Printed pages, perfect souls? Ideals and instructions for the devout home in the first books printed in Dutch

This article studies the role of the earliest books printed in the Dutch vernacular in the religious practice of lay individuals and the devout home. Many of the texts disseminated in these early printed books have received little attention and scholars have tended to view them within the sphere of the Modern Devotion, even though often there is no direct link to this religious reform movement. This article attempts to show that the first books printed in Dutch offer an interesting lens through which to study domestic devotion in the Low Countries in the last decades of the fifteenth century. It argues that these books bridged the gap between catechetical instruction and the private home, literally bringing home many of the ideals and instructions that the clergy would have offered in church and thus increasingly ‘textualizing’ the lives of the late medieval laity. Printers such as Gerard Leeu and his contemporaries acquainted Christians to the use of printed books for personal and practical religious instruction and knowledge and thus paved the way for developments in the sixteenth century.NWO275-30-036Medieval and Early Modern Studie

Spinning with passion: the distaff as an object for contemplative meditation in Netherlandish religious culture

NWOMedieval and Early Modern Studie

Een weelde aan allegorische beelden

Medieval and Early Modern Studie

Seeing beyond signs: allegorical explanations of the mass in medieval Dutch literature

NWOMedieval and Early Modern Studie

Een ‘transfer’ naar de franciscaanse observantie

NWOMedieval and Early Modern Studie

Why did Antonio de Nebrija draw faces into a Dutch book from 1480?

NWOMedieval and Early Modern Studie

Religious Practice and Experimental Book Production. Text and Image in an Alternative Layman's "Book of Hours" in Print and Manuscript

The Devote ghetiden vanden leven ende passie Jhesu Christi (Devout Hours on the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ) provides an intriguing case study of text and image relationships in the transitional age between manuscript and print. The 1483 and 1484/5 editions of the Devote ghetiden were an innovative commercial endeavor by the prolific printer Gerard Leeu. These editions of a new vernacular religious text, flexible in use and primarily aimed at laymen, combined with no less than eighty-four full-page illustrations, offered the lay reader an unprecedented level of visual material for private devotion located in the same object as the text. Changes in both composition and page layout, which occurred when text and image were refashioned in a different medium, altered the reader’s meditative experience, reflecting not only the multiform character and individuation of religious practice on the eve of the Reformation but also the influence of printed books on late medieval textual and visual culture as a whole.Medieval and Early Modern Studie

De Brusselse broeders en de boekdrukkunst

NWOMedieval and Early Modern Studie

Gerard Leeu en de Leidse schoolmeester Engelbert Schut

De Madoc-redactie bedient zich graag van haar eigen netwerk om aan kopij te komen. Zo zet ze in feite een traditie voort die terug reikt tot de Middeleeuwen. Vijftiende-eeuwse drukkers zetten hun connecties ook al in om aan teksten te komen die interessant waren om te drukken en het liefst ook nog geld in het laatje brachten. Het is vaak evenwel lastig om het netwerk van vroege drukkers te reconstrueren. De connectie tussen Gerard Leeu en de Leidse schoolmeester Engelbert Schut biedt in dit verband een interessante casus.NWO275-30-036Medieval and Early Modern Studie

Margriet Boelen as a Reader: Manuscript, Print, and Painting in Amsterdam around 1500

Margriet Boelen, who hailed from Amsterdam, is known to have commissioned a painting from Jacob Cornelisz in 1512 with the Nativity and devotional portraits of her and her family members. This contribution attempts at portraying Margriet as an owner and reader of books. Her (family’s) books provide additional information about the Boelens as well as about Margriet’s devotional interests and religious practice. Margriet’s book(s) – and more in general the increasing information about ownership of early printed books – also trigger questions regarding the role of the early printed book within a wider array of media, and the relationship between text and image in late medieval lay devotional culture in particular. When applied to viewing as well as reading, the concept of ‘ethical reading’ introduced by John Dagenais can be helpful in providing an indication of the way(s) in which lay readers and viewers connected both texts and images to their every day lives and used both media to advance their devotion.NWO275-30-036Medieval and Early Modern Studie