Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture in the Early Renaissance, 1470–1650

© 2007 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Literature Compass 4/6 (2007): 1577–1596, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00497.x

Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture in the Early Renaissance, 1470–1650

Ben Parsons*University of Leicester

AbstractDuring the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Low Countries madea series of important contributions to English literature. Through such agents asthe printers of Antwerp and Amsterdam, and the movements of Dutch scholarsand Calvinist refugees, the Low Countries exerted a continuous impact on theliterary culture of England. This article examines the scope of Dutch influenceduring the English Renaissance, indicates some of its key effects, and provides anoverview of existing scholarship on the subject.

In his famous Survey of London (1598), John Stow pays a curious tributeto the Low Countries which typifies early modern English attitudes.1

Describing the course of the Thames, Stow notes that it ‘openethindifferently’ on ‘Flaunders, our mightiest neighbors, to whose doings weought to haue a bent eye, and speciall regarde’ (200). In these remarks aclear mix of kinship and suspicion is apparent. On the one hand there isdefinite respect, even a sense that England and the Netherlands areelements in a single system. On the other hand there is profound mistrust.It is true that many English writers tend to echo Stow’s fears more thanhis admiration. In several later texts the main image of the Dutch is oneof inhuman cruelty: Behn’s Oronooko (1688) presents them as anapocalyptic force, indiscriminately butchering the inhabitants of Surinam;in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) they are godless opportunists, profaningthe crucifix for the sake of a sale. The root of such depictions is easyenough to locate. England and the United Provinces were in conflict noless than three times between 1652 and 1674, and were fierce commercialand maritime rivals. Nonetheless these later attitudes mask the other sideof Stow’s comments, obscuring key links between English and Dutchculture during the Renaissance. As Leonard Forster and Tiemen de Vrieshave found, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was muchtraffic between the two cultures (Forster; de Vries 149–302). Books,people and ideas circulated between the two regions: in these transactionsEngland was more often the benefactor than the contributor. It is the

1578 Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/6 (2007): 1577–1596, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00497.xJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

purpose of the present article to survey some of these links, and lay baretheir impact on English literary culture, with reference to recentscholarship on the subject.

The late Middle Ages had seen England and the Low Countries forgepowerful ties. From the early twelfth century onwards the trade in woolbetween England and the cities of the Netherlands had been vital for theeconomies of both regions (Verhulst 137). Communities of Flemishmerchants had settled across the British Isles, not only in importantcentres such as London, Bristol and Norwich, but also as far afield asPembroke.2 The nobility of the two regions also developed importantconnections. A succession of English kings recognised the strategicimportance of the Low Countries, and sought to impress their influenceon the area. Edward I in particular aimed to control the provinces by bothpacific and aggressive means: in 1290 he married his daughter Margaretto the son of Duke John I of Brabant, while in 1294 he masterminded aplot to imprison Count Floris V of Holland, holding his young heircaptive in London (Blockmans). This policy was continued by several ofEdward’s successors. Edward III and Richard II courted the dukes ofGuelders as allies against France, Edward by marrying his sister to ReinaldII, Richard by lavishly entertaining William II (Nijsten 44–88).

Despite these tangible and manifold links, contemporary analysts havebeen unable to find much in the way of literary influence between thetwo cultures. Erik Kooper summarises the situation well:

curious as it may seem, neither the blood relations between the ruling familiesof Brabant and Holland on the one hand and the English dynasty on theother, nor the close political, financial and mercantile links between the LowCountries and England, nor the presence in England of large groups ofpredominantly Flemish merchants and of Englishmen in Flanders resulted inany substantial kind of cultural exchange during the period . . . least of all in thearea of literature. (3)

Such links that do exist tend to be mediated through French, such as thetraces of an Antwerp folktale found in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale, whichowe more to Jacques de Baisieux’s fabliau than any Dutch version (Bensonand Andersson 359). The popular religious movements which stimulatedvernacular composition in the Netherlands also had a negligible impact inEngland (see Mommaers and Dutton 39–71; Scheepsma 83–129). AsWalter Simons writes, while such groups as the beguines enjoyed areputation for devotion in England, attempts to establish similar communitiesthere only met with failure (18, 35). The paucity of Dutch influence onMiddle English literature is underscored by a recent collection of essayson the Netherlands and medieval England. While this finds startlingevidence of the scale of Dutch influence – for example, Vanessa Hardingestimates that by 1400 up to seventy-five percent of the ships arriving intoLondon came from the Low Countries, either directly or indirectly – little


Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture 1579

of it is literary. Music, tapestry-work and painting are amply represented,but the one literary link is entirely conjectural: Alexandra Johnstonproposes a faint connection between the York Corpus Christi plays andthe civic drama of Holland, Flanders and Brabant (‘Traders and Playmakers’).Kooper’s point is clearly valid. For all its breadth of contact with Englandduring the medieval period, the Low Countries had little impact onEnglish literature.

