Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde. Jaargang 117

[p. 5]

Hermina Joldersma
Writing Late-Medieval Women and Song into Literary History^*

Abstract - The connection between women and song in the late-medieval period is often made but has not been systematically explored. This article establishes a framework for such an exploration by outlining the issues to be addressed, summarizing the kind of information yielded by the sources, and illustrating the perspectives conducive to making the most of such information.

* My thanks go to M. de Bruin, J. van Dongen, and L. Grijp of the Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam, for generous help with songs and song sources; to J. van Aelst for references to Suster Bertken; to O. Lie, D. van der Poel, E. van Boven, and T. Streng for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Research on Netherlandic song benefits greatly from recent work on published and manuscript song sources (De Bruin 1998, Oosterman 1998, Strijbosch 1996); the official and complete bronnenrepertorium will be published in 2001.

1. Introduction

The connection between women and song in the late-medieval period, though regularly made, still awaits thorough exploration. It is a distinct red thread in the context of pre-reformational religious song, receiving mention in specialized studies such as J.A.N. Knuttel (1906: 20) and G.G. Wilbrink (1930: 261), in literary histories such as Kalff (1907: II, 283) and Van Mierlo (1950: II, 134-138), and more focused attention in recent articles (e.g. Van Buuren 1992, Joldersma 1997, Joldersma and Van der Poel 2000). My own interest in a wider connection, one which includes secular as well as sacred song, was piqued initially by Peter Burke's cautiously formulated challenge in his 1978 Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, where he notes that the already formidable difficulty ‘of reconstructing and interpreting the culture of the inarticulate’ is at its most acute when attention is focused on gender variations (49). The two areas in which women seem to have carved out identifiable and possibly traceable niches are song and religion. In his brief discussion of song Burke mentions various aspects that merit attention: genre (one collection distinguishes between love-lyrics and ballads as ‘women's songs’ and ‘men's songs’ respectively, 49-50), function (women's work is accompanied by spinning songs, waulking songs, songs for grinding grain, 50), and transmission (women as compilers, 28). In my continued explorations I have come to agree that Burke was correct in identifying women's presence in this area, but that the work of excavating the nature of that presence by reconstructing and interpreting their agency is more challenging than one might first think (Joldersma 1989). In this article I seek to tease out a number of the issues that must be addressed, with particular attention to questions relevant to including women's contribution to song in literary histories.

2. Illustrating some issues: ‘the Doesburg episode’

The complexities involved in this project are perhaps best illustrated by example. We are fortunate in having ready at hand an early fifteenth-century situation in which

[p. 6]

Dirc van Herxen, rector of a house for Brothers of the Common Life in Doesburg, was moved to compose a song of which we still know today. The chronicle reports the following:

It once happened in the same place that a maid near our house, as is the habit of the laity, often sang a frivolous Netherlandic song that sounded somewhat scurrilous. This made the venerable father indignant and he seized the opportunity to write a very devout song in praise of virginity and purity, on the melody and with the same notes as the secular song. When he had finished it, he gave it to Master Livinus, at that time rector of the pupils, so that Livinus might teach it to them in place of the accustomed song. Many people, having been moved by that song so elegantly and piously composed, and inspired by affection for the poet, were moved and inflamed to a love for purity; it was spread and copied and sung endlessly with devotion by pupils and the religious. On urging by sisters and girls alike, our father translated his song into the vernacular, quite elegantly and on the same melody.¹

This incident is often cited and especially treasured because we know both Van Herxen's Latin composition and the vernacular translation of that Latin song text.² The song is mentioned in many literary histories; in those organized primarily around authorship, Dirc van Herxen is the only hero of the piece (e.g. Kalff 1907: II, 282, Van Mierlo 1950: II, 134, Knuvelder 1964: II, 298-299). The women are all but invisible: only Kalff mentions the maid who sings ‘een ijdel, eenigszins oneerbaar liedje in de volkstaal’, while at least one interpretation extrapolates from the maid's song to characterize the maid herself as ‘zekere ligtvaardige vrouw’.³ The religious women have disappeared completely.

Suppose, however, that we reexamine this incident from a perspective seeking the larger picture of how literature functions, rather than primarily identifiable authors of texts, together with an alert eye for gender issues.⁴ Such a functional perspective - for example of the kind informing Nederlandse literatuur, een geschiedenis - would have noted the very different roles occupied by women and men in this episode, and might have introduced its discussion as follows:

Doesburg, c. 1428:
Housemaid's scurrilous song moves indignant Brother of The Common Life to compose a religious contrafact
Women's role in late-medieval song

Sometime in the first half of the fifteenth century, reports chronicler Jacobus Trajectic de Voecht, a certain Dirc van Herxen, rector of a house for Brothers of the Common Life in Doesburg, overheard a secular song which so incensed him that he composed a Latin religious text to that tune for the house's pupils; on popular demand he subsequently translated it into the vernacular. Noteworthy is what might be considered the seminal moment in the entire episode: a woman sings from the secular oral tradition. The Rector might have been equally affronted by a male voice, but one can imagine that the combination of female voice and worldly song gave particular offense. We do not know the singer's name and can only guess at the text of her offending secular song:⁵ both are ephemeral details in the genesis of the written, and therefore traceable, work which resulted. The woman sings while she works, ‘as is the habit of the laity’. We do not know if she wrote the song she sang; more likely it is one she had learned from an oral tradition. If she was at all literate, knowing ‘letters’ in either Latin or the vernacular, we have no record of it. We do know that as a housemaid she performed classic ‘reproductive work’ (to use a Marxist category anachronistically); her work was of the

1 My translation is based on the Latin text from The Hague KB 70 H 69 as reprinted in Grijp 1991: 327 n. 2; I thank J. Humphrey for help with it. See slightly different Dutch translations by Grijp 1991: 25 and J. Acquoy, cited in Van Duyse 1907: III, 2217.

2 Latin song and translation are in Brussels KB 8849-59 f.235r-235v; the translation is one of two vernacular religious songs in an otherwise Latin manuscript (f.235r-236v; cf. Strijbosch 1996: 24, #19; Stooker and Verbeij 1997: II, 115, #315). A second, shorter version of the translation, from the St. Agnes cloister in Utrecht, is in Berlin SB 8^o 190 (Strijbosch 1996: 21; #13, Stooker and Verbeij 1997: II, 403, #1205), with the music and stanza 1 on f.107r-107v, stanzas 2-8 on f.146v-147v; this manuscript contains 85 Latin and 107 vernacular songs. For all three texts see Van Duyse 1907: III, 2211-2217; cf. Bruning et al. 1963: 258-260.

3 G.H.M. Delprat quoted in Van Duyse 1907: III, 2208.

4 The theoretical discussion of gender studies has become a field of its own. Here I will work with a basic definition: gender is a category that ‘acknowledges social difference between men and women and allows for the analysis of women (and men) and their experiences in their own terms’ (Citron 1993: 5). For older periods, it is useful to remind ourselves ‘that while significant differences exist among women of various social classes, equally significant differences exist between men and women at all levels of society’ (Ferguson et al. 1986: xxi). Wiesner's 1987 still classic gender analysis of the period which is the focus of this article also stresses that women identified more with their social class than with their gender across social classes; still, gender differences did exist and shaped women's lives. For excellent historical overviews of the intersection of gender studies and music see Busch 1998 and Stanbridge 1998.

5 Berlin SB 8^o 190 f.146v (see note 3) has musical notation as well as a melody reference to a secular song: ‘Ons is verlenghet een deels den dach, ons doet gewach cleyn wout voghelkyn d'maerl’ (Bruning et al. 1963: 258 and Grijp 1991: 327 n. 2). Grijp speculates that ‘Ons is verlenghet’ was a love song with a spring Natureingang. We do not otherwise know this song and we cannot be sure that it was die basis for Van Herxen's contrafact, but this is entirely possible.

[p. 7]

kind that enabled others to devote themselves to ‘productive work’ such as devotion and learning, which left a more traceable written record.
There are others who play a role: two groups of religious women, equally anonymous. We know of the first group that it is on their request that Van Herxen composes a vernacular translation. Were they not literate enough to do such a translation themselves, were they deferring to the known poetic skill of the Rector, was this something women did not do? Why did they need a vernacular version, how did it function in their community? If indeed ‘sororum et virginum’ is to be understood as ‘the sisters as well as the girls’, we might see parallel uses for the two versions of the song: the sisters used the vernacular to edify their pupils, as the brothers used the Latin for theirs. A second group of anonymous women played a role in the song later on, as transmitters, for a second, shorter version of the vernacular translation was included in a song manuscript of c. 1500 from the St. Agnes tertiary cloister in Utrecht (see note 3).
Silhouetted against this anonymity, of the laity, the worker, the women, are two literate religious named men, Rector Dirc van Herxen and Master Livinus. Van Herxen's first goal is not, as one might expect, to reform the maid, but rather to edify the boys in the charge of his house; the resulting Latin contrafact (a song text written to an existing melody) is reportedly popular among them as well as among the brothers, and Livinus uses it to edify the boys in his charge.

