Repertorium van Middelnederlandse preken in handschriften tot en met 1550: Vol. IV: Aerdenhout—Darmstadt; Vol. V: Den Bosch—Leeuwarden, Vol. VI: Leiden—Zwolle, and Vol. VII: Verantwoording en indices [Repertorium of Middle Dutch Sermons Preserved in Manuscripts from before 1550] (review)

The late-medieval sermon continues to attract much scholarly attention not only as a source of theological belief but also as an opportunity to get a glimpse of everyday religious life within relatively closed communities. Much research has been conducted in recent years, especially on vernacular sermons. As the editors themselves note, “the study of Middle Dutch sermons, however, has for a long time not kept pace with their level of historical importance” (VII: 25). To fill this gap the University of Amsterdam and the University of Antwerp started a project in 1999 to compile a complete Repertorium of all Middle Dutch sermons up to 1550. This project is part of the international cooperative effort “SERMON: Repertorium of Unprinted Medieval Vernacular Sermons.” One primary goal was the publication of several “case studies” on the importance of vernacular sermons as channels of oral and written transmission of religious ideas and ideals. This has resulted in several articles in which, for example, the role of women in the process of writing and editing sermons, since they were not allowed to deliver sermons in a liturgical setting, was more widely acknowledged. The publication of volumes IV–VII of the Repertorium of Middle Dutch Sermons gives a complete coverage of the extant manuscript tradition of Middle Dutch sermons, covering, combined with volumes I–III that were published in 2003, over 11,000 sermons from more than 550 manuscripts stemming from libraries and archives across Europe and the United States. The Repertorium therefore opens a wide field of possibilities for further research.

In the preface, the editors emphasize that they consider the sermon as a literary genre: It is often very difficult and even impossible to tell to what extent “a liturgical act of sermonizing is involved” (VII: 26). Therefore, the Repertorium includes only manuscripts that describe the text as a sermon, have the formal characteristics of a sermon, or have a reworked Latin sermon. The editors admit that even with these rather strict criteria, borderline cases will exist, such as sermons treated in historiographical texts (VII: 27). As for linguistic limits, the exact boundaries among Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, and Eastern Low Franconian dialects are vague, especially in the eastern parts of the Low Countries. By Middle Dutch, the editors mean roughly a group of dialects, spoken and written in several parts of the Low Countries. Another criterion—which is, although certainly understandable, a somewhat arbitrary limit—is to include only manuscripts up to 1550. Manuscripts that cannot be dated to the first or second half of the sixteenth century are included, which seems contradictory, but is, considering the fact that it is sometimes hard to date a medieval manuscript, a logical choice. Furthermore, also texts originally written in Latin (for example, the sermons of Pope Gregory the Great and St. Bernard of Clairvaux) or German (the sermons of Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler) but translated in Middle Dutch are included. Not entirely surprisingly, these sermons written by some of the greatest minds of Christianity make up the vast bulk of sermons included in the Repertorium.

Ermens and Van Dijk have included several examples of manuscript descriptions that help the reader to grasp the best way to use the Repertorium. Particularly useful are the short explanations of...