Maerlant, Jacob van, c.1235-c.1300, Flemish poet, earliest important figure of Dutch literature. He wrote lyric poems and chivalric verse romances after the French as well as long didactic poems, chief of which is
Spiegel historiael, an adaptation of the
Speculum of
Vincent of Beauvais. Jacob van Maerlant is an early literary representative of the bourgeois spirit.
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