A response to Hugo van der Velden, “The quatrain of The ... - iSites

127
A response to Hugo van der Velden, “The quatrain of The Ghent
altarpiece”*
Volker Herzner
* The translation from the German is by Gerrit Jackson.
1 V. Herzner, Jan van Eyck und der Genter Altar, Worms
1995.
2 H. van der Velden, “The quatrain of The Ghent altarpiece,”
Simiolus 35 (2011), pp. 5–39, esp. p. 14. Cf. Herzner, op.
cit. (note 1), p. 179.
3 Herzner, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 169–80.
4 See U. Bergmann, “PRIOR OMNIBUS AUTOR — An höchster
Stelle aber steht der Stifter,” in A. Legner (ed.), exhib. cat.
Ornamenta ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romanik in Köln, 3
Hugo van der Velden’s essay, “The quatrain of The
Ghent altarpiece,” published in the last issue of Simiolus,
offers a highly detailed study of that famous inscription.
Like the great majority of scholars, van der Velden
believes the quatrain to be an authentic document that
affords an indispensable insight into the genesis of the
altarpiece and hence into one of the most significant
chapters in the history of early Netherlandish painting.
He brooks no doubt regarding the inscription’s authenticity,
nor even mentions such doubt. Which is also to
say, his essay fails to discuss the problems surrounding
this point.
In my book Jan van Eyck und der Genter Altar, 1 I
called the authenticity of the famous quatrain into question
based on a large number of what seemed to me to
be mutually corroborating arguments. So I had every
reason to expect that, in presenting his long-promised
study, van der Velden would consider it his obligation
to address my views on the matter. His essay, however,
does not even begin to do so.
He refers to my research only by quoting my most
important conclusion — in his English translation: “‘It
can now be taken as proven that the Ghent inscription
is not original. Its apocryphal nature betrays itself in
almost every word’,” 2 only to dismiss it immediately
as absurd: “It seems that the wish was father to the
thought.” What this striking charge is evidence of, however,
is van der Velden’s unwillingness to acknowledge
the wide range of arguments to which I devoted an entire
book. Is he in fact right to regard his hypotheses
as findings that are proven beyond doubt, so that ideas
that run counter to his must be wrong a priori? As I will
show, nothing could be further from the truth.
A central piece of evidence that, I believe, argues
against the quatrain’s authenticity is the unusual fact
that it praises the artists, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, in
the first lines, before giving the name of the patron,
Joos Vijd. 3 The precedence of patron over artist is an
impregnable fact of the medieval social hierarchy, one
all inscriptions that mention both the patron and the
artist reflect as a matter of course. 4 By contrast, the precedence
of the artist, whom the Ghent quatrain praises
so effusively, is a phenomenon of the early modern era
and probably inconceivable without the influence of
similar ideas that emerged in the Italian Renaissance.
As part of his study, van der Velden also addresses the
inscription on the Verdun altarpiece in Kloster neuburg
near Vienna. Added in 1331, the text explains, among
other things, that the enamel panels created in 1181
were originally intended as decoration for an ambo, and
in this connection mentions, just as one would expect,
first the patron (Provost Wernher) and then the artist
(Nicholas of Verdun): “ANNO MILLENO CENTENO SEP-
TUAGENO / NEC NON UNDENO GWERNHERUS CORDE
vols., Cologne (Schnütgen Museum and Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle)
1985, vol. 1, pp. 117–70, and most recently the corpus
study A. Dietl, Die Sprache der Signatur. Die mittelalterlichen
Künstlerinschriften Italiens, 4 vols., Munich 2009. Dietl’s study
encompasses only inscriptions through the fourteenth century;
inscriptions outside Italy, on the other hand, are addressed as
well (in the fourth volume). Many inscriptions mention only the
patron or only the artist; they are without significance for the
present context.

128 VOLKER HERZNER
SERENO / SEXTUS PROPOSITUS TIBI VIRGO MARIA DI-
CAVIT / QUOD NICOLAUS OPUS VIRDUENSIS FABRICA-
VIT.” And what is van der Velden’s observation about
this inscription? “As a result, they [these four lines of
a long inscription] are not far removed from the Ghent
quatrain in spirit and form.” 5 This assessment, an utter
misapprehension, may well lead one to doubt whether
van der Velden has even grasped the problem that is at
issue here. The fact that the Klosterneuburg inscription
mentions the patron before the artist confirms yet again
the hierarchy that remained valid throughout the middle
ages, and eo ipso the post-medieval genesis of the Ghent
quatrain.
The second half of the inscription’s final line summons
the beholder to conduct himself in a particular
fashion vis-à-vis the work: “acta tueri.” “Tueri,” van der
Velden thinks, “is best translated without more ado as
to see or look at, and not in the sense of ‘to protect’ or
‘to take under his wing,’ as has been suggested.” 6 If we
accept this proposal — if we accept, in other words, that
the beholder is supposed to “see” or “look at” a work
praised as an outstanding work of the brothers Hubert
and Jan van Eyck — we will be compelled to object that
this reading has the beholder exhorted to adopt a form
of conduct that has nothing to do with traditional piety.
This sort of donation, after all, is supposed to promote
the patron’s eternal salvation. This reading, then, would
likewise support the hypothesis of the quatrain’s postmedieval
genesis. But in fact the request that we “see”
the work would then be perfectly meaningless. To see
it, or to look at it, would after all hardly require a specific
exhortation (“vos collocat”). So the words “acta
tueri” exhort the beholder to “protect” or “preserve the
work.” 7 These words are quite clear evidence that the
inscription is a response to the earlier experiences of the
iconoclastic attacks: the beholder is enjoined to protect
the famous work of art of the van Eyck brothers from
possible new dangers.
Hugo van der Velden’s primary interest in his study
is in the wording of the inscription on the altarpiece,
and it is in this sense that the title of his essay must be
understood. Since the inscription is not, as one might
expect, in flawless leonine hexameters, his main concern
is to reconstruct the quatrain’s hypothetical metrically
flawless original wording. Oddly, he has nothing to say
about the purpose of this reconstructed “original” quatrain,
notwithstanding his belief that the text now on the
altarpiece is merely a “corrupt version” of this supposed
original. 8
I will limit myself to a single aspect of van der
Velden’s efforts to identify the quatrain’s putative original
wording. The inscription’s famous first line reads:
“Pictor hubertus eeyck . maior quo nemo repertus.” According
to van der Velden, it is the designation of origin
“eeyck” that cannot be scanned within the leonine hexameter,
leading him to reconstruct the following “original”
with a correct internal rhyme: “Pictor hubertus //
maior quo nemo repertus.” 9 But is it conceivable that
someone would compose an inscription for the altarpiece
that praises the artists but omits the crucial name
“Eyck,” which was even then a famous “brand”? The
words that were ultimately inscribed upon the altarpiece
attest to the fact that the name “Eyck” was regarded as
indispensable. It would seem that the author or authors
of the quatrain considered complete information about
the artists more important than a flawless hexameter.
Though this indifference toward the meter may be insufficient
basis for a solid argument in favor of dating
the quatrain to the sixteenth century, it certainly also
cannot be used to support a fifteenth-century date. Still,
the form “eeyck,” which is not documented elsewhere
(the usual form, which Jan also used in his signatures,
is “de Eyck”), would seem to suggest a time when it
was possible to prefer the elided “eeyck,” which suits
the meter better, to the correct “de Eyck.” We have
reason to doubt, then, that the author or authors in fact
intended to use a flawless hexameter in the inscription.
Another serious problem concerns van der Velden’s
treatment of Hieronymus Münzer’s travel notes from
1495, which, as is well known, represent the very earliest
testimony regarding the Ghent altarpiece. Van der
Velden believes that Münzer’s remarks were inspired by
5 Van der Velden, op. cit. (note 2), p. 21.
6 Ibid., p. 35.
7 For examples of this usage see J. Deèr, “Das Kaiserbild
im Kreuz,” in P. Classen (ed.), Byzanz und das abendländische
Herrschertum. Ausgewählte Aufsätze von Jozef Deèr, Sigmaringen
1977, pp. 125–77, esp. p. 165, as well as Bernini’s motto
“TUETUR ET UNIT” above the tomb of Matilda of Tuscany, St
Peter’s, Rome.
8 Van der Velden, op. cit. (note 2), p. 38.
9 Ibid., p. 29.

