By Leo van Zanen, Coco Hoek and Hetty den Brok
On Thursday 19 June 2025 Hetty den Brok, Coco Hoek and Leo van Zanen drove to Assenede to admire the almost completed embroidery project Tapijt van Assenede (Van Assenede Tapestry): one hundred canvases depicting the adventures of the medieval love couple Floris and Blancefloer as written down in the 13th century manuscript Floris and Blancheflour by Diederic van Assenede.
The reason for the visit was the talk “De jeesten ende daventuren”, which Leo gave in Mayflower Bookshop in February this year With this talk he opened a series of lectures at Mayflower Bookshop on “Childrens” Classics’. In his preparations for the lecture, Leo came across De Smet’s initiative. Some of his listeners expressed interest in the idea of visiting Assenede and the tapestry.
Ten years ago, Marc and Annie de Smet started this initiative to add lustre to the commemoration of 750 years of “Floris and Blanchefloer”. And where better to do this than in the writer’s home town of Diederic van Assenede?
The 13th-century Middle Dutch (oriental) novel Floris ende Blanchefloer by Diederik van Assenede goes back to a 12th-century French version and has been translated and adapted into numerous European languages. Embroiderers from all these countries collaborated on the project, which is likely to be completed in 2026; the chosen text fragments are depicted in different languages. The aim of the project is therefore to draw attention to this European cultural heritage (a nice parallel to the Mayflower themed lectures!) in the hope of contributing to solidarity at a time when polarisation is rampant.
Embroidery lessons were given especially for the project and (with one exception) all the canvases were embroidered on the same Flemish linen, with English wool in a carefully composed colour palette. The fragments were depicted by an artist from Assenede, who was inspired by illustrations in medieval manuscripts.
But most important here is Diederik’s own scintillating book. The story of the love between a Muslim boy and a Christian girl, which takes you from Spain across the Mediterranean. Will Floris be smart enough to find his beloved again? It could so be the marketing for a young adult novel. Seven hundred years old and still going strong.
And then you find yourself in front of that sparkling hundred-metre-long comic, and what a great job the embroiderers (and illustrator) have done! Floris’s mother has an extensive wardrobe, as befits a queen, and I studied those patterns with my reading glasses on. What details, what richness.
And even the horse given to Floris by his father, the Ferrari among horses, Leo assured us during his lecture, is portrayed so accurately and recognisably with its beautiful red harness, that when, at the end, the young heroes sail home, you immediately see: the horse stays behind – so that was Floris’s gift to the Emir.
And so each image is a delight of detail, vividness and embroidery. Once this work is exhibited – and a museum setting must be found for it! – then all go and see it. It is not inferior to the Bayeux Tapestry, and those who prefer a love story to a violent action film – on to Assenede!