Hennen van Merchtenen en de Voortzetting van de Brabantsche yeesten (ca. 1430-1450)

Abstract

Hennen van Merchtenen and the Continuation of the Brabantsche yeesten (ca. 1430-1450): The attribution problem In 1432, a Brabantine poet completed the first of two volumes which together would constitute the Voortzetting van de Brabantsche yeesten, a detailed account of the more recent history of the duchy of Brabant, meant as a complement to the authoritative history of Brabant, the Brabantsche yeesten, which Jan van Boendale had finalised about the middle of the fourteenth century. As a whole, the Voortzetting would cover the period from about 1350 until the birth of Philip the Good’s son, the later Charles the Bold, in 1433. The text is anonymous, but some historians have seriously considered an attribution to Hennen van Merchtenen, the author of a Chronicle of Brabant (Cornicke van Brabant), presented to duke John IV in 1415, in which Merchtenen committed himself to a much more important historical work, on condition that the necessary means were granted to him. Merchtenen was also a judicial officer in the service of the duke, and, because his traces in the archives disappear after 1418, it was assumed that he had died relatively shortly after that year. In this article, we contest this assumption and adduce a number of arguments concerning tenor and style in favour of one authorship for the Cornicke van Brabant and the Voortzetting.