However, from the late fifteenth century this state of affairs begins tochange. The year 1470 marks an event which continues England’smedieval engagement with the Netherlands, as well as foreshadowingsomething of its next phase. It is the year of the Readeption, the briefperiod in which supporters of Henry VI managed to seize power fromEdward IV. During his exile Edward sought refuge in Bruges, under theprotection of Charles the Bold of Burgundy.3 This was made possible bythe long-standing practice of creating marriage ties with the major powersin the Low Countries, as Charles was husband to Edward’s sister Margaret.Although Edward’s exile lasted barely eight months, and had little effecton his policies once he returned to England, it does seem to have left oneimportant impression on the king.4 It stimulated his interest in manuscriptsfrom the Low Countries. Edward’s host during a large part of his exilewas Lodewijk de Gruuthuse, Charles’s conseiller chambellan and a prominentcitizen of Bruges. As Charles was reluctant to receive Edward personally,since this would give Louis XI of France a pretext for invading histerritories, Lodewijk hosted Edward in his own home (Cools 180–2).Gruuthuse was an exceptionally avid bibliophile: his vast collectionincluded over 200 texts contained in some 160 manuscripts, a librarysecond only to that of Philip the Good ( Janssens 10). As the work of ScotMcKendrick, Malcolm Vale and Arjo Vanderjagt has made clear, Edwardmust have been impressed by his host’s library, as he sought to imitate itafter returning to England (McKendrick, ‘Lodewijk van Gruuthuse’;History of Alexander the Great; Vale, ‘Manuscripts and Books’; Vanderjagt).In the decades following the Readeption, Edward commissioned aroundtwenty manuscripts from the workshops of Bruges and Ghent, manylavishly illustrated.5 Janet Backhouse points out that this move makesEdward the first English monarch to develop a deliberate ‘acquisitionspolicy’ for books: in effect his efforts laid the foundation for the ‘RoyalLibrary which was eventually to be presented to the nation by George IIin 1757’ (267). In several cases Edward’s choice of books exactly duplicatesthe contents of Gruuthuse’s library. Both collectors owned copies ofWilliam of Tyre and Froissart, for instance, while Edward even acquireda Josephus manuscript directly from Gruuthuse himself (see Dobratz; Krenand McKendrick 266–71). In sum, it has now been recognised that oneof the most significant English collections of texts in the early Renaissancedrew its model and its contents from the Netherlands. Nor was thisenthusiasm for Dutch books confined to Edward, as other English



collectors followed his lead. John Russell, chancellor under Edward’ssuccessor Richard III, and Richard Fitzjames, chaplain to Henry VII, arealso known to have purchased books from Bruges and Louvain (Armstrong).

Nevertheless, this activity did not result in the transmission of specificallyDutch literature to England. While Gruuthuse himself was an enthusiasticcollector of vernacular manuscripts, most notably the famous lyric-collectionknown as the Gruuthuse-liedboek, most of these purchases were made afterEdward had departed for England in 1471.6 By contrast, the king’scollection was entirely francophone, concentrating for the most part onchronicles and patristic literature. However, it does represent the firststages of a channel through which Dutch literature made its way intoEngland. It shows some level of recognition in England of the burgeoningbook-trade in the Netherlands, and even an appetite for Dutch books.

This appetite was only sharpened by the growth of the printingindustry in the Netherlands, especially at Antwerp, then part of theDuchy of Brabant. Throughout the sixteenth century economic tiesbetween England and Brabant gradually strengthened: as Lien Bich Luudocuments, once English merchants began to export their goods toAntwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom rather than Bruges, owing to restrictivetrade-laws in Flanders, ‘relations between England and the Low Countriesbecame even closer’ (28). Antwerp was ideally situated to become thelargest printing centre in Europe. The conditions underlying this growthhave been dissected by Werner Waterschoot. Waterschoot calls attentionto the lack of supervision on printing, either in the form of publishers orcivic and guild control, and the overall ‘dynamic economy’ of the city,which made available the considerable risk capital needed for printing(‘Antwerp’). But even more important were the city’s internationaltrade-links. This is reflected in the sheer breadth of the Antwerp printers’ambitions. Whereas other important printing centres such as Louvain orGhent produced books for a strictly local readership, the Antwerp printerscould afford to cultivate an international clientele, encompassing France,Denmark and Spain. England also became an important foreign market.In many respects England was a logical choice for export. Not only didit have strong trade-links to the city, and an existing interest in illuminatedbooks, but its printing industry was relatively immature. This is clearlyillustrated by Peter Cuijpers’s survey, which cites close to six thousandbooks printed in the Netherlands between c. 1485 and 1525. The numberof books printed in England in the same period amounts to about aneighth of this figure.7

For the printers of Antwerp the English-reading public presented alucrative market, ill-served by its indigenous printers. From 1492, whenGerard Leeu republished Caxton’s Iason and Parys, a steady stream ofEnglish books were produced in the Antwerpian presses. This enterprisewas not merely confined to one or two printers: Leeu was followed byWillem Vorsterman, Govaert Bac, Maarten de Keyser and Adriaen van



Berghen, to cite but a few examples. The most industrious of these wasJan Van Doesborch, who printed over twenty English books between1501 and c. 1530.8 Van Doesborch may even be termed a literary dictator,as his publications set the tone of the English book market for a numberof years. His Frederyke of Iennen, Howleglas, Lac puerorum, XV Tokens andVirgilius were later issued by London printers, amongst them Wynkyn deWorde, William Copland and Robert Wyer. The book trade in Antwerpbuilt on the interest in Dutch-produced manuscripts, providing a moreabundant and more accessible supply of books.

