Heroes in armor
Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience, Nottebohmroom
Antwerp, Hendrik Conscienceplein 4
29/10/2021 – 23/01/2022
Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience
For 2 years I have been warming up participants of my guided tours in the Heritage Library about an exhibition about knightly stories. It was originally scheduled for December 2020, but it was canceled due to COVID. Some books had to come from Washington and they were also not allowed to travel. Now it finally started … the exhibition ‘Heroes in Armor’ can be visited until January in the most beautiful room in the city.
Knight stories from the 15th and 16th centuries
The exhibition is divided into 4 parts. The first part gives a kind of introduction to the knight stories 400 years ago. Here you will find Karel ende Elegast, a well-known text. The story is not a typical knight’s story, because it is short and only has a few characters. Most knightly stories are long (sometimes up to 5000 pages!) and have hundreds of characters.
Snowwhite and Starbucks
The ‘snowwhite’ in the title is not about the Disney character, but about a charred book from the collection of the University Library of Leuven. After a fire, they were kept in a glass box as a reminder of the lost heritage. There is a snowwhite in the exhibition because one of the two surviving copies of a knight’s tale from 1510 was lost in a fire.
Everyone knows the logo of the Starbucks coffee chain. It’s Melusine, a woman with a fish tail. She only gets the fish tail on Saturdays and then her husband, knight Raymondin, is not allowed to see her. He is too curious, he sees her with the tail and so Melusine gets a fish tail forever. Even your coffee is inspired by old knight tales!
The Swan Knight and Don Quixote
A well-known story in several countries in Europe is that of the Swan Knight. A knight who sails up the local river in a boat pulled by a swan. Also here in Antwerp this story was told with Elias as a knight, the grandfather of Godfried van Bouillon. You can read the story here, but also in the MAS exhibition ‘Listen’.
Don Quixote is a parody of the knight’s tale and according to many the first modern novel. The characters are complex and nothing is black and white. Cervantes, the writer of this book of a knight fighting windmills, was a big fan of Orlando Furioso. This last story features a hippogriff, a horse with an eagle’s head. You may also know him from the Harry Potter stories?
What is there to see in Antwerp
Heroes in armor
Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience, Nottebohmroom
Antwerp, Hendrik Conscienceplein 4
29/10/2021 – 23/01/2022
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