Cet article, en FR

By Karel Vereycken, April 2025

Summary

• Introduction
• Early literacy (box)
• The Chambers of Rhetoric
• Rehabilitation
• Jousts, competitions and other festivals
• Landjuweel
• Political and economic context
• Ghent, 1539
• The influence of Erasmus
• De Violieren and the Guild of Saint Luke
• Antwerp, 1561
• Organization of the Landjuweel
• Philosophy
• A memorable day
• Peace and art, united for celebration
• Censorship, repression and revolt in the Burgundian Low Countries

Introduction

For foreigners it’s not always easy to accept that the countries of Northern Europe represented a peak of Renaissance culture in the XVIth century. However, those day’s Landjuweel (literally « jewel of the country ») poetry contests, mass-events with parades of allegorical floats, fireworks, drama, poetic recitations, farces, dances, refrains, songs and gastronomic feasts which thrilled the « Burgundian Low Countries » (a region including the present-day Netherlands, Belgium and northern France) should clearly become a source of inspiration for today.

Huge is my joy at discovering these treasures, but vast is my anger when I measure to what extent their true history was ignored and even hidden from all of us.

We focus here on the moral greatness of the zinne-spelen (allegorical drama’s) and intend to discuss the farces and the polyphonic musical contributions in some future writings.

Of course, as it is well known, it is the victors who write history. Not that of humanity, but their own. The history of the « losers » falls by the wayside. Therefore, in the Low Countries, be it Belgium or the Netherlands, the official churches, be they Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist, and ruling elites, chosen by Spain and the British, have carefully erased from the books the truth about the revolutionary role and impact of Erasmus. ¹

As we document here, Erasmus succeded, through his noble spirit and delicious wit, to mobilize quite a large following, not only in educated layers of the European elites, but in a broad part of the rising middle-class working people, a social layer which might resemble today’s « Yellow Vests ».

For modern people, of course, the religious processions, parades of giants, and masked carnivals of Venice, Rio de Janeiro, or Dunkirk in France appear as sympathetic as mere folkloric manifestations on UNESCO’s list of the intangible cultural heritage of France and Belgium. Appealing, no doubt, but without any connection to « true culture »!

Qualifying these events and traditions as « folkloric » results mostly from a lack of knowledge and understanding of real history. Regarding both the intent and the content of some of these festivals, such as the « Landjuweel » of Ghent in 1539 and the one in Antwerp in 1561, with five thousand participants and many more spectators, placing art, poetry and music as the true source of durable peace and harmony among nations, states and peoples, in terms of refinement and beauty, it can be said that they rival, and I would even say surpass many supposedly « cultural » events of today.

Precociously high literacy rates

There’s a persistent idea that needs to be fought, i.e. the belief that before the XIXth century, the century of Hippolyte Carnot and Jules Ferry, the literacy rate barely exceeded 15%, whether in Renaissance Italy, France, or the Nordic countries. Cultural festivals for scholars could therefore be nothing other than events organized by a small elite with substantial means looking to indulge themselves…

Regarding the literacy rate, researchers believe the figures need to be revised. The absence of statistics does not necessarily mean the absence of schools. In fact, from the time of Charlemagne onward, most villages, towns, and villages in Europe had « small schools. » And with urbanization and the increase in trade, the learning of languages and arithmetic came to complement the learning of reading and writing.

Let us take the case of the city Douai (Today’s northern France, but formerly the Low Countries), which Alain Derville mentions in his article The Literacy of the People at the End of the Middle Ages, published in 1984 in Revue du Nord ²:

« Around 1204-1208 there were at least 7 schoolmasters in Douai in the jurisdiction of Saint-Pierre, therefore not counting that of Saint-Amé, and the school fees were unknown (…) A fee of 18 deniers is cited in 1316-1318; it had risen in 1450 to 4 sous (of Flanders). At that date 5 masters and one mistress refused to pay it, saying, among other things, that many schoolchildren were poor, so much so that, sometimes, they were educated for free: a precious admission. In short, according to B. Delmaire, the case of Douai should rather be compared to that of Valenciennes: for this town, P. Pierrard found at least 20 masters in 1337, 49 masters and mistresses in 1388, 18 masters and 10 mistresses running 24 schools in 1497. In 1386, 516 children were in school, including 145 girls, in 1497, 791, including 161 girls.

In a town which, after the misfortunes of 1477-1493, must have had 10,000 inhabitants rather than 15,000, the children aged 7 to 10 must have been 12 to 1300, that is to say that, if the school lasted three years, the boys would have been educated at 100%, the girls at 25%, at least around 1500. (…) The interest of the laity was therefore very keen for the education of children, at least primary but also, as in Saint-Omer, secondary and even higher (foundations in the XIVth century of colleges and scholarships), and this from the beginning of the XIIIth, as [the Belgian historian Henri] Pirenne had clearly seen. We certainly did not wait until the XVIIth century to ‘invest in education’ « . ³

It was the same in Brabant and Flanders. As proof, a small conversation book, the Boec van de ambachten (Book of Trades), published in Bruges in 1347, with the help of which one could, with pedagogical examples, learn Dutch or French. ⁴

In 2013, an international team of researchers of the Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) documented that the advanced degree of literacy and educated workforce at the end of the XVth and XVIth Century has to be attributed to the influence of the Brothers of the Common Life. ⁵

In 1567, the Florentine merchant Francesco Guicciardini, in his very comprehensive description of the region, noted that « Here, in the Burgundian Low Countries, learned people have lived and still live, highly educated in all sciences and arts. The common people generally possess rudiments of grammar, the country people at least know how to read and write. Their knowledge of languages is astonishing. For there are people here who have never set foot anywhere but their own country and who know, in addition to their mother tongue, foreign languages, especially French, which is in common use. Many of them also speak German, English, Italian and other foreign languages. » ⁶

Another source reports that in Antwerp, a major crossroads of world trade, language schools were plentiful. If you want to learn French, he told his interlocutor, go to Antwerp, you’ll find what you need to learn the language there. ⁷

Another indication of Antwerp’s high cultural level is the account of Andreas Franciscanus, most likely secretary of a diplomatic mission from Venice, who wrote in 1497 that in Antwerp, where the cathedral has a carillon of 49 bells, « everyone is keen on music, and is so expert that even bells are played harmoniously and with such a full sound that they seem to sing (…) all the desired tunes. » ⁸

Desiderius Erasmus himself stated that “Nowhere else does one find a greater number of people of average education.” ⁹

Also, “Spanish visitors … noted the widespread literacy in the Low Countries. One of Prince Philip’s entourage, Vicente Alvarez, noted in his journal that ‘almost everyone’ knew how to read and write, even women …” ¹⁰

The Chambers of Rhetoric

At the origin of these poetry festivals and competitions of the Landjuweel type, literary and drama societies called Kamers van rhetorike (Chambers of Rhetoric) which emerged from the end of the XIVth century in the northwest of France and in the former Low Countries, above all in the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant.

While in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries these chambers became literary clubs for a bourgeoisie enjoying exercises in eloquence and rhyme, in these early days rhetorical culture was not socially an elite culture, as most rhetoricians were tradespeople and did not belong to the ruling elite of their city.

Recent research has confirmed that the rhetorical chambers of Flanders and Brabant primarily recruited their members from the urban middle classes, more specifically from the circles of artisans (masons, joiners, carpenters, dyers, printers, painters, etc.), merchants, clerks, practitioners of intellectual professions, and merchants. ¹¹

In 1530, among the 42 members of the Brussels Chamber of De Corenbloem, there were 32 craftsmen (butchers, brewers, millers, carpenters, tile layers, comb makers, fishermen, coachbuilders, stonemasons, etc. = 76.2%). ¹²

In the artistic professions, there was a glazier and two painters (7.1%), in commerce, a fruit seller, an innkeeper, a skipper and a rag seller (9.5%). The remaining members were a civil servant, a harp-player and an announcer.

For the period 1400-1650, records were found of 227 Dutch-speaking chambers of rhetoric in the Southern Low Countries and the Principality of Liège, meaning that virtually every town had at least one. In 1561, the Duchy of Brabant had about 40 recognized chambers of rhetoric, while the County of Flanders had 125. ¹³

Their organization was similar to that of the corporations: at the head of each chamber was the dean, usually a clergyman (the chambers retained a religious aspect). Since their creation, the chambers were of two kinds: the free (vrye), enjoying a communal grant, and the subject (onvrye or vrywillige), having no grant, but reporting to a supreme chamber (hoofdkamer). Among the rhetoricians were the founders (ouders), and the members (broeders or gezellen); at the head of all were an emperor, a prince, often a hereditary prince (opperprins or erfprins); then came an honorary president (hoofdman), a grand dean, a dean, an auditor (fiscael), a standard-bearer (vaendraeger or Alpherus), and a boy (knaep), who sometimes dabbled in poetry.

