TNTL 115

Veerle Fraeters

Vanden leeuwe wert hi lam. Alchemie en religie in de Middelnederlandse vertaling van Tabula chemica

Abstract -- Ms. Vienna, ÖNB 2372 (14th century) opens with a Middle Dutch translation of Tabula chemica, an alchemical treatise of great influence in the later Middle Ages. The Dutch translation is carried out in prose but also contains an appendix in verse, presumably written by a Dutch author intending to elaborate on the role and function of 'ferment' in the alchemical process. The epilogue contains an intriguing sentence -- 'the lion becomes the lamb' --, which can only be understood by referring not only to alchemical symbolism, but also to Christian images. The Dutch author of the epilogue is then an early representative of a new trend, which gained momentum in the late-medieval and renaissance alchemical tradition, of intertwining religious and alchemical imagery.

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