Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase Anna enda Joachim? Over een apocrief evangelie en de oudste Nederlandse poëzie

Samenvatting

The so-called Gospel of Pseudo Matthew contains a passage about St. Anna’s lament on her still being barren after twenty years of marriage. While she is looking at a brood of sparrows she compares her own situation with the one of animals which are privileged with offspring. Two sentences commonly regarded as the oldest part of Dutch poetry (c. 1100), written on a flyleaf of ms Bodley 340 in Bodleian Library, Oxford, show a remarkable similarity with this lament. In this paper I try to find out whether it is possible and plausible that Anna’s words have been a source of inspiration for this old and enigmatic poem.