Hugo Grotius: biography of this Dutch jurist

Hugo Grotius is one of the key figures in seventeenth-century European law studies, contributing valuable works.

Next we will take a tour of his entire life through a biography of Hugo Grotius, discovering which were the most important milestones, how he influenced the society of his time and what is the impact of his legacy even today.

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Brief biography of Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius, Grotius or de Groot, was born in 1583 in Delft, the Netherlands, during the Dutch war of independence.. Son of a good family, of an intellectual father and renowned politician, he received a very high-level education, based on Aristotelian and humanist principles. Hugo Grotius' abilities were soon evident in different fields, for example in the arts. And it is that with only 9 years he was already capable of composing poems of amazing quality.

At the more than impressive age of 11, he began to study Law at the University of Leiden, and it took him only 4 years to complete his training, taking advantage of the He also had time to study other subjects as different as theology, astrology (which at that time was a discipline of scientific study) or math. He even published the first of his literary works, a study of the works of Martianus Capella, which generated great impact.

At only 15 years old, Hugo Grotius is already involved in diplomatic activities, traveling to Paris and dispatching with King Henry IV of France.. A year later he received his law degree in The Hague and began a brilliant career as a lawyer. He also becomes a historiographer and receives the important task of writing the history of the Countries Bajos so that they remain in a superior position to that of Spain (from which they had just become independent).

He takes advantage of his knowledge of law to also publish works on international principles of justice, based on the real case of the seizure of a Portuguese ship that the Dutch fleet carried out on the coast of Singapore. This fact he was the precedent to begin to generate legal treaties about the legality of international actions, so Hugo Grotius was a pioneer in the matter.

His career as a legal eminence

The event of the seizure of the Portuguese carrack and the subsequent legal study on the matter carried out by Hugo Grotius marked the takeoff of him as a figure of reference in international law. His work culminated in the treatise known as Indis, or "From the Indies". In this play he began to talk about natural law and to debate about the very legality of wars. His next great contribution was that of Mare Liberum, or The Free Sea.

In this text, what Hugo Grotius affirmed is that the seas should be neutral territories internationally, that is, that they did not belong to anyone in particular and therefore all nations could make use of them. This argument was used politically by the Netherlands to demand that nations like England stop in their monopoly on the use of the sea, although they did so for the purpose of increasing their own naval power subsequently.

It must be said that Hugo Grotius was not the first author to deal in his work with the subject of free navigation on the seas, since Francisco de Vitoria, a Spanish author from the previous century, had already mentioned this idea in his work, using the principle of Roman law known as ius gentium. To this day, it is still considered that the waters of the high seas must be freely used by any nation.

By the year 1613, Grotius was already such an influential person that even he was elected as mayor (in the administrative figure equivalent to him) of Rotterdam. Just then a maritime conflict took place between the Netherlands and England, as they captured two Dutch ships. The government of the Netherlands saw in Hugo Grotius the ideal diplomatic profile to travel to the British Isles and mediate in the situation, to recover the retained ships. However, the attempt was unsuccessful as England did not relent.

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theological controversy

Also during these years another type of conflict arose, in this case of a religious nature, between the Calvinists and the Arminians. The power struggle between the two sectors was exacerbated by the appointment of Conrad Vorstius (Arminian) as professor of theology at Leyden University, and Calvinist followers accused him of exercising religious teachings beyond what his beliefs they dictated.

Hugo Grotius took sides in this polemic, writing the Ordinum Pietas, a manifesto in which affirmed that the civil authorities had the power to name whomever they considered opportune to practice in the universities, without having to count on the approval of religious leaders for it. How could it be otherwise, the counter-remonstrants (the opposing faction) accused him of being an incendiary and began a campaign against him.

As a result of this conflict, Hugo Grotius, who was already the attorney general of the Netherlands at that time, was asked to prepare a letter to settle the problem. This work would be the edict of tolerance, called Decretum pro pace ecclesiarum. With him it was reach a harmonious position regarding religious issues in the civil order, stating that theological differences should be set aside in this regard.

Of course, at that time, many powers were highly influenced by religion, and this position seemed to them inadmissible, and an escalation of protests began that would even lead to riots around the entire territory. The civil authorities tried to maintain order, but when one of the factions became strong, they arrested several of those they considered responsible for the conflict, including Hugo Grotius.

Grotius was tried and sentenced to serve life in Loevestein Castle. After two years of confinement, his wife and his assistant helped him draw up an escape plan from the fortress, hiding in a chest with which he was able to travel to France.

exile in paris

In 1621 Hugo Grotius arrives in Paris, where he begins his life in exile, far from the religious conflict that had deprived him of his freedom in the Netherlands. The French government provided him with a pension. Those were the times of King Louis XIII and the government of Cardinal Richelieu. Precisely to the monarch he dedicated what is probably one of his best known works, "On the law of war and peace".

Another of his literary contributions at this time was De veritate religionis Christianae, the Latin translation of some verses he wrote in Dutch during his confinement. This work dealt with the fundamental truths of Christianity.

He had an attempt to return to his native country, in the year 1631. However, the response from the authorities was hostile, so he had to give up the plan to return him. In his place, he decided to move to the German city of Hamburg, but two years later, Sweden claimed him for to be his ambassador in Paris, so he returned to the French capital again, this time with a different status.

Those were the times of the Thirty Years War, and his main task was to work for a solution to this conflict. from his new post as ambassador in Paris. He spent a decade working to achieve it. At the same time he also published new works of a religious nature, collected mainly in the Opera Omnia Theologica.

Last years

Religious conflict began to subside in the Netherlands, and people who had been forced into exile were gradually able to return to their country of origin. As for Hugo Grotius, Queen Christina of Sweden transferred him back to Stockholm, after his work as ambassador in Paris. During the trip he suffered a shipwreck that caused him physical consequences from which he would not recover..

The year was 1645, and Hugo Grotius did not want to continue in Sweden, but to return to his homeland, Holland. He did so, so that he could spend the last days of his life in his country, where he died that same summer. Grotius was buried in the city of Delft, specifically in the Nieuwe Kerk church. They say that the last words he uttered were: "I have understood many things and I have achieved nothing."

As his legacy remain all his works, his contributions to theology studies, to international law treaties, especially those that They have to do with maritime laws, and his work as a diplomat in which he tried to mediate important conflicts that devastated nations European. And in addition to all this, he left a motto: Ruit hour, which means "time is running out".

Bibliographic references:

• Forde, S. (1998). Hugo Grotius on Ethics and War. American Political Science Review.
• Haakonssen, K. (1985). Hugo Grotius and the history of political thought. Political theory.
• VanIttersum, M. (2006). Profit and principle: Hugo Grotius, natural rights theories and the rise of Dutch power in the East Indies, 1595-1615. brill.