Realist teachings: a chronology of Tacitism in the northern Netherlands

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to present a chronological overview of the political reception of Tacitus’ works in the northern Low Countries from the early sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. Most of the types of Tacitism proposed in the introduction are represented in the Dutch context in one way or another. A characteristic of the Dutch Tacitism(s) as discussed here is that they appear to be at the heart of the connections between academia and government in the Republic, and especially in the province of Holland. Together with a fascination for reason of state (whether accepting or rejecting it), Tacitism often carries aspects of style and taste which give it a ‘risky’ fascination that is part of the explanation of its success and influence among selected (predominantly elite) readerships.

KEYWORDS:

• Tacitism
• Dutch Republic
• reason of state
• history of political thought
• secularisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article was prepared as part of the NCN- project 467872, The Secularisation of the West: Tacitism from the 16th to the 18th century. I thank my direct colleagues Anna Laskowska, Zofia Żółtek and Carolina Ferraro, as well as Alberto Clerici, Maciej Ptaszyński, Conchi Gutiérrez Redondo, Marisol Garcia and Andrea di Carlo for our excellent discussions on Tacitism in all corners of Europe.

2 By former colleagues in the Erasmus University Rotterdam; Hans Blom, Marianne Klerk, Jaap Nieuwstraten and Ingmar Vroomen.

3 See e.g. M. Siegenbeek, Geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde, 96; J.M. Schrant, Proeven van Nederlandschen prozastijl, uit zeven eeuwen (1829), Intr. X.

4 J.D.M. Cornelissen, ‘Hooft en Tacitus. Bijdrage tot de kennis van de vaderlandse geschiedenis in de eerste helft der zeventiende eeuw’ (1938).

5 C.L. Thijssen-Schoute, Nicolaas Jarichides Wieringa. Een zeventiende-eeuws vertaler van Boccalini, Rabelais, Barclai (1939).

6 S. Groenveld, Hooft als Historieschrijver (1981).

7 e.g. A. Droetto, ‘Il Tacitismo nella storiografia Groziana’; J. Bell, Hugo Grotius Historian; E. Haitsma Mulier, ‘Grotius, Hooft and the Writing of History in the Dutch Republic’; some attention in H. Blom, ‘Causality and Morality in Politics: The Rise of Naturalism in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought’ (PhD thesis Rotterdam, 1995).

8 C. Maas, ‘Was Janus Dousa a Tacitist?; M. Laureys, ‘Sine amore, sine odio partium; J. de Landtsheer, ‘Annotating Tacitus: The Case of Justus Lipsius’; M. de Bastiani, ‘Spinoza against political Tacitism’.

9 For the reception in Germany see C. Krebs, ‘A dangerous book: the reception of the Germania’.

10 Aurelius, Defensio gloriae Batavinae and Elucidarium variarum questionum super Batavina regione differentia (written ca. 1510, published 1586) and Aurelius, Divisiekroniek (1517); Snoy, De Rebus Batavicis (written around 1519, published 1620); Geldenhouwer, Lucubratiuncula de Batavorum Insula (1520) and Historia Batavica (1530); see Geldenhouwer, Historische Werken.

11 Junius, Batavia (see below); Dousa (father), Annales and Dousa (father and son), Bataviae Hollandiaeque Annales. See also H. Kampinga, Opvattingen over onze vaderlandse geschiedenis bij de Hollandse Historici der 16e en 17e eeuw (1917); C. Heesakkers and W. Reinders, Genoeglijk bovenal zijn mij de Muzen. De Neolatijnse dichter Janus Dousa (1545–1604); Maas, ‘Was Janus Dousa a Tacitist?’; Haitsma Mulier, ‘Grotius, Hooft’, 55–8.

12 In e.g. Hooft’s drama Baeto (1617) and in paintings and prints as mentioned below.

13 For a general account, see I. Schöffer, `The Batavian myth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’; E. Haitsma Mulier, `De Bataafse Mythe opnieuw bekeken’.

14 The work was only published (by Janus Dousa) in 1588. See also S. Langereis, `Petrus’ Scriverius’ monument voor de graven van Holland’; D. van Miert, The kaleidoscopic scholarship of Hadrianus Junius (1511–1575); a modern Dutch translation is available in N. de Glas, Holland is een eiland.

15 In: J. Dousa, Novorum poematum secunda Lugdunensis editio (Leiden, 1576).

16 As argued by Maas, ‘Was Janus Dousa een Tacitist?’.

17 In: J. Lipsius, Ad Annales Taciti Commentarius; the dedication also printed as Iusti Lipsi Epistolae vol. I, no. 81 00 00H.

