historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 7. The mistress of life
prosperity thanks to, and in the form of, town privileges that had grown ever
more numerous as time had passed. 84 It was in defence of these privileges, the
political independence they stood for, and the economic prosperity they had
ensured that the Hollanders went to war with the king of Spain. 85
Less than a year after he had been given the task to hold public lectures on history,
Boxhorn published the Nederlantsche historie (Dutch History, 1649). 86 In a letter
to Constantijn Huygens he expressed his hopes that this work would give
him a shot at the office of historiographer of the States General. 87 If this was
his goal, then Boxhorn gave a bad performance. Instead of writing the book in
eloquent Latin, he had written the book in Dutch, just like his contemporary
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft had done seven years before. 88 However, Boxhorn’s
Nederlantsche historie lacks Hooft’s Dutch prose of the Nederlandsche Historiën
(Dutch Histories, 1642). 89 Furthermore, the narrative in the Nederlantsche historie is
obscured by the geographical and chronological distances that Boxhorn tries to
cover. But beside these disadvantages the Nederlantsche historie has a lot to offer.
84 In the Institutiones politicae, I.9, p. 131, Boxhorn admitted that the Dutch, while under their counts,
had carefully saw to it that their fundamental rights were frequently augmented. As we have seen in
the previous chapter, these fundamental rights were the privileges Philip II had sworn to uphold. In the
next chapter we will see that these fundamental rights, embodied in privileges or charters, constituted
the ‘expressed freedom from obdience’ [expressa libertas obsequii]. In his history of the Dutch Revolt
Pieter Hooft explained that ‘the independence of the nobles had gradually increased by military service
while that of the towns by placidly complying with taxes’. P.C. Hooft, Nederlandse Historiën: een keuze uit
het grote verhaal van de Nederlandse Opstand. Samengesteld, hertaald en toegelicht door Frank van Gestel,
Eddy Grootes en Jan de Jongste (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker; Amsterdam, 2007), p. 37. For a rather similar
view on the political freedom gained by German cities, see Machiavelli, Discorsi, II.19.9-11.
85 In certain cases Boxhorn made a direct connection between the institution of a new privilege and
a town’s economic prosperity. For example, after count William II (1228-1256) had granted the brewers
of the town of Delft the privilege to buy hop from other people than the count himself against the payment
of one ‘stuiver’ per ten barrels of beer, the wealth of the citizens of Delft had increased greatly. Boxhorn,
Theatrum, p. 162. ‘Hac Principis liberalitate brevi effectum est, ut ob cerevisiam ubique locorum
expetitam, opes civium admodum auctae sint.’ For Delft and its beer industry, see Douwe Wijbenga,
Delft: een verhaal van de stad en haar bewoners, Vol. 1 (Elmar; Rijswijk, 1984), pp. 26-27, 57-61. The theme
that political freedom, expressed in privileges and town charters, and economic prosperity were closely
connected and that therefore this freedom should be protected had already been forcefully expressed
during the early years of the Dutch Revolt. Van Gelderen, “De Nederlandse Opstand (1555-1610): van
‘vrijheden’ naar ‘oude vrijheid’ en de ‘vrijheid der conscientien’”, pp. 31, 35.
86 According to the catalogue of Boxhorn’s books in Boxhorn, Epistolae et poemata, ii, the Nederlantsche
historie was first published in 1644. This date can also be found in Van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek
der Nederlanden, p. 1125; Haitsma Mulier’s supplement to Kampinga’s Opvattingen, xviii; Haitsma Mulier,
Van der Lem and Knevel, Repertorium van geschiedschrijvers in Nederland, 1500-1800, p. 65. However, 1644
is the wrong publication date. From a letter to Jacobus Baselius it becomes clear that Boxhorn was still in
the process of writing the Nederlantsche historie in March 1649. Boxhorn, Epistolae et poemata, pp. 307-8.
87 Augustus 9, 1649. Boxhorn, Epistolae et poemata, p. 308.
88 Paulus Merula, Dominius Baudius (1561-1613), and Johannes Meursius (1579-1639), who had all
occupied the office of historiographer of the States General, had all written their books in Latin.
89 For the different meanings of the singular term ‘historie’ (history) and the plural term ‘historiën’
(histories) in early modern Dutch historiography, see Tom Verschaffel, “De dissertatie: onderzoek in een
verlicht decor”, in Tollebeek, Verschaffel and Wessels (eds.), De palimpsest, Vol. 1, p. 124.