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Concept
Cantus
Summary
A cantus (Latin for "singing", derived from cantare), is an activity organised by Belgian, Dutch, German, French, and Baltic fraternities. A cantus mainly involves singing traditional songs and drinking beer. It is governed by strict traditional rules. The use of this dates back a few centuries and was inspired by German student organisations; however some of the songs that are sung date back to the Middle Ages. Cantus probably shares same roots with commercium, sitsit and tableround.
Currently, the world record for biggest traditional cantus is in the hands of the Eurekaweek, based in Rotterdam, who welcomed 4594 officially registered guests during their 2019 cantus and 6200 in 2023.
The songs are compiled in what the students refer to as the codex, which contains the club anthems of most student organisations and hundreds of songs in various languages, such as Dutch, French, English, German, Latin and Afrikaans. They usually have easy and familiar melodies. Nearly all of the songs predate World War II and refer to either drinking, the student's (love) life or the history and past of the home country, city or region. For this reason, some songs are typically sung more by students of one city or another, e.g. students from Ghent will not sing songs about Leuven and vice versa, or they will simply replace instances of one city with another. Also due to the old nature of the songs, some of them have in recent years been controversial because they are perceived to be sexist, right-wing or racist.
In Antwerp, Hasselt, Leuven and Aalst the codex used is that published by the KVHV (Katholiek Vlaams Hoogstudentenverbond or Catholic Flemish Students Union). In Brussels, the Flemish codex is published jointly by Polytechnische Kring and Brussels Senioren Konvent. In Ghent they also used to use the KVHV codex but since 2012 the SC Ghent (Studentikoos Centrum Ghent) has started to publish a codex catering more specifically to the student societies in Ghent. And at the end of that same year the SC Ghent started publishing a codex for the societies in West Flanders, mainly Courtrai.
Official source
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