Research team
Expertise
Dutch literature from the 16th to the 18th century (mainly drama and song). In the area of the scene happens especially research into the genre, the performance capabilities (with 3D reconstructions of historic theaters) and the referential aspects of the scene. In terms of the song we are working on the Dutch Song Database. The attention is paid to both secular and spiritual hymnals. The emphasis is more on the litearaire aspect than on the musical.
Frivolity in church. A study of the cultural transfer of French air de cour melodies into sacred songbooks in the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries.
Abstract
IIn the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries, religious songs were used for propaganda purposes by a Catholic Church that was trying to regain by all means the ground lost after the Council of Trent. Authors of seventeenth-century Southern Netherlands sacred songbooks wrote very often religious texts on existing popular profane songs, following the principle of 'contrafacture', i.e. writing new texts to existing, mainly profane tunes. It comes as no surprise that they drew their inspiration from popular Dutch songs, but almost every sacred songbook includes references to French songs as well, often in even more than a quarter of the songs. This observation raises questions on the importance of French songs and their popularity in the Southern Netherlands song culture. To study the role of 'contrafacture' in religious songbooks and mainly the importance and the function of French songs, we select ten representative sacred songbooks with at least a quarter of the songs composed on French airs de cour. This way we will compile a corpus of around 500 songs. By means of the Nederlandse Liederenbank (Dutch Song Database), i.e. a digital database of the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam which contains over 150,000 descriptions of songs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, as the latest research tool it constitutes a real breakthrough for the study of seventeenth-century songs – in combination with the databases of the Centre du Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) and the international database of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) we can now examine the relation between lyrics and melodies from thousands of songs and answer such questions as: is there a direct connection between sacred songwriters and French songs or did these songs show up in the religious environment through the profane repertoire? Did original French profane songbooks circulate in the Low Countries or did the melodies reach these regions via oral tradition? Which authors imported these songs? Did they, in turn, serve as an example for later generations? Did the latter still know these possibly foreign melodies or did they already rely on Dutch contrafacts? Did the French songs – once they had taken hold in these regions – go round under Dutch titles? To what extent Dutch sacred contrafacts are direct translations or do they include literary derivations from French texts? For how long did these intertextual relationships affect or in other words to what extent the authors seem to be aware of the tone and content of the French original? What audience these devotional songbooks were meant for? Did they particularly focus on a young elitist audience or were they trying to appeal to a larger audience? What was the function of songbooks in the Southern Netherlands song culture? With the answers to these questions we will gain insight into the functioning of the sacred songbook in the song culture of the Southern Low Countries and we will be able to fill a gap in both literary history and in music history of the Low Countries.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: De Koninck Tine
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Across Boundaries: A Western European Canon of Romances in an Era of Media Change (1471- c. 1550)
Abstract
The advent of print facilitated the dissemination of medieval romances and enabled the development of a transnational canon in Western Europe. The study of these narratives as a group transcends the limits of national philologies. It advances our understanding of the international success and regional diversity of this subject matter.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
- Fellow: de Bruijn Elisabeth
Research team(s)
Project website
Project type(s)
- Research Project
With theatre he urged people to remember their duties. Social Criticism in the Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Low Countries.
Abstract
'Hy dwong het volk door klucht te luistren naar hun plichten' ('With farce he urged people to remember their duties'). With this verse the seventeenth-century playwright Jan Vos honoured Bredero, whose theatre clearly focused on entertainment, while at the same time it urged the audience into social criticism. This verse concisely shows how seventeenth-century theatre functioned. Whereas in the sixteenth century, rhetoricians performed didactic plays in market places, seventeenth-century theatre was staged in playhouses for limited, paying audiences and it was mainly meant as entertainment. In order not to offend their paying audience playwrights had to apply other strategies to criticize society. On the other hand, most plays were printed allowing them to reach a wider audience. Many plays commenting on political events have already been studied. However, criticism on lifestyle (money, fashion), class distinctions (professions, nobility, bourgeoisie), private life (marriage, sexuality) and social problems (beggary, crime) up to now received little attention. Therefore I will study the content and strategy of these kinds of social criticism in a representative corpus of comic plays from the Low Countries, with special attention to the differences between North and South. I examine these texts in their historical context and in relation to seventeenth-century drama theory to explain the various strategic choices of playwrights.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Ferket Johanna
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Literature that bypassed the censor! The alternative literary circuit in Antwerp at the end of the seventeenth century.