18 H. Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, ed. J. Waszink et al. (Assen, 2000). Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae.

19 See Kampinga, Opvattingen, 129.

20 Kampinga, Opvattingen, 72–4.

21 On the 17th-century debates about this, see Kampinga, Opvattingen, 125–33.

22 S. Langereis, Johannes Smetius: Nijmegen stad der Bataven; Johannes Smetius, Nijmeegse Oudheden (Dutch translation by Leo Nelissen).

23 Many of these images are brought together in H. Teitler, De opstand der ‘Batavieren’. In print, images were available for example in Batavorum cum Romanis bellum / De Batavische oft oude Hollandtsche oorloghe teghen de Romeynen (Antwerpen, 1612), with images by Tempesta and texts by Vaenius. Rembrandt’s painting is now in the National Museum in Stockholm (Br. 482), under the title The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis; see also https://www.rembrandthuis.nl/nl/ontmoet-rembrandt/rembrandt-de-kunstenaar/belangrijkste-werken/de-samenzwering-van-de-batavieren-onder-julius-civilis/.

24 See I. Vroomen, De Taal van de Republiek. Het gebruik van vaderlandretoriek in Nederlandse pamfletten, 1618–1672, 191.

25 For overview and lit. reff. see J. Waszink, ‘De receptie van de Tabulae Lugdunenses in de 16e eeuw’.

26 R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 40–45 on whose discussion I rely here. The political commentary by Carlo Pasquale is one of the French works possibly used by Lipsius; see J. Waszink, Intr. to Lipsius, Politica, 46.

27 Lipsius, Orationes octo Ienae potissimum habitae … , 35.

28 i.e. The commander whom Philip II had sent to the Low Countries to suppress the revolt.

29 For similar views see Woltjer, ‘Hollandse Universiteit’, 15–16, and Otterspeer, Het bolwerk van de vrijheid: de Leidse universiteit, 1575–1672, e.g. 147–8. For a different view (i.e. that Orange did intend the university as a breeding ground for Calvinism), see K. Swart, Willem van Oranje en de Nederlandse Opstand 1572–1584, 45–6. Further discussion and further lit. in J. Waszink, ‘University and Court’, 155–9.

30 Although, as Anthony Grafton has shown, an all-too-exclusive focus on the research aspect of the institution would also be wrong; the training of lawyers, doctors and clergymen for their tasks in society remained foremost. See e.g. A. Grafton, Athenae Batavae, 29–31.

31 Compare the introductory description of naturalism given in Blom, Causality and Morality, 16–20. Although morality is central to Blom’s discussion of naturalism, he also considers Machiavellism, Justus Lipsius’ thought and Hugo Grotius’ theory of property as examples of early-modern naturalism (17–18). Similarly 191, ‘The doctrine of reason of state itself is a naturalistic perspective on politics’. Following this line I have treated realism and naturalism as closely connected, if not partly synonymous, at least for early-modern Dutch political thought.

32 The first, or second after Padova, depending on whether one takes the foundation or the opening as the defining moment.

33 Otterspeer, Bolwerk van de Vrijheid, 198–202.

34 See J. van Dorsten, Poets, Patrons, and Professors; Waszink, ‘University and Court’.

35 For other connections between Leicester’s campaign and readings of Tacitus, see J.Waszink, ‘Henry Savile’s Tacitus and the English role on the Continent’.

36 Compare the account by H. Wansink, Politieke Wetenschappen, ch. 3 (64–117). Wansink discerns two traditions of teaching on politics in Leiden, the ‘philological-historical’ tradition instituted by Lipsius, and a ‘philosophical’ one, with an important interest in Aristotle’s ethics; the latter however being very slow to start (with little serious activity before 1600). For Wansink the central text in the philological-historical tradition is Lipsius’ Politica.

37 See J. Waszink, ‘Introduction’ ch. 3 in: J. Lipsius, Politica.

38 See J. Waszink, ‘Controversies on Reason of State’.

39 Where all students had to do the preliminary propaedeusis before passing on to one of the main subjects Law, Theology or Medicine.

40 For the debates on this term, see the introduction of Mark Somos’ Secularisation and the Leiden Circle, esp. 1–6. I broadly agree with Somos’ terms and approach.

41 Ernst Kossmann has argued, in his seminal studies of Dutch political thought, that the academic political thought in the early republic made no contact with political practice, but the influence of Lipsius and reason of state does nothing to support this view; see Kossmann, Political Thought in the Dutch Republic, 29–30, 50. For further marks of Lipsius’ influence in the Dutch Republic, see Waszink, ‘Introduction’ to Lipsius’ Politica, § 4.3.7.

