Introduction

Book for the king, is how we might translate the title of Des coninx summe. In 1279, the Dominican cleric Friar Laurent had written a moral and religious manual for King Philip III the Handsome of France. He gave his work the title Somme du Roy. More than a century later, Jan van Brederode, heir son of the glorious Brederode dynasty, made a Middle Dutch adaptation, substantially modifying the text here and there. One of the additions concerns the introduction.

Jan, by the way, is a fascinating character. He led a spectacular life, as a stone-rich heir, as a penniless lord of Brederode, as a failed husband, as a conversion of the strict and fundamentally silent Carthusian order, as a religious deserter and finally as a mercenary. In the latter capacity, he died in the battle of Azincourt in 1415.

In the text of this file, we see mainly Jan van Brederode's religious ability, but in the background his financial knowledge shines through. Accountability is the key word here.

The translation of the Coninx summe was very popular. The text has survived in several manuscripts and early printings. The manuscript used here was copied 1487 by Jan Symonsz, lay brother in the Carthusian monastery Nieuwlicht near Utrecht.

Physical Description

Parchment manuscript. The text was written in a fifteenth-century cursive.