Most of the books prepared for sale in England were the work ofEnglish writers, including several early Reformers. Texts by WilliamTyndale, Simon Fish, John Frith and George Joye were printed inAntwerp, alongside more orthodox works, such as the Latin grammars ofJohn Stanbridge and John Holt.9 Another large share of the printer’soutput was taken up by translations from Latin, such as Piccolomini’sHistoria de duobus amantibus (see Piccolimini and von Wyle). Even so, theAntwerp presses did succeed in transmitting something of Dutch literatureto England. In particular, they provided a channel by which the vigorousliterary culture of the rederijkerskamers reached England. As a rash of recentstudies has made increasingly clear to English readers, these ‘chambers ofrhetoric’ are one of the landmark features of early modern Dutchliterature.10 They were in essence lay fraternities, largely made up ofmiddle-class citizens, who styled themselves rederijkers or ‘rhetoricians’.While they had numerous functions, the chambers’ most important rolewas the production of plays and poetry for religious and civic occasions.Later, as these groups proliferated across the Low Countries, they cameto organise events known as landjuwelen in Brabant and rhetorijckfeesten inHolland and Flanders: lavish dramatic contests which gathered togetherseveral chambers for days, even weeks, of feasting and performance.

Of the English incunabula to survive, two volumes in particular showa strong connection to the chambers. The first of these is the ‘lyttell story’Mary of Nemegen, printed by Van Doesborch in c. 1518.11 Mary is probablyderived from an earlier version of the same story called the WonderlijckeHistorie van Mariken van Nieumeghen (c. 1500).12 Although this is more ofa reading drama than a play in the strictest sense, it is clearly a rederijkertext (see Meier-Staubach). Not only does it contain several of theelaborate verse forms favoured by the rederijkers, such as the rondeel andrefereyn, it also includes a long speech in praise of rhetoric itself. TheEnglish version, while it takes the form a prose ‘treatyse’, does preservesomething of the performative character of the Dutch text, especially inits heavy use of dialogue. The second of these pieces is the moralityEveryman. Everyman’s exact link to the Antwerp book trade has yet to bedecisively established. Over thirty years ago, A. C. Cawley suggested thatit may have been translated by Lawrence Andrewe, assistant to VanDoesborch: while this theory is widely cited, it is difficult to verify.13 The



source text of the play, however, can be tentatively linked with the cityand its printers. As is widely known, Everyman is derived from the Dutchmoraliteit, Den Spyeghel der Salicheyt van Elckerlijc (‘The Mirror of theSalvation of Everyman’): Elckerlijc’s Latin translator Christianus Ischyriushints that the play was entered into the Antwerp rhetorijckfeest of 1496. Itwas also printed twice there, in c. 1501 and c. 1518. At any rate, Everymanprovides a further tie between England and the chambers. Elckerlijccontains several features that are typical of rederijker drama, most of whichare retained by its English version. The very form of the play ischaracteristic of the chambers, as allegorical and instructive plays, or spelenvan zinne, account for the bulk of their output (Waite 29; see alsoHusken). Its lack of ‘ribald, knockabout comedy’ in comparison to theEnglish moralities is also in keeping with the practices of the rederijkers(Walker 281).14 As is clear from the work of Henk Hollaar, the rhetorijckfeestentended to distance the moral and the comic: spelen were composed on settopics which assigned buffoonery and instruction to distinct categories,awarding separate prizes to the ‘best serious play’ and the ‘best fool’(Hollaar 14). Elckerlijc’s refusal to mix the moral with the comic istherefore consistent with the chambers, which also treated them asdiscrete headings. The strong bourgeois outlook of the piece, whichRoger Ladd has analysed at length, also recalls the chambers, which werepredominantly comprised of urban, middle-class members (58). In short,Mary and Everyman are rooted in the Brabantine chambers of rhetoric: theAntwerp printers served as a relay between England and the vibrantdramatic culture of the Netherlands. This fact has received a degree ofscholarly emphasis in recent years. There is a growing tendency amongstsome critics, such as Claire Sponsler and Lynette Muir, to treat earlyEnglish drama as ‘part of a shared culture’ with the Netherlands, in whichthe early printers are a key point of contact (Sponsler 96; Muir 50–62;also see Johnston, ‘Continental Connection’). Clifford Davidson’s newedition of Everyman even aims to encourage such a view further, urginga consideration of this ‘continental’ connection ‘in the classroom, inanthologies, and in general theatre studies’ (Davidson, Walsh and Broos).15

