The literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations c.1050-c.1600
The project is investigating literary exchange and international relations during the period. A large-scale manuscript and early printed book exhibition North Sea Crossings will be held in the Weston Library of the University of Oxford, November 2021–April 2022. The exhibition catalogue of the same title will, however, be published in 2020 by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Preparation of a co-authored book is underway.
The project is a collaboration between Professor Ad Putter FBA, a specialist in medieval literatures and languages at the English department of the University of Bristol and Professor Elisabeth van Houts, a specialist in Medieval European History at Emmanuel College Cambridge. They are assisted by two post-doctoral research assistants, the chronicle specialist Dr Sjoerd Levelt (Faculty of English, University of Bristol) and the medieval Latinist Dr Moreed Arbabzadah (Pembroke College, Cambridge).
The project seeks to trace and understand the deep-rooted literary and cultural connections between England and the Low Countries in the Middle Ages and early Modern period. The earliest Dutch lines in verse Hebban olla vogala have survived as 1060s pen probes in an English manuscript from Rochester (image: Oxford Bodleian Library MS Bodley 340 fol. 169v), while William Caxton, bilingual in Dutch and English, printed the first English-language book The Receuyell of the Historyes of Troye, in Flanders. It was dedicated and presented to Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who resided in Ghent for most of 1473 and early 1474 (image: Oxford Bodleian Library Ms Douce 365 fol. 115r).