42 e.g. Grotius’ natural law-based attack on the legal validity of the Spanish-Portuguese claims to exclusive trade with the far East and West Indies, which has reason of state-assumptions among its first principles.

43 Further discussion in Waszink, Intr. to Lipsius, Politica, 173–90.

44 i.e. provisional until a new monarch was found; the situation which would soon prove to be permanent.

45 Wansink, Blom, Tuck, Van Gelderen, Waszink, Nieuwstraten, Klerk.

46 e.g. Blom, Causality and Morality, 161, 165, 188.

47 See J. Waszink, ‘Tacitism in Holland: Hugo Grotius’ Annales et Historiae de rebus Belgicis’ and J. Waszink, ‘Introduction’ in: Hugo Grotius, Annals of the War in the Low Countries.

48 J. Waszink, ‘Lipsius and Grotius: Tacitism’.

49 Also known as Staatsgezind or Remonstrant and Prinsgezind or Counter-remonstrant respectively.

50 For a fuller account, see Waszink, Intr. to Grotius, Annals.

51 P. Grootens, Dominicus Baudius. Een levensschets uit het Leidse humanistenmilieu 1561–1613, 132–3.

52 See J. Waszink, ‘Introduction’ to Grotius, Annals, § 11.1.

53 Janus Gruterus, Discursus politici ad Tacitum (Heidelberg, 1605), and C. Cornelii Taciti opera quae exstant, ex recognitione Iani Gruteri (Frankfurt, 1607). In 1593 the university had offered Gruterus a professorship in ethics but Gruterus had not accepted this offer; see Wansink, Politieke Wetenschappen, 65–6.

54 Cornelissen, ‘Hooft en Tacitus’; Groenveld, Hooft als Historieschrijver; J. Waszink, ‘Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and the Italian Tacitist literature’.

55 As part of a 4-volume edition by Brandt; Alle de werken van C. Corn. Tacitus, in ‘t Hollandtsch vertaalt door den Heer P.C. Hooft …  Amsterdam/ Leiden/ Utrecht 1704, and repr. as Alle de gedrukte werken 1611–1738 (8 vols), Amsterdam UP 1972, vol. 7.

56 In vol. 3 of Brandt’s 1704 edition: Mengelwerken: ten deele nooit tevooren gedrukt: nu op veele plaatsen verbetert en vermeerdert, 401–46; repr. vol. 6.

57 P.C. Hooft, Rampzaeligheden der Verheffinge van den Hujze Medicis. The text was never published by Hooft himself. The excellent edition by J. de Lange of 1981 provides a wealth of information on Hooft’s sources and language.

58 P.C. Hooft, Henrik de Grote. Zyn leven en bedryf (1626).

59 See P.C. Hooft, Leringen van Staat.

60 See e.g. Cornelissen, Hooft en Tacitus, 67.

61 See Y. van Vugt and J. Waszink, ‘Politiek in Hoofts Baeto: De middenweg als uitweg?’.

62 See Waszink, Intro. to Grotius, Annals.

63 J. Vennekool, De Hoochberoemde Historien van C. Cornelius Tacitus […]. Het Eerste Deel. Vervatende XVI Annalen, ofte Jaerboecken der Roomscher gheschiedenissen […] (Delft, 1616); and Het tweede stuck […] genaemt Historien […] item noch Twee […] boecxkens (Leiden, 1616). Vennecool was both a staunch counter-remonstrant and a prolific translator of Roman histories (Caesar and Polybius) and Augustine’s City of God, and author of studies on ancient Rome. For a biography focusing on his work as clergyman in Maassluis, see (in Dutch): https://www.canonvannederland.nl/nl/page/31694/johannes-fenacolius.

64 J. Jansen, ‘Tacitus en de Opstand’ explains this use of Tacitus as consolatory and parallel to the import of Lipsius’ De Constantia, that is, to be understood in a general context of distress from (civil) war. I would argue however that this must be read in a context of Truce Conflicts public debates: the phrase ‘if ever we needed him, is especially servicable and useful to us now in this age’ seems very specifically to refer to one present, i.e. the years of the Truce Conflicts in the republic, while the quote squares entirely with the sentiments expressed in the counter-remonstrant propaganda discussed in the articles in the next note.

65 J. Waszink, ‘Oldenbarnevelt and Fishes’; H. Helmers, ‘Angstcultuur en complotdenken tijdens het Bestand’, 230–53.

66 In this respect it is fascinating to note that Hans Blom argues for a link between Remonstrants (Staatsgezinden) and contemporary literature on arcana imperii; Blom, Causality and Morality, 168.

