Lidwina of Schiedam - on skates or on pattens?
Author: Niko Mulder - April 24, 2023
In a slightly modified form this article has been included in Kouwe Drukte 77, May 2023
Prayer card from 1946
by Huub Levigne
Around 1395, fourteen-year-old Lidwina from Schiedam went out on the ice with friends, fell, broke a rib and endured a long agony until her death. Officially, she is the patron saint of the sick1 and not of skaters, yet she was and is regarded as such by many, even far abroad. Is that view justified?
The Poolster magazine Kouwe Drukte and Schaatshistorie.nl have devoted much attention to all kinds of aspects of the incident, but one question has not been explicitly asked before: was Lidwina actually on skates when she fell?
Today a skating Lidwina Fig.1 is almost taken for granted, mainly because of the well-known woodcut from 1498 in which she is depicted with skates on her feet. Fig.4 She is also described as a skater in some texts from that period. However, both these texts and the engraving did not appear until about a hundred years after her fall on the ice.
Whether a skating Lidwina corresponds to the real circumstances in the past is investigated in this contribution. To this end, the description of the event in a large number of medieval texts will be examined. I have borrowed these sources from Goudriaan2. Abridged versions of Lidwina's life have been left out.
Texts which are identical or very similar are described together. All are serially numbered and placed in a grey bar for easy identification. When referring to these sources, the number is enclosed in square brackets, for example [4]. In cases where the original source has been lost (⇔), it was usually possible to fall back on a copy from a later period.
Lost source from the very beginning
1. Notes by Jan Gerlachsz, before 1433 ⇔
Jan Gerlachsz, a member of Lidwina's family who lived with her in the same house for many years, kept notes throughout her life. In the past it was wrongly thought that these annotations were similar to her biography in Middle Dutch [7]. We now know that after Lidwina's death in 1433 Gerlachsz' notes were incorporated into her first biography by Hugo van Rugge3 [2].
Besides that, we are very much in the dark about Gerlachsz' writings. Was Lidwina aware of his notes? Did she approve of them? Did Gerlachsz actually describe the ice scene? Did he make his notes in Latin or Middle Dutch? How long were they kept? Did other writers after Hugo van Rugge use them as well?
It seems practically impossible that Gerlachsz himself was present at the incident with Lidwina and her friends on the ice. If he has at all included the circumstances of the fall in his notes, he will not have appealed to Lidwina's memories or those of one or more of the girls until years later. Since memory can be deceitful and data transfers can lead to miscommunication, some interference in the reports should be taken into account right from the start.
Koen GoudriaanFor a very long time there was a lot of misunderstanding about the many descriptions of Lidwina's life. In 2003, Goudriaan found out how versions generally relate to each other. He has indicated that the editions from Basel and Cologne [2], just like the early German translations [5], are indispensable for a good understanding of Hugo van Rugge's original text. The copy from Düsseldorf [2] also appears to belong to this group. Although Goudriaan did not comment on the incident on the ice, I would not have been able to make this analysis without his contribution. |
Lidwina's footwear
2. Hugo van Rugge, Venite, Latin, circa 1435 ⇔/ 1445-1460
Shortly after Lidwina's death, Hugo, a deputy prior from the monastery in Rugge near Den Briel, began describing her life. He based himself, among other things, on the writings of Gerlachsz [1], on the oral communications of her last confessor, and to a limited extent on those of other persons.4 Hugo's description is our oldest source and forms the basis for the vast majority of adaptations of Lidwina's life story. Hugo depicted the ice scene quite extensively, but unfortunately with one major limitation: the Latin language. Although according to Groenendaal5 he mastered that language well enough, he did not always find the right words to clearly describe the entertainment on the ice. Much ambiguity could have been avoided if he had added the words for footwear and/or skates in Middle Dutch.
Three fairly early copies of Hugo van Rugge's original manuscript6 state that Lidwina went onto the ice with sandalijs on her feet (super glaciem sandalijs pedes induta). One of her friends came at her at a rapid pace (cursu rapido) could not slow down enough and clung to her, causing Lidwina to fall on a pile of floes. Fig.2
Line 5: super glaciem sandalijs pedes induta; line 6: cursu rapido
A fourth copy of the original Venite is housed in the Royal Library at Brussels.7 It is not only of a considerably later date (1499) than the three oldest preserved versions [2], it also deviates from them, even in the ice scene. I will therefore deal with it separately. [12]
It is not certain, but because of cursu rapido it seems plausible that Lidwina's girlfriend skated. Whether this also applied to Lidwina is left open and depends on the interpretation of sandalijs.
