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Nowadays, the Nes in Amsterdam is a quiet alley. Most people walk on the much busier parallel street, the Rokin, and don’t even see the small street that’s behind it. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, it used to be one of the most important streets of Amsterdam. Between the warehouses and auction houses for tobacco, tea and spices, the talented Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero (1585-1618) grew up. Although he was educated to be a painter, he’s best-known for his written work. In his short life, the poet and playwriter has written many different texts. The current public mainly knows his farces, De klucht van de koe (1612) and De klucht van de Molenaer (1613), as well as his motto “‘t kan verkeren’’, meaning something like ’everything can change’. Besides farces, he also wrote wedding songs, odes and rhyming letters to colleagues, friends, and lovers. In his (tragic) comedies and farces Bredero writes in colourful vernacular about things that appealed to the people of Amsterdam: the troubles of servants, maids, millers, and farmers. 

In 1644, twenty-six years after Bredero fell through the ice and died shortly after, publisher Cornelis Luidewijck van der Plasse decided to publish all Bredero’s works in one edition. The book was dedicated to the mayor of Amsterdam and director of the WIC, Albrecht Koenraad. It contained an unfinished play by Bredero, Het daghet uyt den Oosten and was introduced with sonnets and an ode to Jacob Janszoon Colevelt, who was also a writer of songs and plays. The title of the book was: Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten.

 One of the seventeen known copies in the world is in the rare book collection of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR). It is a second edition with thirteen parts that has, according to the title page, new text added, and misprints removed with respect to the first print. One might expect a large book for the collected works of a well-known writer. This edition, however, has a manageable octavo size that makes it easy to read and carry around. The owner of this book – whose name could begin with the letter G since that letter is written on the first endpaper – might have taken it with him on his travels a lot. The edges of the binding and paper are curled, as if it has been in too small a place. The binder of the book has probably tried to prevent this from happening by making the parchment binding stick out almost a centimeter compared to the pages. Other traces of use are a few pencil written words in the margin. Unfortunately, it is not entirely sure what they say. One word seems to read ‘lastig’, meaning ‘difficult’. It’s surprising that they only appear in the first work of the book, Treurspel van Roddrick ende Alphonsus. It almost seems like the different works were bound together later and didn’t have the same owner. There are, however, reasons to think that isn’t the case. Firstly, it is remarkable that of all the works in the collection, only the first one has words written in the margins. That could mean that the owner started reading the book but didn’t get further than the first play. The second reason is that we know the publisher decided to publish the collected works of Bredero in one edition in 1644, not in multiple smaller editions that were sold separately. There are also hardly any differences in typography between the separate works. In all thirteen works, the songs and messages to the reader are printed in Roman type, and the stage text in the plays is printed in Gothic letters. 

 Each work in the book starts with a title page including a woodcut author portrait of Bredero. There is a dedication on every one of them: “Voor Joost Hartgers, Boeck-verkooper in de Gast-huys-steeg, in de Boeck-winckel, Anno 1644.” This means that the book is dedicated to Joost Hartgers, who was a bookseller in the Gast-huys-steeg. This used to be a narrow street, not far from where Bredero grew up, and was part of what is now known as the Paleisstraat next to Dam Square. That area was the center of the vivid book industry in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. It is interesting that the book seems to be dedicated to both Joost Hartgers and the mayor of Amsterdam, Albrecht Koenraad, about whom Van der Plasse wrote an ode. That ode, however, was already written in 1638, and probably not specifically made for this edition. 

 Although another edition of the complete works of Bredero was published in 1678, people began to forget him and it was well over a hundred years before a new book was published. During his life, Bredero was a famous author and he himself made sure his work reached the public. He was closely connected to Amsterdam and its inhabitants. He wrote about places that were recognizable and he invented characters that were based on the real people from Amsterdam. After his death, his texts were still being read, since De Spaansche Brabander was reprinted three times between 1618 and 1621. In 1622, Bredero’s most extensive work was published, het Groot Liedboeck (Great Book of Songs). Bredero wrote the songs according to the tradition of the older Antwerps liedboek, but at the same time it was innovative and remarkable because all songs, in contradiction to earlier song books, were written by the same author. Yet people were slowly but surely losing interest in Bredero. From the end of the seventeenth century people began to see Bredero’s work as vulgar and uncivilized.

 
It was not until 1843 that – however slightly – Bredero’s work was approached more positively. Literary critic and philosopher R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink believed that his work was interesting from a linguistic point of view and provided insight into the lifestyle and way of speaking of the early seventeenth-century people in Amsterdam, “eens volks, waarvan het bloed nog in onze aderen vloeit.” The people whose blood still runs in our veins. 

 Bakhuizen van den Brink addresses an important subject: the importance of historical sources and their place in the literary history of the Netherlands. Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten gives the current residents of Amsterdam the opportunity to immerse themselves in the life of someone from four centuries ago, who – with both love and dissatisfaction – wrote about their city: “’t is wel een schooner stad, moor ‘t volcxken is te vies.” It is a beautiful city, but the people are too filthy.  

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Written by Annabel Zwagemaker.

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Collation formula: 8o: A – F8, A – E8, A – D8 E4, A – D8 E4, A – F8, A – D8 E4, A – E8, A – D8 E, A – E8, A – C8 D4, A – C8 D, A – D8, A – E8 F4

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Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero, Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven, kluchten/van den geest-rijcken poëet, Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero, Amsterdammer. ’t Amstelredam, 1644. 

 

Bibliography

Bredero, G.A. Spaanschen Brabander (ed. C.F.P. Stutterheim). (Culemborg: Tjeenk Willink-Noorduijn, 1974), p. 154.

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“Bredero als dichter: tijdgenoten en kritiek.” Koninklijke Bibliotheek. https://collecties.kb.nl/nederlandse-poezie/historische-dichters/gerbrand-adriaensz-bredero-1585-1618/bredero-als-dichter. Accessed 28 Nov. 2022. 

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“Bredero’s poëzie: Gedichten en liederen van alle soorten.” Koninklijke Bibliotheek. https://collecties.kb.nl/nederlandse-poezie/historische-dichters/gerbrand-adriaensz-bredero-1585-1618/brederos-poezie. Accessed 28 Nov. 2022.

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Knuvelder, G.P.M. “Gerbrand Adriaensz. Bredero (1585-1618).” In: Handboek tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde. Deel 2. (Den Bosch: Malmberg 1971), pp. 206-208.

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Laan, ter. K. “Gerbrand Adriaensen Bredero.” In: Letterkundig woordenboek voor Noord en Zuid. (The Hague: G.B. van Goor Zonen’s Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1952), p. 70.

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“Jacob Janszoon Colevelt.” ECARTICO, Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity, 2019. 

“Sleperspaard.” Stadsarchief Amsterdam, 2019, https://www.amsterdam.nl/stadsarchief/stukken/verkeer/sleperspaard/. Accessed 15 Dec. 2022.