Thus far the fictive literary history. While the concrete details of ‘the Doesburg episode’ may vary from situation to situation, they are characteristic for the often very different roles women and men play in late-medieval song. Women have traditionally been the more reliable carriers of the vernacular song tradition even into modern times.⁶ That women (and men, but our concern here is women) have sung while they worked has been documented well into our time.⁷ The church seems to have been consistent in its disapproval of the secular tradition, but it was primarily males who voiced and acted on such disapproval while secular song itself continued as an undercurrent in women's singing and their repertoire even in religious institutions. Men were more likely to possess the learning necessary for text (and musical) composition, but women played a major role in transmission: the majority of the songs we know from manuscripts are linked to women in some way (Joldersma 2000a). It was more often (religious) women who sought, and were given, vernacular literature for devotional and other purposes. And so the facts of the Doesburg episode are not really incidental: a (presumably) illiterate housemaid brings into the proximity of a literate religious man a secular song from the oral tradition; he disapproves and writes a Latin contrafact; this contrafact is translated because of women's need for a vernacular text;⁸ we know it today in part because of their role in the transmission of sacred vernacular song. The episode poses the question: whose song is it, to whom should credit be given? The anonymous woman who functioned as the (negative) muse? The named man who composed the Latin contrafact as well as the vernacular translation? The anonymous sisters without whom we would not have had that vernacular translation? The female tertiaries in Utrecht who transmitted a shortened version in their song manuscript? All of these complexities should shape our discussion of women's part in late-medieval song.

6 Since the beginnings of song research scholars have collected a sizeable majority of their songs ‘aus den Kehlen der ältesten Müttergens’, in the Romantic words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; though accounts of song collection must be taken with grains of salt (Gerritsen 1992), that women constitute the main informants is a constant thread. This is true also for the Low Countries: for example, the Iepersch oud-liedboek is composed entirely of texts collected from women in early nineteenth-century Flanders (Blyau and Tasseel 1900: 1-2), and women constitute a majority of the informants for twentieth-century collections such as Onder de groene linde (Doornbosch et al. 1987ff.).

7 Songs in the Iepersch oud-liedboek, such as the famous ‘Heer Halewyn’, were sung in chorus ‘in de kantwerkscholen door de jonge meisjes’ of nineteenth-century Flanders (Blyau and Tasseel 1900, Van Duyse 1903: I, 13); many informants in Onder de groene linde link song to agricultural work (Doornbosch 1987ff.).

8 Similar facts emerge in another chronicle report (Brussels KB 8858; see Van Duyse 1907: III, 2208): Dominus Theodoricus de Gruter composed the vernacular song ‘Och heer der hemelen stichter’ specifically ‘pro laicis et sororibus’. The phrase places the need for vernacular texts, in this case religious song, in the realm of the laity and of religious women.

3. Terminology: ‘women's songs’, ‘women and song’, Lebensgrund der Texte

Through the years the term ‘women's songs’ has come to be used rather indiscrimi-

[p. 8]

nately as designation for three quite different phenomena. I would like to clarify these three different uses, explain my preference for the phrase ‘women and song’, and discuss how I see an explicit focus on Lebensgrund der Texte as the best way to capture the connection between them.

One very common and longstanding usage of ‘women's songs’ is as a direct translation of the German Frauenlieder to mean medieval poems and songs with a female I-persona. These ‘women's songs’ are more often than not written by men, although the authorship question has been and is subject to debate. This literary definition informs collections such as John Plummer's Vox Feminae: Studies in Medieval Women's Songs and Ingrid Kasten's Frauenlieder des Mittelalters; in them, ‘women's songs’ are a lyric genre distinguished by speaking voice, texts in which the literary voice of a woman is the principle or only persona, songs whose lyrical subject is a woman.

A second usage understands the term functionally: ‘women's songs’ are those that women ‘have’, in the sense of ‘sung most typically by them’ or, more colloquially, ‘songs that especially women like’. This is the definition used by social historians such as Burke; it is also the definition which implicitly informs collections from the modern women's movement. As we have seen, Burke uses it for songs which bear a specific and recognizable relationship to a realm identified as primarily or exclusively female, such as certain kinds of work and certain social situations.⁹ Other scholars have extended this definition from the study of the relationship between song and function/situation to an analysis of the accompanying genres: an obvious example would be the woman's work of caring for infants, and the genre ‘lullaby’ that accompanies such work (e.g. Van Voorst van Beesd 1986). In a next step, scholars extrapolate from the characteristics of a ‘woman's genre’ (e.g. lullabies) to other types of songs bearing similar characteristics, interpreting these other songs as ‘women's songs’ even if the link to women's functions is ambiguous or absent; such is the work of Johns and Lemaire (1986: 152-153) on lyrical versus narrative.¹⁰

A third usage focuses on authorship: ‘women's songs’ are those written by women.¹¹ There are indeed some known female authors in the late-medieval period, but the anonymity of song generally ensures that most texts cannot be attributed to anyone, female or male. This is so even when late-medieval songs themselves name ‘haer’ and ‘hem’ in singer stanzas (the final stanza which purports to ascribe the song to a particular, if anonymous, individual, to be discussed further below); this information cannot be taken at face value, and scholars have been justifiably cautious. An example of recent efforts to seek female authorship in anonymous late-medieval songs is the work of Albrecht Classen (1998, 1999); he argues that particularly if there is a female literary persona in a text, the text's content is ‘female’ (e.g. complaint about men), and the text is located in a manuscript belonging to a woman, that text should be ascribed to a female author. His work is interesting but not convincing because it does not address the necessary methodological problems (Joldersma 2000b).

This article does not concern itself with the first definition, the literary voices of women in songs; that is a vast field and a completely different kind of study. Neither does it study function in a social-historical sense; although such research would be highly desirable, the sources on which this study is based do not readily yield such information. Instead, this article focuses on connections between ‘women and song’:

9 For a more modern repertoire, Y. Avishur 1987 has analyzed the songs of Jewish women in Iraq; he defines women's songs as those which women maintain and sing and shows that in this culture, gender influences the social functions of music performed by men and women as well as the accompanying instruments and the dialects in which they are sung. Similar studies on the late-medieval period are scarce, as perhaps the information is; for a brief discussion see Burke 1978: 49-50.

10 See Joldersma 1989 for a reluctantly critical discussion of these approaches.

11 Lemaire 1985, 1986; Joldersma 1989; Meijer and Huizinga 1986; Meijer 1998; Classen 1998, 1999.

[p. 9]

what can we know about the authorial nature of women's creativity in relation to song, what kinds of questions must be asked to tease out their creativity, what kinds of perspectives are most conducive to finding and valuing their contribution? ‘Seeking the authorial nature of women's creativity’ is a perhaps cumbersome rephrasing of seeking women's role in the Lebensgrund der Texte, an untranslatable German term which goes beyond mere reception and transmission to capture the organic nature of late-medieval song, the way in which a text was received, reworked and adapted to accord with the new situation, passed on to another person or group, and so on. I borrow the phrase Lebensgrund der Texte from Kurt Ruh's succinct foreword to the second, completely revised edition of the Verfasserlexikon of German medieval literature (1978: I, v-vii). In it Ruh articulates a number of principles conducive to including texts which sit uncomfortably in literary histories focused on period, author, or work; Lebensgrund der Texte best captures the complexities of tradition, transmission, intention, and function inherent in anonymous works of which there are multiple versions. Indeed, one significant innovation of the second edition of the Verfasserlexikon is the unapologetic inclusion of far more anonymous texts; specifically singled out as important ‘works’ are song manuscripts, and even some individual songs receive entries of their own. Although not even a focus on Lebensgrund der Texte will provide easy solutions to capturing the connection between women and song, it will help to delineate where such connections might most profitably be sought. Hence I choose to speak of ‘women and song’; this juxtaposition articulates the existence of a connection while leaving wide open the nature of that connection. The remainder of this essay will explore what we can know about ‘women and song’ when we seek to understand women's role in and contribution to the Lebensgrund of the late medieval song text.

4. The women we know: authors and collectors

If we consider first, simply because it is easier, what we might know about women and song by seeking individual and identifiable authors or collectors, a first glance yields what would seem a substantial amount of material. Some authors we know by name and person: Utrecht anchorite Suster Bertken (1426/27-1514; Van de Graft 1955, Van Buuren 1989, Van Aelst 1998); Brussels magistrate's widow Katharina Boudewijns (c. 1587; Van Belle 1927, Porteman 1997); Anabaptist martyrs Anna Jansz (1509/10-1539; Packull 1996) and Martha Baerts (c. 1539-1560; Gregory 1996); from North Holland the later Anabaptist hymnists Soetken Gerijts (d. 1572; Visser 1996, Schenkeveld 1997a) and Vrou Gerrits (c. 1580-1605; Visser 1996, Schenkeveld 1997b). Further we know of a few evidently historical but otherwise unidentifed women: ‘hillegont aeronts dochter cornelis cornelis soens huisvrou’ (c. 1497) noted as the first to sing a song, which may not mean ‘authored’;¹² the ‘persoen’ mentioned in the cryptic note, ‘Dese drie navollegende liedekens heeft een persoen ghedicht’.¹³ A few singer stanzas in both religious and secular songs mention as authors ‘haer’ and ‘sij’, though as we shall see, singer stanzas pose special interpretive challenges.

The list of historical names referring to owners of or contributors to manuscripts

12 Brussels MS II 2631, f.35v (song 25: ‘Hier boven in den hemel’); cf. f.48v which tells us that a song was ‘eerst ghesonghen’ by pastor ‘Ariaen cornelis die brouwers soen’ (song 50: ‘Wi willen Gode loven’); for the vernacular texts of this manuscript see my website: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~joldersm/Brussels_Main_Page.htm. That no parallels have been found for either song points in the direction of local composition, but in no way proves it.

13 Brussels MS II 2631 f.25v (song 8: ‘Jhesus mijn alre liefste heer’); this may refer to a woman, given that this manuscript likely originated in a women's religious institution, but is not necessarily so.