A response to Hugo van der Velden 129
the altarpiece inscription in question, since the quatrain
(in the abovementioned “corrupt version”) informed the
doctor from Nuremberg about “another painter” who
completed the altarpiece: “for his [Münzer’s] remark
that it [the altarpiece] was completed (perfecit) by another
painter seems to have been prompted by the corrupt
version of the quatrain.” 10 In this instance, however, it is
van der Velden who is patently guided by wishful thinking,
for Münzer’s text does not mention, nor even allude
to, “another painter” who completed the altarpiece. Although
Münzer does not give any name, he speaks only
of a single “magister pictor” as the work’s author, who,
Münzer adds, received generous remuneration in addition
to the wage that had been agreed upon (evidence,
the reader is invited to conclude, of the esteem in which
the painter was held by his patron): “Postquam autem
magister pictor opus perfecit : superadditi sibi fuerunt
ultra pactum et precium sexcentum corone.” 11 Münzer’s
mention of only a single “magister pictor,” for that matter,
which understandably enough sits ill with van der
Velden’s ideas, has always been considered incontrovertible
evidence that the inscription did not yet exist
when he saw the altarpiece. Albrecht Dürer, who was
always well informed and who saw the altarpiece in 1521
in the company of the dean of the Ghent painters’ guild,
likewise spoke only of “des Johannes taffel” (“Jan’s
panel”), which is to say, he believed Jan van Eyck to be
the sole author of the Ghent altarpiece; he was not aware
of any inscription indicating otherwise. Once again, van
der Velden does not devote a single word to the matter.
In addition to the points I have addressed, I might
single out another reason why the Ghent quatrain cannot
be authentic. The use of color in chronograms to
identify the numerals, as in the final line of the inscription:
“VersU seXta MaI . Vos CoLLoCat aCta tUeri”
(my capitals indicate the letters painted red on the altarpiece),
is not documented in the fifteenth century.
This type of chronogram does not seem to exist until the
mid-sixteenth century. 12 Jan van Eyck certainly does not
know it yet, as the chronogram in the Vienna portrait of
Jan de Leeuw proves.
The final problem I would like to discuss concerns
van der Velden’s perspective on Joos Vijd and his wife’s
donation, on 13 May 1435, which consisted of revenues
from estates that were given to pay for masses to be said
daily. I was the first to point out the fundamental significance
this document possesses for the history of the
creation of the Ghent altarpiece, 13 another aspect, needless
to say, that van der Velden passes over in silence.
The foundation deed, among other documents, was the
basis for one of my most important arguments against
the quatrain’s authenticity, since it seems impossible
that the altarpiece should have been complete on 6 May
1432, as the inscription asserts, while the endowment of
daily masses was not made until three years later. Considering
that the patrons, Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut,
were at this point very old, ailing, without children,
and immensely wealthy, we have every reason to assume
that they set up the foundation to pay for the masses at
the earliest possible point in time that seemed reasonable
to them. So in May 1435 the altarpiece had either
just been completed or was expected to be completed
soon. Celebrating mass, we know, does not require the
presence of an altarpiece. But it is quite impossible that
the patrons should have left the altarpiece standing in
the chapel for three years without having masses celebrated
before it.
The 1435 Vijd foundation plays a certain role in
van der Velden’s considerations, but he utterly refuses
to draw the necessary conclusions. In this connection
I need to quickly sketch his main thesis regarding the
genesis of the Ghent altarpiece (which his essay lays out
only in the briefest terms; he promises a more extensive
study). He believes that, in a first step, only the inside
panels of the lower register of the Ghent altarpiece with
the central Adoration of the lamb were created; these,
he writes, were for the most part the work of Hubert
van Eyck. Now comes the crucial turn with which van
der Velden opens a new chapter in the efforts to prove
the quatrain’s authenticity. The inscription’s report of
the work’s completion on 6 May 1432 as well as the
particular praise lavished on Hubert, he argues, must
be read as referring only to this Adoration of the lamb
altarpiece: “For I believe that the quatrain does not per-
10 Ibid., p. 38.
11 All the documents and sources relating to the Ghent altarpiece
are reproduced on pp. 273–85 of my book, op. cit. (note
1), which is something that van der Velden also seems not to
have noticed.
12 See Herzner, op. cit. (note 1), p. 179, note 93.
13 Ibid., pp. 152–64.

130
tain to the entire altarpiece but to the lower register
only.” 14 It was not until the period between this date
and the Vijd foundation of May 1435, he writes, that
Jan van Eyck created the panels of the upper register
and the outside panels on the wings of the lower register.
Van der Velden, however, is convinced that the
quatrain was not inscribed in 1432 but only after Jan
van Eyck’s death in 1441, or perhaps even later, but in
any case before Hieronymus Münzer’s visit in 1495. 15
His discussion remains unclear about how we are to
imagine this surprising sequence of events and, most
importantly, what would have caused the delay that, he
asserts, intervened. Although the Ghent altarpiece did
not take its final shape until 1435 (as van der Velden in
fact concedes), the quatrain, inscribed after mid-1441 at
the earliest, supposedly refers only to the lower register
with the Adoration of the lamb — a conjecture that surely
does not strike one as logical or comprehensible in any
way. On the other hand, since Münzer’s report does not
confirm the quatrain’s existence, the terminus ante quem
van der Velden wants to derive from it is likewise moot.
Yet how many decades after 1441 may the quatrain have
been composed before we are compelled to acknowledge
that it is inauthentic?
In any case, van der Velden’s hypothesis about an
Adoration of the lamb altarpiece is untenable for several
reasons. If the altar had been complete by 6 May 1432 in
the form he asserts, the patrons would indubitably have
registered the foundation donating money for masses at
that time — an obvious issue that van der Velden does
not address. Moreover, the attempt to explain the formal
differences between the lower and upper registers as
being due to the involvement of two different masters,
Hubert and Jan van Eyck, with a period of time intervening
between their contributions, 16 is absolutely unfounded,
not to say highly awkward. These differences
are rooted in the iconographic program of the altarpiece
as a whole, as scholarship has long shown in detail. The
lower and upper registers necessarily and ab initio constitute
an integral and indissoluble whole. The Adoration
cannot stand by itself without the depiction of Jesus
in the upper register. 17 Panofsky’s claim to the contrary,
which van der Velden marshals in support of this theory,
has long been refuted. And finally, no “retable with
The adoration of the lamb” created, as van der Velden
believes, “as an autonomous altarpiece” 18 can have existed
because it is quite impossible that the Christian
church should make an animal — in this instance, the
lamb of God — an exclusive object of liturgical adoration,
a thought that never seems to have occurred to van
der Velden.
To conclude, it seems fair to note that all of Hugo van
der Velden’s efforts to prove the quatrain’s authenticity
are in vain. Strikingly, he passes over in silence any
argument to the contrary. The inscription does in fact
betray in every word that it cannot have been created before
the sixteenth century. The most probable occasion
would seem to be the reinstallation of the Ghent altarpiece
after the iconoclastic attacks. There was nothing
unusual, for that matter, about such a forgery. Its tradition
extends back into the early middle ages, 19 although
the present instance is distinguished by a considerable
difference. Whereas forgeries usually served to “document”
political claims, the aim in the case of the Ghent
altarpiece was to ask the public to preserve an eminent
work of art.
KARLSRUHE
14 Van der Velden, op. cit. (note 2), p. 11, and ibid., p. 39.
15 Ibid., p. 38.
16 Ibid., p. 12.
17 The iconography is based on Revelation 22:1; cf. Herzner,
op. cit. (note 1), pp. 30–50, 94–111. Cf. also the Madrid
Fountain of life, about which more recently V. Herzner, “Der
Madrider Lebensbrunnen aus der Werkstatt Jan van Eycks
und die zielsicheren Irrwege der Forschung,” Kunstgeschichte:
Open Peer Reviewed Journal 2011, http://www.kunstgeschichteejournal.net/247/1/Herzner_Madrider_Lebensbrunnen.pdf
18 Ibid., p. 38.
19 Cf. the conference proceedings Fälschungen im Mittelalter.
Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
6 vols., Hannover 1988.