Abstract
The proposed research project is an investigation into the characteristic features and functions of the texts in Het Mengelmoes. The research objective is to offer a first reference framework for the censor-unapproved, alternative literature from the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries. Therefore, I will analyze the texts in their historical context and compare the texts and genres in Het Mengelmoes with censor-approved texts from parallel genres (e.g. songs in the Nederlandse Liederenbank). The research offers a new and more differentiated perspective on seventeenth-century literature from the Southern Low Countries.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Molenaar Sven
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
With theatre he urged people to remember their duties. Social Criticism in the Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Low Countries.
Abstract
'Hy dwong het volk door klucht te luistren naar hun plichten' ('With farce he urged people to remember their duties'). With this verse the seventeenth-century playwright Jan Vos honoured Bredero, whose theatre clearly focused on entertainment, while at the same time it urged the audience into social criticism. This verse concisely shows how seventeenth-century theatre functioned. Whereas in the sixteenth century, rhetoricians performed didactic plays in market places, seventeenth-century theatre was staged in playhouses for limited, paying audiences and it was mainly meant as entertainment. In order not to offend their paying audience playwrights had to apply other strategies to criticize society. On the other hand, most plays were printed allowing them to reach a wider audience. Many plays commenting on political events have already been studied. However, criticism on lifestyle (money, fashion), class distinctions (professions, nobility, bourgeoisie), private life (marriage, sexuality) and social problems (beggary, crime) up to now received little attention. Therefore I will study the content and strategy of these kinds of social criticism in a representative corpus of serious and comic plays from the Low Countries, with special attention to the differences between North and South. I will examine these texts in their historical context and in relation to seventeenth-century drama theory to explain the various strategic choices of playwrights.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Ferket Johanna
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
'With his theatre he urged people to remember their duties'. Social Criticism in the Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Low Countries.
Abstract
'Hy dwong het volk door klucht te luistren naar hun plichten' ('With his farce he urged people to remember their duties'). With this verse the seventeenth-century playwright Jan Vos honoured Bredero, whose theatre was clearly focused on entertainment, while at the same time urging the audience into social criticism. This verse shows concisely how seventeenth-century theatre functioned in contrast to the sixteenth-century didactic theatre of the rhetoricians. In the seventeenth century theatre became professional: it was staged in playhouses for small audiences, and it was mainly meant as entertainment. Playwrights therefore had to apply other means to criticize society. Also most plays were printed allowing them to reach a wider audience. Many plays commenting on political events have already been studied. However, criticism on customs, traditions, trends, sexuality, religion, classes, professions, gender roles, money, etc. up to now received little attention. Therefore I will study the content, strategy and function of these kinds of social criticism in a representative corpus of serious and comic plays from the Low Countries. I will examine these texts in their historical context and in relation to contemporary drama theory to explain the various strategic choices of playwrights in the North and the South. My research will provide new insight into the relationship between theatre and society in the seventeenth century.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Ferket Johanna
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
(Re)Writing history in early modern Mechelen: genesis of text and gradations of authorship in an urban chronicle tradition.
Abstract
In medieval and early modern times, chronicles were the way of choice to remember the days gone by. The proposed research focuses on a Mechelen city chronicle that is especially interesting because of two aspects. 1) It does not provides merely short events listed in chronological order, but also a comprehensive history of Mechelen drawn from literary sources (among which chivalric epic, lyric etc.). 2) The text has been preserved in distinctly different versions containing additions, alterations and deletions. Three of these heavily altered manuscripts are autographs, which allow the reader a rare look in the mind of an early modern author. This research will shed light on how the author and the subsequent altering scribes dealt with the text, and how each version can be read within the historical context of early modern Mechelen.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
- Fellow: Caers Bram
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Literature that bypassed the censor! The alternative literary circuit in Antwerp at the end of the seventeenth century.
Abstract
The proposed research project is an investigation into the characteristic features and functions of the texts in Het Mengelmoes. The research objective is to offer a first reference framework for the censor-unapproved, alternative literature from the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries. Therefore, I will analyze the texts in their historical context and compare the texts and genres in Het Mengelmoes with censor-approved texts from parallel genres (e.g. songs in the Nederlandse Liederenbank). The research offers a new and more differentiated perspective on seventeenth-century literature from the Southern Low Countries.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Molenaar Sven
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
'From Ninette to Tavern Princess': Lyrical drama and operas from the Southern Netherlands (1759-1907) and the position of Dutch as a singing language.