Sandali, open shoes, are not really suitable for winter; generally they were not used often in the predominantly wet and cool climate of Holland.8 Presumably Hugo therefore meant something else by them. Groenendaal translates them as slippers or clog shoes, consisting of a wooden sole with a leather upper.9 This means that they correspond to pattens (patyns) or schalootsen (galoshes). The leather upper could be a foot cap, or consisted of straps and sometimes also laces, as with sandals and ... with skates.
The most essential part of a skate is the iron runner, but Hugo does not name or describe it.
Did he want to emphasize with sandalijs that Lidwina did not go onto the ice with skates? Or was he making a clumsy attempt by using the word to indicate that she actually was wearing skates?
Hugo and Piet GroenendaalHugo Groenendaal, a Cistercian monk, compared the various biographies of Lidwina. He did not publish his studies, however. A year after Hugo's death in 1973, his brother Piet Groenendaal gave a lecture about Lidwina, the text of which was published in a booklet in 1975. It was based on the findings of his deceased brother. Piet Groenendaal was one of the few researchers to delve deeper into Lidwina's fall on the ice. At the time, TLeven, the description of Lidwina's life in Middle Dutch [7], was still regarded as the most original source. Piet Groenendaal therefore attached great importance to it. Although this view has now become obsolete, many of Groenendaals' arguments are still valid. |
3. Anonymous / Hugo van Rugge?, Venite II, Latin, before 1440? ⇔/ 1486
Hugo's original Venite was soon edited, possibly by himself.10 In the key passage, however, nothing changes in terms of content; sandalijs was maintained, just as cursu rapido.
4. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Lidewigis, Latin, 1448 ⇔/ 1468
Kempis was asked to shorten and clarify the Venite; he also deleted some passages that didn't sit well with an exemplary girl.11
However, he barely adapted the ice scene. At the invitation of her friends, Lidwina takes to the ice with them wearing sandaliis (super glaciem induta sandaliis graderetur). Kempis also used cursu rapido for one of the girlfriends. Whether Lidwina skated herself is not clear.
Lost or found in translation?
Meanwhile, the first edition of Hugo was manually copied in monasteries, where writings such as Lidwina's life story were usually read aloud in the dining room.12
Each abbey had its own network of friendly foundations; manuscripts were passed on to each other, copied and sometimes also transferred to the vernacular. Can we tell from those translations what Lidwina had on her feet?
Early German translations
5. Anonomys, Venite in German, circa 1450-1454 / 15th century
There are two early German versions of Hugo van Rugge's original Venite. They are from Lichtental, a nunnery just northeast of Strasbourg, and from the Eberhardsklausen near Trier. When it comes to the ice scene, they are very similar. Lidwina hette solen angethan. (Lidwina had put on sandals). We also read das ein anden Jungfröwe von iren gespilen mit snellem louffe über das ÿß lyeff. (another young woman among her playmates ran at rapid speed across the ice). Fig.3
Line 1-2: und hette solen angethan;
Line 4: mit snellem louffe über das yß lyeff
Solen, Sohlen in modern German, is a common word for sandals and therefore a literal translation of the Latin sandalia. Whether solen could also be pattens or even skates in German at the time, I have not been able to find out.
Cursu rapido (at fast speed) is translated as mit snellem louffe. The words louffe and lyeff literally anticipate schrittschuhlaufen (18th century) and schlittschuhlaufen, which is used today.
Empathy?
6. Jan Brugman, Vita alme virginis Liidwine, Latin, 1456 ⇔/ 1459
Jan Brugman was well-known for his eloquence. He turns the ice scene into a fairly wide-ranging drama with some new elements.
He claims for example, that skating is common among young people in Holland (more adolescentularum regionis Hollandiae); however, that does not apply to the virtuous Lidwina, who never mixed with others in play (quae numquam cum ludentibus se miscuit). She was finally persuaded to come and watch her friends skate back and forth and have fun (cursitantes hinc illincque ... et iocantes ... aspexit). One of them comes rapido cursu at Lidwina with the fatal fall as a result. Tears flow as she is carried away on hands.
As far as the entertainment on the ice is concerned, Brugman emphasizes that Lidwina did not skate herself, although he does not indicate what the unlucky girl had on her feet. Did he deliberately avoid the word sandaliis because he found it obscure or dubious?
We may wonder from which source Brugman derived the juicy details. Lidwina's accident on the ice had taken place some sixty years earlier and we can almost rule out the chance that Brugman spoke to eyewitnesses.