131
A reply to Volker Herzner and a note on the putative author of
the Ghent quatrain*
Hugo van der Velden
In my article on the quatrain of The Ghent altarpiece I
demonstrated by means of a philological and prosodic
analysis that the quatrain is essentially original, but that
the form in which it has come down to us, as an inscription
on the exterior frames of the altarpiece, contains
some corruptions that conflict with the rules of meter
and rhyme. My findings enabled me to draw two important
conclusions. The first is that there was an original
quatrain that is now lost. It was written in four pure leonine
hexameters that can be reconstructed on the basis
of the surviving text. This quatrain was written for and
exhibited at an event that took place on 6 May 1432, the
date given in the chronogram in the last line. Secondly,
the present physical inscription of the quatrain was only
painted on the frames at a later date. On that occasion
the text was altered slightly, revealing the apocryphal
nature of this intervention. This was done in the fifteenth
century, for one of the corrupt passages is paraphrased
in the travel journal of Hieronumys Münzer,
who saw the altarpiece in 1495. Since these conclusions
demonstrate the essential authenticity of the quatrain,
its contents now have to be taken very seriously indeed.
The key to the reconstruction of the genesis of The
Ghent altarpiece lies in the unmasking of the present
inscription as a later addition, because that removes the
need to apply it to the whole altarpiece as we know it
today. The original version, I argued, was written on
the occasion of the completion and display of the lower
register only, The adoration of the lamb, begun by Hubert
van Eyck as a separate altarpiece, completed by his
brother Jan and first displayed on 6 May 1432. The top
register and the entire exterior were only painted later,
but before the registration of the Vijd foundation. The
quatrain, in short, refers only to The adoration of the
lamb. This suggestion has never been made before, and
is by its very nature incompatible with all the explanations
of the genesis of The Ghent altarpiece that have
been put forward over the past two centuries.
My ideas therefore have important consequences for
Volker Herzner’s thesis. His book Jan van Eyck und der
Genter Altar (Worms 1995) is based on the assumption
that the quatrain is a sixteenth-century forgery and that
Hubert had nothing whatsoever to do with the altarpiece.
Quite clearly, we cannot both be right, not even a
little bit. If my theory about the essentially original nature
of the quatrain is correct — and I am convinced that
it is — it exposes a fatal flaw in his argument and renders
his explanation of the genesis of The Ghent altarpiece
obsolete.
Herzner states at the beginning of his response that
I have no doubts about the authenticity of the quatrain
and am avoiding a discussion of the problems. That is
an odd thing to say, because if I had had no doubts I
would never have embarked on my research in the first
place, and I actually enumerate and discuss the problems
in the section titled “The problem” (pp. 11–14).
And of course I conclude that although the quatrain is
essentially original the present version is corrupt and a
later addition, so once again it seems to me that I cannot
be denied doubts about its original nature. There
are other misapprehensions, for example when Herzner
misquotes my remarks about the Verdun altarpiece and
takes them out of context; 1 when he claims that I pay no
attention to the Vijd foundation, for that is central to the
* The translation from the Dutch is by Michael Hoyle.
1 Herzner quotes me as saying that the verses on the Verdun
altarpiece “are not far removed from the Ghent quatrain
in spirit and form,” but what I wrote on p. 21 was: “As a result
they are not that far removed from the Ghent quatrain in spirit
and form” (emphasis added). That little word “that” makes a

132 HUGO VAN DER VELDEN
section on “The problem,” precisely because the date of
that foundation does not square with that of the quatrain;
and more generally when he angrily speaks of the
lack of attention with which I supposedly read his book.
On the latter point he claims more than is his due, for
the idea that the quatrain is a later forgery is not his but
came from Lyna and Renders. 2 The fact that Herzner
sometimes seems to be stealing someone else’s clothing
is especially apparent from the unbecoming sneer with
which he states that I had apparently not noticed that he
included all the relevant documents on the Ghent altarpiece
in the appendix to his book. I had indeed noticed
that but saw no reason to mention it, if only because I
habitually consult Elisabeth Dhanens’s Het retabel van
het Lam Gods, in which those documents had already
been published back in 1965, 30 years before Herzner
did the same (I praise Dhanens’s work as “indispensable”
in note 1 of my article).
In my article I conclude that the first hemistich of
the first line originally read Pictor Hubertus (p. 29), but
Herz ner finds the omission of the surname eeyck unacceptable.
It strikes me, though, that the first name
sufficed so soon after Hubert’s death, certainly in the
context in which it appears. His surname is mentioned
only once in the four archival sources from Ghent
that can be associated with him: “meester Luberecht,”
“meester Ubrecht,” “meester Hubrechte den scildere”
and “Lubrecht van Heycke.” Apart from those there is
just one other archival source that may relate to Hubert
van Eyck. It comes in the books of the chapter of the
Church of Our Lady in Tongeren, where a Master Hubert
was paid 11 crowns for a painted panel: “magistro
Huberto pictori de pictura tabule”. 3 So I do not see Pictor
Hubertus as a problem at all.
Although I could not find any convincing arguments
against my interpretation in Herzner’s response, I do
take his objection to my paraphrase of Münzer on p. 38
to heart. After describing the altarpiece Münzer wrote:
“Postquam autem magister pictor opus perfecit,” which
I translated as “Another master then completed the
painter’s work” (p. 33). Jacques Paviot kindly pointed
out to me in a personal communication that “pictor” is
not a genitive here but a nominative, so this is a reference
to a “master painter.” Herzner disliked my “another,”
and that could indeed be expressed more neutrally, because
my interpretation was prompted by the “perfecit”
that follows later in the sentence. A better translation
would be: “And after that a master painter completed
the work,” which is an odd change of tack after such
a detailed description of the altarpiece, and can really
only be understood as “another master painter” in this
context. Strictly speaking, though, that is not what is
written. The first person unequivocally to mention two
painters is Antonio de Beatis, who described the altarpiece
in 1517, a couple of years before Dürer saw it.
I will now tackle three substantial subjects: the translation
of the word ‘tueri” in the fourth line, because
that, in a nutshell, encapsulates the essential difference
between Herzner’s approach and mine; the nature of
the chronogram, about which Herzner is completely in
the dark, while it is of great importance for the proper
understanding of the quatrain; and the introduction of a
quatrain of 1435 that is so close to the one in Ghent that
it once more demonstrates the untenability of Herzner’s
belief that the Ghent quatrain is a later forgery. Its author
is mentioned by name, and it seems very likely to
me that he also composed the Ghent quatrain at Jan van
Eyck’s request. In the final section of this reply, I will
give a very brief outline of my understanding of the genesis
of The Ghent altarpiece.
TRANSLATION In my discussion of the fourth line on
p. 35 I stated, without further explanation, that the best
(note: I did not say “only”) translation of “tueri” was
quite simply “to see” or “to look at” and not “to protect,”
as proposed by Tourneur, Duverger and Dhanens:
VersU seXta MaI || Vos CoLLoCat aCta tUerI
The sixth of May [1432] invites you with this verse to
look at what has been done
crucial difference, for it emphatically qualifies the statement as
an association. In addition, I did not introduce the subject of the
Verdun altarpiece in order to make a pronouncement about the
order in which the patron and the artist appear, as Herzner suggests,
but because it is a well-known and important example of
the use of leonine hexameters for tituli.
2 On Lyna and Renders see pp. 13–14 of my article.
3 The latter source was most recently discussed in P. Colman,
Jan van Eyck et Jean sans Pitié, Brussels 2009, nr. 2059, pp.
32–41, esp. p. 39.

