Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Dirk Geirnaert

Museumstuk afgestoft: Antwerpse fragmenten van de Jourdein van Blaves

Abstract -- In 1845 the Antwerp librarian F.H. Mertens announced the discovery of some small manuscript fragments containing verses of an unidentified Middle Dutch text. His edition in the Belgisch Museum was never followed by further research. The fragments prove to be remnants of the Middle Dutch adaptation of the Old French romance Jourdain de Blaye (Jourdein van Blaves); the codex the fragments originally belonged to was probably the same as the one from which the already known Middle Dutch Jourdein-fragments originated.
We present a new edition of the Antwerp verses, in which we give them a place in the story of the Jourdain. Our research resulted in new insights concerning the Old French source text of the Middle Dutch Jourdein, insights that are also of relevance to the transmission history of the Old French Jourdain. Finally, a preserved transcription made by Mertens allows us to deduce some extra codicological information although the fragments themselves are lost now.

TNTL 124-2 (juni 2008), 96-105