Hugo de Groot (1583-1645) is internationally known as the father of international law and also celebrated for his seminal work on the law of nature. The principal work of Johannes Voet (1647-1713) is his Commentarius ad Pandectas in which he expounds the modern law (the jus hodiernum) in the light of the Pandects of Roman law. In the first title of his Commentary, Voet briefly sets out his views on the foundations of natural law. He rejects the views of De Groot on this score as unacceptable. The purpose of this note is to trace the exposure of De Groot and Voet to the subtleties of the esoteric theological debates in Reformed (Calvinist) circles in seventeenth century Holland, and to highlight the theological background to their differing views on the source of the law of nature.

Dutch Golden Age scholar Anna Maria van Schurman was widely regarded throughout the seventeenth century as the most learned woman of her age. She was 'The Star of Utrecht', 'The Dutch Minerva', 'The Tenth Muse', 'a miracle of her sex', 'the incomparable Virgin', and 'the oracle of Utrecht'. As the first woman ever to attend a university, she was also the first to advocate, boldly, that women should be admitted into universities. A brilliant linguist, she mastered some fifteen languages. She was the first Dutch woman to seek publication of her correspondence. Her letters in several languages Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French – to the intellectual men and women of her time reveal the breadth of her interests in theology, philosophy, medicine, literature, numismatics, painting, sculpture, embroidery, and instrumental music. This study addresses Van Schurman's transformative contribution to the seventeenth-century debate on women's education. It analyses, first, her educational philosophy; and, second, the transnational reception of her writings on women's education, particularly in France. Anne Larsen explores how, in advocating advanced learning for women, Van Schurman challenged the educational establishment of her day to allow women to study all the arts and the sciences. Her letters offer fascinating insights into the challenges that scholarly women faced in the early modern period when they sought to define themselves as intellectuals, writers, and thoughtful contributors to the social good.

This article considers the influence of legal education based on the Dutch tradition of legal humanism on a Scottish student of the late seventeenth-century. An annotated textbook retained by Charles Binning contains notes from his studies with the Utrecht professor Cornelis van Eck and provides evidence for Van Eck’s teaching practices. Their education abroad equipped Scottish legal students for the professional, intellectual and cultural lives they would lead when they returned home. Exposure to the ideas contained in the books they studied and their relationships with the Continental learned gave Scottish scholars admission into the international Republic of Letters. This had significance for the development of the Scottish Enlightenment.


The early history of Utrecht University (founded 1636) reflects an emerging public sphere (Habermas’s ‘bürgerliche öffentlichkeit’) of a major town in the Netherlands. This public sphere was a contested field among the different groups establishing and administering the university: university professors, town magistrates and representatives of the newly established Reformed Church and the former dominant Catholic Church. The factionalised magistrates developed a public sphere, while also trying to limit the passionate but destabilising debate concerning the new philosophy of Descartes. They supported the Calvinistic anti-Descartes movement while permitting, and even advocating, the establishment of the new philosophy at the university. They ambivalently protected the academy from the consistory’s control while simultaneously trying to safeguard their own (financial) position. It is concluded that the Habermasian framework has to be fleshed out in local histories, such as this case study of Utrecht University, to demonstrate the ‘messy’ complexities in reality.

René Descartes hat einen festen Platz in der Philosophiegeschichte, sein Rationalismus hat die europäische Aufklärung geprägt. Zu Lebzeiten hingegen erfährt er nicht nur Wertschätzung, insbesondere unter den Theologen hat er entschiedene Gegner. Im Herbst 1649 folgt er einer Einladung der schwedischen Königin Christine nach Stockholm. Wenige Monate später stirbt der französische Philosoph dort – wie es heißt, an einer Lungenentzündung. So jedenfalls die „offizielle“ Version, wie sie sich bis heute in Descartes-Biographien findet. Doch bereits kurz nach Descartes Tod kursierten Gerüchte, es sei Gift im Spiel gewesen. Theodor Ebert geht diesem Verdacht nach und rollt den „Fall Descartes“ noch einmal auf. Anhand vorliegenden, aber bislang wenig beachteten Dokumenten rekonstruiert er zunächst den Krankheitsverlauf. Dabei ergeben sich erhebliche Zweifel an der Diagnose „Lungenentzündung“, viele Indizien deuten darauf hin, daß Descartes tatsächlich keines natürlichen Todes gestorben ist. In einem zweiten Schritt erörtert der Autor, wer ein Motiv und wer die Möglichkeit für einen Mord an Descartes gehabt haben könnte. Am Ende der akribischen Untersuchung erscheint der rätselhafte Tod des René Descartes in einem neuen Licht. Der Anhang enthält zahlreiche Dokumente in Übersetzung, die es den Lesern ermöglichen, die Argumentation des Autors nachzuvollziehen und sich ein eigenes Urteil zu bilden.

In een brief probeert Anna Maria van Schurman in 1669 de Utrechtse predikant Petrus Montanus over te halen ook naar het kamp van Jean de Labadie over te komen. De uitwerking is averechts. Voetius begint zelfs een hetze tegen zijn voormalige pupil.