A reply to Volker Herzner 133
Herzner totally disagrees, because “this reading has
the beholder exhorted to adopt a form of conduct that
has nothing to do with traditional piety.” He adds that
the request “to see” the work would not need any specific
exhortation and is therefore perfectly meaningless.
Herz ner insists that “tueri” can only be interpreted as
“to protect.” To that he attaches the sweeping conclusion
that the phrase “acta tueri,” “to protect what has
been done,” is an appeal prompted by the dangers to
which The Ghent altarpiece was exposed during the
Iconoclasm, which implies that the quatrain could not
have been composed before 1566. This creates all sorts
of chronological problems because of the references to
Hubert and Jan by Lucas de Heere and Marcus van
Vaernewyck, both of whom wrote before the Iconoclasm,
but that is not my concern here. What is more
important are Herzner’s methodological shortcomings,
which are apparent from his weak attempt to limit the
translation of “tueri” to a single meaning and from his
disregard of the formal framework in which the choice
of this very word has to be construed.
First, then, the restriction of “tueri” to “to protect.”
The word “tueri” actually embraces the larger semantic
field of “to see,” “to watch over,” “to protect,” so where
does that dogmatic assertion come from? At first glance,
Herzner’s interpretation appears to be corroborated by
du Cange’s hallowed Glossarium mediae et infirmae latinitatis,
which was first published in 1678 and reached its
definitive edition with the work of Henschel and Favre
in 1883–87. There one does indeed find the meanings
“defendi” and “protegi,” which are backed by references
to just three sources. It would be a serious mistake,
however, to conclude from this small sample that
“tueri” was only used in this sense in the post-classical
period (and this is obviously exactly what Herzner did).
If one types “tueri” into the database of the Monumenta
Germaniae historica one discovers that the word is mentioned
in no fewer than 202 hefty volumes (the exact
number of occurrences is not specified, but there are
often several, sometimes many per volume). A cursory
look at the hits immediately makes it clear that the usage
as “to protect” was indeed very common, but that it was
not exclusive. So it seems that du Cange’s very small selection
documents a distinctively medieval sense of the
word and that his lemma should be understood in the
light of the meanings that were current since the days
of classical antiquity. One must keep in mind that in du
Cange one only finds what was written, but not what
was read in the middle ages. If one looks a little further
one finds in Lorenz Diefenbach’s Glossarium latino-germanicum
mediae et infirmae aetatis, which was published
in 1857 as a sort of companion volume to du Cange,
that the first meaning of “tueri” is simply “sehen,” “to
see.” In the introduction to his Mediae latinitatis lexicon
minus, which appeared in 1976 as a handy alternative to
du Cange’s Glossarium, J.F. Niermeyer wrote that “it
is clear that a dictionary of medieval Latin can take for
granted everything that belongs to the classical inheritance”
[p. VI]. “Tueri” is not included in his lexicon,
most likely because the medieval meanings do not differ
from the classical ones. For the classical inheritance
we can consult Virgil, who remained extremely popular
throughout the middle ages. In the Aeneid, IV, 451, for
instance, one reads:
Tum vero infelix fatis exterrita Dido
mortem orat; taedet caeli convexa tueri,
which Robert Fagles translated as:
Then,
terrified by her fate, tragic Dido prays for death,
sickened to see the vaulting sky above her.
The meaning “to see” remained perfectly familiar, that
much is clear. Since “acta” refers to a painting — everyone
agrees on that — it is only logical to translate “tueri”
as “to see,” “to look at,” because that, after all, is what
one does with a picture. Of course that does not mean to
say that the translation “to protect” is necessarily wrong,
but it has a more limited range. Moreover, in Herzner’s
case it seems to have been dictated by the desired result.
A second serious objection to Herzner’s interpretation
is the fact that he takes no account whatsoever of
the specific task that the author of the fourth line was
facing. Herzner seems to assume that he was completely
free in the choice of the word, but that of course is not
the case at all. The author was not writing prose, he was
a poet who had to compose a leonine hexameter containing
a chronogram and that limited his options severely.
He was bound to find a word that would have the right
metrical value, would provide an internal rhyme, and
had the chronographic value that would yield the year
1432. The Dutch language has special terms for the first

