The fame of a Masterwork

Abstract

The year 1969 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the first Dutch edition of Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen. To mark this occasion the publisher invited me to write an essay on the history of Herfsttij and its translations, an essay which served as an introduction to the eleventh edition of the Dutch work. In this essay¹ I examined why in 1919 Herfsttij had met with such a cool reception from the leading Dutch historians of that period. The organizers of the present conference have asked me to extend the field of my researches and to investigate how Herfsttij, once it was translated into various languages, acquired its great international reputation.² But it is no easy task to measure a reputation. It is true that popularity may to some extent be estimated by adding up the number of editions, impressions and translations. Such figures however reveal nothing about the kind of impact the book made on its readers nor why they bought it. I decided therefore not to consider that question but to concentrate on other aspects of the problem.