[p. 10]

is considerably larger: ‘Marigen Remen’ (Gerritsen 1966), ‘Liisbet Ghoeyuaers’ and ‘Johanna Cueliens’ (Seggelen 1966), ‘Etheken Bernts dachter’ (Obbema 1996), ‘Jenneken Verelst’, ‘Maiken Mertens dochter alias Passchens’ and ‘Mariken Paesschens van Gheel’ (Tiele 1869, Oosterman 2000), ‘Kateline Winkelmans’ (Braekman 1996), ‘Anna de Teniers’, ‘Wyvine Pieters’, ‘Margriet Melis’ (Roes 1897).¹⁴ Many of these are connected to song manuscripts with significant, sometimes exclusively sacred content; they lead quite naturally to a substantial number of further sacred song manuscripts often anonymously compiled in women's religious institutions (Van Buuren 1992; Joldersma 1997, 2000a). Other names, such as ‘Kathryna von Bronchorst und Batenborch’ (Brednich 1976), ‘Habel van Herema’ (Heringa 1978), ‘Theodora van Wassenaer en Duvenvoerden’ (Oosterman 1998), ‘Maria van Besten’ (Ter Kuile 1918), lead us to the realm of alba amicorum, women's participation in the sixteenth-century trend of owning manuscripts to which friends and relatives contributed songs or other verses (Delen 1989, 1990).

Knowing a woman's name, however, rarely assures knowledge about the historical person behind it; there is much painstaking research to be done. Marigen Remen is not known beyond her name, for example, and Gerritsen justifiably cautions that knowing more would require systematic research in the archives of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Holland, ‘een reuzen werk, dat vele maanden zou vergen’ (1966: xlix). Still, one gets the impression that searching specifically for women in archives generally will find more than has been found to date. A case in point is recent work on Anna Jansz and Martha Baerts, for whom a careful and imaginative piecing together of the historical record has fleshed out the historical person behind the name (Packull 1996; Gregory 1996). Though these women wrote only one song each, the historical context excavated for each of them increases our understanding of and appreciation for these very different texts, one a fervent declaration of apocalyptic vision in the heyday of Anabaptist triumphalism, the other a sigh of near despair transformed into one of unwavering faith in the providence of God. Also Soetjen Gerrits and Vrou Gerrits have received greater attention from Anabaptist historians than from literary scholars (Visser 1996), though recent attention to the song oeuvres of both from a literary perspective adds an important enrichment to our understanding of their work as literature (Schenkeveld 1997a and 1997b). We now know that Jenneken Verelst was prioress of the cloister ‘Terbank’, near Louvain, in 1586, and that Anna Bijns seems to have written at least one song in addition to her well-known refrain poetry (Oosterman 2000). We know that Kateline Winkelmans owned property and was literate, since she names herself as ‘Ic kateline wynckelmans’ in a contract renting out a parcel of land in 1546 (Braekman 1996: 132). Rather more is known about noblewomen, as might be expected; so we know where Kathryna von Bronchorst lived, the identity of her parents, her husband, and a good number of friends and relations (Brednich 1976: 18-20). Still, what we know about women beyond their names is sparse; the scholarly record demonstrates primarily that seeking is a prerequisite for finding, and that there is quite a bit of systematic seeking to be done.

When it comes to including in literary histories even the women of whom we know names, works, and dates, other problems arise of which I will mention two. One is the tendency to privilege ‘oeuvre’ over single work, a choice which stands to

14 The manuscript containing these three names has been recently rediscovered (Hs. Nijmegen, UB, 62: I thank J. Oosterman for this and other information about alba amicorum).

[p. 11]

disadvantage women; even the Lauwerkrans prefers multi-work authors, even if exceptions were made for interesting cases (Schenkeveld et al. 1997: 1). Martha Baerts would be one such interesting case, for she wrote only one song, but she wrote it under exceptional circumstances, namely in prison and facing impending execution; the song surely merits exceptional attention because of this (though Van Herxen wrote only two songs, they receive regular mention). A second problem concerns continued uncertainty about women's authorship, an uncertainty strengthened by what seems to be greater scholarly scruple about facts when it comes to ascribing a text to a female author. But particularly for women, since they have been less documented in history, a greater willingness to accept possibilities and likelihoods is imperative. For example, questions can and have been raised about three of the authors mentioned above: for Suster Bertken about whether she wrote the ninth song not published with her other works but ascribed to her in another manuscript;¹⁵ for Anna Jansz about whether she is the ‘Anneken N' in Joris’ songbook;¹⁶ for Martha Baerts about whether it is indeed her song or Soetken van den Houte's printed in the pamphlet from which we know the text.¹⁷ But for each of these three, consideration of the facts we do know within the context of the Lebensgrund der Texte in which their work is to be situated, enables us to make more of the sometimes sparse factual evidence we do have. Exemplary is Fons van Buuren's careful contribution to the debate about whether or not Suster Bertken wrote that ninth song. He argues most plausibly that this question is not to be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Rather, by situating her work in the song culture of the Modern Devotion, by analyzing the song's six extant versions, and attending closely to even the smallest differences in the one ascribed to Suster Bertken, he concludes that Suster Bertken likely reworked a song popular in contemporary religious circles to accord with her personal situation (2000: 49). Anna Jansz' triumphalist song is attributed to ‘Anneken N’ in Anabaptist leader David Joris' songbook of 1539: can we be sure that ‘Anneken N’ is indeed the Anna Jansz who was martyred in Rotterdam in 1539? The connection depends on imaginative appeal to the circumstances: we know that she wrote, for she published an open letter to Joris and wrote a ‘testament’ to her son Isaiah; it seems unlikely that there would be in Joris' closer circle two ‘Annas’ who both wrote and published; the song, the letter, and the testament are very much in the same spirit and tone. The situation with Martha Baerts is somewhat different: did she or Soetken write the song that is printed under the title ‘Een schoen Geestelick Liedeken ghemaeckt door die selue Vrouwe Soetken Vanden Houten Haer Maecht Martha’? There seems to be no reason to read the grammatical construction other than as ‘the song was made by the maid of the woman’. Could a maid have been as literate as her mistress, would she have had the skill, the spirit and the means to write a song, however simple, during a lengthy and demoralizing imprisonment prior to her execution by beheading in Ghent on November 20, 1560? The circumstances argue for this: Martha was Anabaptist, and Anabaptists placed great importance on literacy for all, regardless of gender or social station, as key to reading Scripture and working out their own salvation; Soetken herself urges her children to pursue literacy diligently. Many Anabaptists wrote letters and testaments, and sometimes songs, in prison; it is entirely plausible that Martha was the author of this appropriately simple song.¹⁸

When we seek to sketch the contours of the larger song corpus, considering the

15 Only Berlin SB 8^o 190, f. 153v makes this connection: ‘Dit liedekyn heeft gemaect bairt suster die clusenarinne tUtrecht’ (Bruning et al. 1963: 273-277; Tan 1991:19; Van Buuren 2000).

16 Een Geestelijk Liedt-Boecxken, The Hague KB 1704 F 19, f.80v-85r (cited: copy at the Meertens Instituut).

17 Pamphlet of 1579: The Hague KB 1713 F33:4 (cited according to copy at the Meertens Instituut). Gregory 1996 attributes the song to Martha, Van Vaeck 1997 to Soetken.

18 Both Jansz' and Baerts' song, in Dutch with English translation, will appear in Joldersma and Grijp 2001.

[p. 12]

Lebensgrund der Texte will enable us to tease out other potentially helpful contours in the potpourri of names and collections listed above. Texts and agents will function quite differently in the mediums of manuscript and print, in the realms of sacred and secular, in the living conditions of landed estate, cloister, and town, in the pre- and post-reformation period. We can expect to know different things, and likely more, about those women whose works appeared in print (e.g. Suster Bertken, Katharina Boudewijns), or who were members of the nobility (Katharina von Bronchorst in Kleve, Habel van Herema in Friesland). The same holds true for women who led exceptional lives: Suster Bertken was well-known as a long-lived and venerated anchorite, Anna Jansz and Martha Baerts ran afoul of a church and state machinery which kept records, but even more importantly these women belonged to a post-reformational religious group dedicated to keeping the memory of the martyred alive through dissemination of their texts and stories in manuscript and print. We are only beginning to think about the many ‘unexceptional’ women who were active in compiling the religious song manuscripts which constitute our knowledge of late-medieval sacred song today; we do know that many such groups were located in urban areas, that some sort of network must have carried this pre-reformational song tradition from institution to institution, that despite commonalities the collections do show individual faces, that there are clear ties to the secular popular song tradition (Joldersma and Van der Poel 1999). Women's alba amicorum, in contrast, seem to have been particularly popular among female members of the lower nobility on a landed estate (Brednich 1976, Classen 1998), and differ from men's versions of that genre especially in their tendency to include song (Delen 1989, 1990). In the alba the secular love song predominates. In this regard they seem to contrast sharply to religious song manuscripts. From another perspective, however, the two types of collections share a distinct preference for love poetry: the alba amicorum draw on the secular popular song tradition itself, the religious manuscripts adapt the secular repertoire for sacred purposes. Both religious and secular manuscripts demonstrate knowledge of the (oral) secular song tradition, the former through references to secular melodies (‘wijsaanduidingen’) for sacred texts, the latter through direct transmission of currently popular secular song. Songs in manuscripts, generally, bear evidence of a closer relationship to the oral tradition than printed sources, though this is a predictable aspect of late-medieval song and quite natural when most printed sources can be ascribed to one known author.