The most important of all were the « factors » or « factors », that is to say the poets who were in charge of the « factie » (composition), poems, plays, farces and the organization of festivities. Initially in the bosom of the ecclesiastics, the Chambers took their independence and established themselves, in practical terms, as a « Festival Committee », charged by the municipal authorities with brightening up with poetry and splendor the joyous entries and cultural events throughout the year.

Rehabilitation

Further research, primarily in the Netherlands, has led scholars to « rehabilitate » the Chambers of Rhetoric, now considered of having been institutions that played a major role in the development of vernacular Dutch during the period 1450-1620. ¹⁴

Admittedly, mostly composed as dialogues among allegorical figures, a legacy of the Middle Ages and the troubadour tradition, artistically speaking, with some exceptions, most of these plays never reached the level or quality of dramatic intensity or refinement of Shakespeare or Schiller.

But as we shall see, the desire and intent to emancipate the people through a form of literary and musical art that uplifts by its moral content and liberates through ironical « cathartic » laughter was clearly central to their admirable objectives.

Jeroen Vandommele suggests that experts should rethink their views:

« Until the end of the XXth century, the poetry and theater that emerged from these circles were mostly perceived negatively. Rhetoricians were seen as amateurs, low-level word artists, novice craftsmen who met weekly to entertain themselves with rhymes while drinking a lot of alcohol. They were seen as representatives of a second-rate literary and intellectual culture. Sixteenth-century humanism and the literary renaissance would have been manifested mainly in (neo)Latin texts and, as far as the vernacular is concerned, in texts written from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, mainly outside the rhetorician circles. It is only in the last three decades that these qualifications and visions have been distanced from the literature and culture of the rhetoricians and an attempt has been made to give them meaning in relation to the urban context in which they emerged. » ¹⁵

The respected Dutch historian Herman Pleij, who has contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon and gave a major boost to this approach by demonstrating, from the 1970s onwards, the potential of XVth- and XVIth-century literature to generate what he calls « late medieval urban culture, » a true expression of an autonomous civic and urban culture. ¹⁶

According to him, their works were intended to unleash a « civilizing offensive » that would encourage the urban elite and middle classes to develop intellectually and morally and to distinguish (and dissociate) themselves from their less civilized urban counterparts.

Jousts, competitions and other festivals

The Chambers cultivated the art of poetry by competing against each other in competitions that were among the major events they organized for themselves or for the public. Each chamber itself set the frequency of the competitions and the value of the prizes, often quite symbolic, that could be won. While for some chambers, four competitions per year were enough, for the Antwerp chamber, De Violieren, it was a weekly competition!

Very quickly, these activities gave rise to public festivities, celebrated successively in all the major cities. The Landjuweel skillfully combined several genres of theatrical and musical dramaturgy, which had previously been separate, into a single large city festival:

• The “Mystery Plays » and « Miracle Plays » (Mirakel-spelen, passie-spelen) street theater or large tableaux vivants, sometimes on floats (wagen-spelen). The Mystère de la Passion by Arnoul de Gréban, performed thousands of times throughout France, was a play of 34,000 verses requiring 394 actors reenacting the last five days of the life of Christ.
• The « Feast of Fools » or « Feast of the Innocents », masquerades and disguises organized by « joyous societies » in which the clergy had actively participated since the XIIth century. We were then witnessing a total reversal of society: the woman became the boy, the child the bishop, the teacher the student, … The pope was elected, the bishop of fools, the abbot of fools, old shoes were burned in censers, people danced in churches while mumbling Latin in such a way as to trigger many fits of laughter. People danced and sang, accompanied for this by musicians who played wind instruments (flute, trumpet or bagpipes) or string instruments (hurdy-gurdy, harp, lute). It was not uncommon to find serious confusion reigning within convents: nocturnal relations between the abbot of fools and the minor abbesses or even mock weddings between a bishop and a superior. For the Feast of Fools, the lower clergy disguised themselves, wore hideous masks and smeared themselves with soot. The costume and attributes of fools became established in the XVth century. Popes, councils and various authorities published texts aimed at suppressing the said festival from the XIIth century onwards.
• The Ommegang (literally « going around » the church and the city) were religious processions, organized by the church and the crossbowmen’s guilds in honor of the saints whose statues were carried on their shoulders. If in Brussels, the Ommegang became an opportunity for nobles to exhibit themselves in the city (as in 1549 to show their loyalty to the Spanish occupier), in Antwerp, two Ommegangs followed one another: the first, religious, at Pentecost, the second, on the feast of the Assumption, with a strong secular participation of the guilds, trades and chambers of rhetoric, each of them contributing a float to a procession in the streets of the city.
• Carnival, the new name given by the Church to the « Saturnalia, » the great eight-day Roman festivities in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture and time, during the winter solstice. This period of costumed celebrations and freedoms, particularly in Venice, which developed between the XIth and XIIIth centuries, was supervised by the Church, which considered it necessary to avoid popular revolts. It featured a reversal of roles and the election of a false king. Slaves were then free to speak and act as they wished and were served by their masters. The festivities were accompanied by large meals.

The Rhetoricians rightly believed that these genres complemented each other perfectly. The festivals therefore alternated, without losing the hierarchy of the depth of the meaning that one wanted to convey, both pieces with spiritual and religious content (mysteries, passions) and pieces with philosophical, didactic and moralizing content (zinne-spelen), without forgetting satire, farce and other humorous things (sotties, esbattements, etc.).

Historically, the stage where such events took place moved from the nave of churches, first to the forecourt of cathedrals and finally to the public space in the wider sense, first in the open air (in the Great Square, in the cemetery, on a chariot) before being forced by the authorities to occur exclusively in closed halls.

Among the competitions organized by the Chambers of Rhetoric, the oldest known was that of Brussels in 1394. The one in Oudenaarde, which took place in 1413, is better documented. These were followed by those of Furnes in 1419, Dunkirk in 1426, Bruges in 1427 and 1441, Mechelen in 1427 and Damme in 1431.

Landjuweel

The Landjuwelen were originally a cycle of seven competitions between communal militias practicing their skills in the use of weapons: the Schutterijen of the Duchy of Brabant. The highest luminaries of the country attended such shootings; they were even honored by sovereigns.

The idea was to organize a Landjuweel every three years. The winner of the first competition would organize the next competition and so on; the winners of the seventh Landjuweel would start a new cycle. The winner of the first tournament, having obtained a silver cup, would make two silver dishes for the winner of the second Landjuweel in a cycle, and the latter would in turn make three for the winner of the next competition, and so on until the seventh tournament in the cycle.

There was close cooperation between the knightly societies of the cities of Bruges and Lille in Flanders, as well as between Bruges and Brussels. Like Bruges, Lille organized an annual tournament, « L’Espinette. »

Every February, a delegation from Bruges came to Lille to compete in the tournament, just as the inhabitants of Lille participated in the annual competition of the White Bear in Bruges, which took place in May. This spectacle gave rise to festivities to which the poets of Bruges also contributed. They wrote the scenarios for the esbattements, recited praises, and reported on these activities in their chronicles.

There were no quarrels about differences of languages. Prizes were established to reward works in either French or Dutch, depending on the lingua franca of the city where the competition was held. But sometimes, at the same competition, a prize was awarded for works in both languages. This was notably the case in Ghent in 1439. Prizes were also awarded for the most beautiful entry.

Themes in the form of questions were suggested, which only authorized chambers could answer in verse. These questions were resolved by the « factors » and generally had a moral or political purpose. Thus, in 1431, in the midst of the wars between France and Flanders allied to Britain, the Chamber of Rhetoric of Arras, formerly a city named Atrecht in the Burgundian Low Countries, posed the question « Why is peace, so eagerly desired, so slow in coming »? Note that in 1435, the Peace of Arras, organized by the friends of Nicolas Cusanus, Jacques Coeur and Yolande d’Aragon, sealed the end of the Hundred Years’ War. ¹⁷

Political and economic context

Through alliances and marriages, the Burgundian Low Countries fell under the control of the Habsburg family, who were completely at the mercy of the famous Augsburg bank, the evil Fuggers, known as the fathers of « financial fascism ». ¹⁸

Hence, when Maximilian I, of the Habsburg family and Holy Roman Emperor, died in 1519, he owed Jacob Fugger approximately 350,000 florins. To prevent default on this investment, Fugger assembled a cartel of bankers to gather all the necessary bribe money to enable Maximilian’s grandson, Charles V, to buy the vote and succeed him to the throne. Thus, Jacob Fugger, in direct liaison with Margaret of Austria, who joined the project because of her fears for peace in Europe, centrally gathered the money to bribe each Elector, taking advantage of the opportunity to dramatically strengthen his monopolistic positions, particularly over competitors such as the Welsers and the rapidly expanding port of Antwerp. ¹⁹

Charles V, in the 1520s, had to borrow at 18% and even 49% between 1553 and 1556. To maintain the enormous expenditures to oversee his vast Empire, Charles V had no choice but to pursue a predatory policy. He sold his mines to appease the bankers, gave them carte blanche to colonize the New World, and consented to the pillaging of the most prosperous region of his Empire, Flanders and Brabant, which were subject to taxes and tithes to pay for the « war economy. » ²⁰

The rather spectacular rise of the Northern Renaissance, which gained access, thanks to the learning of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, notably thanks to the Three Language College founded by Erasmus in Louvain in 1515 ²¹, to science and all the wealth of the classical period, was to collide head-on with the battering rams of feudal finance which had become an ogre.