In Middle Dutch
7. Anonymous, TLeven, Middle Dutch, circa 1470? ⇔/ circa 1480
The life story of Lidwina in Diets (Middle Dutch) was a long time coming. Older versions may have been lost. Goudriaan13 considers Tleven as an abbreviated translation of the Venite that was adjusted [3]. The key passage is just one long sentence.
Lidwina was almost fifteen ... soe ghinc si op scoloedsen met anderen maechden op dijs spelen ... ende daer quam een van haren ghespelinnen rijdende op dat ijs ... (when she went on pattens to play on the ice with her friends ... and one of her friends came riding on the ice ...)
According to the text Lidwina ghinc ... op scoloedsen. We recognize galoshes in scoloedsen, derived from the French galoches and known as schalootsen in Middle Dutch. The common meaning of schalootse (patten) was wooden sole with a leather foot cap. If the author had meant a pair of skates by the word, he would not have had to distinguish between Lidwina and the other girls and could have used the plural ginghen si op scoloedsen for all concerned, instead of the singular ghinc.
He could also have used the words schoverlingen or schrikschoenen for skates. Scouerding already appeared in 1393.14 Significantly enough, however, the author confined himself to schalootsen!
A German name for skates
8. Anna Ebin, Venite in German, 1457-1465
This variant of Lidwina's hagiography was translated from Latin into Bavarian in 1457 and was written down on parchment eight years later by 'schwester anna'. The manuscript follows Hugo van Rugge's description quite closely, but finally gives skates a name.
Anna writes ... da sy in schryttschuhen auf das eys spylen gingen (... when they went to play on the ice with skates) and ... über dasz eyse schreyten (and strode across the ice). Because of sy ... gingen (they went; meervoud) it is ambiguous whether skating was meant only for the girlfriends or also for Lidwina.
Did Anna Ebin, daughter of the noble family Von Eyb and nun in the Pillenreuth monastery near Nuremberg deep in Germany, already know what skating was at the time? Or was she informed about the pastime through acquaintances from western regions? Pillenreuth had connections in Alsace15 and, given the similarity in style in the ice scene, possibly also with the monastery of Dalheim, which is located some 400 km northwest of Pillenreuth.
9. Anonymous, Venite in Low German, 15th century
In the key passage of this manuscript, written down in a monastery in Dalheim near Paderborn, a clear distinction is made between Lidwina without and her friends with skates:
Do ghinck se (Lidwina) ... myt dussen ionfrouwen spelen op dat ijs. (So Lidwina went to play with these young ladies on the ice.) Do waren dar ionfrouwen de hadden dar under de voeten schrickschoen ofte schouerlick dar men op dat ijs mede pleget to rijden in dem lande. (There were damsels who had schrickshoen or schouerlick under their feet with which people are used to ride on the ice in that country.)
The Low German words schrickschoen and schouerlick sound familiar to Dutch.
On iron tools
10. Anonymous, Vita Lijdewijt, Latin, 1483 / 1485
Together with her peers, she would go playing and running (read: riding) on the ice with iron tools (luderet discurrendo super glaciem instrumentis ferratis) firmly attached to both feet (eius pedibus fortiter astrictis bincinde cum suis ibat). While riding, Lidwina lost control of her feet (sic currendo vel transeundo lydwiid incaute pedes regens), resulting in the fall.
In this biography instrumentis ferratis is an attempt to describe skates in Latin. Lidwina plays a completely different role this time: she is not run over by a friend, but is skating herself and falls when she loses balance. Instead of sandalijs (sandals) with their uncertain meaning, Lidwina now has with instrumentis ferraris unmistakably skates underfoot!
Groenendaal16 considers this version to be sloppily written.
On skates
11. Jan Brugman, Vita alme virginis Liidwine, Latin, 1498 (incunabulum)
The text is identical to Brugman's manuscript from 1456 [6]: Lidwina did not care for games, but went along to watch her friends skating. Despite this, she is wearing skates on the accompanying woodcut! Fig.4
Wikimedia Commons, detail
Groenendaal17 cites the sloppily written version [10] as a possible cause for the contradictory presentation of matters in this incunabulum.
12. Hugo van Rugge, Venite, Latin, circa 1435 ⇔ /
Anonymous, Venite X ? ⇔ /
Jacobus van Aldenrade, Venite, Latin, 1499 Brussel
The ice scene in the 1499 wording differs in essential points from the older Venites [2]. Instead of sandaliis pedes induta (with sandaliis at her feet) now soleis ligneis sufferratis (wooden soles, clad with iron underneath) is given. This is an apt description for skates in Latin, but it is only partly from the late Middle Ages! The image of this passage Fig.5 clearly shows that text has been scratched out and that the words soleis ligneis have been added afterwards in a different handwriting and in a different color of ink.
