Vaderlandsche liederen voor het Genootschap van Wapenhandel, ter spreuk voerende: Voor Vrijheid en Vaderland 1-6/6 - Vreede, Pieter 1750-1837; Schelle, Pieter van 1749-1792; Aken, Frans van (Leiden Heyligert, 1784)
Collection of Dutch patriotic songs
The "Schutterijen" in the cities of the Dutch Republic, were traditionally militias, citizen's rifle companies organised as guilds. Civilian armament was one of the tenets of the Patriot movement of the 1780s, which resulted in either the existing civic militias being put at the service of the Patriot movement or, in addition to the traditional militias, new companies were established under names such as 'exercitiegenootschappen' or 'genootschap tot de wapenhandel' (arms trade). (Arms trade here means the handling of weapons).
The Patriot movement set a lot of songwriters' pens in motion, among others:Vaderlandsche liederen voor het Genootschap van Wapenhandel ter spreuke gevoerd 'Voor Vrijheid en Vaderland', of which the first volume appeared in 1784. Five sequels appeared in the following years. They included works by Pieter Vreede (1750-1837) and by Pieter van Schelle (1749-1792), F. van Aken, J. 't Hooft Jz. and others.
In the Patriot songs, a number of themes recur regularly: freedom fighters from the classical and recent past, freedom and patriotism, the marching bands, events from the short history of the Patriot movement, the leaders of the Patriot movement, Christian themes of justice, and - in an antagonistic sense - the stadholder and his allies.
Bataviesche liederen
Keywords: Song; Poetry