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Document Details : Title: Een groep zondaars in Ruusbroecs XII beghinen door Surius gered Author(s): DE BAERE, Guido Journal: Ons Geestelijk Erf Volume: 82 Issue: 3 Date: September 2011 Pages: 204-219 DOI: 10.2143/OGE.82.3.2131175 Abstract : Ruusbroec’s last treatise, Vanden XII beghinen, poses many structural problems. More than once, not all the elements Ruusbroec announces are actually discussed in the text that follows. This happens, for example, when only five out of six categories of sinners present at Jesus’ passion and death are identified in the Middle Dutch manuscripts of Beghinen. This missing category is, however, found as third in the series according to Surius’s Latin translation. Though there are different ways to explain this phenomenon (1. The third group was described by Ruusbroec but disappeared in the Middle Dutch tradition; 2. Surius himself filled in the third group; 3. Surius discovered a Middle Dutch manuscript (or manuscripts) in which the third group was filled by an unknown author), it is highly improbable that Ruusbroec is not the author of this group. Two questions then arise: 1. How could this third group disappear from the Middle Dutch tradition as we know it now, especially that of Groenendaal? 2. How did Surius succeed in retrieving this passage? An intentional omission (censorship) of the third group seems very improbable, whereas the paleographical context may have led to an unconscious mistake. Surius’s strategy to collect a great number of manuscripts must have produced a lucky strike in this particular case. |
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