Challenges to clemency: Seneca, Lipsius and the Dutch revolt

Abstract

During the Middle Ages the virtue of clemency never figured as prominently in philosophical, religious or political debate as the cardinal virtues or the theological virtues. Erasmus, however, insisted in his Institutio principis Christiani that clemency was the virtue for which princes were best honoured. This chapter shows that the edition of Seneca's De Clementia by leading thinkers such as Erasmus, Calvin and Lipsius should also be understood within a dialectic between political theory and politics. Within this context, it is significant that Justus Lipsius commented repeatedly on the virtue of clemency, both in his well-known Politica and his less famous Monita . In both works Lipsius' concept of clemency proved elastic enough to capture different and shifting meanings of the classical virtue in the sixteenth century. At the same time it echoed the political debate of his time, especially that of the Dutch Revolt. Keywords:clemency; De Clementia ; Dutch Revolt; Erasmus; Justus Lipsius; Monita ; Politica ; political debate; Seneca