Till Eulenspiegel, as he was originally known, (and still is in German), is the hero of a set of picaresque adventures composed in around 1500, possibly by Herman Bote from Brunswick. Almost certainly a fictional character, Tijl's legend has nonetheless been claimed by towns and cities he visited on his travels, like Cologne, Rostock, Bremen and Marburg, and including a gravestone in Mölln, where he is said to have died of the Black Death in 1350.
The Flemish connection comes from a rewriting of the legend by Charles De Coster, born in Germany in 1827, son of a Flemish father, who wrote in French and was a friend of the painter Félicien Rops. De Coster re-imagined Tijl being born in Damme in 1527, which explains the presence there today of a museum and an outdoor sculpture showing Tijl, his friends Lamme Goedzak and Nele, and the animals he met on his adventures.
De Coster's version of Tijl was more than just the empty-headed joker of legend; he was also a symbol of the spirit of Flanders. He fought alongside the Geuzen against the Spanish occupier, led by Philip II and the Duke of Alva, as well as continually butting heads with the church, to the extent of having himself baptised six times in one day, and making a fool of the Pope on an enforced pilgrimage to Rome.
The book was a critical success, though the cost of an edition illustrated by Rops was too much to ensure high sales, and De Coster only escaped penury thanks to his job teaching at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. He died in 1879, and is buried in the cemetery of Elsene.
The folios on display come from the first edition of the original by Bote, published in Strasbourg by Johannes Grüninger and sold in Frankfurt and Leipzig. The first Dutch-language version of the book was published in Antwerp between 1525 and 1547.
The exhibition UnFASSbar (a pun on “incomprehensible” and “unable to be caught”), a collaboration between three German museums and the Uilenspiegel Museum in Damme, runs until 6 November, after which it travels to Bemmburg and Mölln.
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