Line 3: soleis ligneis sufferratis
In the margin: scrygschoe sic appelantur ibi (they are called scrygschoe there)
If we disregard the correction with soleis ligneis, probably the text originally read sandaliis sufferratis. Sufferratis is derived from sufferrare and, as said, means iron-clad.18
Although sandaliis sufferratis may also mean pattens with crampons or iron protrusions, it seems that Lidwina is being fitted with skates here. This assumption is supported by two other additions: prout ibidem moris erat (as is customary there) and ad discurrendum super glaciem (to run/ride across the ice with).
Later addition!
We do not find any of the additions (sufferratis, moris, discurrendum) in the three oldest surviving versions of Hugo's text [2], nor in the adapted Venite [3] nor in the Vita Lidewigis by Kempis [4]. They are also missing in the two early German translations [5] and in the Middle Dutch one [7], as well as in the Bavarian Venite [8]. Brugman [6] and the Venite in Low German [9] only mention that skating is the habit among young people.
The ice scene in the Venite from the Brussels manuscript (1499) therefore clearly deviates from its predecessors and the skates at Lidwina's feet must therefore be regarded as a later addition.
It is certain that a Franciscan friar was responsible for another insertion in this manuscript19 Whether this also applies to the changes to the ice scene, I have not been able to investigate further.
The manuscript was copied between 1495 and 1500 by Jacobus van Aldenrade, at that time an already very elderly Carthusian from the Sint-Albanus monastery near Trier.20 I do not think that old Jacobus invented the novelties himself, but that his text is a copy of a previously modified and unknown version of Hugo's Venite. This Venite X, whose existence I presume, might have been Fransciscan. It also may have formed the basis for the anomalous ice scenes in the other sources [10, 11 and 13] from this period.
13. Anonymous, TLeven, Middle Dutch, 1505
Finally, in the beginning of the 16th century an old source appeared in a new guise: the version in Middle Dutch [7] was also adapted to the spirit of the times. Where from around 1480 scoloeds (patten) or a variant thereof was given, we read something completely different in this printed work.
When Lidwina was almost 15 ghinc si op scouerlinghen of slootsen21 mit haren oude magen opt ijs spelen ... (she went on schoverlingen or slootsen to play on the ice with her peers). Schoverlingen were skates, slootsen were a kind of mules or pattens.
How should we understand this phrase? Did the editor doubt whether Lidwina was on skates or on pattens? Did he want to play it safe and cover all possibilities? Or did he see slootsen as identical to scouerlinghen, as centuries later Johan van Buttingha Wichers22 would consider scolootsen as a synonym for skates?
Groenendaal23 rejected this last explanation with examples from medieval sources, in which schalootsen are always understood to mean pattens and never skates.
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, BK-1978-294-B The dubious second meaning of schalootse!The Middle Dutch Dictionary (Middelnederlands Woordenboek, MNW) gives two meaning for schalootse: 1. Footwear consisting of a wooden sole and a leather upper, a kind of slippers or mules. Fig.6 2. Ice Skate. I have my reservations about that second interpretation. There is no doubt about explanation 1 (footwear with a wooden sole and a leather upper). MNW lists five different sources24, all from the late Middle Ages. It appears from the context of the statements that the word 'schalootsen' does not refer to skates. In interpretation 2 (ice skate), only one source is given: Van Buttingha Wichers' Schaatsenrijden from 1888, in which the passage is quoted from TLeven with the entertainment on the ice in Schiedam on page 81: Doe si opt leste van haer XV jaren was, ghinc si op scolootsen met haeren evenoude maechden op het ijs spelen, … en daer quam een van haer gesellinnen riden opt ijs. Together with scolootsen of scoloetsen Van Buttingha Wichers adds between brackets: as the skates were called at the time. He does not account for that assumption, either in the text or in the footnote below. He did, however, include the image with the fall of Lidwina Fig.4 from the printed Vita by Brugman (1498) in his book. Presumably he assumed that this woodcut, in which Lidwina wears skates, was historically correct and came to the conclusion that schalootsen should therefore be skates. For inexplicable reasons, Jacob Verdam, one of the compilers of the Middle Dutch Dictionary, adopted Van Buttingha Wichers' dubious explanation and, as indicated above, schalootse in the alternative meaning of 'ice skate' was included in MNW. This naturally also required an adjustment of the lemma schaetse. At meaning 3 the entire ice scene with Lidwina is quoted again in Middle Dutch. With the explanation: Here comes a word (i.a. schalootse; nm) for "skate" that actually means "a wooden sole with an upper part of leather". In his lecture Over het woord schaats25 for the Academy of Sciences, Verdam hinted that he was rather charmed by the pleasantly written book by Mr. J. van Buttingha Wichers. As far as I am concerned, he should have been more critical of Wichers' unfounded assumption, which, some three hundred years after the publication of Tleven, gave the word schalootse a different meaning from what was usually understood by it in the Middle Ages. |
Searching an explanation
For what reason was Lidwina so firmly portrayed on skates in sources from the end of the 15th century?