Charles V ordered that a list of authors to be proscribed be drawn up in his states, thus foreshadowing the establishment of the Index a few years later. From 1520 to 1550, he promulgated thirteen repressive edicts against heresy, introducing a modern inquisition based on the Spanish model.

The application of these « placards » remained rather weak until the arrival of Philip II due to the lukewarm attitude of Queen Regent Mary of Hungary (1505-1558) and local elites towards them. Their application was entrusted to the urban and provincial judicial authorities, as well as to the Grand Council of Mechelen, with the supervision of a specific tribunal, established in 1522 in the Burgundian Low Countries based on the model of the Spanish Inquisition.

In 1540, the Jesuit order was founded, initially tasked with obtaining by word what could not be obtained by the sword. It quickly turned to the use of theater! From 1545 to 1563, the Council of Trent met to impose reforms and seek to eradicate Protestant heresy. Reading the Bible was now forbidden to ordinary mortals, as was discussing and illustrating it. Albrecht Dürer, the great German engraver and geometer based in Antwerp, packed his bags in 1521 to return to Nuremberg, and Erasmus went into exile in Basel the same year. The great Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator, educated by the Erasmians and suspected of heresy, was imprisoned in 1544. Released from prison, he went into exile in Germany in 1552. Because of their religious beliefs, Jan and Cornelis, the two sons of Quinten Matsys ²², left Antwerp and went into exile in 1544.

Charles V abdicated in 1555 to leave his place to his son Philip II. The latter returned to Spain and entrusted the regency of the Burgundian Low Countries to his half-sister Margaret of Parma (1522-1586).

While the administration of the Burgundian Low Countries was officially carried out through the Council of State, composed of the stadholders and the high nobility, a secret council (the consulta) created by Philip II and composed of Charles de Berlaymont (1510-1578), Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1582) and Viglius van Aytta (1507-1577) was responsible for making the most important decisions, particularly concerning taxation, order, administration and religion, and thus transformed the Council of State into a simple consultative chamber.

Three disputes quickly arose: the presence of Spanish troops in the Seventeen Provinces, the establishment of new dioceses in the Burgundian Low Countries, and the fight against Protestantism. Spanish troops remaining from the Italian Wars, approximately 3,000 strong, were not paid and were pillaging the country. After much hesitation by Philip II, and under threat of the simultaneous resignation of Orange and Egmont, the troops finally left in January 1561.

The first victims of persecution in Europe were Antwerp’s Hendrik Vos and Jan Van Essen, two augustinian monks who had become friends of Luther, executed in Brussels on July 1, 1523. ²³ The first Walloon victim was the Tournai theologian Jean Castellain, executed in Vic, Lorraine, on January 12, 1525. ²⁴

Many victims were Catholic clergy who had converted to the Reformation, but also many women. From 1529, the persecutions took a dramatic turn following the adoption of the imperial placard generalizing the death penalty. 40% of executions for heresy in the West between 1523 and 1565 occurred in the Burgundian Low Countries. The 17 Provinces were one of the regions that suffered the highest rate of death sentences relative to its entire population. Approximately 1,500 people were executed, an intensity thirty times higher than in France. ²⁵

They will only strengthen the opposition to the tyranny which will lead in 1576 William of Orange (known as « The Silent ») to take the lead in the revolt of the Burgundian Low Countries, ending 80 years later with the split between the north (the Netherlands, predominantly Protestant) and the south (Belgium, exclusively Catholic).

Ghent, 1539

In June 1539, the De Fonteine (The Fountain) Chamber of Ghent summoned the dramatic and literary societies of the country to a great landjuweel in honor of the Holy Trinity, for which Emperor Charles V granted permission and a month’s safe conduct to those wishing to participate.

An invitation charter was published on this subject. It posed, for the morality play, a question thus formulated: « What is the greatest consolation of the dying man? »

This subject clearly echoes one of Erasmus‘s popular writings, quickly translated into Dutch in the year of its publication in 1534, De preparatione ad Mortem. ²⁶

Nineteen rhetorician societies responded to the call: these were chambers established in Antwerp, Oudenaarde, Axel, Bergues, Bruges, Brussels, Courtrai, Deinze, Enghien, Kaprijke, Leffinge, Lo (in the Furnes Trade), Menin, Messines, Neuve-Église, Nieuwpoort, Tielt, Tirlemont, and Ypres.

The chamber known as « De Violieren » from Antwerp won first prize. Pieter Huys de Bergues won second prize, consisting of three silver vases weighing seven marks on which the entrance to an academy was engraved. His poem comprises about five hundred verses in Dutch, and it features five allegorical figures under the names of Benevolence, Observance of the Laws, the Consoled Heart, Consolation, and the Contrite Heart. Each of them lists the goods in which man finds happiness at the hour of death. For De Violieren, the greatest consolation was « the resurrection of the body, » a purely Catholic dogma.

But that was without counting on the « off » part of the competition. Because the three other questions, to be answered in chorus, were:

• « Which animal in the world gains the most strength? »
• « Which nation in the world shows the most madness? »
• « Would I be relieved if I could talk to him? »

As a result, the majority of allegorical plays performed were bloody satires against the Pope, monks, indulgences, pilgrimages, Cardinal Granvelle, etc. The compositions of the Ghent laureates were published first in quarto format, then in duodecimo.

From the moment they appeared, these plays were banned, and it was not without reason that, later, this landjuweel was cited as the first to have stirred the literary country in favor of the Protestant Reformation. These works being far from favorable to the Spanish regime, the Duke of Alba ordered their suppression by the Index of 1571 and, later, the government of the Burgundian Low Countries even banned theatrical performances of the Chambers of Rhetoric.

The influence of Erasmus

In Antwerp, Erasmus‘s influence was notable, and his presence was sought after. Well-known was his friendship to the city’s secretary Pieter Gilles ²⁷, an Antwerp erudite humanist dearly appreciated by Thomas More ²⁸ who integrated Gillis poems in his opus majus, Utopia. To please More, Pieter Gillis and Erasmus got their portraits done by Quinten Matsys²⁹ to whom they offered their double portrait. Gillis house in Antwerp was also a regular meeting point for all the leading humanists of that time.

Between 1523 and 1584, 21 publishers published no fewer than 47 editions of the humanist’s works, and the rhetorician Cornelis Crul, before 1550, translated the Colloquies and other major works into Dutch.

Most rhetoricians mastered Latin and could therefore read Erasmus in the original. Some Latin schools, as documented in the case of Gouda for the year 1521³⁰, included selected writings for each grade in their curriculum. The humanist’s prestige spread throughout Europe.

Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539), the very bibliophile son of Christopher Columbus, not only acquired a vast series of his works, but also traveled to Louvain in October 1520 to meet their author. ³¹

In a letter dated 1521, Hieronymus Aleander (1480-1542), the legate of Pope Leo X, warned of « elements having bad reputation » who were thriving in Antwerp. They presented themselves « as the defenders of good literature and were all from the school of our friend who became a great name [Erasmus]. » Aleander added that « He [Erasmus] has spoiled all of Flanders! » ³²

De Violieren and the Guild of Saint Luke

Also in Antwerp, the Chamber of Rhetoric, De Violieren (The Gillyflowers), founded around 1442, was created in 1480 within the Guild of Saint Luke, the artists’ guild.

The rhetoricians’ motto was « Uyt ionsten versaemt » (United by affection. But « ionsten » is also close to « consten », the Flemish word for arts).

This symbiosis produced fruitful results. For most historians, De Violieren were, in a way, the literary branch of the Guild of Saint Luke.

The latter was composed of all trades related to the fine arts, including painters, sculptors, illuminators, engravers, and printers.

