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Chapter 7
Disputations of Scots Students Attending Universities in
the Northern Netherlands
Paul Neve
The universities of the northern Netherlands are all relatively new. Leyden
was founded in 1575 for the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, Franeker for
Friesland in 1585 and Groningen in 1614 for the province of the same name.
In 1636 the university of Utrecht grew from the municipal Illustrious School
and the Illustrious School of Harderwijk was transformed in 1647-48 into
the university of Guelderland. 1 For a short time there was a second university
in Guelders, the academy of Nijmegen (1656-79). 2
Before looking at the Scots who studied at these universities, we have to
deal with the question: where on the Continent did Scots study before the
foundation of Leyden university? As far as I can judge, the answer is at the
Brabantine (southern Netherlands) university of Louvain, founded in 1425.
From 1426 to 1453 fifty-four Scotsmen matriculated there (16 per cent of all
foreign students), and their number rose to 119 in the period from 1453 to
1485 (25.7 per cent) and to 182 in 1486-1527 (19.5 per cent). From then it
fell sharply: seventy-one Scotsmen (3.3 per cent) enrolled from 1527 to 1569. 3
Before the foundation of the Louvain alma mater, Scots studied in Cologne
and before that in France, chiefly in Paris and Orleans. In this respect Louvain
profited from the political troubles in which France was involved during the
fifteenth century. When, for example, their stay in Paris became troublesome
for Scots students during the period 1408-37, as a result of the Burgundian
war and growing English influence, they moved initially to Cologne and later
to Louvain. Even when the Parisian university became accessible to them
again, they remained loyal to Louvain. As a result of the revolt that flared
up in the Netherlands against the central government of Charles V and
1
W.Th.M. Frijhoff, La societe neerlandaise et ses gradues, 1575-1814: Une recherche serielle sur le
statut des intellectuels apartir des registres universitaires avec une bibliographic, des annexes statistiques et
un resume en neerlandais (Amsterdam, 1981), 13-18.
2
J. van den Boom, Voorlopige lijst van studenten van de Kwartierlijke Akademie te Nijmegen,
1655-1679 (Nijmegen, 1981).
3
See H. de Ridder-Symoens, 'Internationalismus versus Nationalismus an Universitaten urn 1500
nach zumeist siidniederlandischen Quellen', Europa 1500: Integrationsprozesse im Widerstreit
(Stuttgart, 1986), 397-414, table 1 (408).