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

Disputations of Scots Attending Universities in the Netherlands 107
Praeses: Professor Philippus Reinhardus Vitriarius.
Printed: Apud Abrahamum Elzevier, Leyden. 50
Georgius Sharp de Hoddon, Scoto-Britannus, and Christoph. Schiffart, Emdanus.
[Respondentes].
Julius Paulus.
Publicly defended at Groningen between August 1708 and September
1712.
Praeses: Professor Alexander Arnoldus Pagenstecher. 51
Three of these five disputations were written by the professors praesides,
Maestertius or Pagenstecher respectively. Here the only personal contribution
of the student respondens is to be found in the dedication. Probably Robert
Cook and Gilbert Burnet wrote their own disputations. Do these papers
evidence a 'Scottish' background or character? Cook's treatise, consisting
mainly of a discussion of the ideas of Bachovius, contrasts in no way with
the products of his continental colleagues. 52 Burnet on the other hand makes
a personal contribution. Treating the preliminary question whether any war
at all can be considered lawful or justified he quotes the Gospel (Matthew, v,
38,39) ; 53 he then refers inter alia to a 'librum nuperrime editum, cui titulus, An
Exposition of the Articles of the Church of England, Expositio articulorum fidei
Ecclesiae Anglicanae, auctor est Burnetus Salisburiensis Episcopus articulo 37,
pag. 388 in fine & 389. in princ. ubi accuratissime, ut solet, Salvatoris nostri
verba exponit, & dissentientium argumenta inde desumpta refutat'. 54
My tentative conclusion is that the Scots law students in the Netherlands did
not suffer much from the high prices and the poor quality of the paper of
50
Copy in Leyden University Library. Burnet matriculated (at the age of 20) at Leyden as a law
student on 8 September 1699 (Album studiosorum, col. 755). He dedicated his paper ('Theses') to
Thomas Burnet, 'Eques auratus, Serenissimi nostri Regis Medicus Primarius, Pater suus optimus' and
to Gilbert [Burnet], bishop of Salisbury, 'Patruus suus'. On 1 July 1703 Burnet was admitted to the
Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, see Grant, op. cit., 25.
51
Published as number nine in a volume containing ten dissertations under the name of A.A.
Pagenstecher, Sylloge Dissertationum. 1. De Jure Naturae. 2. etc. (Bremen, 1713). I owe this reference
to my Leyden colleague, R. Feenstra. Copies in Ghent University Library, and Advocates Library,
Edinburgh. This book of Pagenstecher is not mentioned in Dekkers, 128. On 2 December 1712 George
Sharp, of Hoddam, was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, see Grant, op. cit., 190.
52
See R. Bachovius ab Echt, Notae et animadversiones ad disputationes Hieronymi Treutleri, 3 vols.
(Heidelberg, 1617-19).
53
'Audistis dictum fuisse, oculum pro oculo, et dentem pro dente. Ego vero dico vobis, ne resistite
malo, sed caedenti te in dexteram maxillam alteram quoque obverte' (Disputatio, 12).
54
Disputatio, 13. Another reference to the famous Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (1699) is
found in section 24 (p.21); for the rest Burnet leans heavily on P.R. Vitriarius, Institutiones juris
naturae et gentium in usum Christiani Ludovici marchionis Brandenburgici ad methodum Hugonis
Grotii conscriptae (Leyden, 1692) (cf. Ahsmann and Feenstra, no. 1001) and H. Grotius, De iure
belli ac pacis libri ires, in quibus ins naturae et gentium, item iuris publici praecipua explicantur (Paris,
1625). Cf. on Bishop Burnet, D.N.B., iii, 394-405 and R. Chambers, A Biographical Dictionary of
Eminent Scotsmen, 3 vols. T. Thomson, ed. (rptd. Hildesheim-New York, 1971), i, 243-48.