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

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Chapter 2. Intellectual context
influenced the Leiden cloth merchant, whose ideas, on their turn, exercised a
great influence on Spinoza. 49
After Kossmann’s study many publications have appeared that have added
to or (partially) revised his findings concerning seventeenth-century Dutch
political thought. These will not all be discussed here. 50 Rather, what follows
is a short and certainly not all-encomposing overview in which the results of
several studies on Dutch and European political thought that have appeared
after Kossmann’s study of 1960 are brought together. This overview, together
with the above discussion of Kossmann’s study of 1960, will provide a short
historiographical survey of studies on Dutch political thought to which we can
compare the findings of this thesis. In addition, this overview will also try to
connect Dutch political thought and Dutch political authors to developments
in political thought that occured elsewhere in early modern Europe in order to
provide a proper context in which we can place Boxhorn’s political thought.
In his study of ‘political science’ at Leiden University, which covers the period
from 1575, the year Leiden University was founded, until approximately the
middle of the seventeenth century, Harm Wansink detected two important
‘currents’ or ‘traditions’ in the teaching of politics at Leiden: a ‘philologicalhistorical’
one, in which Tacitus held an important position, and a ‘philosophical’
one, in which the teachings of Aristotle played an important role. 51
The former, which was the most dominant of the two traditions, consisted of
professors who ‘had the duty to teach history’, but who were also ‘active in
the field of the politica’, which, at least officially, belonged to the field of ethics.
Among those professors Wansink ranked men like Lipsius, Heinsius, and
Boxhorn. 52 An important contribution of Wansink’s study is that he demonstrated
the international character of Leiden University. Students from all over
Europe – and even beyond – flocked to Leiden, outnumbering the number of
Dutch students during the period 1626-1650. 53 In Wansink’s words, Leiden
University, ‘the most important centre of scholarly life in Europe’ during the
seventeenth century, was Europe’s ‘last big, truly international university’. 54
49 Ibidem, pp. 42, 64-83, with quote on p. 42.
50 For a recent general discussion of early modern Dutch political thought, see Van Gelderen, “The
Low Countries”, pp. 376-415.
51 Harm Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse universiteit, 1575-±1650 (Ph.D.-dissertation;
Utrecht, 1975), passim, with quotes taken from the English summary on pp. 248-49.
52 Ibidem, p. 106.
53 See chapter 3, with references there.
54 Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse universiteit, p. 3. For the place of politics within the
curriculum of Leiden University, see chapter 3.