134 HUGO VAN DER VELDEN
two limitations: versdwang and rijmdwang. To these we
can here add getalsdwang.
The author of the quatrain struck gold with “tueri,”
because it met all the requirements. It scans as – and
thus fits the last two feet of the line; it rhymes with
“mai,” which comes immediately before the caesura;
and “tUerI” has the requisite chronographic value of
6. If one considers the alternatives for an infinitive that
invites the beholder to look at the painting it is clear that
there is not a single one that meets the three demands
of meter, internal rhyme and chronographic value (I
have capitalized the chronographic letters and given the
value of each word): “VIdere” (6), “speCtare” (100),
“aspICere” (101), “adspICere” (101), “sentIre” (1),
“IntUerI” (7), “ConteMpLarI” (1151), “ConsIderare”
(101) and “speCere” (100). Not one of them works. The
closest fit is “VIdere”, which has the correct meter and
chronographic value of 6, but it does not rhyme with
“mai.” So it had to be “tUerI,”and in this context that
is best translated as “to see, to look at.” I repeat, “to
protect” is not incorrect. It is just not as good. What is
totally unacceptable, though, is to conclude on the basis
of that translation that the quatrain was not written until
after the Iconoclasm of 1566, as Herzner does. That is
simply wrong.
CHRONOGRAM The chronographic letters of the
Ghent quatrain are painted in red (on the chronogram
see p. 9 of my article). Herzner does not doubt the existence
of chronograms, but he claims that in the fifteenth
century chronographic letters were not yet visualized
in this way. He points to the chronograms of Jan van
Eyck’s Portrait of Jan de Leeuw as proof for his assertion.
Herzner is convinced that chronographic letters in a
contrasting color only became common in the sixteenth
century, and argues that this is further evidence that the
quatrain is a forgery.
Herzner’s knowledge of fifteenth-century chronograms
is extremely flimsy, as is clear from the reference
in his book (p. 179, note 93). He takes his lead from
Duverger, who quotes a two-line verse in Middle Dutch
that refers to riots in Ghent in 1432. Duverger found
it in an article of 1901 by Victor Fris. 4 Herzner has
not consulted Fris’s source, which is the so-called Kroniek
van Jan van Dixmude. That is an old and confusing
title, because the chronicle was not written by Jan van
Dixmude, a canon of Ypres, but by a burgher or supporter
of Bruges. The account runs until 1436, so for the
period of interest to us it was written by an eyewitness
(a second version carries the story forward to 1440). 5
This chronicle contains a total of twelve chronograms,
seven in Latin and five in Middle Dutch. Most of the
earlier ones are in Latin while the later ones are in the
vernacular. Five of the seven Latin verses are in leonine
hexameters, just like the chronogram of the Ghent
quatrain. The oldest chronogram from this lot can serve
as an example. It deals with the peace signed between
Ghent and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy at Tournai
in 1385. Exceptionally, it is stated explicitly that this
line was written at the time. It is important to know that
the negotiations leading to the peace took place around
the feast of St Lucy (13 December). 6 I am capitalizing
the chronographic letters:
4 J. Duverger, Het grafschrift van Hubrecht van Eyck en het
quatrain van het Gentsche Lam-Godsretabel, Antwerp 1945, p. 13.
Duverger refers to V. Fris, “De onlusten in Gent in 1432–35,”
Bulletijn van de Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde
te Gent 8 (1900), pp. 163–78.
5 Dits de Cronike ende genealogie van den prinsen ende graven
van den Foreeste van Buc, dat heet Vlaenderlant, van 863 tot
1436, gevolgd naar het oorspronkelijke handschrift van Jan van
Dixmude, ed. J.-J. Lambin, Ypres 1839. For the continuation
see Laetste deel der Kronyk van Jan van Dixmude, in J.-J. de
Smet (ed.), Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, 4 vols., Brussels
1837–65, vol. 3, pp. 31–110. The Kroniek van Jan van Diksmude
is the earliest of a group of Middle Dutch chronicles belonging
to the Flandria Generosa group and is based on a translation
of the Genealogia Comitum Flandriae, a chronicle that is also a
compilation of earlier works. All these Middle Dutch chronicles
contain chronograms. For the complex history of their genesis
see V. Fris, “Ontleding van drie Vlaamsche kronijken,” Handelingen
der Maatschappij van Geschied- en Oudheidkunde te Gent
3 (1898), pp. 133–71, esp. pp. 136–53. For a concise summary
see J. Dumolyn, De Brugse opstand van 1436–1438, Courtrai
1997, pp. 45–50. E. Loncke, De kronieken van Vlaanderen: uitgave
en studie van het handschrift 436 van de Stadsbibliotheek te
Brugge, 2 vols., diss. University of Ghent 2006–07, vol. 1, pp.
25–33, has not been published but can be consulted online at
http://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/311/472/RUG01–
001311472_2010_0001_AC.pdf and is important for its integral
transcription of part of an unpublished chronicle of Flanders
covering the period 1383–1466.
6 On the conflict between Ghent and Philip the Bold see
R. Vaughan, Philip the Bold, London & New York 1979, pp.
16–38, and on the peace negotiations in Tournai, which began
on 7 December 1386 and ended with a treaty on 18 December,
ibid., p. 37.

A reply to Volker Herzner 135
LUCIe paX fYt || CUM prInCIpe ganda bene traXIt
Lucy made the peace that Ghent successfully concluded
with the prince. 7
The subjects of the other chronograms range from the
purely anecdotal, such as the beaching of eight sperm
whales on the beach at Ostend and a fire in the church
at Sluis, to the great battles of Othée and Agincourt,
and the assassination of the Duke of Orléans. 8 The Middle
Dutch chronograms are predominantly concerned
with subjects of local importance. 9 Comparable Latin
and Middle Dutch chronograms occur frequently in
the other chronicles of the so-called Flandria Generosagroup,
but it would lead too far astray to pursue them
here.
What is striking about these chronograms is that they
are totally unsuited for presentation in a narrative text,
because without a clear warning one would simply not
detect them. In order to understand a chronogram one
must see it. If one just reads it like any other line one will
not notice the year any more than one hears the acrostic
WILLEM VAN NASSOV in the Wilhelmus, the Dutch national
anthem. Since a chronogram relies on the eye, its
letters have to stand out from the rest of the text, either
because they are of a different color, in a larger letter, in
another font, or in a combination thereof. Chronograms
therefore demand a visual medium and are by their nature
ill-adapted for books. Originally, they must have
belonged to the realm of epigraphy, because chronograms
are best understood when they are rendered as
monumental inscriptions. It is therefore very likely
that the early chronograms in the Kroniek van Jan van
Dixmude are based on epigraphic sources.
Herzner’s contentious statement that in van Eyck’s
days chronograms were not yet being emphasized
through contrasting color is demonstrably incorrect.
Apart from The Ghent altarpiece and The portrait of Jan
de Leeuw, the only fifteenth-century work of art that
definitely had a chronographic inscription was the retable
in the abbey of St Bertin, which was commissioned
by Abbot Guillaume Fillastre. The silver corpus of the
retable is lost (the wings painted by Simon Marmion
are now in Berlin, with some fragments in London),
but the inscription is known from an eighteenth-century
transcription. The chronogram is given in two ordinary
hexameters and is followed by an explanation of how to
find the year:
gUILeLMUs praeses tULLensIs et IstIUs abbas
ConVentUs opUs hoC tIbI trIno sanXIt et UnI
Littera rubra notans numerum tibi denotat annos
Guillaume, Bishop of Toul and abbot of this monastery,
dedicated this work to you, Three-in-One
The red letters signifying numbers give you the year 10
If one adds up the red chronographic letters it turns out
that Fillastre dedicated the altarpiece in 1459.
The use of colored letters was an unambiguous and
simple way of making the chronogram stand out from
the text, but Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of Jan de Leeuw
demonstrates that it could also be achieved by far more
subtle means (fig. 1). It seems that Herzner is unaware
that its chronograms are visualized in a different way,
even though Hugh Hudson devoted an article to the
subject in Oud Holland. 11 The portrait contains two
chronograms, which are painted on the frame around
it. The text is written in the archaic majuscule that Jan
favored. The verses are remarkably close in style to the
Middle Dutch chronograms in the Kroniek van Jan
van Dixmude. Each one consists of two lines with end
rhymes that together form a single syntactical sentence.
7 Dixmude (1839), op. cit. (note 5), p. 281. The line containing
the year is introduced as follows: “Anno Domini XIII C ende
LXXXV, in den advent, up Sente-Luciendach, doe was den paeys
ghemaect tusschen den prince ende die van Ghent, ende is dit
nacommende vers ghemaect in latine” (“The year of Our Lord
1385, in Advent, on St Lucy’s Day, peace was made between the
prince and the people of Ghent, and the following line was composed
in Latin,” which is followed by the chronogram.
8 Dixmude (1839), op. cit. (note 5), pp. 285, 287, 291, 293,
295, 313.
9 Ibid. The earliest dates from 1403 and is about the beached
whales, which were also commemorated with a Latin chronogram;
see p. 287. Others deal with a flood in Flanders (1422), p.
302; the capture of Zevenbergen Castle (1426), p. 306; the arrival
of Isabella of Portugal in Sluis (1429, old style), p. 307; and the
rioting in Ghent about Burgundian monetary policy (1432), p.
311.
10 From the manuscript of Le Grand Cartulaire ou Recueil
général des chartes et titres de l’abbaye de St-Bertin, vol. 7, 1782,
p. 6, by Dom Charles de Witte, as quoted in M. Gil and L. Nys,
Saint-Omer gothique, Valenciennes 2004, p. 484.
11 H. Hudson, “The chronograms of Jan van Eyck’s Portrait
of Jan de Leeuw,” Oud Holland 116 (2003), pp. 96–99.

