Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

216 notes to pages 120–121
80. In a document of 1588 four people who had attended the wedding of the
artist Peeter Baltens, some years earlier, testified that his bride had worn
a wreath on her head, because in Antwerp, this symbolized her virginity.
See Stephen J. Kostyshyn, “‘Door tsoecken men vindt’: A Reintroduction
to the Life and Work of Peeter Baltens Alias Custodius of Antwerp
(1527–1584),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1994),
1:92–93, 400–401, doc. 81.
81. Such demeanor, of course, was a traditional sign of virginal modesty in
general. An example occurs in Van der Noot’s previously mentioned poem
commemorating a wedding of 1563, in which the young lady receives her
future husband’s oªer of marriage with “her eyes cast down [ heur ooghen
nederwaert]”; see Van der Noot 1979, p. 59, line 98.
82. For the Netherlandish locution, see Verwijs and Verdam 1885–, 1:1469,
s.v., “Bruut (Bruyt).” For the German expression, see Röhrich 1974, 1:151,
s.v., “Brautsar”; this entry is appropriately accompanied by an illustration
of Bruegel’s bride, although I have not encountered precisely this locution
in Netherlandish. For later references to similar bridal demeanor,
see Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer, Folklore of Woman: As Illustrated by
Legendary and Traditionary Tales, Folk-Rhymes, Proverbial Sayings, Superstitions, etc.
(London: Elliot Stock, 1905; Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1992), p. 208, who
refers to a well-known saying, “She simpers like a bride on her wedding
day,” alluding “to the brides of old times who were bound, in courtesy,
to smile on all who approached them.”
83. See Woordenboek 1882–1998, s.v., “Bruid (I).” The term vuile bruid apparently
is derived from vuile ei, or “dirty egg,” said of fertilized eggs. In an
anecdote current in Bruegel’s time, a man boasts that he has eaten an
egg with a chicken in it while paying only for the egg: but “he had eaten
a dirty egg!” we are told (Nyeuwe clucht boeck 1983, p. 216, no. 245). For
the vuile bruid as a traditional carnival figure, see Coigneau 1980–83,
2:302–303; and Paul Vandenbroeck, Jheronimus Bosch: tussen volksleven en stadscultuur
(Berchem: EPO, 1987), pp. 333–335. The vuile bruid and her male
consort appear in Bruegel’s Carnival and Lent painting of 1559 (Grossmann
1955, pl. 12) and in his only woodcut block, the Wedding of Mopsus and Nisa,
whose design was later published as an engraving by Hieronymus Cock
(Rotterdam–New York 2001, pp. 246–248, cat. nos. 111–112). See also
Coigneau 1980–83, 2:310–311, for a poem describing a nun character-