Beyond the book trade, there were further ways in which the Netherlandsexerted influence on English literary culture. Dutch and Flemish scholarsprovided an important channel through which neo-classical ideas reachedEngland. In the first few decades of the sixteenth century this was thework of a few individuals: later, a more complex and widespread networkevolved. The most important early figure is Erasmus of Rotterdam, whovisited England repeatedly between 1499 and 1514, and produced muchof his Greek New Testament while at Cambridge (Rummel). AlthoughErasmus’s influence on the English church remains an open question,which has prompted recent and very different discussions from MargoTodd and John O’Malley, his impact on education and translation isindisputable (Todd 53–95; O’Malley 69–86). The list of his English



followers is remarkably extensive. Taking stock of the English figuresinvolved in setting forth ‘an Erasmian agenda’, James McConica namesmost of the leading teachers and writers of the Renaissance: John Fisher,John Cheke, John Colet, Nicholas Udall, Leonard Cox, Thomas Elyot,Richard Croke and Thomas Cranmer, amongst many others.

Nevertheless, recent scholarship tends to set Erasmus against the generalbackground of the Low Countries as a whole. Erasmus was certainly notthe only scholar from the Netherlands whose work was significant inEngland. Thomas Mayer’s work on Reginald Pole makes clear that theHebrew scholar Jan van Kampen had a similar, if more limited, influence.While attached to Pole’s household in Padua Van Kampen emerged as‘one of the principal influences on Evangelical theology and scripturalinterpretation’, and his commentaries on the Hebrew Psalms circulated inEngland in both Latin and English (Thomas Starkey 170; Reginald Pole67–8). A further important figure is Hadrianus Junius, a physician andscholar of Greek from the Countship of Holland. Junius was active inEngland between 1544 and 1547, during which time he tutored thechildren of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey. Even after Howard’s executionforced him to return to Holland, Junius continued to have designs onEngland. He dedicated works in turn to Edward VI, Mary I and ElizabethI, apparently in an attempt to secure patronage (see Visser 27). Moreimportantly, Chris Heesakkers has highlighted his central role in theemblem tradition: his Emblemata (1565) was freely plundered by theEnglish compilers of similar texts (Heesakkers; Manning 83–4).

It may therefore be seen that Erasmus, despite his unrivalled centralityin the spread of early humanism to England, was by no means the onlyDutch propagator of such ideas. The Netherlands as a whole served as astable for early humanism: more than any individual genius, the widercontext of the Low Countries shaped the outlooks of these scholars. Thispoint is firmly underscored by James Tracy’s biography of Erasmus. Fromthe first this takes issue with the tendency to regard humanism as anationless ‘republic of letters’, stressing that the Dutch neo-classicists werelargely products of the political climate of the Burgundian Netherlands.For instance, their recurring emphasis on ‘a spiritual commonwealth madeup of learned believers’ is best understood as a reaction to ‘the denselycorporatist character of civil and religious life’ in the cities of Holland andFlanders (Erasmus 3). The cultural climate of the Netherlands fosteredthese figures, and impressed itself upon their ideas. Other commentatorsalso stress this fact, even if they do not agree on how this climate cameinto being. Frank Huisman notes that the Netherlands made contact withItalian ideas at an early date, one notable centre being the abbey ofAduard in Friesland (244). Charles Nauert offers a slightly different view,suggesting that the roots of Dutch humanism were developed locally: atthe new university of Louvain, where Erasmus, Van Kampen and Juniuswere active, ‘a simplified and more classical approach to the teaching of



Latin grammar’ emerged as early as the mid-fifteenth century (111).Either way, it is clear that the Netherlands provided an environmentconducive to neo-classical ideas. Herman Pleij has even detected suchconcerns in the output of the rederijkers, describing the chambers as apopular wing of humanism (158–91). The fact that English intellectualswere keen to access this knowledge, and offered patronage and employmentto its practitioners, was a major cause of the spread of humanism inEngland. This humanism, as Tracy implies, was coloured by specificallyDutch concerns.

The movement of Dutch academics to England only increasedthroughout the sixteenth century, as several scholars were among theProtestants seeking refuge in English cities. The influence of the Netherlandson English literary culture increased accordingly. An initial surge of Dutchmigrants came in the reign of Edward VI, as persecution of Calvinists andAnabaptists began in earnest in the Low Countries, especially in theSpanish-controlled Zuidelijke Nederlanden. In Antwerp alone there wereover two hundred arrests and a hundred executions during the 1550s(Marnef 77–86). While the accession of Mary sent this pattern intodecline and even reverse, as ‘perhaps a thousand Protestants left Englandduring the Catholic persecution’, the 1560s saw a further spike (Marshall227). Aachen expelled its Protestant population in 1560, and the revolt ofthe United Provinces in 1566 created further exiles, as the Duke of Alvaruthlessly reimposed Spanish rule.16 The effect of this turmoil onEngland’s migrant population is clear. The censuses analysed by L. H.Yungblut chart a steady rise in London’s ‘strangers’ throughout thedecade, from four and half thousand in 1562 to over nine thousand inMarch 1568. Although French Huguenots account for a good proportionof these newcomers, some seven thousand are listed as ‘Dutch’ (Yungblut20–35).

