Over De Receptie Van Filips Van Leiden in De Zeventiende Eeuw
AbstractPhilip of Leyden's treatise De Cura reipublicae et sorte principantis (on the care of the state and the role of the ruler), completed 1355 - 1378 approximately, was first printed in 1516 and, again, in 1701 (the latter edition was re-issued, with a new title, in 1705). The treatise is usually thought not to have attracted much interest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it was not unknown in that period (see R. Feenstra's Introduction to the 1971 reprint of the 1516 editio princeps). Its reception between 1516 and 1701 may be deduced from four modern sources: R. Fruin's seminal study (1864, first publ. 1865), R. Feenstra's 1967 David Murray lecture (first publ. 1970), P. Leupen's book on Philip of Leyden (1981) and the latter's contribution to Ad fontes ... [essays for] C. van de Kieft (1984). Indicated are there, as writings from that period which mention Philip of Leyden and De Cura, one publication from 1517 and some eight from the seventeenth century. Some of these writings provide exact quotations from De Cura: so do the 1517 book and three others. They quote, in all, twelve different passages from De Cura. They are all historical works, but for one exception: Hugo Grotius' Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland. But this one legal work does not accompany the reference to Philip of Leyden with an exact quotation. In this contribution, dedicated to R. Feenstra, it is argued that Philip's De Cura was more widely received among seventeenth century lawyers than is usually thought. The reader is directed to the Decisiones curiae Belgicae, written by Paulus Christinaeus and first published in Antwerp, 1626. This copious work, in six volumes, was well distributed: six later editions are known. Now it is shown that twenty-six decisiones, collected in Christinaeus' volume V, contain references to Philip of Leyden. The harvest consists of sixty-three references, pointing to thirty-five different passages from De Cura.