• In 1491, Erasmus’s friend, the painter Quinten Matsys ³³, was listed as a master. One of his major commissions, the Triptych of the Lamentation of Christ, came from the carpenters’ guild. According to the Antwerp chief city archivist Van den Branden, Matsys himself was a member of De Violieren and wrote poems for their contests.
• In 1515, Matsys was joined in the Guild of Saint Luke by two other great artists equally inspired by the spirit of Erasmus, Joachim Patinir (1480-1524) and Gerard David (1460-1523).
• In 1519, the guild registers (The Liggeren ³⁴) mention the registration of Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1500-1566), whose daughter Catharina (1528-1565) would become the first female painter in 1548 – and teacher of painting to men – to be admitted to the painters’ guild;
• In 1527, that of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), Bruegel’s master;
• in 1531, those of Matsys’s two children, Jan and Cornelis;
• in 1540, that of Peter Baltens (1527-1584);
• in 1545, that of the engraver and printer Hieronymous Cock (1510-1570) whose workshop produced prints of Bruegel and Dutch revolutionary poet and translator Dirk Coornhert (1522-1590), close friend and collaborator of William the Silent (1533-1583);
• in 1550, that of the great printer Christophe Plantin (1520-1589);
• and in 1551, that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569). ³⁵

The daily exchanges between the rhetoricians and the most important artists of the day had a beneficial influence on their activities and, after a few years, made them one of the most successful societies in Brabant.

In the most important competitions, De Violieren won laurels: first prize in 1493 in Brussels, in 1515 in Mechelen and in 1539 in Ghent, in a memorable fight in which 19 chambers from different regions of the country participated.

In August 1541, a competition was held in Diest, organized by the local Chamber De Lelie in which ten other chambers from Brabant participated. The grand prize was awarded to the Antwerp Chamber, De Violieren, for the presentation of an esbattement (farce).

Antwerp, 1561

As was customary, the Chamber that won the best prize was in turn to organize a Landjuweel. This was also the opinion of De Violieren, after his feat in Diest; however, the circumstances of the time meant that the subject was postponed. 20 years passed before anyone could think of organizing such an artistic competition.

Three leaders of De Violieren, with great courage, will fully commit to the initiative, risking their reputation, honor, life and heritage:

• Anthonis van Stralen (1521-1568) was the leader of De Violieren. As a member of the Antwerp city council, Van Stralen had been closely involved in obtaining the patent. His appointment as city leader, two months before the first attempt at rapprochement with the Council of Brabant, must have been a strategic move on the part of De Violieren. In May 1561, he was promoted to mayor of Antwerp, perhaps as a reward for his services. The success of the Landjuweel was largely due to the cooperation between the Antwerp magistrate and De Violieren’s board.
  
• Melchior Schetz (c. 1513-1583) was the Prince of De Violieren. He was Van Stralen’s brother-in-law and also an alderman.
  
  He was one of the three children (Gaspard, Balthasar and Melchior) of the leading Antwerp merchant Erasmus Schetz (died in 1550), known as the « banker of Erasmus ». ³⁶ With his three sons, he set up a major banking and merchant firm. ³⁷ His friendship with Erasmus is symptomatic of the popularity Erasmus enjoyed in Antwerp. He provided him with his hospitable residence: the Huis van Aken, a palace where he had received Charles V himself. In a letter, he made him, among other things, this tempting proposition:
  
  « My heart and the souls of so many people long for your presence among us. I have often wondered what enchantment it was that kept you there rather than among us. Peter Gillis [city secretary and their mutual friend] gave me a reason: we do not have Burgundy wine, which best suits your temperament, do not fear this, and if this is the only obstacle holding you back, do not hesitate to come back; we will see to it that you are supplied with wine, and not only Burgundy wine, but also Persian and Indian wine if you desire and need it . »
  
  As Prince of De Violieren, his son Melchior represented the chamber most often publicly. He must also have been responsible for the financial organization of the Chamber. Schetz was one of the largest moneylenders in Antwerp. There is no doubt that the city financially facilitated the organization of the festival.
  
• Willem van Haecht (1530-1585) : Born into a family of painters and engravers, he was a draughtsman and, presumably, also a bookseller by profession. His motto was Behaegt Gods wille (translated as « conform to the will of God »). Van Haecht was a friend of the Brussels humanist and author Johan Baptista Houwaert (1533-1599). He compares Houwaert to Cicero in the introductory eulogy to Houwaert’s The Lusthof der Maechden, written by him and published in 1582 or 1583. In his eulogy, Van Haecht states that every sensible man should recognize that Houwaert writes with eloquence and excellence. Van Haecht wrote lyrics for various songs, usually of Christian inspiration. This is the case for the lyrics of a five-part polyphonic song, Ghelijc den dach hem baert, diet al verclaert, probably composed by Hubert Waelrant (1517-1595) for the overture to the play De Violieren at the landjuweel of 1561. The poem was also printed on a loose leaf with musical notation. As early as 1552, Van Haecht was affiliated with De Violieren, whose members included Cornelis Floris de Vriendt (1514-1575), the main architect of the Renaissance-style Town Hall in Antwerp, as well as painters Frans Floris de Vriendt (c. 1519-1570) and Maerten de Vos (1532-1603). Van Haecht became the « factor » (title poet) of De Violieren in 1558.

Other people involved in the organization of the Landjuweel included printers such as Jan de Laet (1524-1566) and renowned artists such as Hieronymus Cock (c. 1510-1570) (founder of the Aux Quatre Vents printing house which published Bruegel’s engravings) and Jacob Grimmer (1510-1590).

The other major figure was Peeter Baltens (1527-1584) ³⁸ an Antwerp painter, rhetorician, engraver and publisher. Baltens was a member of the Guild of Saint Luke and De Violieren. Having partly trained Bruegel, Baltens’ role proved particularly important.

He formed close friendships (notably with the widows of both Hieronymus Cock (c. 1510-1570) and Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), the latter also being Bruegel’s stepmother) and collaborated with the greatest names in Antwerp of his time.

He associated with Antwerp patricians such as Jonker Jan van der Noot (1539-1595), the wealthy Schetz merchant family, and wealthy merchants such as Nicolaes Jonghelinck (1517-1570), merchant banker and Bruegel’s financial backer.

According to Lode Goukens,

« Baltens was instrumental to the lobbying of a group of powerbrokers belonging to the moderate party. A moderate party that valued peace, harmony and good business more than religion, extremism or state terror. A party that wanted to return to a status quo from before the troubles. »³⁹

Herman Pleij notes that the Rhetoricians have as consignment to repolish the reputation of the Antwerp merchant by making the distinction between the honest ones and the sharks. ⁴⁰

Research into the relationships between painters, poets (or rederijkers), and merchants has shown that these three groups developed a common cultural lifestyle in the XVIth century, in which the love of science and art occupied a central place.

To launch a rhetoric competition, permission had to be obtained from the country’s government, which was no longer easily done at that time. This was a consequence of the Ghent competition of 1539, when the ideas of new doctrines against the institutions of the Catholic religion were presented and defended without the slightest qualm.

However, De Violieren and the elected representatives of Antwerp (Van Stralen and Schetz) were fiercely determined to be able to organize their Landjuweel. The man who did the most to delay obtaining authorization was the hated Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1582), Archbishop of Mechelen and advisor to Margaret of Parma (1522-1586), following the abdication of the Emperor, her brother Charles V, the regent of the Burgundian Low Countries.

Organization of the Landjuweel

In February 1561, the delegates of the city of Antwerp approached Granvelle with a petition to the regent, in which they argued that De Violieren, compared to the other Chambers, were statutorily obliged to organize a competition.

Granvelle hoped to torpedo the initiative, but realizing that a brutal rejection would have inflamed the opposition, he sought various pretexts to postpone the event indefinitely. He politely made it clear to the delegates that he wished to postpone such an event for a while longer, using the pretext that, thanks to the peace agreement between France and the Habsburgs, the war had just been suspended, and that such festivals represented significant expenses, while the country could not or would not bear the costs. This did little to deter the people of Antwerp. They replied that the previous year, permission had been granted to the Chamber of Vilvoorde and that a postponement could not reasonably be imagined. Sensing that they would only renounce it with immense disgust, Granvelle reluctantly agreed to present their request to Marguerite, while asserting that the government had given itself the right to levy taxes on all those who came to the competition.

Fearing above all that the festival would become a sounding board for all those criticizing the Spanish occupation and the abuses of the Church, Granvelle also summoned them to inform the participating chambers that they would not intervene in their plays, their esbattements or their poems with a single word against religion, the clergy or the government, otherwise they would not only lose the prize they might have won, but would also be punished and deprived of their privileges and rights; and that the Chamber of Antwerp should ensure that the city was well guarded during the festivities and that no disturbances could arise.

Margaret of Parma, often at odds with Madrid, was less fearful and more open.

After consulting the report provided by the Council of Brabant, which was well aware that too much repression encouraged protest, she placed the apostille on March 22, 1561, inviting the Chancellor of the Duchy to provide Antwerp with the sealed letters required to organize the Landjuweel.

