Introduction

Emond of Dynter (+1449) was one of our most important historians. In the years before his death, he wrote a monumental Latin chronicle on the dukes of Brabant. Moreover, as secretary to the dukes of Brabant and Burgundy, he was a very powerful man. We know very little about his early childhood, only that he was born in the town of Grave, on the border of Brabant and Gelre.

This letter shows that a great man can also be small: as a civil servant (see the signature), he devoted himself to the interests of his nephew Jan, sexton in Grave, whom he had previously helped to get that job. The letter thus gives a nice impression of the nepotism that was quite common in medieval society.

At play in the background is the financial settlement of body burials in Grave's hospice, in which the church, the parish priest and the sexton were entitled to compensation - or not?

Wim de Groot (Amsterdam) was kind enough to point us to this charter.

Physical Description

Letter, written in Gothic cursive on paper. Crease marks, and on the back remnants of a red seal. The reverse also bears the address.