The Prodigal Son Returns

Alan of Lille is one of the central figures of high medieval intellectual life and culture, best known for his De planctu naturae and Anticlaudianus . Little is known for certain about Alan’s life apart from the fact that it appears to have been spent far from his native Flanders. This article asks what evidence exists for the reception of Alan’s work and thought in Flanders and how Flemings related to and interacted with the legacy of one of their most famous sons. Focusing on the Anticlaudianus , we examine the history and contexts of Alan’s manuscript transmission in Flanders between 1200 and 1500 and how it intersects with the County’s multilingual and social geographies, before turning to more literary responses to Alan’s philosophical allegory in both Latin and Old French. There emerges a complex picture of varying reception priorities in different milieux – urban, monastic, secular clerical – all contributing to the conclusion that Alan was a son with whose work Flanders continued to engage in detail and with pleasure.