Grotius, Hugo
GROTIUS, HUGO (1583–1645), or Huigh de Groot, was a Dutch lawyer, diplomat, historian, poet, philologist, and theologian. Grotius was born at Delft on April 10, 1583, into a socially and politically influential family. Following three years at the University at Leiden and a brief period accompanying a diplomatic embassy to Paris, he returned to Holland at the age of sixteen to become an advocate at the courts of the Hague. In 1607 Grotius was appointed to the office of Advocate-Fiscal (attorney general) of Holland. He married Maria van Reigersberch in 1608.
As a result of an assocation with the Dutch East India Company, Grotius wrote his first major legal treatise, De jure praedae (On the law of prize, 1604–1605), which presents a theory of natural law based on divine will. In 1625 he published his most important book, De jure belli ac pacis (On the law of war and peace), in which he again pursued the topic of natural law and its role in international relations. Here Grotius reveals his concern for the lack of restraint in waging war in the Christian world. He examines the theoretical justification for war and the rules that govern the actual waging of war. He then distinguishes natural law (identical with the law of God but knowable apart from divine revelation) from the voluntary laws of nations that exist between civil communities. Both these types of law he finds binding in relations between states. In the case of a conflict between natural and voluntary law, the law of nature should prevail, although the application of this principle is qualified. In addition to delineating the conditions of waging a just war, Grotius also advocates temperamenta, or mitigations, in the conduct of war. To avoid unnecessary suffering, he counsels communities to circumscribe their tactics in keeping with the perfect law of Christ, which, though itself not a basis of law, provides an ideal.
Grotius was also involved in the religious affairs of his day and strongly committed to the cause of Protestant unity. In his 1612 correspondence with Isaac Casaubon at the court of James I of England, he advocated a synod of Protestant churches in order to establish a common confession of faith that would protect against the development of heresy in the individual churches, help them present a united front against any papal aggressions, and yet allow moderate Roman Catholics to see their integrity. Grotius's hopes for such a meeting were, however, disappointed, in part because he was already involved in a heated religious and political controversy. He represented the States of Holland in a conflict that began with the appointment of a professor of theology and escalated into a major battle between church and state and between the local and the central governments within the Republic of the United Netherlands.
After Prince Maurits came to power Grotius was sentenced to life imprisonment (May 18, 1619). While in prison he wrote Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland, Annotations of the Gospels, and On the Truth of the Christian Religion, an apologetic work in which he attempts to prove the truth of the Christian faith based on reason and the testimony of works outside the Christian tradition. On March 22, 1621, his wife Maria contrived to smuggle Grotius out of prison in a chest used to transport books, and he fled to Paris. Grotius subsequently held various diplomatic and legal positions including the office of Swedish ambassador to France. In March of 1645, he was permitted to visit Rotterdam and Amsterdam on his way from Paris to Stockholm. On August 28 of that same year Grotius died while traveling from Stockholm to Lübeck.
Bibliography
Printed editions of Grotius's works are listed in Jacob ter Meulen and P. J. J. Diermanse's Bibliographie des écrits imprimés de Hugo Grotius (The Hague, 1950). No complete critical edition of Grotius's works exists. For commentary on the state of Grotius scholarship, see Christian Gellinek's Pax optima rerum: Friedensessais zu Grotius und Goethe (New York, 1984), pp. 93–101.
For introductions to Grotius's thought and influence, see Charles S. Edwards's Hugo Grotius: The Miracle of Holland, A Study in Political and Legal Thought (Chicago, 1981), Peter Haggenmacher's Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris, 1983), and Hamilton Vreeland, Jr.'s Hugo Grotius: The Father of the Modern Science of International Law (New York, 1917).
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