Toujours loyal : a middle Dutch chronicle of Flanders by Jan van Dixmude in sixteenth-century Ghent

The political and social milieus in which manuscripts circulated offer new insights into the writing aims of the material author(s) or scribe(s) and the interpretation strategies of subsequent owners. In this light, this contribution reconsiders the writing context of the so-called Chronicle of pseudo-Jan van Dixmude. By confronting the material and textual information provided by the original manuscript (Ghent, University Library, G. 6181), the manuscript can be related to a politically ambitious family in sixteenth-century Ghent. The writing of medieval Flemish historiography in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flanders seems to be closely related to the practice of politics, more particularly in moments of crisis such as revolts. Jan van Dixmude’s manuscript version of the Middle Dutch Chronicle of Flanders or Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen provides new insights into the social and political identities of late medieval patricians aspiring noble ambitions