Arthuriana

In recent years, scholars active in the research project The Literary Heritage of Anglo-Dutch Relations, c.1050–c.1600 have set out to trace and comprehend the deep-rooted, continued contact between England and the Low Countries during the Middle Ages and early modern period. Among the academic works that spawned from this project [End Page 185] is also the book under review here, an edition and facing-page English translation of the 'Middle Dutch Brut' produced by Sjoerd Levelt.

This Middle Dutch Brut is not actually a translation of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut, but rather an amalgamation of various excerpts from the Brut and its translations. Furthermore, whilst originally composed as an individual work, this text is found as an inserted chronicle in a Dutch translation of the Fasciculus temporum, a universal chronicle first printed in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. In 1480, the printer Johan Veldener would translate this work into Dutch and add translations of chronicles to the text, one of which was a Dutch chronicle of Britain dubbed the Middle Dutch Brut. It is this text that is edited and translated by Levelt.

The edition is moderate in size and scope, yet manages to present the reader with the historical and literary context needed to appreciate the text and its intricacies through a well-written introduction. This introduction not only touches on a number of aspects related to the Brut and its printer, but also pays attention to the interest in British history in the county of Holland and the diocese of Utrecht as well as Veldener's connection with William Caxton. These extra bits of context help cement the understanding that the Middle Dutch Brut is not merely a translation of an English text into Dutch, but rather a literary Anglo-Dutch mixture that reflects the international nature of the printing process during the later Middle Ages.

This interconnectedness of Dutch and English is further emphasized in Levelt's extensive discussion on the sources used by Veldener and the Brut translator, which takes up the majority of the introduction. Based on the selection and rewriting of these sources, Levelt characterizes the Dutch Brut as a propagandistic (Lancastrian) chronicle of England, made for a Dutch-speaking audience that was interested in the politics and history of England. Through a multitude of examples, he argues that Veldener negotiated between his Dutch and English sources, aiming to compose a mixture of Dutch and English views on the history of Britain and its effect on the history of the Northern Netherlands. Since the Middle Dutch Brut and the Dutch Fasciculus—despite their success and popularity during their own time—have received little scholarly attention, Levelt's discussion is most welcome and sure to serve as a basis for further research.

In the analysis of these sources we also find interesting remarks concerning the depiction of King Arthur in the Middle Dutch Brut. His role is, however, diminished and limited. Furthermore, some of the information that is included does not match up with the Anglo-Norman Brut or later histories like Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae. For example, Arthur's reign is said to have ended in 486, which is a significantly different date from that of the Brut (546) or the Historia (542). Levelt manages to conclude that the Arthurian elements in the Middle Dutch Brut were largely borrowed from the Dutch Spiegel historiael, a verse translation of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale by Jacob van Maerlant. Supposedly, it was easier for the Dutch-speaking Veldener to paraphrase the verse lines from Maerlant into prose than to translate afresh from Latin, French, or English.

This edition itself is designed for comparative research like the type done by Levelt himself. The English translation is readable whilst simultaneously designed [End Page 186] with literality in mind. The Dutch text is presented in a diplomatic edition that stays true...