Among this group were a number of significant scholars and poets. AsJan Van Dorsten first emphasised in the 1970s, these figures made Londoninto the hub of an important intellectual community, one which spannedEngland and the Low Countries (Radical Arts). Two chief nodes in VanDorsten’s network were Emmanuel van Meteren and Johan Radermacher.17

Both were active ‘merchant/scholars’ based in London, who served asartistic patrons and mediators between other figures sharing their concerns(Grell, ‘Merchants and Ministers’). Van Meteren is especially crucial as acultural go-between. He was part of the first wave of refugees admittedunder Edward VI, and remained in England as consul to the merchantsof the Low Countries until his death in 1612. Van Meteren’s writing inmany ways signals his intermediate position between his actual andadopted homelands. His work on the history of the Netherlands attractedthe attention of English readers: his Historicae Belgicae was partly translatedby Thomas Churchyard and Richard Robinson, and he personally assistedEdward Grimestone in compiling the General Historie of the Netherlands,



according to Grimestone’s own preface.18 He also composed work onEngland for Dutch readers, such as an entertaining description of Englandincorporated into the Historicae.19 This dual outlook also characterises VanMeteren’s personal and professional life. As his own liber amicorum makesplain, he was in the orbit of several leading figures in England, hisassociates including Richard Mulcaster and Richard Hakluyt (see Yates29). Joad Raymond adds that he was ‘well known as a conduit ofinformation from the Protestant Low Countries’ by the likes of GabrielHarvey and Francis Walsingham (20). He was also familiar with fellowexiles Lucas de Heere and Jan van der Noot, writers committed to thenew forms in poetry: their major collections contain the first examples ofthe sonnet composed in Dutch (Waterschoot, ‘Marot or Ronsard?’).This network of associates was further extended by links abroad. One ofVan Meteren’s cousins was the mapmaker Abraham Ortelius, and the twomen were lifelong correspondents.20 Other contacts included Janus Dousa,founder of the University of Leiden, whom Marijken Spies terms ‘one ofthe most important mediators of the literary renaissance in the Nether-lands’ (144). As Van Dorsten first asserted, and later commentary hasconfirmed, the Dutch émigrés possessed far-reaching links. They pro-vided a vital bridge between the academic and political circles of Englandand the Netherlands.

This powerful series of connections had a direct impact on a numberof canonical English authors. One writer who bears strong witness to itsinfluence is Edmund Spenser, who was probably introduced to the émigrécircle by Mulcaster, his master at the Merchant Taylors’ School (Rambuss17). Spenser’s debt to the group is direct and unequivocal. The Dutchcommunity provided him with the basis of his first published work, atranslation of the epigrams in Van der Noot’s Het Theatre oft Toon-Neel.Although the English Theatre does not directly credit Spenser, hisauthorship is clear from the Complaints (1591). This contains revisedversions of the poems, collected under the titles ‘Visions of Bellay’ and‘Visions of Petrarch formerly translated’.21 Richard Danson Brown andKatherine Craik have examined Spenser’s motives for ‘reclaiming’ theTheatre poems in the Complaints: their work suggests that these pieces hadan enduring significance for Spenser and were not, as earlier criticsargued, merely ‘the inferior efforts of an unknown schoolboy’ (Brown 64;Craik; MacKill Cummings 4). It would seem that the Dutch communitynot only instigated Spenser’s career, but had a critical relevancethroughout it.

A further figure to come under the influence of this circle was SirPhilip Sidney. Sidney’s involvement with the Low Countries is wellknown. In 1585, after the Treaty of Nonsuch made the United Provincesa protectorate of England, he was appointed governor of Flushing. Hedied a year later, of wounds sustained while fighting with the earl ofLeicester at Zutphen. However, as early as 1577 Sidney was active in the



Netherlands, visiting Brussels, Louvain and Antwerp on missions to thecourt of William of Orange. Here he became acquainted with the Dutchhumanists: he may have already known the London-based members of thegroup, since his friend Daniel Rogers was closely related to Van Meteren(see van Dorsten, Poets 9–77; ‘Mr Secretary Cecil’ 28–37). Sidney wasenthusiastically received by the circle, as both Dousa and the Brabantinephilosopher Justus Lipsius dedicated work to him.22 But perhaps the mostsignificant contact he made here, at least in the context of his own work,was Philips van Marnix van St. Aldegonde.23 In an important essayGijsbert Siertsema has suggested that Van Marnix may have had a deepeffect on Sidney’s own writing. Van Marnix was a minor nobleman atZeeland, and an advisor to Prince William. His literary output includestwo of the best-known pieces of early modern Dutch literature, thescathing anti-Catholic satire De bijenkorf der Heylighe Roomsche Kercke(1569), and the apologetic lyric ‘Wilhelmus van Nassau’ (c. 1574).24 Thesetwo works demonstrate Sidney’s familiarity with Van Marnix. Sidney’ssong ‘Who hath his fancy pleasèd’ is set ‘to the tune of Wilhelmus’,while the English translation of De bijenkorf is dedicated to ‘the rightWorshipfull, wise, and vertuous Gentleman, Maister Philippe Sidney,Esquire’.25 But more importantly, Van Marnix also shared Sidney’s interestin the psalms. In 1580 he published a metrical translation of the entirePsalter.26 As Siertsema points out, in this enterprise Van Marnix was ableto draw on a fertile tradition of psalmody in Dutch. His work is predatedby the Souterliedekens of Clemens non Papa and Gherardus Mes, lyricversions of the psalms set to popular songs (see Grijp). Owing to theirmutual interest in vernacular translation of the Psalter, it is possible thatVan Marnix introduced Sidney to these Dutch versions during theirencounter. In the process he may have supplied Sidney with a firm model‘upon which to base his own poetics’. Siertsema concludes, ‘what beganas an envoy for political ends turned out . . . to provide a major sourcefor his art’ (27).