These letters were issued the same day in the name of the king and granted safe conduct from fourteen days before the start until fourteen days after the end of the Landjuweel to all those who wished to attend, with the exception of

« all murderers, thieves and other criminals, as well as declared enemies of the king, rebels and those banned from the Holy Roman Empire. »⁴¹

The Antwerp Chamber submitted 24 themes as potential topics for the Landjuweel competition (seen below). Among those, Margaret of Parma approved three topics among which the Chamber was free to pick one. ⁴²

• Does experience or learning bring more wisdom? »
• « What most leads man towards the arts? »
• « Why does a rich and greedy man desire more wealth? »

Philosophy

To show how much our rhetoricians, under the direction of Van Straelen and Schertz, dealt with philosophical and political questions of all kinds, here are the whole of the twenty-four subjects which they had submitted ⁴³:

1. What made Rome triumph?
2. What caused Rome to decline the most?
3. Is it experience or knowledge that brings more wisdom?
4. What can lead man most towards Art?
5. What feeds art?
6. Why is man so desirous of temporal things?
7. What shortens the days of men?
8. What lengthens the days of men?
9. Why is average wealth the most happiness in the world?
10. What is the greatest prosperity in this world ?
11. What is the biggest setback in this world?
12. How is it that all things are consumed every day?
13. If a miserly man can be discouraged?
14. Why does a rich miser desires even more wealth?
15. Why does wealth not extinguish greed?
16. Why is amusement followed by displeasure?
17. Why does lust breed remorse?
18. Why does lust bring its own punishment?
19. How did the Romans achieve such a great prosperity?
20. What sort of government kept the Romans prosperous ?
21. What art is most necessary for a city?
22. What can bring the world more rest [peace] ?
23. What most drives people to worldly pride?
24. What would be the best way to eradicate usery?

At first glance, one could say that by choosing the question « What can lead man most towards Art? »⁴⁴, Van Stralen and Schetz choose the least « political » subject. This is to misunderstand Erasmus and Platonic thought for whom beauty and goodness form a unity and for whom any government that does not promote beauty, neglects it or worse still, despises it, condemns itself to failure! In practice, poets starting from this higher principle, ended blasting, without explicitly naming them, all the criminals and warmongereres of those days.

Moreover, Willem van Haecht, the « factor » (official poet) of De Violieren, in the play he composed especially for the Landjuweel of Antwerp in 1561, would say that what led Empires to their decline was, as it still is today, their lack of esteem for the Arts, including obviously Rhetoric.

So, it was on this theme that the 5000 participants (!) of the Landjuweel, and beyond a large part of the country, began to reflect, to compose songs, dramas, refrains, allegories, rebuses, pintings and farces and presented them to thousands of fellow citizens.

Amazingly, two centuries before (!) Friedrich Schiller, the German poet that earned the name of « poet of freedom » and who inspired many revolutions at the end of the XVIIIth century, a humanist elite enlightened by Erasmus in the Low Countries led a substantial part of the country to rise up to the conditions of a durable peace by emancipating itself from serfdom and ignorance through moral beauty! The Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561 was much more than a feast, it was a shift of paradigm and a real game changer. Hats off!

After receiving permission, the Chamber of Rhetoric and the City Council immediately set about giving the great literary festival as much pomp as possible. A rhymed invitation card was drawn up, stating the subject of the competition and the prizes to be won.

On April 23, this invitation card was presented by Mayor Nicolaas Rockox, in the presence of Melchior Schetz and Anthonis van Stralen, at the Antwerp City Hall to four sworn messengers, who were instructed to convey it to all the Chambers of Rhetoric in Brabant and to invite them to the Landjuweel as well. These messengers traveled at the city’s expense and first went to Leuven, the oldest city in Brabant. Everywhere, the news of a Landjuweel in Antwerp was greeted with extraordinary joy, and the messengers were very generously received.

While in most cities of Brabant the rhetoricians were busy composing and teaching plays and poems, making triumphal chariots and painting coats of arms, in Antwerp they were not inactive.

De Violieren had beautiful new clothes made for its members, at the suggestion of Melchior Schetz, for the welcoming ceremony offered to the participants.

An elegant theatre stage was erected on Antwerp’s Grote Markt (Great Square), designed by Cornelis Floris. Coincidentally, it was installed on the exact spot where the Inquisition had been beheading « heretics. » The audience watched the performances standing, with the exception of the jury and high-ranking officials, for whom benches were provided.

There was excitement and liveliness everywhere; every citizen wanted to do their part to welcome the foreign guests with all possible pomp and wealth. The city council, for its part, had taken the necessary measures.

All residents of the streets where the rhetoricians were to pass were ordered to clear the streets and remove any scaffolding or obstacles that might hinder their passage.

Everyone was eagerly awaiting August 3rd, the day when the formal entry would take place and the Landjuweel games would begin.

A memorable day

August 3, 1561, is indeed a memorable day in the history of Antwerp. The city was dressed in its festive attire; on the facades of houses, flags, pennants, and festoons; in public places, graceful arches in the opulent Renaissance style.

It’s no secret that the people of Antwerp like to make a lot of money. But they also like to spend it lavishly! In that marvelous XVIth century, they took pleasure in displaying a splendor on such occasions that, so to speak, surpasses our imagination.

Everywhere there was joy and life. Many strangers passed through the streets; all, foreigners and locals alike, agreed to maintain the best possible order amidst this agitation and commotion. ⁴⁵

At 2:00 p.m., the « brothers » of De Violieren guild gathered to ride together to the Keizerspoort to meet the participating chambers. There were 65 of them, mounted on magnificently adorned horses, in their precious uniforms. These consisted of tabards of purple silk, striped with white satin or silver cloth, white doublets striped with red, white stockings and boots, and purple hats with red, white, and purple plumes.

At the Keizerspoort, the participating foreign chambers were solemnly received. There were 14 of them, and to the sound of bugles and the cheers of the crowd, they entered Antwerp, following the Huidevetterstraat, the Eiermarkt, and the Melkmarkt to the Grote Markt in front of the City Hall.

The procession was grandiose and impressive; nothing like it had ever been seen before in these parts. Without the Guild brothers on the chariots, the coat-of-arms bearers, the squires, the footmen, the trumpeters, the drummers, and other musicians on foot, the number of mounted rhetoricians from all the towns amounted to 1,393, that of the chariots to 23, and that of the other chariots to 197. ⁴⁶

After weeks of competition between the large and medium-sized towns during the Landjuweel, followed an additional week of « Hagespelen, » that is, the less lavish but less expensive competitions between the townships, villages, and municipalities. The formats were so varied that by the end of the month, not a single town, village, or municipality was without a prize.

And once back in their cities, all these cultural actors, actors, singers, poets, jokers, and comical fools, energized like never before by the encounter with an entire nation, reenacted at home the piece or play that had won them a prize. To the extent that each chamber that won a prize was obliged to organize a new competition, a true effect of cultural diffusion and contamination was infused into the country.

The joy and proudness was such that the Chamber of Vilvorde did a special performance for the opening of the newly built Brussels-Willebroek canal in octobre 1561. The project for a 28 km long canal, connecting Brussels to the Scheldt (and therefore to Antwerp and the Sea) had been discussed since 1415 but it was Mary of Hungary in 1550 who kickstarted its actual construction.

The splendid Landjuweel of Antwerp impressed the spectators, among them Richard Clough⁴⁷, the representative of the English financier Thomas Gresham. The merchant did not hide his admiration and was full of praise for the festivities, drawing a comparison with the entry of Philip II and Charles V into Antwerp in 1549.

He could only note that the organization of the Landjuweel was larger and the spectacle more impressive:

« the arrival of King Philip II in Antwerp, with the cost of all the rhetoricians gathered in their robes, is not comparable to what the city of Brussels has done. (…) I wish to God that some of our great and noble men of England had seen this, (…) and it would make them think that there are others like us, and thus foresee the time to come; for those who can do this, can do more. »⁴⁸

Peace and art, united for celebration

On Tuesday, August 5, two days after the grand reception of the participating chambers, the visiting rhetoricians, along with the rest of the spectators, were solemnly welcomed on the Grand Place in Antwerp.

De Violieren then offer a welcoming zinnespel (morality): Den Wellecomme (The Welcome), written by Willem van Haecht. At the heart of the play is the proclaimed peace of 1559, which made possible the organization of the Landjuweel, a national gathering symbolizing the renewed awakening of the Art of Rhetoric, for which peace was a necessary condition. The duchy had suffered greatly in the 1550s, but had slowly recovered after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). There was hope for better times. Literary reactions to the peace were therefore particularly optimistic. The dawn of a new golden age was on everyone’s mind.