5. The women we don't know: anonymous agency in the Lebensgrund der Texte

Van Buuren's meticulous discussion of Suster Bertken's ninth song provides a good model for the kind of consideration that will benefit our ability to see women's agency in anonymous texts. Let us return to the four songs in ‘the Doesburg episode’: the secular song at which we can only guess, Van Herxen's Latin contrafact, and the two versions of the vernacular translation. We have already noted that a woman's singing provided the impetus for the entire episode. This anonymous woman influenced also the content of Van Herxen's Latin song, for in reaction to the impurity he perceived in her song he was moved to write a hymn on purity; he both used and

[p. 13]

reacted to the secular model. The transmission of Van Herxen's ten-stanza original is characteristic for a male religious environment: it is in Latin, it has musical notation, it and its faithful vernacular translation are copied one after another in a manuscript containing mostly prose Latin texts.¹⁹ The main thrust of the song is indeed ‘reinicheit’ (purity): it is the quality which elevates mortal creatures to the level of angels (st. 1). The premier example of purity is the virginity of Mary, Christ's mother (st. 6); she is followed by ‘a very large host’ of similarly pure women like the martyrs Agnes and Katherine (st. 8), beautifully clothed and singing a new, no doubt honorable, song (st. 9). But the final stanza sounds a completely different note, inverting the celebration of purity into a dire warning about the consequences of its absence:

Ach doetlic, droevich overtraet
der boser lust hoech seere
die joecht vermits dy wort ontsaet
in doecht, verstant ende ere;
dijn wech leit totter hellen bat;
mijn raet is: weder keere.

(‘O deadly, deplorable transgression / of evil lust, horribly painful; / through your doing
youth is robbed / of virtue, understanding, and honor; / your way leads to the profit of
hell. / My advice is: turn back!’ Van Duyse 1907: III, 2213)

Consider, however, the shorter eight-stanza version of this text in a manuscript originating in the St. Agnes women's cloister in Utrecht. This version differs from the original in a number of characteristic ways. For one, it retains its tie to the secular tradition by providing a melody reference to the first line of a secular song, which may be the song sung by the maid; it seems that the women were not as offended by the (maid's) secular song as their male counterparts. But the more striking difference lies in the completely different tone it acquires by its having been shortened, by the omission of just two stanzas. The two which have been left out are the seventh introducing Joseph and John as protectors of Mary, as well as the last, given above, which sounds dire warning should purity be absent. Left out in the Utrecht version, in other words, are precisely those two stanzas which interfere with the joyous celebration of female virginal purity. The Utrecht version ends on a completely different note:

Si volghen Jhesum stadelic
hair cleideren syn so reyne
si singhen alte suverlic
een nyewe liet alleyne
mit harpenspel in hemelrijc;
hair croon is niet ghemeyne.

(‘Steadfastly they follow Jesus / their robes are completely pure; / they sing together
purely / solely a new song / on the music of the harp, in Heaven; / their crown is not a
common one’. Van Duyse 1907: III, 2215)

Can we discern women's agency in this shorter version? We will likely never know who copied the song into the Utrecht manuscript, or what the copyist's intention might

19 See note 3 for bibliographical information. Neither Latin nor musical notation is the exclusive purview of manuscripts from men's institutions, but a preliminary analysis suggests that both are more likely to be found in them (Joldersma 2000a: 41-44).

[p. 14]

have been; neither is the shorter version ‘new’ in the sense of ‘originally authored’, for its eight stanzas are quite true to eight of the ten-stanza original. Nevertheless, the shorter version has transformed a somewhat dourly mixed-message text about purity into a unified celebration of that same state, with an emphasis on women; one imagines that the religious women who sang the song were able to include themselves unreservedly in the line of sainted and dancing virgins. This is an area for further research: are there specific characteristics to be discerned in song manuscripts from women's institutions, are individual collections informed by greater planning and intention than we have been able to detect,²⁰ have the texts been adapted in reception by those who copied them down, are certain images more preferred than others, is there a particular tone more typical for songs in collections from women's institutions? Preliminary investigation suggests that this may indeed be the case, and the image of virgins in celestial celebration is one which seems more prevalent in manuscripts from women's institutions than other collections, though these manuscripts are far from homogeneous in this regard.²¹ We might remind ourselves that a good century of song scholarship has indeed drawn conclusions about a feminine style; Knuttel speaks of the image of ‘a blue-with-cold baby Jesus’ as specifically feminine (1906: 135), Walter Salmen sees certain themes as particularly suited to the female imagination (‘der weiblichen Vorstellungswelt’) and discerns ‘femininely-gentle, tranquil tones’ in religious songs from women's institutions (1952: 345, 349). We recognize that such conclusions reflect scholars' current ideas and ideals of femininity as much as they do late-medieval texts, and that we ought to reconsider the matter, given a half century of development in theoretical approaches to the study of women. Still, it may be that renewed attention will lead us to corroborate some of these conclusions, and to find that certain characteristics of late-medieval song are more common to texts from women's institutions than from men's.

Alba amicorum constitute a quite different and equally complex Lebensgrund der Texte. Research on women's alba amicorum is still in its beginning stages (Delen 1989: 75); there are few detailed studies on individual collections, only preliminary (though instructive) work on how the alba of women and men differ, few thoughts on what the different texts contributed by different individuals might tell us about them. Delen's work has shown that women's alba constitute about ten percent of the total known for the sixteenth-century Low Countries, and songs predominate only in them (Delen 1989: 87). They constitute a complex source, for though each collection is associated primarily with one person, the contributors to the alba were many and only in part guided by the taste of the one to whom they dedicated their entry. These collections typically include a potpourri of texts besides songs; fascinating is the juxtaposition of serious and playful, of religious lament and love poem, of diametrically opposed depictions of women. Each album has its own character: Maria van Besten's circle of friends seems to have been more playful than Kathryna von Bronckhorst's, to judge by Gaspar Peñass' somewhat risqué ‘Si ma metresse était diablesse / de bien bon coeur je vouldroie estre Lusifer’ and Anna van Buren's rather humorous verse on life's (im)possibilities: ‘Als de mius vanget den kather / Unde de see ijs sonder wather / Unde de dunen sonder sant / So sal ik wesen kogginne van engelant’ (Ter Kuile 1918: 67, 51). A striking example of what can be learned about women through the texts they enter into such alba is the very first song in Kathryna

20 In discussing ‘convoluut’ and ‘verzamelhandschrift’, Gumbert 1996: 66 makes the point that it may be possible to exaggerate in this regard: ‘er is een onmiskenbare neiging, tussen wat in een verzamelhandschrift bij elkaar geschreven is, een samenhang te veronderstellen’ (I thank D. van der Poel for drawing my attention to Gumbert's review). According to Gumbert, one must always be aware that collections can range from the most careful planning and execution, through noble intentions with failure to execute, to an arbitrary inclusion of unrelated texts. Research into song manuscripts as miscellanies (verzamelhandschriften) is still very much an open field. Compare, for example, the very different conclusions by Knuttel and Obbema about plan or absence thereof in Vienna ÖNB 12.875: where Knuttel sees ‘niet willekeurig verzamelde liederen’ (1906: 60) Obbema finds ‘weinig lijn te ontdekken’ (1996: 171).

21 This image abounds in Anna von Köln (Salmen and Koepp 1954)) and Brussels MS II 2631 (Van der Poel 1999) but is not particularly prominent in the Ebstorf manuscript (Schröder 1888); it is strikingly absent in the Suverlijc boecxken of 1508 (Mak 1957). That an investigation of images and motifs bearing in mind gender issues might reveal certain trends in texts from women's institutions has been raised before (Van der Poel 1997: 217-218; Joldersma 1997a, 1997b). An in-depth study might fruitfully combine the insights of C. Walker Bynum (eg. 1985, but she has published much more) and M. Citron 1993: Bynum argues that the specifically feminine in medieval female spirituality is visible because of the degree to which particular images inform the works of women, Citron uses reader response and ‘Rezeptionstheorie’ to argue that ‘where women comprise the entire audience [...] we may be able to speak of an interpretive community that affects reception’ of musical or other works (1993: 188).

[p. 15]

von Bronchorst's album, entered by her relative Alyt. Alyt mentions, in signing her name, that she is the widow of Jan van Renesse (1506-1553), and that the thirty-third anniversary of his death is approaching; from other records we know that Alyt was persecuted for her Protestant faith and after considerable tribulation was living in Utrecht at the time of the writing (Brednich 1976: 16, 53). It is curious that hers is the first text in the book though likely the last entered (1586), at a time when Kathryna herself had been a widow for 12 years (Brednich 1976: 22). Alyt's entry combines four otherwise not particularly related song stanzas, at least one of which was well-known in the sixteenth century, into a relatively coherent lament on ‘lyden’ which ends trusting the God who will never forsake; the autobiographical note lends her text(s) a highly personal tone, and one can glimpse some of her sorrow through these otherwise traditional words. It has been argued that to a certain extent the course of Kathryna's own life may be charted through the entries in her book, including suitors' love songs as vehicles for their sentiments,²² the widened circle of acquaintances through her marriage, and finally the widow's lament discussed here.

