Migrants and Merchants: Two Early Modern Dutch Readers and Their English Contemporaries

Abstract

Against the background of recent English studies on manuscript culture, Nelleke Moser focuses on two Dutch manuscript miscellanies. One was created by Jacob de Moor (1538/39-1599), a physician who fled from Antwerp to the northern Netherlands, the other by his son David de Moor (1598-1643), a merchant and bookkeeper from Amsterdam. Whereas English manuscript culture is often associated with aristocratic circles, universities, and the Inns of Court, Dutch manuscript culture was in the hands of upper-middle-class readers, who participated in literary institutions called chambers of rhetoric. The evidence here presented suggests that upper-middle-class readers compiling manuscript miscellanies deserve more attention in England, too. ©2010 by Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.