14 Koudum and literature (19th century): The rose of Dekama (1836)
The historical novel The rose of Dekama by Jacob van Lennep (1802-1868) partly takes place in South-West Friesland and Koudum is mentioned three times in the book, which has a few hundred pages. Mentioned three times, I say that now, but to be honest ‘Koudum’ is only mentioned twice, the third time Van Lennep uses the spelling ‘Coudum’. And with two of those three times something is still going on.
The rose of Dekama from 1836 was the second novel by Jacob van Lennep who was the most popular writer of Dutch historical novels in the nineteenth century. With a lot of feeling for the so-called ‘couleur locale’, Van Lennep also paints market scenes and knight tournaments, sumptuous meals and colorful landscapes in this book. The story goes in all directions and a lot of unexpected things happen. Important is the mysterious origin of two main characters, the knights Deodaat and Reinout. And of course there is a love story, because Deodaat and Reinout are both in love with Madzy. The historical core of the book is the well-known Battle of Warns in 1345, where the Dutch were defeated by the Frisians, and William IV, the Count of Holland, was killed.
In the run-up to the Battle of Warns, the book says:
All the villages were therefore immediately deserted, and from Hindelopen to Gaasterland the whole region was occupied with able-bodied men, while the constantly rising bands had to join one of the two wings. The right wing, if one may thus call a warband scattered everywhere, was led by Adelen: Cammingha commanded the defense from Koudum to Warns: and the left wing was entrusted to Martena.
Nothing special beyond that. Shortly before the Battle of Warns, Deodaat stands alone in front of the window of a house in Starum.
From this window one had a view of an orchard in which a few pear trees grew, being almost the only woody crop that could be kept alive in this meager corner, exposed to constant sea winds: over the low earthen wall, which was laid around it, and between a few houses, built on the city wall, a small maiden was distinguished, which lay (since excavated) south-east of Staveren: and over it, the hill on which the charming Koudum is situated.
According to Jacob van Lennep, Deodaat therefore looks from Starum in a south-easterly direction and then sees Koudum lying at a height. We know that Koudum is not south-east but north-east of Starum and Van Lennep would also know that, if he had looked carefully at the map that he noted even in the first printing of De Roos van Dekama has recorded. But he apparently did not take into account the fact that mapmakers at that time did not always draw the map in the north-south direction. However, they often indicated the north with a rose, an arrow that points in the direction of the north. This is also done by the ticket maker The rose of Dekamabut Van Lennep didn’t take a good look at the wine rose!
The marren on the ‘Map of Staveren and its surroundings’ yn The rose of Dekama between Starum and Koudum are, I assume, at Starum the Staverse Noandermar and Sudermar, already included in the 17e century At Warns there was the marke de Flait (implemented in the middle of the 19e century) and even closer to Koudum de Groote Gersloot which was connected to the Morra by the Diepsloot and was buried in the second half of the 19th century.
Van Lennep hat, sa ‘t ik al sei, ek muoite mei de stavering fan Koudum, because he screams the step that Koudum takes ‘Coudum’: “After depicting in these few words the state in which Friesland found itself, we will we return to fair Madzy and her guardian, the Lord of Aylva. After leaving the Landtag, he had moved to a small stins, a few hours from the Gaasterland near the village of Coudum, and called Awert-state.”
Here you also see that Van Lennep, in spite of all his historical research, sometimes just thinks about things loosely. There has never been an Awertstate at Koudum, for example, the Leeuwarden archivist and publisher Wopke Eekhof states right after the appearance of The rose of Dekama. I did not come up with all this comment myself, but it is fantastically described in Joke van der Wiel’s notes on the reissue of The rose of Dekama in 2003 in the Delta series.
Finally: Galamadammen, which I already talked about before, also still occurs The rose of Dekama. Not in the story itself, but in the ‘Foreword’ and there Van Lennep makes a faint joke, a little later Jac. P. Thijsse would actually do the same. In the preface, Van Lennep writes a story about two Leiden students who make a trip through Gaasterland and then arrive at the inn of Galamadammen where they want to sleep. When they get there, no one is there. Then the one (Willem) sees a board with the text ‘Tarief der Galamadammen’.
‘Gala-Madamen!’ he cried, turning in surprise. ‘Eilieve Gerrit! It seems that there is a special rate for the ladies who make a meal here. But where is the Tariff for the Gala Lords now?’
‘Come! thou art an ass’s head!’ said Gerrit, without condescending to change his attitude! It is the rate of the Galama dams, which are: the Dams of Galama’
‘Hm! so!’ resumed Willem: ‘one may no longer even make an ignorant play on words. Does your enlightened wisdom think I did not understand this without your enlightenment? Do you think I don’t know as well and better than you do that the Galamaas abstained in these regions, from the brazen poacher, who stabbed Count Floris den Vette, to the vigilant Vetkooper Ige.’
Ige or Ygo Galama (± 1425-1492) was a nobleman from Gaasterland who also lived in Koudum. He belonged to the Fetkeapers at the time when Koudum and its surroundings were a stronghold of the Skieringers. But that is another story.
