Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Willem Kuiper en Jos Biemans

Jourdein van Blaves
Editie van de bewaard gebleven fragmenten

Abstract -- This is the editio princeps of all extant manuscript fragments of the Middle Dutch adaptation of the eccentric 13th century chanson de geste Jourdain de Blaye. These fragments - four strips of parchment with some 440 verses - were part of the same 14th century codex, that - considering the language of the scribe - was copied in Veurne Ambacht, presently in West-Flanders, Belgium. The Dutch Jourdein van Blaves is an adaptation, not a translation. It is striking that except for the names of the protagonists all other characters got different proper names. These names were not invented by the Dutch adaptor but borrowed from other French chansons de geste such as Galien le Restoré. This literary 'behaviour' is not unusual for the way medieval Dutch authors treated French chansons de geste: they seem to have been translated from memory. It is also possible that adaptations like Jourdein van Blaves were not ordered by an aristocratic mecenas but were free-lance productions made for a larger public of citizens, who were willing to pay for (listening to) an exciting story.

TNTL 120-3 (september 2004), 211-246