136 HUGO VAN DER VELDEN
gheConterfeIt nV heeft MI Ian
Van eYCk WeL bLIICt Wanneert bega[n] 1436
Now Jan van Eyck has portrayed me, it is clear when he
began 1436
1 Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Jan de Leeuw. Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The chronograms end with their solutions in Arabic numerals.
The goldsmith’s surname takes the form of a
pictogram of a lion (leeuw in Dutch). I have capitalized
the chronographic letters again and have omitted the
punctuation:
Ian de [Leeuw] op sant orseLen daCh
dat CLaer eerst Met oghen saCh 1401
A sense of the Middle Dutch can only be conveyed in a
rather awkward translation:
Jan de Leeuw first saw light with his eyes on St Ursula’s
Day 1401
Jan de Leeuw, in other words, was born on 21 October
1401. The second chronogram informs us that he was
about 35 years old when Jan van Eyck painted his portrait.
Like most of Jan van Eyck’s inscriptions, these lines
suggest a tactile quality. The frame on which they are
written is bronze-colored and appears to be fashioned
out of metal. Most of the letters, as well as the crosses
and full stops, seem to be engraved in the frame. The
light in the painting falls from top left and a little to
the front, and the letters are illuminated from the same
angle. As a result, the highlights are on the opposite
side, at bottom right in the grooves of the letters. Van
Eyck did this very consistently, which lends the letters
their decidedly tangible character.
At first sight there appears to be nothing to distinguish
the chronographic letters from the others, but
they are indeed different. Instead of being incised in
the frame they stand raised from it, such as the “I” in
“Ian” (fig. 2). They look as if they have been executed
in low relief and are silver-plated, or if they have been
applied to the bronze-colored frame. The highlights on
these letters are all on the top left edges, which face
the imaginary light source, the very opposite of the ordinary,
engraved letters. The raised letters also cast a
shadow at bottom right, so the chronogram is literally
highlighted. But still, one has to keep one’s eyes peeled,
because van Eyck’s elegant visualization is so subtle that
one can easily skip over letters, as he himself seems to
have realized. As a hint to the beholder, he added the
solutions in Arabic numerals at the end of the two lines.
They too are in relief, for they are part of the same register
of signification. The consistent distinction between
ordinary and special letters was applied right down to
the details, and in a strict observation of the rules the
goldsmith’s surname in the first line is not written out
but represented by the depiction of a lion. This playful
touch is determined by the composition of the chronogram,
because in its customary Middle Dutch spellings
the surname has chronographic values of 65 (LeVWe),
60 (LeWe) or 55 (LeeV), so writing the name out in full
would have required a totally different line. The problem
was neatly avoided by using the pictogram, which
functions as a kind of inverted chronogram proclaiming
“Don’t count me!” The lion is also raised above the

A reply to Volker Herzner 137
2 Detail of fig. 1
surface of the frame, because in Jan’s witty design the
uncounted rebus and the letters of the chronogram are
cast from one mould.
The refined depiction of Jan de Leeuw’s year verses
is in marked contrast to the comparatively squat red letters
of the present Ghent quatrain. I cannot imagine that
Jan van Eyck’s original rendering of those lines would
have been all that different from that of Jan de Leeuw’s
chronograms. On the contrary, it very much stands to
reason that in his autograph version he would also have
played with raised and engraved letters, as he did in a
different but similar way in his Virgin and Child with
Canon van der Paele. In addition, it is not very likely that
he would have used the contemporary minuscule of the
present inscription instead of the archaic majuscule that
he was so fond of. In other words, this impression of the
chronogram is in complete agreement with my earlier
conclusion that Jan van Eyck painted an original quatrain
that has been lost, and that the surviving version is
a modified later addition.
THE AUTHOR Thus far I have emphasized that the
chronogram in the quatrain follows a well-documented
convention, but it is equally important to point out that
the combination of a quatrain in leonine hexameters
with a chronogram is highly unusual. I know of only
one other such combination, and it is so closely related
in style, date and locality to the Ghent quatrain that I
am convinced that it was written by the same person.
In addition, that second quatrain comes from a totally
unsuspected source and is uncontaminated and unencumbered
by the discussion surrounding the Ghent
quatrain. Its undeniable authenticity confirms the originality
of the Ghent quatrain and obliterates the objections
to which Herzner clings.
The quatrain in question appears in the Journal de la
Paix d’Arras by Antoine de la Taverne, provost of the
Abbey of St Vaast in Arras. This journal chronicles the
peace negotiations between France, England and Burgundy
that were conducted in Arras in the summer of
1435. 12 In the long drawn-out conflict between England
12 Antoine de la Taverne, Journal de la Paix d’Arras (1435),
ed. A. Bossuat, Arras 1936. For an earlier edition see Antoine
de la Taverne, Journal de la Paix d’Arras, faite en l’abbaye royale
de Sainct Vaast, entre le roy Charles VII & Philippes le Bon, duc
de Bourgongne, Paris 1651. On the congress see R. Vaughan,
Philip the Good: the apogee of Burgundy, London 1970, esp. pp.

