Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

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Chapter XXVIII The ‘Bee Hive of the Romish Church,’ by Marnix of St. Aldegonde

With the exception of Erasmus' Praise of Folly, there is probably no other book written in the sixteenth century which found so many readers among the Protestants, as the biting satire of Marnix of St. Aldegonde, published under the title of ‘The Beehive.’

The author of this book, Philip of Marnix, Lord of St. Aldegonde, commonly called ‘Marnix’ or ‘St. Aldegonde,’ or Marnix of St. Aldegonde, was born at Brussels in the year 1538, studied at the University of Louvain, and at Geneva under Calvin and Beza. After having returned to the Netherlands, he became one of the leaders in the revolt against Spain, and by his writings one of the best defenders of Protestantism. He defended the image-breaking of 1566, and fled from the country when, in 1567, the duke of Alva came to the Netherlands. All his possessions were confiscated, and he himself was condemned to death. During five years, from 1567 until 1572, he lived in exile, most of the time in Germany, and it was during this time that he wrote his ‘Wilhelmus van Nassauwe,’ the most beautiful national hymn of the Dutch people, and his famous satire against the Roman Catholic Church entitled, ‘De Byencorf der H. Romische Kercke’ (The Beehive of the H. Roman Catholic Church). After his return to the Netherlands he appears as one of the most

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intimate friends of the Prince of Orange, who often employed him for diplomatic missions and at last made him, in 1583, first burgomaster or governor of Antwerp. But when, during the year 1585, he had been forced to surrender the city to the Spaniards, he retired to his country place at Sauburg in Zealand, and after that time devoted himself entirely to his studies. During the last years of his life, when he was appointed by the States General to prepare a new translation of the Bible, he moved to Leyden, where he died in 1598, after having finished only a small part of this work. ‘He was a poet of much vigor and imagination, a prose writer whose style was surpassed by that of none of his contemporaries, a diplomatist in whose tact and delicacy William of Orange reposed in the most difficult and important negotiations, an orator whose discourses on many great public occasions attracted the attention of Europe, a soldier whose bravery was to be attested on many a well-fought field, a theologian so skillful in the polemics of divinity that he was more than a match for a bench of bishops upon their own ground, and a scholar so accomplished that besides speaking and writing the classical and several modern languages with facility he had also translated for popular use the Psalms of David into vernacular verse, and at a very late period of his life was requested by the States-General of the republic to translate all the Scriptures, a work the fulfillment of which was prevented by his death.’ ‘His device, Repos ailleurs, finely typified the restless, agitated and laborious life to which he was destined.’¹

1 J.L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. I, Part II, Chapter VI. The best monographs on the life and works of St. Aldegonde are those of Edgar Quinet, Th. Juste, Alberdinck Thym, J. van der Have, and especially G. Tjalma. The works of St. Aldegonde are published in seven volumes with introduction by E. Quinet at Brussels, 1857-1860. His religious and ecclesiastic writings in Dutch were collected and republished in four vols., with introduction by J.J. Torenenbergen, The Hague, 1878.

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His great satire, ‘The Beehive,’ was an answer to a letter published by Gentian Hervet, Bishop of Bois le Duc, in which letter an endeavor was made to convince the Protestants of their error in leaving the Roman Catholic Church. In the form of a commentary to that letter St. Aldegonde submits all the peculiar dogmas, and the whole policy of the Roman Catholic Church, to the most subtle criticism, taking himself the appearance of a defender, and in that way producing a biting satire, in which he compared the Roman Catholic Church to a bee hive, and the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, monks, and priests to the different kinds of bees every kind with its own sundry qualities. Some of these bees, he says (alluding to cardinals and bishops) live in the neighborhood of their king and ‘how much the nearer they approach to the king so much the thicker and rounder they commonly grow.’ Others live a more solitary life, and these bees, therefore, ‘are called with the Greek word Monachi.’ Another kind are horseflies, wasps and hornets (the common priests) with this difference, that they do not settle themselves on horses, but on sheep (the people of their congregation), on which they, ‘for fear of being entangled in the fleece, first bite away the wool, after that their skinne, and lastly do suckle their blood, to which they are wonderfully adjected.’

As the subject of this book touched the great struggle between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, and as the literary form of it was very attractive, and its author one of the most learned men of his age, we do not wonder that everywhere the Protestants were anxious to read this book, the fame of which soon spread over all Western Europe.

After the first three editions in Dutch, in 1569,

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1572 and 1674, a German translation followed in 1576, and an English version in 1578. The title of the first English edition is: ‘Bee Hive of the Romish Church, a Worke of all Good Catholiks too be read, and most necessary to be understoode, wherein both the Catholike religion is substantially confirmed, and the heretikes finely fetcht over the coales. Translated from Dutch by George Gilpin the Elder.’

After this first English edition there followed at least three later ones, viz., in 1580, 1623 and 1636. One of the year 1598 is declared by Van Torenenbergen to be probably the same as that of 1578, the year 1598 being a printer's error in the catalogue of Alfred Russell Smith, at London, for 1578.

In Dutch this book has appeared since it was first published in at least twenty-eight editions, and in German in at least fourteen.

For the Huguenots in France, St. Aldegonde wrote his elaborate work, ‘Tableu des differens de la Religion,’ treating to a large extent the same subject, in which the author, after the example of Rabelais, uses as skillfully the weapon of satire. Nevertheless, some authors maintain that the Bee Hive also was translated into French.¹

That St. Aldegonde, by this work, advanced the cause of Protestantism, not only on the Continent but as well on the British Isles, is without doubt, and also that the work had its influence on the development of satire in every language into which it was translated. And the four English editions show clearly enough that the Beehive of St. Aldegonde was a popular book among English people.

1 Edgar Quinet, Oeuvres de Th. de Marnix, Vol. IV, p. 347, where he quotes the work of Prins.