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

Chapter 3. Biography
and modern history. 200 In both the Institutiones politicae and the Disquisitiones
politicae, Boxhorn’s two main political works, we can see that Boxhorn did not
confine himself to Roman or Greek history, but also used medieval, modern,
and even contemporary history in his teaching of politics. 201
Boxhorn’s students came from the Dutch Republic, France, Sweden,
Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia. 202 Johan de la Court, the Dutch political
thinker and Leiden merchant son, and Johan de Witt (1625-1672), who
would become grand-pensionary of Holland, are said to have been students
of Boxhorn. 203 Boxhorn gave both public and private lectures, of which the
latter attracted many people. 204 Private lectures (collegia privata) served as a
200 For a more elaborate discussion of the Disquisitiones politicae, see chapter 9.
201 For a more elaborate discussion of the Institutiones politicae, see chapter 8. Both the Institutiones
politicae and the Disquisitiones politicae derive from Boxhorn’s teachings on politics. Baselius, “Historia
vitae & obitus”, ix-x. ‘Sed & Politicam discipulos suos docebat: non vulgarem modo & tritam,
nudis praeceptis consistentem (quam à se conscriptam suis tradebat, & cujus libri duo nuper in Germania
editi & Lugduni Batavorum recusi sunt) sed & ex Historiis desumptam adeoque practicam, imo
παϱαδειγματικήν. Hinc natae disquisitiones Politicae, postmodum juris publici factae, sed tacito authoris
nomine, quae & saepius recusae sunt.’
202 See G.O. van de Klashorst, H.W. Blom and E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier, Bibliography of Dutch Seventeenth
Century Political Thought: An Annotated Inventory, 1581-1700 (APA/Holland University Press;
Amsterdam/Maarssen, 1986), pp. 42-43, 65. Boxhorn was especially popular among the youth of Sweden’s
high-ranking nobility. For Boxhorn’s good relations with Sweden’s noble youth, see Wrangel, De
betrekkingen tusschen Zweden en de Nederlanden op het gebied van letteren en wetenschap, pp. 134-35, 143,
163-73.
203 For Boxhorn as the professor of Johan de la Court, see Kossmann, Political Thought in the Dutch
Republic, p. 42, and Noel Malcolm, “Hobbes and Spinoza”, in Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political
Thought, p. 547, with reference there. For Boxhorn as the professor of Johan de Witt, see J.D.M. Cornelissen,
“Johan de Witt en de vrijheid”, in idem, Eendracht van het land, pp. 134, 136. Johan de la Court
enrolled as a student at Leiden University on October 5, 1641. Johan de Witt enrolled nineteen days later,
on October 24, 1641. Album studiosorum Academiae Lugduno-batavae MDCCCLXXV-MCMXXV, MDCCCLXXV-MCMXXV p. 327. I
hereby correct the information given in my article in the volume Public Offices, Private Demands, where I
claimed, with reference to the same works referred to in this footnote, that Boxhorn was also the professor
of Johan’s brother Pieter de la Court. The works referred to, both in this footnote and in my article
in the volume Public Offices, Private Demands, do not corroborate such a claim. See Jaap Nieuwstraten,
“Why the Wealthy should rule: Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn’s Defence of Holland’s Aristocratic Mercantile
Regime”, in Hartman, Nieuwstraten and Reinders (eds.), Public Offices, Personal Demands, pp. 126-27,
there footnote 3.
204 Baselius, “Historia vitae & obitus”, xiii-ix. ‘Caeterum praeter publicas etiam privatas [orationes-
JN] à studiosis sub ipso habitas, tibi Hoffere Amplissime, non minus constat quam mihi, qui & illorum
magna pars fuisti. Quibus, ut item non ignoras, ad artis normam componendis discipulis suis in privatis
collegiis certis diebus describendas ad calamum dictare solebat, orationum Ideas, quas vocabat, easque
argumenti varii, ut maximam partem politici, ita ex historia veteri desumptas … Tempus est ut de lectionibus
ejus publicis aliquid dicam sicut & de privatis collegiis. De quibus cum jam dicere coeperim prius
pergam. Haec ergo frequentia habebat, tum numero tum auditoribus …’ The ‘orationum Ideas’ (Ideas
of Orations) were published. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Orationum ideae, è selectiori materia moderni status
politici desumtae (Christian Kirchner; Leipzig, 1661). According to the catalogue in the Epistolae et poemata
(iv) this work was first printed in Leiden in 1657. For Boxhorn giving private lectures, see also Barlaeus,
“Oratio funebris In Excessum Clarissimi Viri, Marci Zuerii Boxhornii …”, p. 150. ‘Nec vulgares modo
discipulos habebat & sectatores, sed plerosque optimatum filios, florem Belgicae & Germanicae nobilitatis.
Qui omnes tanti viri gratia & eruditione pellecti, saepe ipsum adibant, de quaestionibus variis,
ut Apollinem alterum consulebant, collegia privata sub eo habebant. Ita ut de domo ejus dici possit,
quod de Isocratis Rhetoris domo scriptum legitur, ex ea, tanquam ex equo Trojano complures prodiisse
disertissimos juvenes, & in historiis omnique literarum genere versatissimos.’ Reference to Cicero, De
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