Ynskje Penning gives Ubbo Emmius lecture on traveling in the Middle Ages. And about power

It’s been a while since they released the historical thriller Emo’s Labyrinth published. “Thirteen years ago,” Ynskje Penning explains. She sits in her studio in Haren, surrounded by books and images. In addition to being a historian and writer, she is also a sculptor. “It is very special that this book is still alive,” she says.

She experiences the invitation to give the Ubbo Emmius lecture as a great honor. “It’s a great opportunity for me to shake things up again. What did I write at the time? I started reading it again first.”

The story in short, based on true historical events: Abbot Emo van Wittewierum makes a trip to the Pope in Rome in the winter of 1211 to complain about the Bishop of Münster, who has taken his church away from him. Emo’s Labyrinth covers more than a hundred years of European history and tells about a time when the Catholic Church was at the height of its power under the leadership of Pope Innocent III as God’s representative on earth.

With a donkey, with a cart, by ship

Her lecture will be about traveling in the Middle Ages. “People have the impression that if you don’t have a car or a bicycle, if there are no planes or trains, you can’t travel. A misunderstanding. It can also be done on foot, on horseback, with a donkey, with a cart, by ship. Emo van Wittewirum was forced to go out: to prove his point.”

Most people did not leave the villages until the nineteenth century. “Before that, merchants, peddlers, traveled. There were minstrels, crusaders, pilgrims, students moving from one master to another, armies, mercenaries, cathedral builders, messengers, exiles. And then you had the people who were connected to the church, abbots and bishops had to go to Rome every so often, especially if they wanted to make a career.”

What’s interesting about Emo is that he didn’t have that ambition. “He was very attached to the North, his birthplace. He thought it was important that the people in this region lived according to the correct religious insights. This, among other things, brought him into conflict with the bishop of Münster, who was bent on secular power in Groningen and probably for that reason included the church of Wittewierum in his diocese. What played a role in this is the high level of development of this region at that time. Holland was a big swamp at the time. There was a rich cultural life here.”

Thirty children’s books, more than thirty novels

Penning (The Hague, 1949) has an enormous oeuvre to her name: thirty children’s books and more than thirty novels. The general public knows her from Storm surge which was also published as a serial in this newspaper.

Her most recent books have been published by her own publisher, Penningboek. This was done with a lot of attention to apparent details: flaps, maps, illustrations, color. “When you have put so much time and energy into something, you don’t want it to go out to the reader like a stripped-down cat bell.”

She completed the trilogy last year To survive , three extensive books based on what her father, as a member of the Marine Corps, said about events at sea during the Second World War. What is the similarity between Emo’s Labyrinth and the To survive trilogy, her biggest project as a writer?

Adventurers out of necessity

“That there is a lot of travelling. That there is a mission. That people have to defend themselves. That there is an exercise of power. That there is room for adventure. Both Emo and my father became adventurers out of necessity. Compared to them, I have more of an indoor life. The adventure is in my head.”

During an interview earlier this year in De Literaire Hemel, Penning made the statement that we need to know the past to understand the present. What does the story of Emo van Wittewirum teach us now?

“Emo was treated unfairly by the bishop. It revolved around the age-old problem of power and money. Then it was about power for your own benefit and at the expense of others, the starting point of the Bishop of Münster, who was extremely powerful. Emo could only seek justice from a higher authority, from the Pope and the Curia. And because of wrong legislation.”

“You can still see the latter. First it is like this, then it is like this, because it suits the State better. The mechanisms from back then still exist. In fact, man has not changed. Time has changed. Man is better developed, but whether he does good things with it is another story.”