As a Lebensgrund der Texte with respect to contemporary song, these collections are most interesting, and it is striking how many sometimes lengthy songs were included. In his edition of the album of Kathryna von Bronckhorst, Brednich had identified the lower aristocracy in the lower Rhine area, particularly its female members, as primary recipients and transmitters of a ‘post-courtly song culture’ (1976: 28-31); this picture is nuanced but not replaced by the broader scope of Delen's work (1989). Women's alba display a distinct preference for the love song (Maria van Besten, Habel van Herema), suggesting that young female noblewomen were as preoccupied with this topic as any female teenager today (though one must remember that while only the nobility has left us with such a written record, other social groups may have enjoyed love songs as well). From three of the songs entered into her manuscript by Kathryna herself one can deduce that she must have had a copy op Het Antwerps liedboek of 1544 before her (Joldersma 1983: I, LXVI), though a further five songs entered by her demonstrate that she also had other (oral?) sources at her disposal. Kathryna and others of her aristocratic circle seemed to have appreciated songs about love in all genres, including lyrical and narrative love poems, especially dawn poems and love complaints; Habel van Herema's album shares the penchant for love songs (Heringa 1978: 25), but draws far more heavily on Rederijker sources than on an oral tradition. While songs constitute a minority of texts in Maria van Besten's album, love songs still predominate, several with explicitly erotic imagery and vocabulary. One tells of a rape: ‘Vat hij dede sij moesten ('t) liden / Har erken en diurden nit lanck’ (‘She had to suffer whatever he did / Her virginity did not last long’; Ter Kuile 1918: 51). This text is a good example of the selective transmission of images, phrases, and texts from the larger tradition in a particular collection. In the version transmitted in Het Antwerps liedboek #67, it tells of the rape and murder of ‘fier Margrietken’ (Joldersma 1983: II, 126-127). The version in Van Besten's album ends quite differently: the girl is not murdered but lives to tell her mother, the rapist is tortured and beheaded, and the song ends with a warning to ‘gesellen’ (young men) that this is what comes of disregarding the will of ‘ioncfrouwen’ (young women).

Kathryna von Bronckhorst's copying of songs from Het Antwerps liedboek, like the singing maid in ‘the Doesburg incident’, points to yet another aspect of the Lebensgrund

22 Brednich 1976: 20-21 cites as similar example the fifteenth-century Lochamer-Liederbuch's use of ‘Liebesliedtexten als Ausdruck persönlicher Lebenshaltung’.

[p. 16]

der Texte which bears investigation: documented evidence of women as singers, copyists, ‘consumers’ of song. In this we can catch some glimpses of women as participants in both sacred and secular song traditions. Besides Kathryna copying from a song book, and the maid in Doesburg singing from the oral tradition, various records make relatively regular mention of women being paid for having entertained a group through singing.²³ There are quite a number of religious women who owned song collections and passed them on to their sisters. We know of Anabaptist martyrs who died with song on their lips (Grijp 1997); Anna Jansz was arrested because her public singing revealed her to be an Anabaptist. Especially in the seventeenth century, the forewords of printed song collections specifically target young women as users, leading Louis Grijp to suggest: ‘Meisjes waren blijkbaar ook al in de zeventiende eeuw zanglustiger dan jongens’ (1992: 62). As far as I know, no study has examined systematically whether and how the contents of the collections bear evidence of being targeted at young women.²⁴ In the realm of sacred song, studies on the use of books generally in women's religious institutions contain interesting details about women and music, for example that the ability to copy musical notation was considered a special skill not mastered by many.²⁵ We know that among the few books owned by sister Liesbeth van Arden (c. 1416) were ‘hoer graduale ende ander sanckboeke’, about which is said that they were simply executed (‘niet vromme’), and that mediocre singers, for example Trude van Beveren, were not given their own liturgical songbooks (Scheepsma 1997: 63).

A special problem is posed by the female pronouns in singer stanzas; in this, too, scholarship is wise to maintain a delicate balance between considerations of Lebensgrund der Texte and authorship in the more usual sense of ‘single identifiable individual’. Generally, scholars no longer hold that the ‘facts’ in singer stanzas provide reliable biographical information but recognize such stanzas as relatively conventional Wanderstrophen, migratory stanzas which move from song to song.²⁶ Still, singer stanzas are numerous and tantalizing enough to encourage a more systematic and detailed study of them generally, with an open eye to gender variations. Without embarking on such a study here, I would suggest that in these conventional stanzas the male singer occupies a default position: if a singer is mentioned at all, that singer will be male unless there is a good reason to present a female singer. Where a female singer is mentioned, a second look at the motivation for departure from the default position is in order.²⁷ Because secular and sacred song present rather different problems in this regard, I will examine a few examples from each.

In song 31 of Het Zutphens Liedboek the singer stanza names a woman: ‘Der vns dytt lietien erstwarff sanck / sie hefft so wall gsungen’ (‘The one who first sang us this song / she sang it so very well’; it emphatically calls her ‘ain junckfraw fin’, a fine noble lady (Leloux 1985: 144). The song is transmitted in a number of contemporary collections (Joldersma 1983: II, 53-56); only one of the parallels has a singer stanza, which similarly mentions a female singer.²⁸ The compiler of the Zutphen manuscript seems to have intentionally attributed this song to a woman, for ‘hie’ is crossed out and replaced with ‘sie’ in the second line. How is one to read this insistence? Leloux, who finds the substitution of ‘sie’ for ‘hie’ senseless, interprets the woman in the singer stanza as being the attractive young lady who moved the male singer to compose his song in the first place (1985: 145). Indeed, it is possible to argue

23 Janse 1992: 127, 132; Vellekoop 1992: 150-151. The records they cite are earlier, particularly from the 14^th century, and work needs to be done on whether this changed in time.

24 For example, Grootes 1987 makes a convincing case that the young, rich and single were targeted as consumers of seventeenth-century songbooks; gender issues are not addressed specifically in the study, but might be fruitfully differentiated, especially in the more general category ‘huwbare jeugd’.

25 According to Lingier 1993: 462 n. 90 skill in writing was not a foregone conclusion for late-medieval women, and the ability to copy books ‘beyde ghenoetiert ende onghenotiert’ merited special mention (cf. Scheepsma 1997: 63). Research on women's use of song, also religious song, still needs to be done: were they used primarily for individual devotion or communal singing (Van Buuren 1992; Joldersma and Van der Poel 2000), to accompany women's dance in their institutions (as I have heard suggested in conversation), to aid in the pedagogical activities of the sisters, as ‘the Doesburg episode’ suggests? The chronicle of the St. Agnes house in Ghent mentions instruction in singing: ‘Die eene was als scoelmeestersse, over alle de ghene die behoufden in lesen ende in singhen ende in anderen consten dier ghelike gheleert te sine’ (quoted in Lingier 1993: 454, n. 22); see similarly a passage from Diepenveen: ‘Sie waert ghelert synghen ende lesen, dat sie zeer wal conde leren ende bequaem was tot allen dijnghen dieder nonscap toe behoerden’ (quoted in Lingier 1993: 455, n. 23). Lingier 1993: 282 interprets this instruction as particularly important for nuns with specific liturgical duties: ‘Lezen en zingen waren noodzakelijke vaardigheden voor de zusters met koordienst’, but one could postulate that especially the pupils were taught religious vernacular songs as one means ‘om die novicien ende andere jonghers wel ende nerenstelic te leerenne inden observantien van der ordinen ende in allen doechden’ (Lingier 1993: 455, n. 24).

26 Joldersma 1983: I, LXXXI; Van der Poel 1997: 216-219 reaches very similar conclusions about what can be learned from singer stanzas in secular and sacred song. Far more ready to establish a connection between a female author and the woman named in a singer stanza is Classen 1999.

27 The ‘default position’ is a colloquial version of the ‘degree zero position’ in Susan Sniader Lanser's investigation of narrative voices in fiction: ‘in the absence of textual information to the contrary, a certain degree zero of narrator identity is presumed [...] [T]he unmarked case for both writing and narration is the male case: writers and narrators are presumed male unless the text offers a marking to the contrary’ (165-166). Lanser's theoretical considerations are grounded in post-medieval prose fiction and not late-medieval song, but her work on ‘point of view’ would provide a fascinating point of departure for a more sophisticated analysis of singer stanzas. I thank Toos Streng for alerting me to this possibility.

28 A German version of 1639 has this singer stanza: ‘Der uns dyss neue Lidlin sank / Der hat gar wol gesungen / Es hat es gethan ein jungfraulin / Drank gerne win’ (Boie 1780: 282-283).

[p. 17]

that the song portrays a consistently male perspective which celebrates physical love while castigating female faithlessness. Yet Leloux deals with the facts of the singer stanza in a somewhat cavalier fashion. Suppose, instead, that we see the singer stanza as an independent addition to this version, and focus on ‘erstwarff sanck’: the stanza reports that it was a woman who sang this particular song here for the first time. Two interpretations are possible: there really was a flesh-and-blood woman who sang it ‘beym kollen wien’ (‘while drinking cold wine’, an ambiguous reference to both a tavern situation and to sexual encounter); a male singer found it effective in his singing of the song to adopt that female persona. We can imagine that either of these two situations would have enhanced enjoyment of the song in a performance situation: a man affecting a female persona who admits to enjoying sex, a woman playing the same game. As it is, the singer stanza tells us nothing about any real woman. What it does tell us is that gender was a location for playfulness in late-medieval song. I note, in passing, that the Zutphen version of this song is the only one which specifically emphasizes the faithlessness of the woman; in all the others love is true, and the only other version with a singer stanza (also a woman) emphasizes precisely the woman's faithfulness.

Song 21 in the manuscript of Jenneken Verelst differs from Zutphen 31 in that the ‘I’ persona throughout is female, lamenting that her lover has chosen another woman. The song closes with this singer stanza:

Die dit heeft ghemact
al en eest niet wel geraect
elaes sij mach wel truren
haer heert na vroechden haect
haer siel na blijdschap waect
ten mach haer niet gheboeren.²⁹

(‘The person who made this song / even if it didn't turn out all that well / alas, she might
well mourn! / Her heart longs for joy / her soul keeps watch for happiness / it will not
happen to her!’)

