Anna Bijns

Anna Bijns (1493 in Antwerp – 1575 in Antwerp) was a writer, schoolteacher and nun who taught until she was 80 years old.

The elder daughter of a tailor and rederijker, she opened a school in Antwerp with her brother Martin, following the death of her father and marriage of her sister. Anna Bijns was one of the rare women to be part of the brotherhood of instructors. The Franciscans encouraged her to publish her work, Chambres de Rhétoriques (French, literally chambers of rhetorics). She is subsequently recognized by the Renaissance Humanists, who consider her the best-selling Dutch author of the 16th century after Erasmus. Her work consists of religious and moralizing poems, polemic refrains against Martin Luther, whom she considered an instrument of evil, love poems and various satires. As a woman, she was unable to become a member of a chamber of rhetoric like her father, but is possibly the young maid who recited a poem at a drama festival in Brussels in 1512. Her first published work was in 1528, entitled This is a pure and beautiful booklet of refrains by the honorable and ingenious maid, Anna Bijns. It was reprinted 5 times and translated into Latin in 1529. Like Erasmus, her career thanks mostly to the success of the printing press. Considered the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands, "she really initiated that modern speech which Filips van Marnix adopted and made classical in the next generation".

During the Middle Ages, women in society had the freedom to join guilds, practice professions, learn skills, etc. They were considered almost as equal to men. However, things started changing around the beginning of the 14th century when women’s economic and social status began to dwindle. They were not allowed to work crafts, and a woman’s main work was reduced to maintaining the household and serving her man. Fortunately, things started shifting around the beginning of the 16th century when the number of single women started increasing rapidly, and many writers began showing the real image of marriage. A lot of them pointed out that in order for a marriage to be happy there should be mutual affection and respect between partners. However, the fact that tradition forbade a woman from choosing her own spouse easily led to her being subordinate to him. Therefore, according to those writers, happy marriage was nothing more than a mirage.

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