Aside from their influence in composition, the Dutch refugees werealso important in the practical side of English textual production.Elizabeth Evenden has demonstrated that John Day’s press was heavilyreliant on the expertise of émigrés from the Low Countries. This dependenceis most marked in one of the cornerstone English works of theElizabethan period, John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It is common knowledgethat the book was an enormous undertaking for Day. At close to twothousand pages, with varying typefaces, marginal notes, and extensivewoodcuts throughout, it was a work on an unprecedented scale: itsproduction was further complicated by the fact that Foxe ‘added aconsiderable amount of text during the actual printing of the Book’ (King88). The project would, as Evenden stresses, scarcely have been conceivablewithout the assistance of more experienced Flemish and Dutch printers.It also seems probable that migrants were responsible for one of the Book’s



most striking features. It has been suggested that the illustrationsaccompanying the volume might have been the work of the Flemish artistMarcus Gheeraerts the Elder, who also produced the woodcuts for Vander Noot’s Het Theatre (Luborsky and Ingram 57–8; Knapp 191). Againthe migrant community had a direct hand in English literature duringthe first decades of Elizabeth’s reign, supporting its production as wellas stimulating its composition. As Van Dorsten states, the seedbed formany central Elizabethan achievements was provided by ‘that uniqueLondon centre of cultural activity, the exiled Franco-Flemings’ (RadicalArts 87).

Following the death of Elizabeth, however, there was increasing hostilitybetween England and the United Provinces. Even during the first decadeof James’s reign disputes erupted over trade, focusing particularly onfishing, whaling and the textile industry. These contributed to awidespread resentment, which A. J. Hoenselaars has detected in severalJacobean and Caroline dramas (200). However, a further and more potentflashpoint was provided by the colonial ambitions of the two countries.As Alistair Hamilton summarises: ‘Holland and England were both navalpowers, highly dependent on trade . . . by the early seventeenth century theywere hot competitors all over the world, in America, Africa and Asia’ (1).One of the ‘hottest’ incidents in this rivalry came in 1623, when theDutch East India Company executed ten English merchants at Amboyna,in modern-day Indonesia. Robert Markley has examined the strongpull that this affair exerted on the imagination of English writers (17–19,143–76). It was tirelessly invoked throughout the seventeenth century:during the First Dutch War of 1652–54, pamphlets circulated ‘retellingthe atrocity in full’, even recasting it as a ‘martyrdom’ (Pincus 59). Twentyyears later Dryden used it as the basis of a tragedy, specifically ‘toconsolidate support’ for the Third Dutch War (Orr 60).

Yet in spite of these increasing tensions, there remain some importantpoints of contact between England and the Netherlands in the reigns ofJames and Charles. The Low Countries continued to influence Englishculture along well-established lines. For example, the movements ofFranciscus Junius, a pioneer in Old English philology, closely resemblethose of earlier itinerant scholars, especially his namesake Hadrianus.Initially based at Leiden and Rotterdam, Junius served as a tutor in thehousehold of the earl of Arundel between 1621 and 1642, and dedicatedwork to Charles I (see Dekker 94–103; Bremmer). The Dutch communityof London also retained an important intermediary position betweenintellectuals in England and the Low Countries. Jacob Cool, elder of theDutch church in London from 1624 until his death in 1628, was acorrespondent with Ortelius and an associate of Jonson (van Dorsten,Anglo-Dutch Renaissance 8–20; Grell, Dutch Calvinists). English writerscontinued to make vital contact with Dutch scholars abroad. While inParis Milton deliberately sought the acquaintance of Hugo Grotius, ‘a



most learned man . . . whom I ardently desired to meet’ (321). The encounterseems to have had a strong formative impact on Milton’s work, as studiesby Barbara Kiefer Lewalski and Victoria Silver can attest (Lewalski 89;Silver 130; Miner 103).