Despite the congruency between female persona in song and singer stanza, it would be a mistake to ascribe authorship of this song to a woman without further ado, anymore than Zutphen 31. Still, this song merits careful attention because of the intersection between such a consistently maintained female perspective and particular aspects of the female singer stanza. Classen has recently argued with some vehemence that precisely such songs should be ascribed to a female author: ‘Wenn dann in einer Reihe von “Volksliedern” die Sängerstimme angibt, sie als Frau habe diese Lieder verfaßt, dann sollte man doch diesen Behauptungen zunächst einmal glauben, vor allem wenn es sich nicht nur um sentimentale Affektäußerungen handelt, sondern oftmals sogar um fast als aggressiv zu nennende Klagen von Frauen, deren Liebhaber sie schmählich im Stich gelassen oder sie betrogen haben’ (1999: xix). I would not agree (Joldersma 2000b) that we can discern female authorship from a female persona (for then we are back to the first definition of ‘women's songs’), nor yet content (even aggressive complaints can be written by anyone), nor even singer stanzas (the gender of these can vary at will). Rather, this song offers two other bits of evidence, most notably the formulaic expression of modesty in the second line of the last stanza, a dis-

29 I thank L. Grijp for drawing my attention to this three-stanza song and for transcribing the text. It is mentioned briefly by Tiele 1869: 575 as a fragment missing some introductory stanzas. See Oosterman 2000 for more recent discussion of this manuscript; as with so many others, an edition is highly desirable.

[p. 18]

claimer common to women's writing,³⁰ and the fact that this manuscript belonged to a woman. Even then, establishing authorship beyond a doubt is not the most interesting aspect of this song; what is interesting, rather, is the fact that a woman's love complaint purportedly written by a woman appealed to some real women enough for them to include it in their collection of treasured songs (Tiele 1869).

The realm of sacred song poses different challenges. Here there are better reasons to argue that reference to gender in the singer stanzas is motivated more by the gender of the historical singer or author than literary or text-internal considerations. What we see as a result are identical songs varying the gender of the singer/author depending on the source in which it is transmitted. Such is the case for the religious contrafact ‘Die voghelen van deser aerden’: in the two ‘women's manuscripts’ from the fifteenth- and mid-sixteenth centuries in which it is transmitted the singer stanza names a female author, one version even more emphatically than the other (emphasis added): ‘dat hi hoer herte verlichten wil / die dit lietken heeft gedicht / dat wi by hem moeten coemen’ (Berlin SB 8^o 185), ‘Dat hij haer hart wijl verlichten [...] Opdat sij hiernae mach comen’ (Marigen Remen). In the various printings of the songbook of Tonis Harmansz. van Warvershoef (c. 1600), however, the pronouns fluctuate: one retains ‘haer’ and ‘zy’ (The Hague KB 1712 E 2, Ciii), some mix female and male pronouns (‘Dat hy haer hert [...] Op dat hij hier na’: Amsterdam UB 976 C 9, 73), while others move to male pronouns alone (‘Dat hy sijn herte [...] Op dat hy hier na mach komen’: The Hague KB1703 H 8, E7r).³¹ If the song had been transmitted only in Marigen Remen's manuscript, or in her's and the other manuscript with female provenance, we might have been inclined to take the singer stanza at face value and consider as possible, if not provable, a female author. But substitution of pronouns in the printed songbook complicates the matter and cautions, should we have forgotten, that even for religious songs singer stanzas are notoriously unreliable conveyors of factual information. It could be that these are a late-medieval version of ‘women's songs’ in their first definition: poems and songs with a female I-persona, more often than not written by men, texts in which the voice of a woman is the principle or only persona.

Still, I would argue that despite the ease with which the printed collection was able to substitute male for female pronouns, there are good reasons to take the manuscript versions at face value and ascribe female agency of some sort to the different versions of this song.³² One such reason is based on the function of singer stanzas generally, the other on a consideration of gender differences in ascribing songs to women or men. Singer stanzas can function to mark the end of a song, to adopt a poetic persona suitable to its content, or (with caveats) to convey some information about the poet or singer. As far as gender differences in ascribing songs is concerned, I have argued above that if there are no text-internal or biographical motivations for choosing one gender over another, in the stereotypic formulation of the singer stanza the default position would go to a man, while a woman would be named with specific thought and intention. For the singer stanza of ‘Die voghelen van deser aerden’, three observations can be made: it does signal the song's end; the text itself gives no reason to adopt a female persona; the stanza purports to convey some information about the poet. There seems to be no good reason for a male poet to have adopted a female persona for the singer stanza, not even if he had been writing for a female

30 Formulaic expression of modesty is one way in which women have circumvented the fact that female writing is necessarily problematic; see Van der Poel 1997: 215-216 and Barratt 1992: 8-10 for discussion of this and other strategies employed for the same purpose.

31 Gerritsen 1966 reprints most of these versions: Marigen Remen (text 14-17, commentary lix), Berlin SB 185^o (text 87-88), and one printing from Warvershoef (89-90, likely The Hague KB 1703 H 8; see the reference to ‘een naar rechts wijzend “handje”’, 90). I cite other editions of Warvershoef according to photocopies in the Meertens Instituut. See De Bruin 1998: 41 for the full title and five editions/printings of Warvershoef, though there are more; only extraneous evidence permits approximate dating of these undated songbooks. The substitution of male for female pronouns need not be a chronological development, for later printers could have relied on different earlier models; still, such substitution might be one clue in further efforts to date the various printings of this songbook. I am grateful to M. de Bruin for sharing her knowledge (and her frustrations!) with the dating of this ‘lastig baasje’.

32 See another fascinating example of the contextual interchange of female and male pronouns in parallel texts in Vienna ÖNB 12.875 and Die gheestelicke melody (Obbema 1975: 172) where the latter names ‘suster lutghert’, the former ‘broeder geriit’ as the one who commissioned the collection. As Obbema concludes in deliberations that raise as many questions as they answer, these sources demonstrate once more ‘dat dit soort verzamelingen van liederen levende literatuur waren die aan de persoonlijke of gemeenschappelijke behoeften werden aangepast’ (173).

[p. 19]

audience. It therefore seems entirely possible - though never provable - that this song was indeed written by ‘haer [...] die dit liedekin heeft ghedicht’. In Marigen Remen's manuscript the following song, unique to her manuscript, has not one but two singer stanzas emphatically naming a female author, leading at least one scholar to conclude that both it and the previous song were written by a woman, ‘vermoedelijk uit eigen mystieke ervaring’ (Gerritsen 1966: lx).³³

33 There are enough other examples of female singer stanzas (e.g. Anna de Tenniers, Roes 1897: 391 and 393), that a more systematic study is in order.

6. Conclusion

Departing from ‘the Doesburg episode’ as example, we have traversed various terrains in which women and song intersect, asking in each case what these various intersections can tell us about women and song in the late-medieval period. There are some identifiable authors, but very few; even for them, and certainly for situations in which anonymity predominates, we will see more of women's activity if we look for agents, women actively shaping the Lebensgrund that constitutes late-medieval song. As we look further, we will see endless variations on the details in the Doesburg incident: women who sing while they go about their business, religious women for whom song serves didactic purposes, religious women who adapt while they collect, women who participate in the secular tradition and women for whom the secular tradition is the framework for religious song. If for medieval literature, and possibly more so for late-medieval literature, we have more questions than answers, this is doubly the case for women: not only are there many questions, but there are even fewer answers, and of those few answers a good number must necessarily be speculative. But it is because of song that we have such questions about women at all, that we have caught glimpses of them, their existence and activities. There are other women to be glimpsed, other stories to be told, other songs to be learned, other agents to be discovered. Netherlandic literature is particularly rich in sources which have something to say about the topic of ‘women and song’; there is much research waiting to be done.

Author's address: 928 - 34^th Street NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 2Y1

[p. 22]

Bibliografie

Van Aelst 1998 - J. van Aelst: ‘Het leven van Suster Bertken. Kanttekeningen bij de recente beeldvorming’. In: Ons geestelijk erf 72 (1998), p. 262-272.

Avishur 1987 - Y. Avishur (ed.); Women's Folk Songs in Judeao-Arabic from Jews in Iraq. Or Yehuda: 1987. (Studies in the History and Culture of Iraqi Jewry 4).

[p. 23]

Barratt 1992 - A. Barratt (ed.): Women's Writing in Middle English. London, 1992. (Longman Annotated Texts).

Van Belle 1927 - H. van Belle (ed.): Katherina Boudewyns. Het Prieelken der gheestelyker Wellusten. Antwerpen, 1927.

Blyau and Tasseel 1900 - A. Blyau and M. Tasseel: Iepersch Oud-Liedboek. Teksten en Melodieën uit den volksmond opgeteekend. Gent, 1900.

Boie 1780 - H.C. Boie: ‘Drei alte Lieder. Aus einem Schreiben an den Herausgeber’. In: Deutsches Museum 2 (1780), p. 282-284.

Braekman 1996 - W. Braekman: ‘Geestelijke en wereldlijke Liederen en Spreuken uit Brugge (vroege 16de eeuw?)’. In: Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal -en Letterkunde. Gent, 1996, p. 109-136.

Brednich 1976 - R.W. Brednich: Die Darfelder Liederhandschrift 1546-1565. Münster, 1976.