The play features three flower nymphs—sisters—who together represent De Violieren. After years of war, the Chamber was given the opportunity to organize the Landjuweel. For this, the nymphs owe a great debt of gratitude to the people of Brabant. Despite the difficult times and growing divisions between the different social groups, the people remained united.

It is « Concordia, » the feeling of unity and solidarity, that now unites the defenders of the public good. Out of love for the art of rhetoric, everyone has come from far and wide to Antwerp to celebrate the Landjuweel together. According to the nymphs, it is high time that the character of Rethorica resumes her rightful place in society. Now that the war god Mars and the hated Discordia have been driven out, she alone can bring joy and peace to the country. Only the seed of rhetoric (« Rethorices saet ») can bear fruit of joy.

So the flowers set out in search of Rethorica. In other words: De Violieren primarily describes the Landjuweel as a festival of joy, organized by the Chambers of Rhetoric to strengthen the sense of community and bonds of friendship between the region’s cities.

Eventually, the nymphs find Rhetorica, asleep in the arms of a young girl (Antwerp), who has always protected her. While the goddesses of vengeance (« Erinniae ») ravaged the country for twenty years, rhetoric was always protected and cherished in Antwerp. Now it is time to awaken her from her long winter sleep. Once awakened, Rhetorica and the Landjuweel will mark the beginning of a period of prosperity, for Antwerp and for the world.

The play Den Wellecomme not only exudes an atmosphere of joy and euphoria, but also launches a few barbs at the oppressors. The Chambers retained a bitter aftertaste. In the preceding years, several rhetoricians had been struck by fate. The previous factor, the highly praised Jan van den Berghe (died in 1559) , had died of old age. In addition, two prominent members had fallen victim to religious persecution. The printers Frans Fraet (1505-1558) and Willem Touwaert Cassererie (c. 1478-1558) were condemned and executed in 1558, despite the vigorous protests of their guild, for printing and being found in possession of forbidden books (Dutch Bibles).

Antwerp was the Northern European centre of heterodox publishing in the first half of the sixteenth century. From Antwerp the books were shipped all over Europe. Alastair Duke, who studied the methods of the Inquisition in this period, has suggested that of four thousand books published in Europe between 1500 and 1540, half were printed in Antwerp ⁴⁹ almost half of those publications contained Protestant influences. ⁵⁰

These persecutions increased the central government’s distrust of the rhetoricians. These were not easy times for them. The art of rhetoric « doesn’t have many friends, » as Van Haecht puts it. ⁵¹ Although the Landjuweel was designed to celebrate peace and not to express discontent, the horror of the past war years and the resulting divisions were clearly palpable.

The meeting was to be held under the banner of friendship and solidarity – not without reason the motto of De Violieren. Referring to the miracle of Pentecost, the invitation card compares the Brabant rhetoricians to the apostles, who received the Holy Spirit by gathering together in unity, without disagreement or conflict. This motif was common among rhetoricians.

Already in the poems of Anthonis de Roovere (c. 1430-1482), the Ghent plays of 1539, and in Matthijs de Castelein ‘s Const van Rhetoriken (c. 1485-1550), the rhetorician’s inspiration is compared to the religious enthusiasm of the apostles at Pentecost. Rhetoricians saw their poetry as a gift from the Holy Spirit. This is strongly reminiscent of the discourse Erasmus presents in his Querella pacis (The Complaint for Peace, 1517). In this famous pamphlet for peace, the miracle of Pentecost is also used to emphasize the importance of unity and love in society. Only the Christian religion, according to Erasmus, had the strength to defend itself against tyranny and war. The well-being of the whole society has always taken priority over any form of personal interest.

An ‘invitation card’ was sent to all the chambers in Brabant, accompanied by a woodcut (probably also designed by Willem van Haecht). The print emphasizes the importance of rhetoric in achieving peace.

Rhetoric sits enthroned in the center, her attributes being a scroll and a lily, symbols respectively of the qualities of promoting knowledge and harmonizing the art of rhetoric. On either side of Rhetoric are Prudentia (left) and Inventio (right). Prudentia —Providence—is depicted holding a mirror (insight) and a serpent (prudence) in her hands. Inventio —Invention—has the attributes of a compass and a book. These two personifications refer to the qualities of careful design and erudition. Both personifications are intended to support Rhetoric. They stand on a raised step, on which grows the violet flower. Beneath the flower, the ox of the Guild of Saint Luke supports the coat of arms of the Antwerp painters’ guild. The personifications Pax, Charitas, and Ratio come to the left of the throne to pay homage to Rhetoric.

Divine light (Lux) illuminates them. On the right, Ira, Invidia, and Discordia are pursued into a burning depth (tenebrae). The darkness of the past thus gives way to an illuminated future in which rhetoric reigns. In contrast to the text on the invitation card, here the art of rhetoric ensures peace. There was thus a constant interaction between rhetoric and peace.

In De Violieren’s « invitation » and welcome piece, peace created the conditions in which rhetoric could flourish. In the woodcut, it is precisely the art of rhetoric that drives anger, envy, and discord into the darkness, making use of its qualities of insight and invention. Its divine light creates the conditions in which peace, love, and reason can flourish.

The three positive allegories on the left of the Rhetoric are deliberately contrasted with the three figures on its right. Ratio is placed against Ira, Charitas against Invidia, and Pax against Discordia. In his design, Van Haecht chose discord (Discordia) rather than war (Bellum) as the opposite of peace (Pax).

The concept of peace was deeply rooted in the urban community’s value system. In this discourse, peace, along with justice, order, and community spirit, constituted one of the pillars of internal social cohesion. Peace protected the city from the outside world and maintained balance between the different urban segments, particularly through the exercise of cohesion and solidarity. Moreover, peace, both spiritual and material, brought well-being and prosperity. But this could only be achieved if all urban groups worked together in unison.

Discord, whether between guilds, between sections of the urban patriciate, between rich and poor, or between religious factions, posed the greatest threat to internal peace and was to be avoided above all else. ⁵²

The urban discourse on peace followed the idea that God had created the world as a harmonious, orderly, and perfect whole. Discordia personified the breakdown of this creation, of the relationship between God and man, and that between man and nature.

Discord also disrupted the balance between city dwellers, between city and countryside, and between the prince and his subjects. Furthermore, it caused unrest in the human spirit. This concept implied an individual loss of self-control and reason.

Vandommele writes that according to them,

« Every human being is made up of the union of body and soul, which are only in balance when all parts work together harmoniously. Rhetoricians believed their poetry could contribute to this. » ⁵³

Along with music, poetry was, in their eyes, of celestial origin. Both used the theory of harmony to reflect the order of the cosmos and were also used to communicate with God. Moreover, the word « discord » in the literature of the rhetoricians also refers to a lack of harmony in verse and rhyme, an unforgivable offense in poetry.

For all these reasons, discord was considered the main cause of unhappiness. It had to be banished to the depths of hell at all costs. Rhetoricians, thanks to their mastery of poetry and rhetoric, were the ones who could achieve this. They assumed the role of guardians of the peace, responsible for urban sociability.

The Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561, a gigantic cultural mass event recalling the noblest human qualities that unite the good and the beautiful, was a true « cry of the people, » somewhat similar to what France would later experience with the Fête de la Fédération⁵⁴ before the French Revolution.

At the Landjuweel, enlightened artisans and artists called on the governments of the world to renounce usury, plunder, and war and to organize a lasting peace based on the harmony of mutually beneficial interests.

Censorship, repression and revolt

From 1521, decrees repressed the reading and possession of forbidden books, both Lutheran writings and Bibles. In 1525, the Antwerp judiciary warned printers and booksellers. From 1528, Rhetoricians were required to have their works validated before any production or publication. In 1533, the reform gained ground. Not a day went by without a satirical joust against the clergy. Five rhetoricians from Amsterdam were sentenced to make a pilgrimage to Rome at their own expense. In 1536, a printer who had violated the regulations was beheaded at Antwerp’s Grote Markt. Without a prior permit, the Chambers of Rhetoric could no longer present plays in public. This didn’t prevent the Landjuweel in Ghent in 1939, where freedom prevailed. On October 6 of the same year, the Chancellor of Brabant wrote to the Regent that the sale of the printed collection of plays could have very serious consequences. Consequently, the collection was placed on the index of prohibited books.

A decree also stipulated that it was henceforth forbidden to make references to the Holy Scriptures and the sacraments. The ban on the sale of the collections provoked a counter-reaction and attracted many readers. These works were reprinted three times, the last edition being in 1564, two years before the outbreak of the Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury).

In 1566, the paintings and sculptures in churches and monasteries, relics, and everything associated with the cult of images, were broken and destroyed by the Calvinists, the most radical branch of the Protestants. Immediately suspected of being responsible for this destruction: the erasmian spirited Chambers of Rhetoric!

