendaal. The results of this study will shed new light on the degree to which these authors formed a 'textual community', as writers whose ideas were shaped and expressed in a dependent, vertical relation to Ruusbroec's, or whether they were an 'authorial community of practice', an interrelated network of authors between whom horizontal learning occurred and who did not necessarily share consensus. On the basis of traditional philology and computer assisted research, the project will probe the relationships between all four authors to establish the degree to which their writings exhibit consensus and/or dissent. It will thereby respond to repeated calls in the secondary literature and break new ground in the study of the authors in question, the history of vernacular mystical literature in the Low Countries, and late medieval (religious) communities as 'authorial communities'." "Rerouting the 'ridderroman'. Adaptation Strategies in the Poetics of the 14th-Century Middle Dutch Ridderroman" "Youri Desplenter" "Department of Literary Studies" "The 14th-century is seen as a highlight for secular literature in large areas of Western Europe. In contrast, 14th-century Middle Dutch secular literature has been largely underexposed. Its main exponent, the verse romance or ridderroman, has consistently been depreciated by 19th- and 20th-century literary historians as derivative, a mixture of older romance motifs amplified into sometimes grotesque proportions: 'epic in decay'. Yet, this view mainly springs from 19th-century poetical notions fed by four centuries of printing history and romantic conceptions of originality. The idea that the 14th century is the end of Dutch romance evolution deviates from the international consensus on Western European romance, which sketches an evolution from the 12th to at least the 17th century. Until recently, for example, the survival of Dutch ridderromans in 15th- and 16th-century prose novels has not been adequately taken into account. To conceptualize the 14th-century ridderroman more accurately, we need to leave behind anachronistic poetical notions. Therefore, this study aims to construct a historically substantiated poetics of the 14th-century ridderroman in which adaptation strategies of amplification and amalgamation are given central focus. This will be done through an intra-textual analysis of the poetical markers and through a thorough review of the material and socio-cultural contexts of the corpus texts. The resulting, more representative conceptualization of the poetics of the corpus can then be contrasted with Middle Dutch and international romance evolution more accurately." "Vanden Twaelf dogheden: an exemplary study of the functions, distributuin and impact of Middle Dutch mustical writing" "Youri Desplenter" "Department of Literary Studies" "the proposed project wants to examine the function, distribution and carry-over of a 14th-century mustical treatise, vanden twaelf dogheden, and in broader sense the development and impact of medieval and early modern spiritual literature." "Frivolity in church. A study of the cultural transfer of French air de cour melodies into sacred songbooks in the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries." "Hubert Meeus" "Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)" "IIn the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries, religious songs were used for propaganda purposes by a Catholic Church that was trying to regain by all means the ground lost after the Council of Trent. Authors of seventeenth-century Southern Netherlands sacred songbooks wrote very often religious texts on existing popular profane songs, following the principle of 'contrafacture', i.e. writing new texts to existing, mainly profane tunes. It comes as no surprise that they drew their inspiration from popular Dutch songs, but almost every sacred songbook includes references to French songs as well, often in even more than a quarter of the songs. This observation raises questions on the importance of French songs and their popularity in the Southern Netherlands song culture.To study the role of 'contrafacture' in religious songbooks and mainly the importance and the function of French songs, we select ten representative sacred songbooks with at least a quarter of the songs composed on French airs de cour. This way we will compile a corpus of around 500 songs.By means of the Nederlandse Liederenbank (Dutch Song Database), i.e. a digital database of the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam which contains over 150,000 descriptions of songs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, as the latest research tool it constitutes a real breakthrough for the study of seventeenth-century songs – in combination with the databases of the Centre du Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) and the international database of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) we can now examine the relation between lyrics and melodies from thousands of songs and answer such questions as: is there a direct connection between sacred songwriters and French songs or did these songs show up in the religious environment through the profane repertoire? Did original French profane songbooks circulate in the Low Countries or did the melodies reach these regions via oral tradition? Which authors imported these songs? Did they, in turn, serve as an example for later generations? Did the latter still know these possibly foreign melodies or did they already rely on Dutch contrafacts? Did the French songs – once they had taken hold in these regions – go round under Dutch titles? To what extent Dutch sacred contrafacts are direct translations or do they include literary derivations from French texts? For how long did these intertextual relationships affect or in other words to what extent the authors seem to be aware of the tone and content of the French original? What audience these devotional songbooks were meant for? Did they particularly focus on a young elitist audience or were they trying to appeal to a larger audience? What was the function of songbooks in the Southern Netherlands song culture?With the answers to these questions we will gain insight into the functioning of the sacred songbook in the song culture of the Southern Low Countries and we will be able to fill a gap in both literary history and in music history of the Low Countries."