High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Hendrik van Veldeke (aka: He(y)nric van Veldeke(n), German Heinrich von Veldeke, born before or around 1150 – died after 1184) is the first writer in the Low Countries that we know by name who wrote in a European language other than Latin. He was born in Veldeke, a hamlet on the territory of Spalbeek, which has been a community of Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium, since 1977. The ‘Vel(de)kermolen’, a water mill on the Demer river, is the only remainder of this hamlet. In Limburg he is celebrated as a writer of the Old Limburgish.