Bandwerk

The Special Collections department of the University of Antwerp Library recently acquired a small fragment of Jacob van Maerlant’s Wapene Martijn (‘Alas, Martijn’, the first of Maerlant’s three Martijns). This new fragment – Ant – can be dated in the last quarter of the fourteenth century or around 1400. Comparison with other text witnesses, brings to light that Ant stems from a quire of six bifolia with the three Martijns that functioned autonomously as a self-contained booklet. The lay-out is exactly the same as in text witnesses Br and Ge and a now lost fragment in Leuven. This suggests that these booklets were produced in series.