67 Wansink, Politieke Wetenschappen, 85–7; Nieuwstraten, Boxhornius, 52–4.

68 Thus creating a close parallel with Lipsius’ published orations on Tacitus from Jena.

69 Danielis Heinsii Orationes, editio nova magna parte auctior (Leiden, 1620), 245.

70 The same motto figures on the title page of De Brune’s Banket-werk van goede gedachten (Middelburg, 1660) (‘Confectionery of good thoughts’, a book with short texts on everyday religious morality).

71 For example Edward Hyde, lord Clarendon’s Tacitism as currently studied by Zofia Żółtek in the Tacitism project (see note 1).

72 See J. Waszink, ‘Hugo Grotius’ Annales et Historiae de rebus Belgicis from the Evidence in his Correspondence’, 264.

73 See Waszink, ‘Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and the Italian Tacitist literature’.

74 F. Strada, De Bello Belgico, decas prima (Rome, 1632) and decas secunda, 1647; C. Reijner, Italiaanse geschiedschrijvers over de Nederlandse Opstand, 1585–1650: Een transnationale geschiedenis (Leiden, 2020), esp. 185–240.

75 Gemeentebibliotheek, mss. Remonstrants-Gereformeerde Gemeente, 417a and 417b.

76 For more literature on Burgersdijk, see Wansink, Politieke Wetenschappen esp. 126–34; Blom, ‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas’; Blom, Causality and Morality, 67–100 and passim; ‘Burgersdijk’, in: Van Bunge et al. (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers; Nieuwstraten, Boxhornius, 55–60 and passim.

77 Blom, Causality and Morality, 75.

78 G.J. Vossius, De historicis Latinis libri tres, 145–7.

79 D’ovrige werken van Gaius Cornelius Tacitus Romeinscher geschied’nissen, onder d’eerste keysers, translated by J. Groenewegen (Delft, 1630).

80 Van der Aa (Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 20, 308–10) and Wumkes (Molhuysen and Kossmann (eds.), Nieuw Nederlands Biographisch Woordenboek, vol. 10, 1224–5) disagree as to whether Winsemius died in 1641 or 1644. They record that he was originally a student in Franeker and studied in Leiden around 1610. He became historiographer of the States of Friesland in 1616 and professor of eloquence at the university in Franeker in 1636. He is the author of an extensive oeuvre mostly in Latin (but also a history of Friesland in Dutch), and seems to have been an admirer of Grotius’ works, who in turn expressed admiration for Winsemius’ history.

81 A full version was published posthumously in 1646, which I have used here: P. Winsemius, Historiarum ab excessu Caroli V. Caesaris sive rerum sub Philippo II per Frisiam gestarum … libri septem (Leeuwarden, 1646).

82 For example Winsemius, Historiae, 259.

83 Reijner, Italiaanse geschiedschrijvers, 269–82.

84 Guido Bentivoglio, Verhael-boecken van den cardinael Bentivoglio (Rotterdam, 1648); Guido Bentivoglio, Historie der Nederlantsche oorlogen (Amsterdam, 1674); T. Boccalini, Politiike toet-steen Trajano Boccalini (Harlingen, 1669). For a list see Reijner’s Appendix 1.

85 M. van Gelderen, ‘Aristotelians, Monarchomachs and Republicans’, 195.

86 P. Gaudenzi, De Candore Politico in Tacitum.

87 See also e.g. Blom, Causality and Morality, 157–82.

88 See e.g. M. Klerk, Reason of State and Predatory Monarchy.

89 Blom, Causality and Morality, 167–71, 173, 180.

90 Consulted in Jansen, ‘Tacitus en de Opstand’, 1.

91 M. de Bastiani, ‘Spinoza against political Tacitism’. See also Nieuwstraten, Boxhornius, 23 with ref. to Chaim Wirszubski, ‘Spinoza’s Debt to Tacitus’, in Studies in Medieval and Modern Thought and Literature. Scripta Hierosolymitana, Vol. 2, ed. R. Koebner (Jerusalem, 1955), 176–86; E. Haitsma Mulier, ‘Spinoza en Tacitus: de filosoof en de geschiedschrijver’, in Het beeld in de spiegel: historiografische verkenningen: liber amicorum voor Pieter Blaas, ed. E. Haitsma Mulier, L. Maas and J. Vogel (Hilversum, 2000).

92 F. van den Enden, Vrije Politieke Stellingen, 185–6 (quoted from Van Gelderen, ‘Aristotelians, Monarchomachs and Republicans’, 216).