Conclusion: The Return of Laughter

Abstract

The Dutch sense of humour had an international reputation in the Golden Age. Comic genres like the jestbook were more popular than ever. There was an equally strong comic element in painting. We can sometimes catch a glimpse of everyday humour in diaries. We can also do so from the collections of jokes that have survived in manuscript form. The largest of these is the Anecdotes by Aernout van Overbeke, with its huge number of more than 2,000 jokes and anecdotes.