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The Antwerp songbook (Dutch: Antwerps liedboek and on the cover Een schoon liedekens. Boeck inden welcken ghy in vinden sult. Veelderhande liedekens (A nice songbook in which you will find several songs)) was published in Antwerp in 1544 by printer Jan Roulans.
The songbook includes lyrics of some 221 'old' and 'new' Dutch songs (Oude en nyeuwe) to banish sadness and melancholy (Om droefheyt ende melancolie te verdrijuen), with reference to the tune to which it was sung but without any musical notation.
At least five editions of the songbook are known: folios from two probably older editions survived as reinforcement of the cover of other books while the structure of the preserved copy implicates that two earlier editions have existed. Thus, only one edition is preserved in one copy only, collected by Duke August von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and conserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek (the library also known as Bibliotheca Augusta) in Wolfenbüttel. One copy likely survived because two years after publication, this songbook was listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum , the index of forbidden literature of the Catholic Church's infamous Inquisition. The printer died later on in prison, where he was held because of having printed clandestine literature—not particularly the political songs, in favour of the House of Habsburg, but rather the songs about depraved and licentious monks and nuns which might have disturbed the Inquisition. The few copies left in the Netherlands after the songbook was listed in the index were likely destroyed by French librarians eager to rid every trace of Flemish culture in the Southern Netherlands.[ citation needed ]
The only copy left of the small booklet was discovered in the library of Wolfenbüttel by Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben who also provided the first modern edition in 1855. Recently a more complete edition of the songbook, with the tunes referred to in some 142 songs and found in other songbooks of the period, was published in 2004 with a double CD by Camerata Trajectina.
The Antwerp songbook is the first printed large collection of Dutch songs known to have survived the centuries. Many songs had been transmitted through oral tradition since the end of the Middle Ages: in those cases, the tune was referred to as an oudt liedeken, an old song. Many songs, printed for the first time in the Antwerp songbook, had by that time been known for centuries and were included in several songbooks and anthologies.
The songs reflect life in the cosmopolitan port town Antwerp in the 16th century. Some songs, for instance, are Dutch versions of German songs while others were sung to French tunes. They give a varied impression of a lively community, with a good deal of courting and drinking taking place, as well as featuring songs by people who cared for their freedom of speech.
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Verdussen was a dynasty of printers in Antwerp, starting with Hieronymus Verdussen I in the late sixteenth century, and ending around 1800. Many other printers in Antwerp were also related to the Verdussens through marriage. They specialized in religious works and works in Spanish, but also published newspapers, almanachs, poetry, scientific works, .... By the end of the 17th century, they produced about 21% of the Spanish books printed in the Netherlands, and with 5 presses was second only to Moretus in Antwerp. In 1876, the Verdussenstraat was named after the family in Antwerp.
Jacob Vredeman de Vries was a kapellmeister and composer of music in Leeuwarden. Jacques Vredeman published 12 villanelles in the West Frisian language.
O Kerstnacht, schoner dan de dagen(O Christmas Night, more beautiful than any day!) is a Dutch hymn that is usually referred to as a Christmas carol, although it does not refer to the birth of Jesus, but rather to the infanticide in Bethlehem. The poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel wrote it for the opening of the theatre Schouwburg of Van Campen in Amsterdam, the stage work Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, whose première was around Christmas 1637. It contains this song as a dance.
Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten or Michel Hillenius, was a Flemish printer, publisher, bookseller and bookbinder. His printing press put out publications in a wide range of genres, including imperial ordinances, almanacs, devotional literature, anthologies of customs, textbooks, etc. He also printed humanistic writings by Erasmus, Adrianus Barlandus and Jacobus Latomus as well as the first Dutch-language version of the story of Till Eulenspiegel. His multiple editions of the Bible in Dutch translation were among the first to be published. Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten is regarded as the most important publisher active in Antwerp in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Jacob Bathen or Jacob Baethen, Latinised as Jacobus Bathius, Iacobus Batius and Jacobus Bathenius, was a Flemish bookseller, printer and publisher of the 16th century, mainly known now for music publications. He is sometimes confused with Johannes Baethen, a printer active in Leuven and Cologne between 1552 and 1562, who was likely his brother. Jacob was active in Leuven, Maastricht and Düsseldorf. He is mainly remembered for his publication of the so-called Maastricht songbook of 1554, which is one of only five surviving song books in the Dutch language from the 16th century.
Willem van Haecht, sometimes also Willem van Haecht the elder to distinguish him from the painter Willem van Haecht was a Flemish poet writing in the Dutch language. He was also a cloth merchant, draughtsman, a bookseller and publisher. He was a member since 1552 and from 1558 a factor of the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren in Antwerp. In that role he played an important part in the transition of the development of theatre in Flanders from plays mainly dealing with epic, moralising or allegorising themes towards plays expressing the humanist ideas of the Renaissance. He published the Psalms of the Bible in Dutch verse and also wrote poems and songs.