That’s what friends are for

In 1534, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of religious life, Jan Donteclocke, a Franciscan tertiary from Bruges, threw a banquet for relatives, friends, and fellow brethren. What we know about it comes from a dinner play performed at the event, the Play of a jubilee, written by the Bruges rhetorician Cornelis Everaert. The play’s characters personify aspects of friendship: Benevolence, Affection, and Friendship itself. They presented the jubilarian with four Latin chronograms (on sheets or scrolls of paper or wooden panels) which contained the dates of Donteclocke’s birth, profession, ordination, and jubilee. Chronograms, because of their playful, riddle-like character, were ideal vehicles of humanist wit and ingenuity. The article discusses these chronograms as expressions of friendship and analyses how they may have sparked conversation among the dinner guests, thus attesting to a culture of spirited conviviality existing beyond the circles of learned humanists or well-to-do bourgeois.