Skating was popular at that time.26 It seems that Lidwina's biographers started to project the skating fun in their own era onto the situation of a century earlier. Apparently it was now unthinkable for them that she would not have skated in her youth.
This assumption is supported by the skating image in the 1498 incunabulum [11] Afb.4. Lidwina wears pointed skates, a type of skate that only came into fashion around 1500. We do not know any archaeological finds or images of pointed skates that are older. The pointed skate at Lidwina's foot shows that the artist projected the skates from his own time onto the situation around 1395.
Conclusions
Summarizing we note:
- that because of the lack of first-hand data we are not sure of the true circumstances of the incident with Lidwina on the ice about 1395;
- that the word sandalijs gives an unclear picture of Lidwina's footwear;
- that sandalijs without mention of iron or iron runners is not an adequate description of the skate as an object;
- that the only time iron fittings (sufferratis) were mentioned together with sandalijs must be regarded as a later addition;
- that the word sandalijs was translated as schalootsen in the vernacular; and not as schoverling or schrikschoen, the common words for skate at the time;
- that in the Middle Ages a schalootse always meant a wooden sole with a leather upper;
- that schalootse in the sense of 'skate' is based on an unsubstantiated assumption from much later times (1888);
- that only from the fourth quarter of the 15th century skating became unmistakably applicable to Lidwina, as far as is known without any new information about the incident on the ice in Schiedam around 1395;
- that this changed view can be explained by the projection of contemporary ice sports onto the past.
References
Textual witnesses
2. Basel UB A VIII 26, fol. 65v (circa 1450); Cologne GB Quart 214, fol. 71v-72r (1450-1455); Düsseldorf MS-C-19, fol. 60v (1450-1460).
3. Vienna ONB, Novale Sanctorum II, 12709, fol. 2v (1486).
4. Herder – Opera omnia VI, 1905, p. 327 online, based on Leuven UB (1448) and Aachen Hs. 49 (1468); Edinburgh, NLS Adv. 18.2.3, fol. 47 (15e eeuw).
5. Karlsruhe, BLB - Codex Lichtenthal 87, fol. 7 (1450-1454); Trier, Stadtbibliothek 1185 / 0487, fol. 153v (15e eeuw) gives solen, louff and lieff.
6. Utrecht UBU hs 175, fol. 6r-6v (1459) online.
7. Ghent UB 1080, fol. 217v-218r (circa 1480) online; tscoloedsen in KB 169 G 62 (1487) and KB 71H9 (end 15th century); scoloodsen in Catharijneconvent Utrecht h92G5 (1450-1499) and KB 169 G 85 (1490).
8. Nuremberg, Germanisch National Museum, hs 2261, fol. 7r, 123r, 205r (1465).
9. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek codex mgq 1240, fol. 5v-6r (15th century).
10. Jacobus de Voragine - Historiae plurimorum sanctorum, fol. 261 (Leuven, Johannes de Westfalia, 1485), Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale online.
11. Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, BMH i44, fol. 12r (1498).
12. Brussel, Royal Library, KBR 8763-74, fol. 55v (1499).
13. Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, 1259 B 5, fol. 4r (1505).
Other sources
* Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel – Het leven van Liedewij, de maagd van Schiedam, 1994;
* Koen Goudriaan – Het Leven van Liduina en de Moderne Devotie, in: Jaarboek voor Middeleeuwse geschiedenis, 2003, p. 161-238;
* P. Groenendaal – Liedewij van Schiedam, 1975 (based on research by his brother Hugo), in: Uitgave van de Wetenschappelijke Kring te Schiedam en Vlaardingen.
* Olaf Goubitz – Stepping through Time, 2001;
* Achnitz / De Gruyter - Das Geistliche Schrifttum des Spätmittelalters, 2011 (online);
* J. van den Gheyn – Catalogue des manuscripts de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique V: Histoire – Hagiographique, 1905 (online);
* Middle Dutch Dictionary (Middelnederlands Woordenboek, MNW) online;
* J. van Buttingha Wichers – Schaatsenrijden, 1888.