138 HUGO VAN DER VELDEN
and France — these were the latter days of the Hundred
Years’ War — Philip the Good had entered into an alliance
with the English after his father, John the Fearless,
was murdered at the dauphin’s instigation on the bridge
at Monterau in 1419. In order to put an end to the war
that then broke out with renewed ferocity, both the pope
and the rival Council of Basel launched peace negotiations
that were crowned with the Congress of Arras.
The ambassadors of the kings of France and England,
and the Duke of Burgundy, who attended in person,
met under the auspices of the papal legate, Niccolò Albergati,
and the Cardinal of Cyprus, on behalf of the
Council of Basel. It was one of the high points of medieval
diplomacy (it is commonly referred to as a medieval
Vienna Congress). The number of people attending is
put at 5,000, counting the Burgundian court and the
entourages of the other participants. 13 Among them was
Jan van Eyck. Thanks to a discovery by Jacques Paviot
we know that Philip the Good ordered him to come
from Bruges to Arras, and it was probably there that he
drew the likeness of Niccolò Albergati as a preliminary
study for his painted portrait. 14
Not long after the negotiations began the English
decided that they could not accept the conditions put
before them. They broke off the discussions and returned
home. This prevented a general peace, but the
way was now open for negotiations between France and
Burgundy, which had been the object all along of a powerful
Burgundian faction led by the chancellor, Nicolas
Rolin. Burgundy was persuaded to enter into an alliance
with France under very generous conditions and
declared war on its former ally England. The formal
peace between France and Burgundy was proclaimed
on 21 September 1435, St Matthew’s Day, in the abbey
church of St Vaast in Arras.
Antoine de la Taverne gave a detailed account of the
latter ceremony in his chronicle of the congress. At the
end he added a quatrain written by Master Jehan de
Senelenghes of Lille that contains a chronogram alluding
to the peace:
“S’ensievent quatre vers en mettres, par le premier
desquelz on peult scavoir l’an et le jour que le paix fut
celebree et confermee:
ILLUXIt CLarI paX nobIs LUCe MatheI
Pro qua Francisci debent cum laude letari
Atrebati primo sonat hec vox, voce jocundo
Christus laudetur, cui cuncti subiciuntur
Lesquels vers furent faiz par maistre Jehan de Senelenguez,
demourant a Lille.”
“Here follow four lines in meter, from the first of which
one can learn the year and the day when the peace was
celebrated and confirmed:
Peace illuminated us on the day of the illustrious Matthew,
and for this the French must rejoice with praise.
This call was first heard in Arras: Let Christ, to whom
all are subjected, be praised with a joyful voice.” 15
The chronogram in the first line adds up to the year
1435. The quatrain scans as follows:
– – – – – – – – – –
ILLUX| It CLa | rI || paX | nobIs | LUCe Ma | theI
– – – – – – – – – –
Pro qua| Francis | ci || de | bent cum | laude le | tari
– – – – – – – –
Atreba| ti pri | mo || sonat | hec vox | voce jo | cundo
– – – – – – – – –
Christus| laude | tur || cu | i cuncti | subici | untur
This very exceptional combination of a quatrain in leonine
hexameters and a chronogram looks very like the
lines in Ghent. The chronogram in both is restricted to
a single line at the beginning or end of the verse that is
the only autonomous syntactical unit. The other lines
98–126; J. Gledhil Dickinson, The Congress of Arras, 1435: a
study in medieval diplomacy, Oxford 1955; and D. Clauzel, C.
Giry-Deloison and C. Leduc, Arras et la diplomatie européenne,
XVe-XVIe siècles, Arras 1999.
13 Vaughan, op. cit. (note 12), p. 98.
14 J. Paviot, “La vie de Jean van Eyck selon les documents
écrits,” Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain 23
(1990), pp. 83–93, p. 90, and p. 93 for the source.
15 De la Taverne (1936), op. cit. (note 12), pp. 86–87.

A reply to Volker Herzner 139
are enjambed, those in Ghent more markedly so than
the Arras ones. The second line of the latter can be read
as autonomous but is incomprehensible without the first
line. The Arras rhymes are admittedly weaker, but both
quatrains are heavily spondaic. The formal and stylistic
parallels are remarkable, and on top of that it turns out
that the Arras versifier, Jehan de Senelenghes, is also
an excellent candidate for the authorship of the Ghent
quatrain.
Who was Jehan de Senelenghes? His name betrays
his origins from French Flanders. Sevelingue (with a v;
n and v are often confused in written sources) is a hamlet
near Essars, west of Lille. 16 In 1428 he and a certain
Jehan Pochon are mentioned in the books of the court of
Burgundy as the “masters of the school of Saint-Pierre in
Lille” and were paid for “the efforts and work they have
devoted for several years to the education and teaching
of the children of my lord’s chapel,” which is a reference
to the Duke of Burgundy. 17 The collegiate church of St
Pierre was the principal church in Lille. In 1425 Philip
the Good created a foundation there for four choristers
and their master, who sang a Mass of Our Lady every
Saturday, “à note, à orgues et deschant”, that is to say:
from sheet, with organ and improvised. Four seems a
small number, but four to six was usual. From the point
of view of Philip’s musical patronage this was a very
important foundation. In the same year he established
a similar foundation in the Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon,
and both were set up along the lines of an older foundation
in St Donatian in Bruges. The duties of the master
were laid out in some detail in the foundation charter.
He was to instruct his pupils in appropriate behavior, in
doctrine, and in music he should teach them chant and
polyphony, from sheet and improvised. On top of that,
he was to teach his choirboys their grammar “in such a
way that they would understand their Latin and speak it
to satisfaction.” 18 In schools like this, the language and
music curriculum were often divided over two masters,
but in Lille this does not seem to have been the case.
There were two masters — even though the foundation
charter only mentions one — but nothing suggests that
Jehan de Sene lenghes and Jehan Pochon had separate
tasks. Except for the training of the choristers of St
Pierre, the two were most likely also responsible for the
education of the boys of the ducal chapel, a task that had
been delegated to St Pierre. It is possible that the payment
mentioned above refers to that, because it is not
clear to me who exactly are meant by “the children of the
chapel”, those of St Pierre, or those of the duke’s itinerant
chapel. Until around 1430 the choristers of the ducal
chapel travelled with the Duke, but that seems to have
come to an end after they found a home in the foundations
at St Pierre, the Sainte-Chapelle and St Donatian.
From then onwards, they were only added to the ducal
chapel when the circumstances demanded it. 19 Jehan de
Senelenghes remained in function after this reorganisation,
because in a document from 1432 — indeed, the
year of the Ghent quatrain — he and Jehan Ponchon are
once more mentioned as “magistris in artibus, rectoribus
scolarum ecclesie sancti Petri Insulensis.” 20
16 According to K. de Flou, Woordenboek der toponymie, 18
vols, Ghent 1914–38, vol. 14, pp. 510–11, it is an old fiefdom.
The earliest mentions of it, starting in the twelfth century, use
the Flemish spelling (Sevelenge, Seveleng, Seveling, etc.), but
from the fourteenth century this was Gallicized to Sevelinges,
Sevenlengues, etc. It was spelled Senellengues in 1502. For the
spelling of Jehan’s surname I have used Senelenghes, which is
the variant used in the Burgundian court invoices.
17 See the source given in Taverne, op. cit. (note 12), p.
87, note 2: “A maistre Jehan Pochon et Jehan de Senelenghes,
maistres de l’escolle Saint Pierre de Lille que mondit seigneur
leur a donné pour et en recompensation de leurs paine et labeur
qu’ils ont eu par plusieurs années pour l’instuction et doctrine
des enfants de chapelle de mondit seigneur ... XX liv.” Quoted
from Archives du Nord, B 1938. fol. 219v.
18 The foundation charter from December 1425 is published
in E. Hautcoeur, Cartulaire de l’église collégiale de St. Pierre de
Lille, 2 vols., Paris 1894, vol. 2, pp. 928–32, nr. MCCCXLIX; in
connection with this foundation, see also the charters of 17 August
1426, idem, pp. 933–34, nr. MCCCLII, and of 4 December
1426, idem, pp. 935–36, nr. MCCCLIV. The foundation is
discussed in E. Hautcoeur, Histoire de l’église collégiale de St.
Pierre de Lille, 3 vols., Lille 1896–99, 2, pp. 145–50; see also
R. Strohm, Music in late medieval Bruges, Oxford 1990, p. 94;
L.L. Perkins, Music in the age of the Renaissance, New York &
London 1999, p. 76. For the comparable foundation in St Donatian,
see Strohm, pp. 22–23; for Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon, see
J. Marix, Histoire de la musique et des musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne
sous le règne de Philippe le Bon (1420–1467), Strasbourg
1939, pp. 162–64 (Lille and Bruges are mentioned as well).
For a more general discussions of choir schools, see Perkins,
pp. 74–77; R. Strohm, The rise of European music. 1380–1500,
Cambridge 1993, esp. pp. 287–91. On the choristers in the ducal
chapel, see Marix, pp. 61–62, who based her discussion for the
greater part on the accounts of 1426 and 1428 (the latter is the
same as the one in which Jehan de Senelenghes is mentioned as
the master of the school, i.e. ADN B 1938).
19 Strohm, Music, cit. (note 18), p. 94.
20 The document from 1432 concerns a verdict in a judicial
conflict regarding the chapter and the treasurer of St Pierre,