De Bruin 1998 - M. de Bruin: Repertorium van het Nederlandse lied tot 1600. Bronnenlijst van de drukken. Voorlopige versie. Amsterdam, 1998.

Bruning 1963 - E. Bruning, M. Veldhuyzen, H. Wagenaar-Nolthenius (eds.): Het geestelijk lied van Noord-Nederland in de vijftiende eeuw. De Nederlandse liederen van de handschriften Amsterdam (Wenen ÖNB 12.875) en Utrecht (Berlijn MG 8^o 190). Amsterdam, 1963. (Monumenta musica neerlandica 7).

Burke 1978 - P. Burke: Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. New York, 1978.

Busch 1998 - V. Busch: ‘Gender Studies: Eine Einführung’. In: S. Fragner, J. Hemming und B. Kutschke (eds.): Gender Studies & Musik. Geschlechterrollen und ihre Bedeutung für die Musikwissenschaft. Regensburg, 1998, p. 9-18. (Forum Musik Wissenschaft 5).

Van Buuren 1989 - A.M.J. van Buuren (ed.): Suster Bertken. Twee bij Jan Seversz in Leiden verschenen boekjes ('s-Gravenhage, KB 227 G 46) in facsimile uitgegeven. Utrecht, 1989.

Van Buuren 1992 - A.M.J. van Buuren: ‘“Soe wie dit lietdkyn sinct of leest”. De functie van de Laatmiddelnederlandse geestelijke lyriek’. In: F. Willaert et al., Een zoet akkoord. Middeleeuwse lyriek in de Lage Landen. Amsterdam, 1992, p. 234-254, 399-404. (NLCM 7).

Van Buuren 2000 - A.M.J. van Buuren: ‘Ja zuster, nee zuster. De overlevering van “Die werelt hielt my in haer gewout”’. In: B. Besamusca, F. Brandsma, D. van der Poel (eds.): Hoort wonder! Opstellen voor W.P. Gerritsen bij zijn emeritaat. Hilversum, 2000, p. 43-50.

Van Buuren 1980 - H. van Buuren: ‘Vergeten vrouwen in de Nederlandstalige letterkunde: vanaf het begin tot 1700’. In: Chrysallis 6 (1980), p. 4-44.

Bynum 1985 - C. Walker Bynum: ‘Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women’. In: Representations 11 (1985), p. 1-25.

Citron 1993 - M.J. Citron: Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge, 1993.

Classen 1998 - A. Classen: ‘Ottilia Fenchlerin's Songbook: A Contribution to the History of Sixteenth-Century German Women's Literature’. In: Women in German Yearbook 14 (1998), p. 19-40.

Classen 1999 - A. Classen: Deutsche Frauenlieder des fünfzehnten und sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Authentische Stimmen in der deutschen Frauenliteratur der Frühneuzeit oder Vertreter einer poetischen. Gattung (das Frauenlied?). Amsterdam-Atlanta, 1999. (Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur 136).

Delen 1989 - M.-A. Delen: ‘Frauenalben als Quelle. Frauen und Adelskultur im 16. Jahrhundert’. In: W. Klose, (ed.), Stammbücher des 16. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden, 1989, p. 75-93. (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 42).

Delen 1990 - M.-A. Delen: ‘Vrouwenalba in de zestiende en vroege zeventiende eeuw’. In: K. Thomassen (ed.), Alba Amicorum. Vijf eeuwen vriendschap op papier gezet: het album amicorum en het poëziealbum in de Nederlanden. 's-Gravenhage, 1990, p. 129-139.

Doornbosch 1987 - A. Doornbosch, M. van Dijk, H. Kuijer, H. Sterringa (eds): Onder de groene linde. Verhalende liederen uit de mondelinge overlevering. Amsterdam, 1987-1991. 3 vols.

Van Duyse 1903 - F. van Duyse: Het oude Nederlandsche lied. Wereldlijke en geestelijke liederen uit vroegeren tijd. Teksten en melodieën. Den Haag, 1903-1907. Reprint Hilversum, 1965. 3 vols.

Ferguson et al. 1986 - M.W. Ferguson, M. Quilligan, and N.J. Vickers (eds.): Rewriting the Renaissance. The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Chicago, 1986. (Women in Culture and Society).

[p. 24]

Gerritsen 1966 - W.P. Gerritsen et al. (eds.): Het liedboekje van Marigen Remen (Hs. Leiden, U.B., Ltk. 218, F.62-F.78v). Utrecht, 1966. (Ruygh-Bewerp I).

Gerritsen 1992 - W.P. Gerritsen: ‘“Aus den Kehlen der ältesten Müttergens”. Tussen volksliedonderzoek en mediëvistiek.’ In: Volkskundig bulletin 18 (1992), p. 79-89.

Van de Graft 1955 - C.C. van de Graft (ed.): Een boecxken gemaket ende bescreven van suster Bertken die lvij iaren besloten heeft gheseten tot Utrecht in die buerkercke. Naar de eerste uitgave van Jan Berntsz. Utrecht 1516. Zwolle, 1955. (Zwolse drukken en herdrukken 9).

Gregory 1996 - B. Gregory: ‘Soetken van den Houte of Oudenaarde’. In: A. Snyder and L. Huehert Hecht (eds.), Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers. Waterloo ON, 1996, p. 365-377. (Studies in Women and Religion 3).

Grijp 1991 - L.P. Grijp: Het Nederlandse lied in de Gouden Eeuw. Het mechanisme van de contrafactuur. Amsterdam, 1991. (Publikaties van het P.J. Meertens-Instituut 15).

Grijp 1992 - L.P. Grijp: ‘De Rotterdamsche Faem-bazuyn. De lokale dimensie van liedboeken uit de Gouden Eeuw’. In: Volkskundig bulletin 18 (1992), p. 23-78.

Grijp 1997 - L.P. Grijp: ‘Zingend de dood in’. In: F. Willaert (ed.), Veelderhande liedekens. Studies over het Nederlandse lied tot 1600. Symposium Antwerpen 28 februari 1995. Leuven, 1997, p. 118-148. (Antwerpse Studies over Nederlandse Literatuurgeschiedenis 2).

Grootes 1987 - E.K. Grootes: ‘Het jeugdig publiek van de “nieuwe liedboeken” in het eerste kwart van de zeventiende eeuw’. In: W. van den Berg en J. Stouten (eds.), Het woord aan de lezer. Zeven literatuurhistorische verkenningen. Groningen, 1987, p. 72-88.

Gumbert 1996 - J.P. Gumbert: ‘Tientallen teksten in diplomatische vitgaue’. In: Queeste 3 (1996), p. 66-71.

Heringa 1978 - B. Heringa: De liederen uit het album van Habel van Herema. Doctoraalscriptie Utrecht, 1978.

Janse 1992 - A. Janse: ‘De hoofse liedcultuur aan het Hollands-Beierse hof omstreeks 1400’. In: F. Willaert et al., Een zoet akkoord. Middeleeuwse lyriek in de Lage Landen. Amsterdam, 1992, p. 123-135, 359-364. (NLCM 7).

Johns and Lemaire 1986 - E. Johns and R. Lemaire: ‘Balladen’. In: Lemaire 1986, p. 137-155.

Joldersma 1983 - H. Joldersma (ed.): ‘Het Antwerps Liedboek’. A Critical Edition. Princeton, 1983. Diss. Princeton. 2 vols.

Joldersma 1989 - H. Joldersma: ‘Gender Questions in the Analysis and Classification of Ballads and Popular Songs’. In: C. Laforte (ed.), Ballades et chansons folklorique. Actes de la 18^r session de la Commission pour l'étude de la poésie de tradition orale (Kommission für Volksdichtung) de la S.I.E.F. (Sociéte internationale d'ethnologie et de folklore). Québec, 1989, p. 231-242.

Joldersma 1997a - H. Joldersma: ‘“Geestelijke” en “wereldlijke” liederen. Enige aspecten van het handschrift Brussel MS II, 2631’. In: F. Willaert (ed.), Veelderhande liedekens. Studies over het Nederlandse lied tot 1600. Symposium Antwerpen 28 februari 1995. Leuven, 1997, p. 58-73. (Antwerpse Studies over Nederlandse Literatuurgeschiedenis 2).

Joldersma 1997b - H. Joldersma: ‘Narrative Songs and Identity in Late-Medieval Women's Religious Communities’. In: M. Joy (ed.), Paul Ricoeur and Narrative. Context and Contestation. Calgary, 1997, p. 97-108.

Joldersma 2000a - H. Joldersma: ‘Frauenstimmen im spätmittelalterlichen Lied: einige Forschungsaufgaben’. In: G. Busch-Salmen and E. Rieger (eds.), Frauenstimmen, Frauenrollen in der Oper und Frauen-Selbstzeugnisse. Herbolzheim, 2000, p. 37-50. (Beiträge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Musik 1).

Joldersma 2000b - H. Joldersma: Review of A. Classen 1999 [Deutsche Frauenlieder]. In: Colloquia Germanica 33 (2000), p. 188-190.

Joldersma and Van der Poel 2000 - H. Joldersma and D. van der Poel: ‘Sij singhen met soeter stemmen. Het liederenhandschrift Brussel KB II 2631’. In: Nederlandse Letterkunde 5 (2000), p. 113-137.

Joldersma and Grijp 2001 - H. Joldersma and L. Grijp (eds.), ‘Elisabeth's manly courage’: Testimonials and Songs of Martyred Anabaptist Women in the Low Countries. Marquette WI, forthcoming 2001 (Reformation Texts with Translation: Women of the Reformation).

