Evangelien van den Spinrocke

Six Evenings in the Spinning Room

The narrative is presented as the report of a learned clerk. On six successive evenings, women gather to spin, tell stories, and exchange advice. Each evening, a different older woman assumes the role of “evangelist,” while the others confirm, expand upon, or challenge her statements with experiences of their own. The result is a lively frame narrative filled with voices, interjections, and brief tales.

The clerk records the proclamations in individual “chapters” and adds the listeners’ comments as “glosses.” This structure is itself part of the literary game: Gospel text and learned biblical commentary are transferred to the women’s spinning room and applied to a collection of worldly wisdom.

Advice for Almost Every Situation in Life

The women discuss love and marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, infant care, illness, weather, household matters, and relations with men. They explain how the sex of an unborn child might be predicted, which remedies are supposed to inspire love, and which signs announce good or bad fortune. Medical recommendations appear beside charms, Christian prayers, and magical practices.

Many of these recipes and beliefs genuinely belong to late medieval everyday culture and have parallels in medical and magical practical texts. Despite its satirical framework, the Distaff Gospels therefore preserve a multifaceted panorama of popular knowledge and oral tradition.

Between Praise of Women and Biting Satire

The prologue claims that the work was written in honor of women so that their intelligence would no longer be mocked. The women confidently present themselves as bearers of knowledge grounded in experience and have their wisdom committed to writing by a man. On this level, the book can almost appear as a defense of female voices and competence.

At the same time, exaggerated characters, suggestive names, and improbable advice reveal that the anonymous author also exposes his speakers to ridicule. Scholars therefore read the work as a satire on women, superstition, and the reversal of social roles. The tension between mockery and genuinely transmitted knowledge gives the text its enduring and fascinating ambiguity.

From a French Work to an Antwerp Popular Book

The story originated in the French-speaking world of the fifteenth century under the title Les Évangiles des Quenouilles. An edition printed by Colard Mansion in Bruges around 1480 probably served as the basis for the Dutch translation. Earlier Dutch versions are thought to have existed, but none has survived.

The present edition was printed in Antwerp around 1520 by Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten. It is regarded as the earliest surviving Middle Dutch version and comprises 27 leaves. Ten large woodcuts divide the text and bring the women’s sociable gatherings vividly before the reader.

A Rare and Forbidden Popular Book

The book attracted attention as more than entertainment. Some readers appear to have taken its advice seriously, and in 1570 the work was placed on the ecclesiastical Index of Forbidden Books. Its mixture of magic, popular medicine, and outspoken female speakers could evidently produce effects far beyond the satire originally intended.

Only one copy of the Antwerp edition is known to survive. It preserves a world in which everyday experience, superstition, gender roles, and literary wit are inseparably intertwined. The Distaff Gospels thus allow a chorus of voices from around 1500 to be heard with remarkable immediacy.