140 HUGO VAN DER VELDEN
Jehan de Senelenghes is an excellent candidate for
the authorship of the Ghent quatrain. He was a scholarly
metrista, or master of meter, and like Jan van Eyck
he was part of the entourage of the Burgundian court.
He had an income from one of the duke’s foundations,
and his boys sang in the ducal chapel. He was also a
resident of Lille, the city where Jan van Eyck lived from
1425 to 1428. Jehan de Senelenghes’s house in the parish
of St Pierre is mentioned in an official document
that was drawn up by Miquiel Ravary, who was the
bailiff of St Pierre’s provost at the time. 21 Ravary rented
a house to Jan van Eyck in 1426–28. 22 Jan and Jehan
therefore seem to have been no further than two handshakes
apart, but it is very likely that in fact they knew
each other personally. In addition, Jehan de Senelenghes
was very probably present on the occasion for which the
Ghent quatrain was written, as we shall see. So it seems
very likely to me that Jehan de Senelenghes is the author
of the Ghent quatrain.
I suspect that the Arras quatrain was inspired by the
one in Ghent, and that it was likewise exhibited with an
altarpiece during the proclamation of the peace. That
was the well-known altarpiece commissioned by Jean du
Clercq, the abbot of St Vaast, for which Jacques Daret
painted the wings (the panel with the abbot’s portrait is
now in Berlin). But since I cannot expand on that matter
without getting ahead of myself, I will have to leave it at
this aside for the moment.
THE SCENARIO Herzner expresses his frustration at
the fact that I leave everyone guessing as to the role
that the quatrain played in the genesis of The Ghent
altarpiece. Although that explanation was not part of the
goal I set myself in my previous article I can imagine
something of that irritation, so it strikes me as being no
more than reasonable that I should outline the essence
of my reconstruction in a few words. I will have to be
very brief.
The adoration of the lamb was commissioned from
Hubert van Eyck by the Ghent magistrates as an altarpiece
for the town hall of the Keure, but it was unfinished
when Hubert died in 1426. Joos Vijd managed
to acquire this altarpiece to embellish his foundation in
Ghent’s Church of St John, for which he took the initiative
in 1430. At his request Jan van Eyck completed the
work started by his brother. The altarpiece was finished
before 6 May 1432. As is widely known, that was the
day when Josse of Burgundy was baptized in St John’s
church. Hubert’s Adoration of the lamb was unveiled for
the occasion. Josse had been born on 24 April, so there
was not much time to prepare for the christening. It is
extremely likely that the baptism was attended by Jehan
de Senelenghes, in his capacity as master of the choristers,
because music played an important part at events
of this kind. He wrote the quatrain specially for the
baptism. Jan painted it on canvas, because it was an
occasional poem and time was of the essence. A scene
was also painted on the canvas, which has gone down in
history as the famous lost ‘foot’ of The Ghent altarpiece,
mentioned by both Marcus van Vaernewyck and Karel
van Mander. They say that it was a depiction of Hell,
but it is clear from their descriptions that it was actually
of Purgatory. Jan also added the fountain of life to The
adoration of the lamb with a view to Josse’s baptism and
the presentation of the altarpiece. That fountain was
missing in Hubert’s original, as can clearly be seen with
the naked eye and was confirmed during the documentation
of The Ghent altarpiece in 2010. The canvas was
hung beneath the panel in such a way that the water
flowing from the fountain extinguished the flames of
Purgatory (an echo of the arrangement survives in Goossen
van der Weyden’s Fountain of life now in the Konstmuseum
in Gothenburg). The ensemble was exhibited
on or very close to Hubert’s grave in St John’s, where
the baptism took place, so the entire display consisted
of the dead Hubert, represented on his tombstone, with
Purgatory above his grave and The adoration of the lamb
and the fountain of life above that. It is an attractive but
ultimately unprovable idea that Hubert would have been
depicted in Purgatory so as to be brought back to life by
his own and his brother’s art. A similar idea is found in
Jean Molinet’s epitaph for Simon Marmion. After the
which was signed by “Johanne Pochon et Johanne de Senelenghes,
[followed by the quoted passage]”, see E. Hautcoeur 1894,
op. cit. (note 18), vol. 2, pp. 956–60.
21 E. Hautcoeur 1894, op. cit. (note 18), vol. 2, p. 1008, nr.
MCCCCL, 2 October 1451.
22 J. Weale, Hubert and John Van Eyck, their life and work,
London 1908, p. XXXVI, doc. 14. The payment was made for a
period of two years up until the feast of John the Baptist 1428.

A reply to Volker Herzner 141
baptism the outer wings of The adoration of the lamb
were painted first followed by the upper register. The
entire work was completed by 13 May 1435, the day on
which the Vijd foundation was registered.
In a subsequent article about Hubert van Eyck’s Adoration
of the lamb I will argue on the basis of new archival
sources that the Vijd Chapel was not finished in 1432
but in 1435; that Hubert was originally buried in the
nave of St John’s; that his tombstone was moved to the
chapel in or shortly after 1461; and that on that occasion
his ulna bone, the “aerm pyp” mentioned by van
Vaernewyck, was hung up in St John’s churchyard as a
relic of the hand that had painted The adoration of the
lamb. That was probably also the moment when the corrupt
version of the quatrain was painted on the frames of
the altarpiece. To be absolutely clear: the original canvas
with the chronogram and Purgatory was never intended
to be a permanent monument, but was painted solely for
Josse’s baptism.
What makes this story so interesting is that it demonstrates
that The Ghent altarpiece not only played an
important part in a religious foundation but that it was
seen and valued as a work of art from the very outset.
That Hubert was celebrated as an artist is also clear from
the epitaph on his grave, in which the Middle Dutch
word const was undeniably used in our modern sense of
art. And before someone objects that this shows that the
epitaph is apocryphal as well, there is a precedent for the
use of const in the modern sense in the Gruuthuse songbook,
which dates from two decades earlier. The same is
found in 1432 in Lucas Moser’s “Schri, Kunst, schri.”
So Herzner is mistaken when he implies that there is no
place for art in the work of the van Eyck’s and that the
prominent position given to the artists in the quatrain is
impossible in the pre-modern period and inconceivable
without the influence of the Italian Renaissance. On the
contrary, I would say: the indisputable authenticity of
the quatrain of The Ghent altarpiece demonstrates that
that idea is outmoded.
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS