Lustige geesten: Rederijkers in de Noordelijke Nederlanden (1480-1650)

Closely linked, theater and rhetoric underwent a renaissance in Latin scholarly culture and the vernacular world of urbanized Europe from the fifteenth century onwards. Based on research into ideas, (literary) practices and members, Lustige spirits shows that the rhetorician chambers were the Dutch variant of an early modern culture of public eloquence, with the theater as quintessens. Rhetoricians (rhetoriziens) expressed the intellectual and social missions of their chambers in the core concept of rhetoric (rhetorique), which referred to both (utopian) ideals of bourgeoisie and to the application of knowledge (const) in an engaged culture. The northern Netherlands (especially Holland and Zeeland) and the southern Netherlands (especially Flanders and Brabant) formed one world of rhetoricians of overlapping networks in which international cultural trends were incorporated locally and regionally through an active reading, discussion and discussion culture. The means of public eloquence (writing and performing drama, song, poem) were (internally) intended to form (in a playful and competitive atmosphere) the minds of young men from wealthy families and middle groups. Through the organization (externally) of performances in the local party culture and at long distance rhetorician festivals, rooms functioned as publication centers for their best writers and performers. The rhetoricians thus contributed to the emergence of a vernacular scholarly culture and took part in the public debate. Lustige spirits thus shows how the social, institutional and cultural elements of the rhetorician culture determined the social influence of the rhetoricians and their contribution to the emergence of the (northern) Netherlands as a European cultural center.