Kalff 1907 - G. Kalff: Geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde. Groningen, 1906-1912. 7 vols.

Kasten 1990 - I. Kasten (ed.): Frauenlieder des Mittelalters. Zweisprachig. Stuttgart, 1990. (Reclam 8630).

[p. 25]

Knuttel 1906 - J.A.N. Knuttel: Het geestelijk lied in de Nederlanden voor de kerkhervorming. Rotterdam, 1906.

Knuvelder 1964 - G. Knuvelder: Handboek tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandse Letterkunde. 's-Hertogenbosch, 1964. 4 vols.

Ter Kuile 1918 - G.J. ter Kuile: ‘Album amicorum van Maria van Besten’. In: Verslagen en Mededeelingen van de Vereeniging tot beoefening van Overijsselsch Regt en Geschiedenis. Deventer, 1918, p. 47-67.

Lanser 1981 - Lanser, S. Sniader: The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction. Princeton, 1981.

Leloux 1985 - H.J. Leloux (ed.): Het Zutphens Liedboek. MS. Weimar oct 146. Van een historische achtergrond voorzien door F.W.J. Scholten. Zutphen, 1985.

Lemaire 1985 - R. Lemaire: ‘Vrouwen in de lyriek’. In: R.E.V. Stuip and C. Vellekoop (eds.), Middeleeuwers over vrouwen. Utrecht, 1985, vol. 1, p. 111-126, 199-200. (Utrechtse bijdragen tot de Mediëvistiek 3).

Lemaire 1986 - R. Lemaire (ed.): Ik zing mijn lied voor al wie met mij gaat. Vrouwen in de volksliteratuur. Utrecht, 1986. (Tekst en maatschappij).

Lingier 1993 - C. Lingier: ‘Boekengebruik in vrouwenkloosters onder de invloed van de Moderne Devotie’. In: Th. Mertens et al., Boeken voor de eeuwigheid. Middelnederlands geestelijk proza. Amsterdam 1993, p. 280-294, 454-466. (NLCM 8).

Mak 1957 - J.J. Mak (ed.): Dit is een suuerlijc boecxken. Het oudste gedrukte geestelijke liedboek in de Nederlanden naar het enig bekende exemplaar van de Antwerpse druk van 1508 in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te 's-Gravenhage. Facsimile edition. Amsterdam, 1957.

Meijer 1998 - M. Meijer (ed.): The Defiant Muse. Dutch and Flemish Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. A Bilingual Anthology. New York, 1998.

Meijer and Huizinga 1986 - M. Meijer and A.D. Huizinga (eds.): Dit maakt ons ademloos bij haar geluid. De mooiste gedichten door vrouwen geschreven. Amsterdam, 1986.

Van Mierlo 1950 - J. van Mierlo: De letterkunde van de Middeleeuwen. 2e herziene en vermeerderde druk. Dl. 2. 's-Hertogenbosch etc., 1950. Geschiedenis van de letterkunde der Nederlanden 2.

Obbema 1975 - P.J. Obbema (ed.): Die gheestelicke melody. Ms. Leiden, University Library, Ltk.2058. Facsimile edition. Leiden, 1975.

Obbema 1996 - P.J. Obbema: ‘Het einde van de Zuster van Gansoirde’. In: P.J. Obbema: De middeleeuwen in handen. Over de boekcultuur in de late middeleeuwen. Hilversum, 1996, p. 166-175.

Oosterman 1998 - J. Oosterman: Repertorium van het Nederlandse lied tot 1600. Bronnenlijst van de handschriften. Voorlopige versie. Antwerpen, 1998.

Oosterman 2000 - J. Oosterman: ‘Jenneken Verelst en Anna Bijns. Nieuws over handschrift Leiden, UB, BPL 1289 en zijn inhoud’. In: SpL 42 (2000), p. 49-57.

Packull 1996 - W. Packull: ‘Anna Jansz of Rotterdam’. In: A. Snyder and L. Huebert Hecht (eds.), Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers. Waterloo ON, 1996, p. 336-351. (Studies in Women and Religion 3).

Plummer 1981 - J.F. Plummer (ed.): Vox Feminae. Studies in Medieval Women's Songs. Kalamazoo, 1981. (Studies in Medieval Culture 15).

Van der Poel 1997 - D.E. van der Poel: ‘Vrouwelijke auteurs in de Middelnederlandse letterkunde. Een verkenning’. In: Nederlandse Letterkunde 2 (1997), p. 208-227.

Van der Poel 1999 - D.E. van der Poel: ‘Dansende maagden. Het liederenhandschrift Brussel, KB II 2631’. In: Vooys 17 (1999), p. 18-26.

Porteman 1997 - K. Porteman: ‘“Patiëntie is zo goeden kruid”: Katharina Boudewijns’. In: Schenkeveld et al. 1997, p. 135-139.

Roes 1897 - H. Roes: ‘Een liederen-handschrift’. In: Dietsche Warande NR 10 (1897), p. 261-288, 381-461.

Ruh 1978 - K. Ruh: ‘Vorwort’. In: K. Ruh et al. (eds.), Verfasserlexikon. Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. 2^nd ed. New York, 1978 ff., vol. I, V-VII.

Salmen 1952 - W. Salmen: ‘Das Liederbuch der Anna von Köln und seine Beziehungen zu den Niederlanden’. In: Kongress-Bericht. Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft. Utrecht, 1952, p. 340-351.

[p. 26]

Salmen and Koepp 1954 - W. Salmen and J. Koepp (eds.): Liederbuch der Anna von Köln (um 1500). Düsseldorf, 1954. (Denkmäler rheinischer Musik 4).

Scheepsma 1997 - W. Scheepsma: Deemoed en devotie. De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften. Amsterdam, 1997. (NLCM 17).

Schenkeveld 1997a - M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen: ‘Een blinde leidsvrouw: Soetken Gerijts’. In: Schenkeveld et al. 1997, p. 123-128.

Schenkeveld 1997b - M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen: ‘Contacten met de “zusters in de Heer”: Vrou Gerrits’. In: Schenkeveld et al. 1997, p. 144-146.

Schenkeveld et al. 1997 - M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen et al. (eds.): Met en zonder lauwerkrans. Schrijvende vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne tijd 1550-1850: van Anna Bijns tot Elise van Calcar. Amsterdam, 1997.

Schenkeveld et al. 1998 - M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen et al. (eds.): Nederlandse Literatuur, een geschiedenis. Amsterdam, 1998. 2^nd printing.

Schröder 1888 - E. Schröder: ‘Die Ebstorfer Liederhandschrift’. In: Jahrbuch des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung 14 (1888), p. 1-32.

Van Seggelen 1966 - A.J.M. van Seggelen (ed.): Het liedboek van Liisbet Ghoeyuaers. Zwolle 1966. (Zwolse drukken en herdrukken 56).

Stanbridge 1998 - A. Stanbridge: ‘Railing at Canons: Feminism, Musicology, and Interdisciplinarity’. In: S. Fragner, J. Hemming, and B. Kutschke (eds.), Gender Studies & Musik. Geschlechterrollen und ihre Bedeutung für die Musikwissenschaft. Regensburg, 1998, p. 204-221. (Forum Musik Wissenschaft 5).

Stooker and Verbeij 1997 - K. Stooker and T. Verbeij: Collecties op orde. Middelnederlandse handschriften uit kloosters en semi-religieuze gemeenschappen in de Nederlanden. Leuven, 1997. 2 vols. (Miscellanea Neerlandica 15-16).

Strijbosch 1996 - C. Strijbosch: Repertorium van Middelnederlandse liederen in bronnen tot 1500. Deel 1: Bronnenrepertorium. Voorpublicatie. Antwerpen, 1996.

Tan 1991 - A. Tan: De liederen van Suster Bertken. Een onderzoek naar de plaats van haar liederen binnen de traditie van het geestelijk lied in de Middeleeuwen. Doctoraalscriptie Utrecht, 1991.

Tiele 1869 - P.A. Tiele: ‘Oude Nederlandsche liederen’. In: Dietsche Warande 8 (1869), p. 572-585.

Van Vaeck 1997 - M. Van Vaeck: ‘Geschreven vanuit de gevangenis: Soetken van den Houte’. In: Schenkeveld et al. 1997, p. 118-120.

Vellekoop 1992 - K. Vellekoop: ‘“Beede ghenoot ende ooc ghescreven”. Reconstructie en uitvoeringspraktijk van liederen in het Gruuthusehandschrift’. In: F. Willaert et al., Een zoet akkoord. Middeleeuwse lyriek in de Lage Landen. Amsterdam, 1992, p. 136-153, 364-368. (NLCM 7).

Visser 1996 - P. Visser: ‘Soetjen Gerrits of Rotterdam and Vrou Gerrits of Medemblik’. In: A. Snyder and L. Huebert Hecht (eds.), Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers. Waterloo ON, 1996, p. 384-405. (Studies in Women and Religion 3).

Van Voorst van Beesd 1986 - P. van Voorst van Beesd: ‘Wiegelied - Vrouwenlied’. In: Lemaire 1986, p. 113-136.

Wiesner 1987 - M.E. Wiesner: ‘Beyond Women and the Family. Towards a Gender Analysis of the Reformation’. In: Sixteenth-Century Journal 18 (1987), p. 311-321.

Wilbrink 1930 - G.G. Wilbrink: Das geistliche Lied der Devotio Moderna. Ein Spiegel niederländisch-deutscher Beziehungen. Nijmegen, 1930. Diss. Nijmegen.