Van Hulthem Manuscript

{{Short description|Medieval Dutch literature}}

File:Karel van Hulthem.jpg, after whom the manuscript was named]]

The Van Hulthem Manuscript is a masterpiece of medieval Dutch literature, probably compiled in the Duchy of Brabant.Frits van Oostrom, "The Middle Ages until circa 1400", in A Literary History of the Low Countries, edited by Theo Hermans (Camden House, Rochester, NY, 2009), p. 44. It contains over 200 stories from across the Low Countries.

The manuscript is named after its last private owner, Charles van Hulthem of Ghent. It is in the collection of the Royal Library of Belgium.Karen Pratt, "The Dynamics of the Pyramus and Thisbe Story in its Manuscript Context", in The Dynamics of the Medieval Manuscript, edited by Karen Pratt, Bart Besamusca, Matthias Meyer and Ad Putter (Göttingen, 2017), p. 270.

This manuscript contains the only known versions of the famous abele spelen ("able plays"), some of the earliest secular drama surviving from medieval Europe.