Thursday, October 16, 2008

Eucharistic Miracle of Amsterdam

The most embarrassing mistake in my History of the Low Countries is my account of the Eucharistic Miracle of Amsterdam, a 14th-century event that is still an important part of the identity of Catholic Amsterdam: after Catholic worship was outlawed around 1580, the old festive procession was replaced with a "silent procession", the Stille Omgang (the authorities could hardly object to people just walking, could they?), which is still going strong.



Anyway, there is an accurate account of the Miracle of Amsterdam here. My own version was written from memory, and tells the story of a different eucharistic miracle in the Rhineland (also involving the consecrated host and fire). That'll teach me to neglect everything I've ever been taught about note-taking and fact-checking! As far as I'm aware it's the only substantive error in the book, but I await reviewers spotting others ...

Dutch history website

Just typed in "Dutch History" on yahoo, and one of the first things that comes up is the CarPark, a site providing structured lists of links to Dutch and Belgian (draw deep breath) genealogical, cultural, historical, linguistic and topographical sites. It's clearly a labour of love. I'll be putting a permanent link in the sidebar.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Reader review

There's also a review by a reader, on amazon.com. It's wonderful to get the feeling that there are people actually reading the book that haven't been told to!

And another year later again ...

Just to reassure anyone finding this page that it is still active and all comments are welcome -- I've just been glacially slow at posting!

And here's a handy link, to the current Low Countries History seminars at Senate House (London).