The period’s most far-reaching intersection between Dutch and Englishculture also took a familiar form. The workshops of the Low Countriescontinued to produce new innovations in printing which came to affectthe English reading public. The most significant of these was thedevelopment of the corantos, gazetti and other regular news-sheets, whichwere in production in Amsterdam from 1618 (Lankhorst). When thesetypes of text reached England it was simply as an offshoot of the Dutchpress. In a study of Amsterdam ‘as a centre of information supply’, CléLesger emphasises the uneven relationship between the English and Dutchnews-presses:

the amount of information available in the city and the large number ofnewspapers made Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century thecentre and cradle of the modern periodical press . . . for a long time, England andFrance were content to rehash the Dutch materials. (235)

In fact Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne, who ‘secured an exclusiveright to print news sheets’ in London between 1621 and 1632, not onlymodelled their ‘corants’ on Dutch versions but in most cases directlytranslated them (Loewenstein, Author’s Due 158). Even the irregularnews-books Butter and Bourne issued before 1621 were based on Dutchpamphlets, ‘faithfully translated according to the Dutch copie’.27 As Lesgerstresses, the early English news-books were merely an organ of theAmsterdam presses.

While the news-books were important in their own right, they alsohad a key influence on drama, as a number of plays engaged openly withthis new medium. One such work is Jonson’s Staple of News (c.1625), amuch-discussed satire on the ‘publish’d Pamphlets of News, set out everySaturday . . . and no Syllable of truth in them’ (153). For a number of critics,Jonson’s play is an important yardstick for establishing the corantos’ placein London’s ‘economy of communication’ (Conboy 20). A reading of theplay is, for instance, the centrepiece of Roger Chartier’s work on popularprint (46–62). When examined in this way, the Staple only seems to assertthe power of the Dutch-led news-presses. For Marcus Nevitt, the Staplewas a rearguard action, as ‘Jonson attempted (and failed) to preserve theboundaries of the stage’s newsworthiness’, in the process only ‘concedingthat the news pamphlet was about to succeed the stage as the mainmedium for distributing news’ (65; see also McKenzie). Don Waynereaches a similar conclusion, arguing that the Staple ‘betrays anxiety aboutthe status of that form of information more properly termed knowledgeor truth over which the poet in Jonson’s conception presides’ (155).Jonson evidently conceived the news trade as a direct threat to his own



position. His work thus shows that the Dutch printers had initiated a smallrevolution in the consumption of texts in England, one which challengedexisting frameworks for disseminating information.

However, it is also apparent that other playwrights regarded thenews-press with less animosity, at least in its early stages. Dorothy Auchtercalls attention to Fletcher and Massinger’s Tragedy of Sir John van OldenBarnavelt (1619), a play based on the fall of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, theLandsadvocaat of Holland executed in 1619.28 Auchter notes the perils ofwriting about ‘a controversial execution’ by a ‘living foreign ruler’, butargues that ‘playwrights were willing to risk censure in order to benefitfrom the timeliness of the subject matter’. She also notes the central rolethat the news-press played in this decision: ‘several pamphlets aboutBarnavelt’s case were circulating in London during the summer of 1619,and the play was sure to have popular appeal’ (334). The news-press notonly supplied material for the play, but also made this subject attractive,guaranteeing some prior audience interest. The Tragedy certainly had anunprecedented topicality: as Ivo Kamps notes, it was performed just overa hundred days after the events it depicts (140–68). What is more, this wasnot the first time that Fletcher and Massinger had used the news-booksin this way. The final volume of Fletcher’s collected works mentions theJeweller of Amsterdam (c.1616–17), a lost play written in collaboration withMassinger and Nathan Field (Beaumount and Fletcher 10:4). This wasmost likely based on the killing of the hofjuwelier Jan van Wely, an eventwhich was reported widely in Dutch and English news-pamphlets.29 Onceagain, Fletcher and Massinger seem to have regarded the news-press asa useful resource to exploit, not only as a fund of narratives, but as abarometer of popular interests. It would seem that the theatre hada complex relationship with the news-press, one that cannot be reducedto straightforward hostility.

In sum, over the last few decades critics have increasingly appreciatedthat the Low Countries exerted a continuous influence on English literaryculture during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Whereasscholars such as De Vries found only a series of disparate ‘names . . . on thepages of history’ when discussing Dutch influence on the EnglishRenaissance, it is now clear that England and the Netherlands wereengaged in an intricate nexus of literary relations (14). The printers atAntwerp and Amsterdam revitalised the English publishing industry,leading the market in its earliest stages and introducing further innovationslater on. Parallel to this influence – and often reinforcing it – is themigration of intellectuals, such as the Louvain scholars in the first half ofthe sixteenth century, and the Protestant refugees in the last half. Inshort, contemporary scholarship has made clear that the BurgundianNetherlands and the United Provinces had a profound impact on thedevelopment of English literature during the early Renaissance. AsAndrew Pettegree has stated, these links are so fundamental that it is often



difficult to dissociate the ‘English Renaissance’ from similar shifts in theNetherlands (‘Introduction’).

Short Biography

Ben Parsons completed his Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield in 2007.During the last three years he has co-authored articles dealing withvarious aspects of Dutch poetry and drama in the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies. He currently teaches medieval and early modern Englishliterature at the universities of Leicester and Nottingham Trent. Asidefrom Dutch literature, his research interests include medieval theories ofsatire and the functions of violence in discourse.

