Organization - Chambers of Rhetoric

The smallest Chambers might have as few as ten members. Membership in one of the larger societies could number to a hundred or more. The Chambers were predominantly an urban phenomenon. Usually members of the societies were merchants, professionals, or the more affluent members of the artisan class.

Each society elected a "Keiser" or Prince. Typically, this person was a well to do citizen chosen for administrative rather than creative abilities. Sometime the title was purely honorary. Noblemen often lent their patronage to Chambers. Like professional guilds, Chambers also named elders and deacons. These officers fulfilled much the same functions as those of the guild officers by the same names.

Perhaps the most important member of a Chamber was its factor. The person chosen as factor was what we in contemporary terms might call the artistic director of the society. The factor in charge of all literary activities, wrote plays or poems for performances, served as director for the public performances, and seemed to serve as teacher/critic to the membership as they not only performed in public but learned to write poems, plays, and songs of their own.

A contract dated 1524 detailed the duties and salary of Jan Salomon, factor of the Antwerp Chamber "Den Goudbloem". He received a yearly salary of 30 shillings. In addition to this, he was paid one half shilling for every 100 lines of play script which he composed and 12 groten Barbants for his services on special occasions. Although records usually fail to record an author for Rederyker plays, the terms of this contract seem to indicate that the factor was expected to take the artistic lead in the society, both in terms of producing productions and providing performance-worthy material.

Chambers also had a designated costume manager, standard bearer and fool.

Fools were performers who played a principal part in the farces and amused the people at times of public processions and royal entries. A good Fool was therefore an indispensable element of each Chamber.

Standard bearers were responsible for the display and maintenance of the Chamber's standard. Every Chamber had a standard with a blazon (often a flower) and a motto. Chambers usually took their names from religious imagery such as the Fountain, the Rose, the Book, the Eyes of Christ, the Vineyard, the Violet, the Rose Wreath, and Jesus with the Balsam Flower. Members designed blazons and images for their Chamber that cleverly capitalized on the potential for symbolism and allegory inherent in their chosen name.

For instance, a prominent Chamber in Amsterdam called itself "De Eglantier" or "The Eglantine." Eglantine's motto was "In Liefe bloeiende" which meant both "flowering in love" and "bleeding in love." The pun was continued in the Chamber's blazon which showed Christ crucified on an eglantine tree.

A Chamber's chosen insignia appeared on an official tabard which members wore at functions. The members of a Chamber might go to church together wearing the tabard or wear it as they marched together at the funeral of a member. Marriages of members were also occasions for celebration as a group. On the occasion of a marriage or when a priest member said his first Mass, it was not unusual for the whole society to celebrate together by holding banquet at their chamber hall.

The Cnape or doorman and messenger was an important Chamber functionary. This person was responsible for restricting access to the rethorijckerscamer or chamber hall where the membership met and held their performances or meals. Chambers, especially the larger orders with elaborate meeting places, controlled the access of non-members to the chamber hall. Point 24 of the chamber regulations of the Antwerp Chamber "Violieren" states that guests at chamber meals had to be approved by the Chamber's prince or deacon and were asked to pay a fee. Point 25 charges the Cnape with the duty of closing the chamber hall's doors at the hour of performance so that no one could enter after the beginning of a show.

At regular meetings of the earlier societies, members read and discussed poetry that they had written. "De Fontein" the oldest of the Chambers in Ghent had a regular ritual of literary competition. The society met every three weeks on a Sunday afternoon. The Chamber awarded one member a garland. This person had to produce a refrein (refrain) within three days. Rederijkers seemed to greatly favor the refrein as a poetic format. The form derived from the fourteenth century French ballade. A refrein consisted of an irregular number of stanzas and was between eight and twenty-four lines long. Each stanza had the same last line, which stated the subject of the poem. The last stanza was as a rule dedicated to the head of the Chamber and began with the word "Prince."

The garland holder's poem was passed to the membership upon completion. Before the next meeting every member had to produce another poem on the same model. At the meeting, the members read their refreins, and the holder of the wreath gave a prize to the winner. With a celebration and the drinking of wine, the wreath was passed to another.

Members of the socially ambitious middle stratum of Dutch urban society perceived membership in a Chamber and taking part in its proceedings as a respectable social activity. Writing poetry and plays as well as acting and reciting as part of membership responsibilities became a popular occupation for these literate urban Dutch without the pejorative taint of the esoteric that such creative activities seemed to carry in other societies at other points in history. The Rederijkers wrote and performed their material in the language they spoke (Middle Dutch or Flemish, for instance) unlike intellectuals like the philosopher Erasmus who wrote in Latin, the generally accepted international language for serious works, or courtiers who tended to write in the language of whatever power was governing the area at that time (such as the French-speaking Burgundians or German-speaking House of Cleves). The Chambers served as a vernacular counterpoint to elite French and Latin culture.