Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

Disputations of Scots Attending Universities in the Netherlands 101
in the form of a number of theses or propositions. 22 Under the chairmanship
of the author-professor the theses had to be defended against the opposition
of other students by one or more student-respondents chosen for the task. 23
In this style of teaching publicly defended dissertations for the purpose of
obtaining an academic degree (the degree of doctor) also formed a natural part
of the examination requirements. 24 We then find at the Dutch universities two
main types of this genre of literature, disputationespro gradu and disputationes
exercitii gratia. Most probably works of the former category were written by
students themselves, in any case not by the professor praeses; in the second
category one can distinguish the practice disputations which were published
in volumes under the name of the professor and those which were printed
and published separately. 25 In this last group we find disputations in which
the student calls himself only respondens and others in which he is described as
auctor et respondens. In this second case the student was probably the author, or
at least the praeses did not write the text, whereas the designation of the student
as a mere respondens points to the authorship of the professor-chairman. 26
What dissertationes of Scots students in the Netherlands are to be found? Let us
start with the disputationes pro gradu. The figures which Colenbrander collected
for Leyden do not give a very promising picture of the frequency of doctoral
degrees. 27 From 1575 to 1795 33,189 'Netherlandish' students matriculated at
Leyden and 24,102 'foreigners'. Of the 'Netherlandish' group 7,615 students
took an academic degree (23 per cent); of all 'foreigners' together 2,254 (9.3 per
cent). Among the some 1,460 Scots students Colenbrander discovered seventyfive
degrees: 5.3 per cent. In view of the fact that many Scots enrolled at two or
more universities I have added the degrees taken at all Dutch universities: 28
22
For the structure and the system of these volumes of collected (legal) practice disputations, R.
Feenstra, 'Jacobus Maestertius (1610-1658): Zijn juridisch onderwijs in Leiden en net Leuvense
disputatiesysteem van Gerardus Corselius', Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 1 (1982), 297-335.
23
A.M.M.Canoy-Olthoff, 'Een onderzoek naar de inhoud van een aantal zeventiende en achttiende
eeuwse dissertaties over vruchtgebruik', Acta Falconis, lviii/3 (Antwerp, 1983), 15-33.
24
W. Allweiss, 'Von der Disputation zur Dissertation', Dissertationen in Wissenschaft und Bibliotheken,
R. Jung and P. Kaegbein, ed., Bibliothekspraxis, xxiii (Munich-New York-London, 1979),
13-28.
25
On the 'loose' disputations as the counterparts of the collected ones, Feenstra, 'Maestertius', at
p.311, particularly n.89.
26
Canoy-Olthoff, op. cit., 26, and Feenstra, 'Maestertius', 90. For some practice disputations which
were published at the Nijmegen Kwartierlijke Akademie in the course of the last quarter of the
seventeenth century under the name of law students as respondentes, A.M. Ruuls came to the conclusion
that the students 'dressed up' an outline the professor had given them and/or used a bibliography he
provided; see A.N. [=M.] Ruuls, 'Vier vragen omtrent de disputaties, binnen het juridisch onderwijs
aan de Nijmeegse kwartierlijke academic verdedigd onder Petrus de Greve (periode: 1663-1676),
benevens een poging tot beantwoording', Batavia Academica, vi (1988), 31-51.
27
Colenbrander, table IV.
28
For Leyden university we do not have a complete A Ibumpromotorum at our disposal. Bronnen tot de
geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit, P.C. Molhuysen, ed. 7 vols. Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien,
Continued