ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Medieval Dutch literature

Okay, so imagine you live a really long time ago, like when castles were around and people rode horses everywhere. This is called the medieval time period.

Now, imagine you live in a place called the Netherlands, which is now a country in Europe. Back then, it was called Holland and it was made up of a lot of small villages and cities.

People in this time period didn't have things like TV or phones to keep them entertained, so they had to find other things to do for fun. One of those things was telling stories.

The stories people told were often about things that happened in their own village or city, or sometimes they were just made up stories about knights and princesses. These stories were usually told out loud and passed down from generation to generation.

Sometimes, people would write down these stories so that others could read them. This is what we call medieval Dutch literature.

These stories were written in a language called Middle Dutch, which is different from the Dutch language we speak today. The people who wrote these stories were usually monks or other religious people who could read and write.

Some of the most famous medieval Dutch stories are about a knight named Floris and a giant named Antigoon. These stories were very popular and were often told at fairs and festivals.

So there you have it, medieval Dutch literature is basically a bunch of stories that were told and written down a long time ago in a language called Middle Dutch. They were just a way for people to have fun and entertain themselves, and now we can read them and learn more about what life was like in the past!