Notes

* Correspondence: 27 Lea Close, Broughton Astley, Leicester, England, United Kingdom, LE96NW. Email: [email protected].

1 In the present article, the terms ‘Low Countries’ and ‘the Netherlands’ denote the fifteenth-century personal union of Zeventien Provinciën, later the Bourgondische Kreitz, formed under thedukes of Burgundy. This incorporates the duchies of Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg andGuelders, the countships of Artois, Flanders, Mechelen, Namur, Hainaut, Zeeland and Holland,the lordships of West Frisia, Drenthe, Overijssel and Groningen, the prince-bishoprics of Liegeand Utrecht, and the Frisian Ommelanden. Unless otherwise stated, the article will focus onthe Dutch-speaking Provinciën.2 A useful survey of immigration patterns is given in Hefford.3 An excellent and highly suggestive account of Burgundy’s influence on the Netherlands isgiven in Arnade. Small’s George Chastelein and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy is a usefulexamination of Burgundy’s own attempts to ratify its dominance.4 On continuities between Edward’s pre- and post-Readeption policies, see Horrox.5 An exhaustive overview of the manuscript trade in the Low Countries, with severalhigh-quality reproductions, is given in Clark.6 General information on the songbook can be found in Vale, Princely Court 291.7 Pollard and Redgrave’s Short-Title Catalogue lists 752 books printed in England between 1485and 1525.8 The best recent account of Van Doesborch’s activities, emphasising his connection to England,is Houwen. See also Franssen.9 On Holt and Stanbridge, see Orme. During the seventeenth century the Netherlandscontinued to provide a safe base from which unorthodox English works could be issued: seeSprunger.10 Recent English scholarship on the rederijkers includes Strietman and Happé’s essay collection,Urban Theatre in the Low Countries 1400–1625. This is accompanied by a two-volume set ofEnglish translations from the drama: For Pleasure and Profit. Six Dutch Rhetoricians Plays – vol.1: Three Biblical Plays; vol. 2: Three Classical Plays. Volume 1 of this set has also been publishedas Medieval English Theatre 26 (2004). Also worthy of attention are: Waite; Pettegree, Reformation76–101, which provide important surveys of the part played by the rederijkerskamers indisseminating Protestant ideas.11 The full title of the work is Here begynneth a lyttell story that was of a trwethe done in the landeof Gelders of a mayde that was named Mary of Nemegen yt was the dyuels paramoure by the spaceof. vij. yere longe (Antwerp: Jan Van Doesborch, n.d.), STC 17557. The latest edition of thetext is Mary of Nemmegen, ed. Raftery, Medieval and Renaissance Texts 5 (Leiden: Brill,1991).



12 Mariken van Nieumeghen and Elckerlijc. Zonde, hoop en verlossing in de late Middeleeuwen, ed.Wilmink and Ramakers, 35–150; Mariken van Nieumeghen: A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans.Decker and Walsh. On the rederijker’s characteristic style with its ‘reliance on patterns ofrepeated sounds or phrases’, see the engaging discussion in Kavaler.13 Everyman, ed. Cawley, xiii. See also Everyman, ed. Trussler and Lester, vi.14 On the ‘great difference between the English and the Dutch morality tradition’, see alsoHummelen et al.15 Also available online at <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/davidson.htm>.16 A compellingly intimate account of the period, derived from the writings of the Utrechtlawyer Aernout van Buchell, is given in Pollman.17 Radermacher is also subject of a recent monograph: Bostoen’s Bonis in Bonum.18 Emmanuel Van Meteren, A true discourse historicall, of the succeeding gouernours in the Netherlands,and the ciuill warres there, trans. Churchyard and Robinson; Jean François Le Petit, A generallhistorie of the Netherlands, trans. Grimeston.19 An 1895 translation has been reissued in Rye 67–73.20 Notes on their relationship are given in Mangani 74, 82.21 See the discussion in Lowenstein, ‘Spenser’s Retrography’.22 For a useful review of recent scholarship on Lipsius, see Levi.23 For a bibliography of scholarship on Van Marnix, see Duits.24 Although the ‘Wilhelmus’ is anonymous in its earliest copies, it is usually accepted as VanMarnix’s work. See Enschede.25 The occasion for the song is discussed in Brennan 71; van Marnix van St. Aldegonde.26 See the facsimile edition: van Marnix.27 The true description of the execution of iustice, done in the Grauenhage, by the counsell of the GenerallStates holden for the same purpose, vpon Sir Iohn van Olden Barnauelt (London: Nathaniel Newbery,1619), STC 18804.28 A recent account of the Van Oldenbarnevelt affair is given in Tracy 171–90.29 True recitall of the confession of the two murderers John de Paris, and Iohn de la Vigne touching thehorrible murder committed vpon the person of Mr. Iohn De Wely, merchant-ieweller of Amsterdam(London: Thomas Snodham for Nicholas Bourne, 1616), STC 19208.5. On the Dutch sourcessee de Roever, part of a series of articles on oud-Amsterdamsche verscheidenheden, ‘old Amsterdammiscellanies’.

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Documents

Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture in the Early Renaissance, 1470–1650