Abstract
This research project studies the Dutch lyrical drama and opera from the Southern Netherlands, between 1759 and 1907. It focuses on the complex role of Dutch as a singing language and on the evolution and the function of Dutch lyrical drama and opera as an aesthetic experiment, a product of the Enlightenment, a linguistic proof of concept, an expression of Belgian and/or Flemish (proto)nationalism, etc. The research will be conducted on the basis of five carefully selected operas and works of lyrical drama.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The "business of performance": Theatre impresarios and the dramatic repertoire in the Southern Netherlands between 1680 and 1795.
Abstract
For the first time in a study of the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre and opera life in Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp, emphasis will be placed on the role of the impresario and on the effects of the "business of performance" (i.e. the way theatres were run and drama was produced and performed) on the repertoire. By doing so I will answer such questions as: What motivated impresarios to run a theatre? What aesthetic/literary aspirations did they hope to realize and how did financial motivations influence artistic decisions? What can the role of the impresarios tell us about the alleged cultural (literary) crisis experienced by the Southern Netherlands? What was the status of the surprisingly significant number of female impresarios? What kind of plays and librettos did these impresarios commission? How was foreign repertoire adapted to appeal to a local audience and local authorities? How did local playwrights react? And finally, how did satirical plays portray the impresarios?Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: De Paepe Timothy
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
(Re)Writing history in early modern Mechelen: genesis of text and gradations of authorship in an urban chronicle tradition.
Abstract
In medieval and early modern times, chronicles were the way of choice to remember the days gone by. The proposed research focuses on a Mechelen city chronicle that is especially interesting because of two aspects. 1) It does not provides merely short events listed in chronological order, but also a comprehensive history of Mechelen drawn from literary sources (among which chivalric epic, lyric etc.). 2) The text has been preserved in distinctly different versions containing additions, alterations and deletions. Three of these heavily altered manuscripts are autographs, which allow the reader a rare look in the mind of an early modern author. This research will shed light on how the author and the subsequent altering scribes dealt with the text, and how each version can be read within the historical context of early modern Mechelen.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
- Fellow: Caers Bram
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The typography of the handpress book in Flanders (1473-c. 1815). Genres, evolutions and factors.
Abstract
The present research proposal will shed more light on the typographical evolutions of the handpress book in Flanders and will go into the underlying reasons for these phenomena. In order to attain this end, the typography of a limited number of well chosen genres will be analysed. The leading hypothesis is that typographical evolutions develop differently, faster or slower, depending on the characteristics of the distinguished genres. This starting point is tentatively confirmed by case studies (e.g. Van Impe & Bos 2006).Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Proot Joran
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The functioning of drama in an early modern city: The relationship between the design and the repertoire of the Antwerp theatres between 1610 and 1746/1762.
Abstract
The project studies the organized theatre life in Antwerp between 1610 and 1746, while focusing on the relation between repertoire and playhouse/theatre. The research of historical theatres is often limited to either the drama texts (the plays) or the buildings (including the theatrical equipment). Neither approaches have been attempted for the Antwerp situation (1610-1746). To obtain an as complete as possible insight into the functioning of the Antwerp theatres, this project focuses on the relation between both aspects. By analyzing the plays (story, implicit and explicit performance instructions, etc.) in relation to the theatres (technical and semiotic analysis, CAD/3D-computermodels, audience, management, etc.) it becomes possible to reconstruct the evolution and the functioning of Antwerp theatre life in a far more in depth manner than when studying either aspect on its own.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Peeters Frank
- Fellow: De Paepe Timothy
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Multiple identities in a late medieval and early modern city: Mechelen in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Abstract
This project aims at analysing multiple identities that town dwellers adopt and (re)produce and in doing so it will try to present a more nuanced image of pre-modern urban society than traditional social and cultural history usually permits. For the case-study of Mechelen in the late medieval and early modern period, it wants to identify how identities are constructed (by the participation of different groups in civil society), how they are performed in the public arena and how identities are perceived in collective memory (rituals, historiography, literature).Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Stabel Peter
- Co-promoter: Marnef Guido
- Co-promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Van Dijck Maarten
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The functioning of drama in an early modern city: The relationship between the design and the repertoire of the Antwerp theatres between 1610 and 1746.
Abstract
The project studies the organized theatre life in Antwerp between 1610 and 1746, while focusing on the relation between repertoire and playhouse/theatre. The research of historical theatres is often limited to either the drama texts (the plays) or the buildings (including the theatrical equipment). Neither approaches have been attempted for the Antwerp situation (1610-1746). To obtain an as complete as possible insight into the functioning of the Antwerp theatres, this project focuses on the relation between both aspects. By analyzing the plays (story, implicit and explicit performance instructions, etc.) in relation to the theatres (technical and semiotic analysis, CAD/3D-computermodels, audience, management, etc.) it becomes possible to reconstruct the evolution and the functioning of Antwerp theatre life in a far more in depth manner than when studying either aspect on its own.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Peeters Frank
- Fellow: De Paepe Timothy
Research team(s)
Project website
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Singing and reading. A study of the functions of seventeenth-century secular song-books, printed in the Southern Netherlands.