With the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the Burgundian Low Countries in 1567, the relatively tolerant religious climate was replaced by persecution of those who no longer adhered to the Catholic faith.

Anthonis van Stralen, the masthead of De Violieren, and as we have seen, one of the main organizers of the Antwerp Landjuweel, and a personal friend of William the Silent, went into exile in Germany. But on September 9, on the orders of the Duke of Alva, he got intercepted by Count Lodron between Antwerp and Lier. On September 25 he was transferred to the Brussels Treurenberg prison. In February 1568, he was transferred to Vilvoorde Castle to appear before the new Council of Troubles.

After being tortured, his property was confiscated, and he was sentenced to death by the sword. The sentence was carried out at Vilvoorde Castle on September 24, 1568. ⁵⁵

This decision sparked great indignation in Antwerp. Many important merchants and citizens left the city permanently.

The plays of the Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561, including those by Willem Van Haecht, which exuded the spirit of Erasmus, were banned. Their performance on 21 June 1565, which was well received by the public, is said to have made the clergy grind their teeth, according to Godevaert van Haecht, a close relative of the author.

Van Haecht fled to Aachen, and then to the northern Burgundian Low Countries. His poem Hoe salich zijn die landen, written for De Violieren, was set to music by Jacob Florius and was included in the Geuzenliedboek, a collection of songs by those who revolted against Spanish rule in the Burgundian Low Countries.

Then broke out the Spanish Fury, a number of violent sackings of cities (Mechelen, Antwerp, Naarden, etc.) of the Burgundian Low Countries. The main cause was Philip II’s delay in paying soldiers and mercenaries. Spain had just declared bankruptcy. The bankers refused to carry out the transactions demanded of them by the King of Spain until they had found a compromise. For example, the transfer of troops’ wages from Spain could not be carried out by bill of exchange (the 16th century equivalent of a postal order). The Spanish government therefore had to transfer the real money by sea – a much more costly, slow and perilous operation. Unfortunately for Philip, 400,000 florins intended to pay the troops were seized by the English government of Elizabeth I when ships containing the florins were sheltered from a storm in English ports. ⁵⁶

The most notorious Spanish Fury was the three-day long sack and burning of Antwerp in November 1576. At least 7,000 lives and a great deal of property were lost. The deaths were assessed at 17,000 by an English writer who was a witness.

Soon after, under the leadership of the great Erasmian William the Silent, supported by the Chambers of Rhetoric, the entire nation rose up against oppression and in favor of a Republic.

The Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (translated as the Act of Abjuration), signed on July 26, 1581, is considered the « declaration of independence » of many of the provinces of the Low Countries who considered that the King had betrayed his obligations towards his own people.

It was written by the Antwerp lawmaker and Registrar Jan van Asseliers (1530-1587), a close friend of Melchior Schetz and other key organizers of the Antwerp 1561 Landjuweel. ⁵⁷ It was printed in Leyden by Charles Silvius, the son of Willem Silvius (1521-1580) ⁵⁸ , the Antwerp humanist that printed and published the full proceedings of the same Landjuweel. ⁵⁹

It was only after 80 years of war (1568-1648), at the Treaty of Westphalia, that the Republic of the Netherlands was recognized, leaving the south under Habsburg control.

Educated citizens went into exile. Between 150,000 and 200,000 refugees settled in the United Provinces and Germany. Cities such as Frankfurt, Hamburg, London and Amsterdam owed their prosperity to the arrival of refugees from the Southern Low Countries. After 1581, the Spanish authorities made no attempt to prevent these departures, which were in line with their desire to empty the country of its Protestant inhabitants. ⁶⁰

Selected biography

(chronological order)

• CLOUGH, Richard, Brief over het Landjuweel van 1561, DBNL;
• SILVIUS, Willem, Spelen van sinne vol scoone moralisacien uutleggingen ende bediedenissen op alle loeflijcke consten … Ghespeelt … binnen der stadt van Andtwerpen op dLant-juweel … den derden dach augusti … M.D.LXI., Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, Antwerpen, 1562;
• CAPPELLE, Johannes Pieter van, Anthonis van Stralen. National Library of the Netherlands (original from the University of Amsterdam), 1827;
• GRAPHEUS, Abraham, STRALEN, Anthonis van, EVEN, Edward van, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, Eene verhandeling Over Dezen Beroemden Wedstrijd Tusschen De Rederijkerskamers van Braband, Bewerkt naar Eventijdige Oorkonden En Versierd met 35 platen, naar tekeningen van Frans Floris en andere meesters, CJ Fontayn, Leuven, 1861;
• SCHILLER, Friedrich, Histoire de la révolte qui détacha les Pays-Bas de la domination espagnole ; traduction française, par Adolphe Regnier, Hachette, 1883;
• CLAES, Henri, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, De Vlaamsche Kunstbode, 1890;
• ROOSES, Max, De feesten van het Landjuweel in 1892, De Vlaamse School, Nieuwe Reeks, jaargang 5, 1892;
• COSEMANS, Dr. A. , Antoon Van Stralen, Burgemeester van Antwerpen; Commissaris der Staten-Generaal bij den aanvang der regeering van Philips II (1521-1568), Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde, 1933;
• RANKE, Bert, Rederijkers in de Branding , Uitgeverij AJG Strengholt, Amsterdam, 1942;
• STEENBERGEN, Dr. G. Jo, Het Landjuweel van de rederijkers, Davidsfonds, Leuven, 1950;
• MULS, Josef, Erasmus en Quinten Matsijs, Standaard Boekhandel, 1953;
• GELDER, Dr. H. A. Enno van, Erasmus, schilders en rederijkers, P. Noordhoff N.V., Groningen, 1959;
• ISRAEL, N., De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, Amsterdam, 1961;
• KRUYSKAMP, Dr. C. , Het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, De Nederlandse Boekhandel, Antwerpen, 1962;
• DEGROOTE, Dr. Gilbert, In Erasmus’ Lichtkring, Koninklijke Nederlandse Maatschappij, 1962;
• DEGROOTE, Dr. Gilbert, ‘Zotheid’ bij Erasmus en rederijkers, Dietse Warande en Belfort, 1974;
• VOET, Léon, De gouden eeuw van Antwerpen, Mercatorfonds, Antwerp, 1976;
• GIBSON, Walter S. , Artists and Rederijkers in the Age of Bruegel, The Art Bulletin, 63/3, 1981;
• DERVILLE, Alain, L’alphabétisation du peuple à la fin du Moyen Age, La Revue du Nord, 1984;
• ISACKER, Karel van, UYTEVEN, Raymond van, Antwerpen, twaalf eeuwen geschiedenis en culture, Mercatorfonds, Mercatorfonds, Antwerpen, 1986;
• GODIN, André. Érasme et son banquier. In: Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, tome 34 N°4, pp. 529-552, Octobre-décembre 1987;
• HÜSKEN, Wim, ‘Elck om het costelycxte’: het Antwerps Landjuweel van 1561, Queeste, 1995;
• STOUTEN, Hanna, GOEDGEBUURE, Jaap, VERBIJ-SCHILLINGS, Jeanne, Histoire de la littérature néerlandaise (Pays-Bas et Flandres), Fayard, Paris, 1999;
• VANDEN BRANDEN, Jean-Pierre, Erasme, sur les traces d’un humaniste, Editions Labor, Bruxelles, 2000.
• PLEIJ, Herman, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400-1560, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007;
• PLEIJ, Herman, De eeuw van de zotheid. Over de nar als maatschappelijke houvast in de vroegmoderne tijd, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007;
• BRUAENE, Anne-Laure van, Om beters wille Rederijkerskamers en de stedelijke cultuur in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (1400-1650), Amsterdam University Press, 2008;
• Open Universiteit Nederland, Orientatiecursus cultuurwetenschappen, Van Bourgondische Nederlanden tot Republiek, Deel 2, 2009;
• VANDOMMELE, Jeroen, Als in een spiegel, Vrede, kennis en gemeenschap op het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum, 2011;
• CHRISTMAN, Victoria, The Coverture of Widowhood: Heterodox Female Publishers in Antwerp, 1530-1580. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2011;
• DIXHOORN, Arjan van, Monumentalizering van een festival. Het Antwerpse landjuweel van 1561 als historische gebeurtenis. Jaarboek de Fonteine (2011-2012), 15-42. ;
• PUTTEVILS, Jeroen, The Ascent of Merchants from the Southern Low Countries, From Antwerp to Europe 1480-1585, Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor in History, Faculty of Arts, History Department, University of Antwerp, 2012 ;
• REMCO, Sleiderink, De schandaleuze spelen van 1559 en de leden van De Corenbloem. Het socioprofessionele, literaire en religieuze profiel van de Brusselse rederijkerskamer, Belgian Review of Philology and History, volume 92, fascic. 3, 2014. Modern languages and literatures, pp. 847-875;
• MEGANCK, Tine Luk, Pieter Bruegel The Elder, Fall of the Rebel Angels, Art, Knowledge and Politics on the Eve of the Dutch Revolt, SilvanaEditoriale, Milano, 2014;
• LAMPO, Jan, Blog over literatuur, geschiedenis en Antwerpen;
• GOUKENS, Lode, Peeter Baltens, een “grafisch diplomaat” tijdens de troebelen (Antwerpen 1572-1584), VUB, 2018;
• NIJENHUIS, Andreas, Les Pays-Bas au prisme des Réformes (1500-1650), L’Europe en conflits, p. 101-136, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019;
• BRUAENE, Anne-Laure van, A Counterfeit Community. Rederijkers, Festive Culture and Print in Renaissance Antwerp, Antwerp in the Renaissance, Brepols, 2020.
• SOLY, Hugo, Capital at Work in Antwerp’s Golden Age, Studies in European Urban History (SEUH)(1100-1800), Volume 55, Ghent University, Brepols, 2021;
• PYE, Mychael, Europe’s Babylon: The Rise and Fall of Antwerp’s Golden Age, Pegasus Books, 2021.

