this issue
previous article in this issuenext article in this issue

Document Details :

Title: Over een toiletartikel
Subtitle: Hendrik van Veldekes Sente Servaes en Camille Huysmans
Author(s): STEYAERT, Kris
Journal: Spiegel der Letteren
Volume: 55    Issue: 2   Date: 2013   
Pages: 189-200
DOI: 10.2143/SDL.55.2.2977269

Abstract :
In 1858 J.H. Bormans published the first edition of Hendrik van Veldeke’s legend of Saint Servatius which had only just come to light. Nearly forty years later, Camille Huysmans supplied additional information about the work’s discovery. In a humorous letter printed in the Limburgsch jaarboek (1895-1896) he revealed how one of his former teachers, during a visit to a friend’s house, had stumbled upon the fifteenth-century manuscript in the toilet, ready to be used as toilet paper. Only recently have scholars begun to cast doubt on Huysmans’s story. A closer look at Huysmans’s student career in Liège and his involvement in the association Onze Taal (Our Language) may shed new light on the origins and veracity of his account.

Download article