Dramapractice & theatre in the network of an early modern city: Function, design and use of the Antwerp theatres between 1610 and 1746.
Abstract
Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Peeters Frank
- Fellow: De Paepe Timothy
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The schooldrama of the Jesuits in the provincia Flandro-Belgica during the ancien régime (1575-1773).
Abstract
Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Fellow: Proot Joran
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Database 'songs of the southern low countries': an inventory of the 17th century Dutch song by means of a digital database on the internet and CD-rom.
Abstract
In the 17th century, songs in the vernacular played an important role in society. After all, the song was a medium produced and recycled by broad sections of the population, as well in profane as in religious contexts and for all ages. This project aims to list all Dutch songs form the 17th century Southern Low Countries in a database 'The database of songs of the Southern Low Countries'. The digital opening up of the content, form and melody of the song, will make them available for study by different scholars, e.g. from Dutch literature and musicology. The project has a literary and cultural-historical value. The songs are important for the study of literary history, cultural history and folklore. The knowledge is essential for the history of 17th century Flemish literature, which is often underestimated, and its positioning in the whole of the Dutch literature.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Database 'songs of the Southern Low Countries': a digital inventory of the 17th century Dutch song on the internet.
Songs, music and dances on the 17th century stage in the Southern Netherlands. A study of the function of musical elements.
Abstract
Musical elements appear in nearly all 17th century theatre performances. Songs were often a structural part of the text, musicians accompanied singers and created a certain atmosphere, dances and ballet had to make the play visually attractive. The objective of the project is to study the literary, musicological and dramaturgic aspects of the theatre in the Southern Netherlands by means of some literary and musicological parameters of production and reception. Institutional, geografical, gender and genre differences will be taken into account.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Mythological representations in Flemish art of the 17th century and their intellectual context.
Abstract
On the basis of an exhaustive catalogue raisonné of Rubens's mythological representations (some 130 entries) and of a list of further mythological themes with other Flemish painters of the 17th century, an in depth interpretation will be attempted of such representations of classical ("pagan") gods and goddesses. Hereby a distinction might prove relevant between the sort of audience to which such scenes were adressed: erudite humanists on the one hand, and burghers literate in the vernacular on the other. Where appropriate parallels will be drawn between the treatment of these gods in the arts and in Latin as well as Flemish and Dutch literature.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Balis Arnout
- Co-promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Van der Stighelen Katlijne
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Music in the Dutch and Flemish theatre of the seventeenth century.
Abstract
Music always played an important role in the theatre. In the 17th century music was an inherent part of the staging, not only of the operas that appeared in the Low Countries during that century but also of the plays. In a large number of plays music is a structural element of the text in songs or in choruses. Moreover each production appealed to musicians for the accompaniment, the creation of an atmosphere, as an intermezzo, etc. Up to now only tentative studies about the musical dimensions of the 17th century theatre in the Low Countries have been published. The project will consider the literary and musicological aspects as well as the dramaturgical aspects of the music, on the one hand in Amsterdam, where from the beginning of the century a professional theatre exixted, on the other hand in the rest of the Netherlands and in Flanders where the plays were usually performed by the rhetoricians, although in some towns there was an evolution towards a professional theatre.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Music in the Dutch and Flemish Theatre of the 17th century.
Abstract
Music always played an important role in the theatre. In the 17th century music was an inherent part of the staging, not only of the operas that appeared in the Low Countries during that century, but also of the plays. In a large number of plays music is a structural element of the text in songs or in choruses. Moreover each production appealed to musicians for the accompaniment, the creation of an atmosphere, as an intermezzo, etc. Up to now only tentative studies about the musical dimension of the 17th century theatre in the Low Countiries have been published. The project will consider the literary and musicological aspects as well as the dramaturgical aspects of the music, on the one hand in Amsterdam, where from the beginning of the century a professional theatre existed, on the other hand in the rest of the Netherlands and in Flanders where the plays were usually performed by the rhetoricians, although in some towns there was an evolution towards a professional theatre. The project will research the importance of the musical dimension on the 17th century stage on the basis of litarary and musical parameters concerning the production, the authors and the performers, as well as the public, paying special attention to institutional, geographical, gender and genre differences.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Meeus Hubert
- Co-promoter: Willaert Frank
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project