The Van Hulthem Manuscript is a masterpiece of

medieval Dutch literature Middle Dutch literature (1150–1500) is the Dutch literature produced in the Low Countries from the 12th century to the 16th century. It is preceded by only a few fragmentary texts existing in Old Dutch, and it was succeeded by Dutch Renaissan ...

, probably compiled in the

Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...

. It contains over 200 stories from across the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

. The manuscript is named after its last private owner, Charles van Hulthem of

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

. It is in the collection of the

Royal Library of Belgium The Royal Library of Belgium (french: Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, abbreviated ''KBR'' and sometimes nicknamed in French or in Dutch) is the national library of Belgium. The library has a history t ...

.Karen Pratt, "The Dynamics of the Pyramus and Thisbe Story in its Manuscript Context", in ''The Dynamics of the Medieval Manuscript'', edited by Karen Pratt, Bart Besamusca, Matthias Meyer and Ad Putter (Göttingen, 2017), p. 270. This manuscript contains the only known versions of the famous '' abele spelen'' ("able plays"), some of the earliest secular drama surviving from medieval Europe.

References

External links

Volume 1
of a 1999 edition of the manuscript (online scans at the

Digital Library for Dutch Literature The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren or DBNL) is a website (showing the abbreviation as dbnl) about Dutch language and Dutch literature. It contains thousands of literary texts, second ...

). Middle Dutch literature Dutch-language manuscripts Medieval manuscripts Manuscripts in the Royal Library of Belgium {{manuscript-stub