NOTES:

1. Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus folly saved our civilization, Schiller Institute; ↩︎
2. Alain Derville, L’alphabétisation du peuple à la fin du Moyen Age, La Revue du Nord, 1984. ↩︎
3. Alain Derville, Op. cit. ↩︎
4. Hanna Stouten, Jaap Goedgebuure, Jeanne Verbij-Schillings, History of Dutch Literature (Netherlands and Flanders), Fayard, Paris, 1999. ↩︎
5. İ. Semih Akçomak, Dinand Webbink, Bas ter Weel, Why Did the Netherlands Develop so Early? The Legacy of the Brethren of the Common Life, IZA DP No. 7167, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2013; ↩︎
6. Open Universiteit Nederland, Orientatiecursus cultuurwetenschappen, Van Bourgondische Nederlanden tot Republiek, Deel 2, 2009. ↩︎
7. Mychael Pye, The Babylon of Europe, Editions Nevetica, Brussels, 2024. ↩︎
8. Mychael Pye, Op. cit. ↩︎
9. Cipolla, C., Literacy and Development in the West, Penguin Books: London, 1969, p. 47 ↩︎
10. Parker, G., The Dutch Revolt, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY., notes of Philip’s visit to the Low Countries in 1549, 1977, p. 21. ↩︎
11. Jeroen Vandommele, Als in een spiegel, Vrede, kennis en gemeenschap op het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum, 2011. ↩︎
12. Sleiderink Remco, De schandaleuze spelen van 1559 en de leden van De Corenbloem. Het socioprofessionele, literaire en religieuze profiel van de Brusselse rederijkerskamer, Belgian Review of Philology and History, volume 92, fascic. 3, 2014. Modern languages and literatures, pp. 847-875; ↩︎
13. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
14. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
15. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
16. Herman Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400-1560, Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007. ↩︎
17. Karel Vereycken, How Jacques Cœur put an end to the Hundred Years’ War, Artkarel.com, 2018; ↩︎
18. Karel Vereycken, Jacob Fugger « The Rich », father of financial fascism, Artkarel.com, 2024; ↩︎
19. Karel Vereycken, Fugger, Op. cit. ↩︎
20. Karel Vereycken, Fugger, Op. cit. ↩︎
21. Karel Vereycken, Erasmus Dream, the Leuven Three Language College, Artkarel, 2019; ↩︎
22. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the dawn of an age of laughter and creativity, Artkarel, 2024; ↩︎
23. Andreas Nijenhuis, Les Pays-Bas au prisme des Réformes (1500-1650), L’Europe en conflits, p. 101-136, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019. ↩︎
24. Pierre-Yves Charles, Chercheur invité à l’Université Libre d’Amsterdam, La Réformation des Réfugiés, site internet de l’Eglise protestante unie de Belgique; ↩︎
25. Pierre-Yves Charles, Op. cit. ; ↩︎
26. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, In Erasmus’ Lichtkring, Koninklijke Nederlandse Maatschappij, 1962. ↩︎
27. Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus folly saved our civilization, Schiller Institute; ↩︎
28. Karel Vereycken, Erasmus, Op. cit. ↩︎
29. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the Dawn of an Age of Laughter and Creativity, Artkarel, 2024. ↩︎
30. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
31. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
32. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
33. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the dawn of an age of laughter and creativity, Artkarel, 2024; ↩︎
34. N. Israel, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, Amsterdam, 1961; ↩︎
35. Tine Luk Meganck (Op. cit.) underscores that « Bruegel’s visual language is closely related to the poetic imaginary of the rhetoricians. Like the rhymesters, Bruegel often presented a serious message with a dash of mockery, as an inversion of the established order, as the world upside down. » ↩︎
36. Godin André. Érasme et son banquier. In: Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, tome 34 N°4, pp. 529-552, Octobre-décembre 1987. ↩︎
37. Hugo Soly, Capital at Work in Antwerp’s Golden Age, Studies in European Urban History (SEUH)(1100-1800), Volume 55, Ghent University, Brepols, 2021. ↩︎
38. Lode Goukens, Peeter Baltens, een “grafisch diplomaat” tijdens de troebelen (Antwerpen 1572-1584), VUB, 2018; ↩︎
39. Lode Goukens, Op. cit. ↩︎
40. Herman Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400-1560, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007; ↩︎
41. Dr. C. Kruyskamp, Het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, De Nederlandse Boekhandel, Antwerpen, 1962. ↩︎
42. Max Rooses, De feesten van het Landjuweel in 1892, De Vlaamse School, Nieuwe Reeks, jaargang 5, 1892; ↩︎
43. Henri Claes, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, De Vlaamsche Kunstbode, 1890; ↩︎
44. Arjan van Dixhoorn (Op. cit.), building on Vandommele, argues that the word « Art » (consten) refers here to the 7 liberal arts and mechanical arts and not the « higher » arts. That is unconvincing since the leitmotiv of the entire Landjuweel, as Vandommele himself keenly demonstrates, was that it was the harmony of poetry and music, a gift from heaven, that was the only viable basis for durable peace and concord. ↩︎
45. Abraham Grapheus, Anthonis van Stralen, Edward van Even, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, Eene verhandeling Over Dezen Beroemden Wedstrijd Tusschen De Rederijkerskamers van Braband, Bewerkt naar Eventijdige Oorkonden En Versierd met 35 platen, naar tekeningen van Frans Floris en andere meesters, CJ Fontayn, Leuven, 1861; ↩︎
46. Abraham Grapheus, Anthonis van Stralen, Edward van Even, Op. cit.; ↩︎
47. Richard Clough, Brief over het Landjuweel van 1561, DBNL; ↩︎
48. Richard Clough, Op. cit.; ↩︎
49. Alastair C. Duke, Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries, ed. Judith Pollmann and Andrew Spicer, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2009; ↩︎
50. Victoria Christman, The Coverture of Widowhood: Heterodox Female Publishers in Antwerp, 1530-1580. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2011; ↩︎
51. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
52. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
53. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
54. The Festival of the Federation (Fête de la Fédération) was a celebration that occurred on the Champ de Mars on 14 July 1790, the first anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille. With over 300,000 people in attendance, the event honored the achievements of the French Revolution (1789-99) and the unity of the French people. The festival itself was a monumental accomplishment, as tens of thousands of French citizens volunteered to labor in the mud and rain to build an amphitheater on the Champ de Mars with a colossal Altar of the Fatherland at its center. The event marked the birth of French patriotism, at least in the sense that such a term is understood today, and was the first celebration of 14 July, France’s national holiday, which is still annually celebrated. At the same time, the festival was the high watermark of unity during the French Revolution itself, since afterward the revolutionaries devolved into factionalism and politics based on terror. ↩︎
55. Johannes Pieter van Cappelle, Anthonis van Stralen. National Library of the Netherlands (original from the University of Amsterdam), 1827; ↩︎
56. Le sac d’Anvers, connu comme la Furie Espagnole, Gifex.com ; ↩︎
57. P. Génard, Jean van Asseliers, Biographie nationale de Belgique, Wikisource. ↩︎
58. Portail Biblissima, Willem Silvius (1521-1580). ↩︎
59. Willem Silvius, Spelen van sinne vol scoone moralisacien uutleggingen ende bediedenissen op alle loeflijcke consten … Ghespeelt … binnen der stadt van Andtwerpen op dLant-juweel … den derden dach augusti … M.D.LXI., Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, Antwerpen, 1562; ↩︎
60. Pierre-Yves Charles, Op. cit. ↩︎