Het Blauwe Schuit-handschrift. Hs. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 75 H 57

The manuscript The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 75 H 57 is a one-column paper manuscript, which was probably made in Holland and, based on watermark research, must be dated around 1442. The content includes thirteen rhymed texts very different in nature and content. The previous editor of the text collection, Eelco Verwijs, characterized it as a whole with the title Van vrouwen ende van minne (Of women and love), but this designation only covers part of the contents. Indeed, some texts deal with courtly love and manners, others, on the other hand, are notable for comical anecdotes or sharp satire, such as a mockery of peasants and the quasi-by-laws for a guild of unsocials called the Blauwe Schuit (Blue Barge). We also find texts with a didactic tendency, and a cluster of rhyming maxims. The language differs from text to text. In addition to Dutch, a certain German coloring also regularly occurs, to varying degrees per text. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this collection of texts was found as loose quires in the archives of the Egmond monastery by former state archivist Van Wijn. In 1821 he had it bound at his own expense. The manuscript is written in a littera cursiva by two collaborating copyists, A (f. 1r1-f. 27r1) and B (f. 27r2-f. 67v20). It consists of 6 quires, of which the first quire, originally a quintern, has lost its first leaf. Of the other quires, all sexterns, the last quire is missing the outer double leaf. In addition to these defects, the manuscript has numerous textual faults. Apart from obvious text corruption, whole sections are missing at the beginning or end of some texts. It is remarkable that copyist A, who in all likelihood was responsible for the final editing, signaled the breaking off of a text in several places by writing down closing formula's like 'Amen dico vobis', 'Amen sit laus' or similar words. It is also curious that these places often coincide with the end of a quire. On the basis of these and other codicological and textual observations, the hypothesis is put forward that the copyists aimed to make an orderly copy of an already disorderly and corrupted exemplar.