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

Chapter 3. Biography
land’s ascendancy during antiquity and the Middle Ages.’ 131 In other words,
Scriverius wanted to legitimise the dominance that the province of Holland
had in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century on historical grounds.
An example of how Scriverius used history and his knowlegde of the past
for ‘political’ ends can be found in the Respublica Hollandiae, et urbes (The Commonwealth
and Towns of Holland). The Respublica Hollandiae, published in 1630,
contains different works, including an edition of Grotius’s De antiquitate,
which was first published in 1610. In the Respublica Hollandiae Scriverius provided
Grotius’s treatise with new endnotes that contain historical information
derived from classical and medieval sources. The goal of these notes was to
historically buttress the views Grotius had put forward in the De antiquitate.
And these views were politically motivated: they were intended to defend
Holland’s aristocratic form of government, to depict the provincial States of
Holland as the ancient bearers of sovereignty and to legitimise the Revolt –
and thus ultimately the existence of the Dutch Republic as an independent
state – by depicting the Revolt as a fight for the protection of the ancient form
of government and the freedom of the Hollanders against the Spanish attempt
to ‘establish absolute rule’. 132
As noted in the introduction, the early modern antiquarian had the task of
tracking down, studying, and opening up to others both written and unwritten
sources. Scriverius performed this task, if not completely, then at least partially.
He tried to see and obtain ‘as many manuscripts and printed sources as
possible’. 133 Judging by Boxhorn’s words, Scriverius fairly succeeded in this
goal; Boxhorn considered himself lucky that Scriverius granted him access to
his library that contained ‘so many manuscripts and very old documents’. 134
Besides collecting and studying manuscripts and old documents, Scriverius
also showed the fruits of his scholarly labour to the public. In 1609, for exam-
131 Langereis, Geschiedenis als ambacht, p. 154. ‘Scriverius wilde met zijn oudheidkundige werk laten
zien dat de machtige positie van Holland in de zeventiende eeuw terugging op een Hollands overwicht
tijdens Oudheid en Middeleeuwen.’ See also ibidem, p. 293. ‘Scriverius wilde aantonen dat Hollands
machtige positie in de zeventiende eeuw terugging op een overwicht over de aangrenzende streken
tijdens de Oudheid en Middeleeuwen.’
132 See the introduction to Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, pp. 21, 27-30, and the text
of The Antiquity itself, II.2, p. 57, II.14, p. 65, VI.1-7, pp. 99-103, VII.7, p. 107, with quote on p. 101.
133 Pierre Tuynman and Michiel Roscam Abbing, “Two History Books that never appeared: Scriverius,
Melis Stoke, the Widow van Wouw and Gouthoeven: Scriveriana I”, in Quaerendo, Vol. 27, No. 2
(1997), pp. 77-78, with quote on p. 77.
134 Boxhorn in a letter to Pontanus and Scriverius, dated April 1632. Boxhorn, Epistolae et poemata,
p. 24. ‘De Bibliotheca tua quid dicam? quae tot M. SS. veterrimisque codicibus aliisque pluribus ejus
generis cimeliis referta est, ut magnam felicitatis meae partem semper existimaverim, quod cum ad
humanitatem tuam, simul ad ipsam aditum mihi esse voluisti. In qua non tantum de historia, & re litterariâ
universa, sed de earum conservatrice arte, Typographia Harlemensi dico, certissima mihi patuerunt
documenta.’ See for this letter also Langereis, Geschiedenis als ambacht, p. 185, who dates this letter
to April 1, 1632. For some comments on Scriverius’s library, see ibidem, p. 158.
61