Jacob van Maerlant (c.1235-1400): a contemplating medieval poet
When you think about people who lived in the middle ages, you would not immediately imagine a well educated, self-thinking and critical person, who dared to speak his mind against his contemporaries, or the secular and sacred powers. The middle ages are beginning to no longer be considered as the Dark Ages, but does this apply to the ordinary medieval man and woman? In this webpage I will try to expound my point of view that there were well educated, contemplating middle agers, who were aware of what was happening in their world and had their own thoughts about it. The famous Flemish poet, Jacob van Maerlant and his scalding poem Vanden Lande van Oversee (of the lands over the sea), about the loss of Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land in 1291, will provide as my case study in this matter.
The fall of Acre (1291): the last crusader stronghold
Imagine Europe and de Mediterranean world in the 13th century: The roaring times of crusades, Templers, papal councils and quarreling kings, but also the revival of the Muslim world and their reconquest of the Holy Land. In this period, Christian leaders were struggling to retain their strongholds in the Levant, keep the pope on their side and discourage their homeland nobility and peasantry from rising up against them. But in 1250 another problem arose in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Mamluk slave soldiers in Egypt revolted against their suppressers, the Abuyyid dynasty. The slave soldiers became their own masters, under the Leadership of Baibars (1223-1277), the new Sultan. A couple of months later, they managed to defeat the French crusader army in Egypt and captured their king, Louis IX (1214-1270). Other rulers, as Holy Roman emperor Frederick II (1194-1250), could not come to his aid, because they were occupied by keeping order in their European lands. This resulted in the king having to beg and pay the Mamluks a large sum of money for his release.
The Western Christians continued not to be able to secure their domination in the Levant. A little more than forty years after the shameful arrest of the king of France, the Mamluks managed to conquer the last standing crusader stronghold in the Levant, the city of Acre (in modern day Israël) in May 1291. This defeat created a shockwave through Europe, reaching the pope, Nicholas V in August of the same year. He responded with an encyclical, a circular letter sent to all the Christian states, churches and priests. He named his letter Dirum amaritudinis calicem, which means something as ‘a fearful cup of bitterness’, aiming at the loss of Acre. In his Dirum he announced the loss of the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land and encouraged the faithful to take immediate action against the ‘infidels’ (non-Christians), who soiled the lands of Jesus of Nazareth.
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On the left you can download an audiofile in which Dutch linguist Frits van Oostrom reads the first strophe of Vanden Lande van Oversee out loud in Diets.
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Jacob van Maerlant: poet and broker
It seems to be clear that Van Maerlant was aware of the debacles in the Levant and even had his own fierce view on it. But how did this information get to him and did his view have any meaning? In the social network theory information can also be a flow, something transported between different kind of people or actors (nodes) on the social and communicational lines that tie them together (ties). Pope Nicholas IV received information about the fall of Acre about three months after it had occurred. In this centralized network, he was just another node around the event that had happened and the flows of information about it. Immediately, he sent his own view of the matter around through the clergy, for all the Christians to receive. This made him not only the most important node is his own centralized network, but also made him a link (broker) in between the news ties around the fall of Acre and his own information network about his thoughts on the same event.
Van Maerlant was one of the nodes in the broker Nicholas’ network, linked to the information network around the fall of Acre. By reforming this news in his own words and his own opinions in Vanden Lande, Van Maerlant himself became a broker too. He adapted the flow of the news on the fall of Acre and made it his own. According to this theory, Van Maerlant did not just repeat an event, but he created his own view, which he expanded and distributed by his poem. Because of the language Van Maerlant wrote it in (Diets), it is not likable he meant to influence the pope with it. He probably aimed at the civilians and secular and sacred rulers who spoke and read his own language. The count of Holland and Flanders, Floris V, where Van Maerlant had written about in previous poems, may have been an intended reader.
Conclusion
This information undeniably shows that people in the middle ages were very aware of what was going on in the world and even were perfectly capable to display their opinion about it. Jacob van Maerlant seems to have known exactly how disastrous the fall of Acre was. He did not sugarcoat his anger and criticized his contemporaries for their apathy. With his poem he even became the main node is his own centralized network. We as contemporary readers, have become nodes in Van Maerlants network as well. Where the name of pope Nicholas IV has almost gone lost in history, Van Maerlant and his poems are still being researched and enjoyed. The medieval poet chose his own path and made sure his readers would remember him, as we have not forgotten him today. By this theory, Van Maerlant has managed to create several ties through the art form of poetry, up to contemporary times and a social network that has existed for over 700 years.
~ HAZ
This information undeniably shows that people in the middle ages were very aware of what was going on in the world and even were perfectly capable to display their opinion about it. Jacob van Maerlant seems to have known exactly how disastrous the fall of Acre was. He did not sugarcoat his anger and criticized his contemporaries for their apathy. With his poem he even became the main node is his own centralized network. We as contemporary readers, have become nodes in Van Maerlants network as well. Where the name of pope Nicholas IV has almost gone lost in history, Van Maerlant and his poems are still being researched and enjoyed. The medieval poet chose his own path and made sure his readers would remember him, as we have not forgotten him today. By this theory, Van Maerlant has managed to create several ties through the art form of poetry, up to contemporary times and a social network that has existed for over 700 years.
~ HAZ
Figures
Figure 1: Unknown artist, Miniature painting of probably Jacob van Maerlant at the beginning of Spiegel Historiael in the Hague handwriting. (c.1350), http://www.dbnl.org/letterkunde/middeleeuwen/artikelen/auteurs.php.
Figure 2: History Today Magazine, Mamluk Dynasty Map, https://www.flickr.com/photos/historytoday/4600552767.
Figure 3: H. Pickery, Statue of Jacob van Maerlant, 1860, the Grote Markt in Damme. Fotographer unknown, http://www.belgiumview.com/belgiumview/tl1/view0004307.php4.
Figure 4: HZ, Web of Social Network theory: Fall of Acre --> Vanden Lande van Oversee.
Video
18th of May: Siege of Acre signals ends of Crusade influence, uploaded by HistoryPod, 17th May 2015. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZCoYchdDo.
Further Reading
Allen, Rosamund Eastward Bound: Travel and Travellers, 1050-1550. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
Biesheuvel, Ingrid. Maerlants werk: Juweeltjes van zijn hand. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Ambo / Amsterdam University Press, 1998.
Bird, Jessalynn, Edward Peters en James M. Powell. Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
Cobb, Paul M. The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Lower, Michael. The Barons’ Crusade: a Call to Arms and its Consequences. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
Malkin, Irad. A small Greek world : networks in the Ancient Mediterranean. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Oostrom, Frits van. Maerlants Wereld. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1996.
Schadd, Pauline. "Preaching and Heretics: The Medieval Public Sphere – A Literary Review on the Existence of the Public Sphere in the Middle Ages". Medievalists.net, 8 March, 29, 2014.
Sicker, Martin. The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.