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

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Chapter 3. Biography
task of giving public lectures on history Boxhorn tells his audience that ‘it is of
the greatest importance to you that our history is just as much shown to you as
Roman and Greek history’. 195 Leaving aside here the question of what Boxhorn
precisely means with ‘our history’, the least we can say is that it is not Roman or
Greek history. Further, in the oration he also expresses the wish that ‘the many
changes of Asian and Oriental history after the fall of the Roman Empire shall
[also] be learned more closely’, a wish for which he sees Jacob Golius, professor
of Arabic and mathematics, as the main candidate to fulfil it. 196 Clearly, then,
for Boxhorn that part of history that was useful and important to know was
not limited to antiquity. If Boxhorn himself actually taught ‘our history’ after
he was given the task to give public lectures on history is unsure, at least to this
author. What can be said for certain is that in 1652 Boxhorn published a world
history that covered the period from the birth of Jesus Christ to the year 1650.
In this work he had ‘recorded some [matters] from Africa and America, many
[matters] from Asia, but mostly [matters] from Europe’. 197
Concerning politics, Boxhorn taught both ‘the common and familiar politica,
which consists of precepts only’ and ‘practical politica’. 198 He did this,
at least partially, in an exemplary manner. In the Disquisitiones politicae, for
example, Boxhorn discusses political problems on the basis of historical examples.
199 These examples were drawn from both classical history and medieval
195 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Oratio inauguralis, dicta in Illustri Batavorum Academia, cum, Ex auctoritate
publica, historiarum professionem aggrederetur. Habita Anno MDCXLVIII (David Lopez de Haro; Lei-
den, 1649), p. 14. ‘Quoties ego illud longi temporis spatium cogito (cogito autem saepissime) quod inter
sextum aerae Christianae saeculum & decimum intercedit, omni propemodum rerum tunc gestarum
memoria viduatum, aut solis fabulis corruptum, totum illud pene periisse nobis intelligo. Quae jactura
tanto major est, Auditores, quia illa haec sunt tempora, quibus jacta constat plerorumque regnorum ac
Rerumpub, quae per Europam nunc omnem praecipua & florentissima celebrantur, prima quasi fundamenta.
Neque tamen animum ego hic despondeo, facturus quod illi solent, qui ex modico & partim collecto
aere tandem ingentem summam conficiunt. Et ex reliquiis gestarum rerum passim sparsis, conjunctisque
& excussis diligenter, nonnihil vobis lucis in tam densa eorum temporum caligine audeo polliceri.
In quam ego curam tanto alacrior incumbam, quia vestra maxime interest non minus nostrarum vobis
rerum, quam Romanarum Graecarumque memoriam representari.’
196 Ibidem, pp. 14-15. ‘Utinam quoque (nam & plura sunt quae desidero) Asiae ac Orientis rerum
tot, post Romani imperii occasum, mutationes propius cognoscerentur? Qua de re cogitanti nunc mihi,
tu potissimum hic te offers, Iacobe Goli; cum quo habitos toties privatos ea de re sermones, publicos
nunc, sed pace tua, facio. Quem totius Orientis non linguarum modo, sed & rerum ingressum possessionem,
ac opibus ejus omnibus, quae huc faciunt, instructum, ex publici desiderii lege, ut eidem, cui
jam pridem favet, satisfaciat etiam, quantis possum precibus jam rogo.’ For an elaborate discussion of
Boxhorn’s inaugural oration and his views on history, see chapter 7.
197 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Dedication to the States of Holland”, in idem, Historia universalis, iii.
‘Africae & Americae nonnulla, plura Asiae, plurima autem Europae prodidimus …’
198 See footnote 201 below.
199 Otterspeer, Het bolwerk van de vrijheid, pp. 401-2. Willem Otterspeer speaks of Boxhorn’s exemplary
manner of teaching in a rather general sense, but illustrates it by discussing the procedure followed
in the Disquisitiones politicae. He bases himself on Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse
universiteit. See Otterspeer, Het bolwerk van de vrijheid, p. 465, footnote 36, for the reference.