Back in November I drew attention to the path-breaking research of the genealogists who had discovered that Barack Obama was 1 per cent Belgian. Now it seems Belgium’s contribution to the good of the world goes even further than that.
Two academic researchers, one Australian and one German, claim that a 16th-century English poem proves that the game of cricket originated not in England but, you’ve got it, in Belgium – specifically, in the northern, Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. The poem, attributed (perhaps erroneously) to John Skelton, a humanist writer in Henry VIII’s reign, contains the lines:
“O, Lorde of Ipocrisie / Nowe shut up your wickettes / And clape to your clickettes! / Ah! Farewell, kings of crekettes!”
The researchers say these lines refer to Flemish weavers who settled in southern and eastern England in the 14th century. And they detect a linguistic connection between the word ‘cricket’ and the Flemish phrase ‘met de krik ketsen’ (to chase with a curved stick).
Well, it’s an interesting theory – not watertight, but enough to explain why the fellow who delivers my post in Brussels looks like Geoff Boycott.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on