Invisible Loot

Dating the manuscript of De Jure Praedae (1604–1608): What watermarks, foliation and quire divisions can tell us about Hugo Grotius’ development as a natural rights and natural law theorist

1607 POSTER Cancer patients' informational needs about sexuality related issues

Hugo Grotius wrote some of his earlier works—the De jure praedae and the Mare Liberum— on direct commission from the United Dutch East India Company (VOC) that sought to legitimize the attack on the Portuguese carrack Sta. Catarina and their continued (violent) expansion to the markets of Southeast-Asia. In the process, Grotius establishes the company as a distinct actor who can wage a just war in a state of nature, and as a subject of its home state. In this article, it is shown how Grotius thoughts on just war, sovereignty, natural law and property were developed while defending both the Dutch right to free trade and the right of United Netherland to wage a just war against their oppressor, the King of Spain and Portugal. But what was stated as the right of all to free trade and to the freedom of the seas also became a powerful argument for the continued violent commercial expansion of the Dutch and the Europeans.

The Calvinist minister Godfried Udemans (1581/2–1649) is generally considered to be one of the more important seventeenth-century theologians from the province of Zeeland. He specialized in writings for a broader public, including, in particular, publications on ethical and religious codes in trade and seafaring. Of his various writings on moral theology, 't Geestelyck roer van 't coopmans schip, first published in 1638, is the most important.The Spiritual helm appeared in print some thirty years after Grotius occupied himself with De jure praedae (the manuscript dates from 1604), but Udemans had already begun articulating his thoughts in 1608. It is instructive to examine the ethical writings of a contemporary of Grotius. It has been claimed that in the early modern period, Calvinism, especially in its English Puritan variety, did much to propagate the medieval traditions of holy war that to all appearances had been laid to rest by Spanish theoreticians during the sixteenth-century Renaissance. In this article, I examine the extent to which Udemans draws upon religion as a means of legitimizing violence on behalf of secular political authorities such as the prince (or, as in the case of the Dutch Republic, the States or States General), and, more in particular, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and West India Company (WIC). If Udemans is representative of the religious tradition to which he reckoned himself, holy war thought did not figure prominently in Dutch Calvinism.

Early modern chartered companies like the Dutch East India Company (VOC) are widely seen as the precursors of the modern corporation. However, the relation between the two remains mired in confusion. While writers working in a Neo-Classical or New Institutional Economics framework highlight the seemingly modern features of their company constitutions, they see their violent monopoly strategies and state-like warring functions as typically pre-capitalist rent-seeking behavior. Critical scholars on the other hand, pointing to the violent operation of modern multinational corporations, tend to treat the chartered companies simply as a form of proto-imperialism. Both approaches deny the historical specificity of early-modern capitalism, in which the hybrid or brokerage form between company and state taken by the VOC and its counterparts was the rule rather than the exception. This article examines how corporate sovereignty was constitutional to the Dutch East and West India Companies. Comparing these two warring companies, it shows how similar corporate constitutions could lay the basis for very different historical trajectories of development. Finally, the article traces the debates leading to the dissolution of these companies, in order to better understand the changes in the company-form that accompanied the emergence of fully developed capitalism and imperialism.

Little is known about the law of prize applied in Holland and Zealand before a Court of Admiralty was established in 1488. Even as regards the functioning of this institution, the so-called ‘Admiralty of Vere’, our knowledge is scanty. Yet, the prize law of the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th centuries is not an unimportant subject for research. It is certain that precedents from this period had a considerable influence on Dutch practice after 1572, i.e., during the Republic's war against Spain. Even though the subject of prize law proper has been rather neglected in the otherwise well-studied ‘Golden Age’ of Dutch history, it is evident that the Dutch Republic, a first-rate maritime power, did much to shape important rules of International Law, such as the famous maxims that “blockades must be effective” and that “free ships make free goods”. Obviously, it would be interesting to uncover the historical roots of these much-debated principles of the International Law of maritime warfare. Moreover, an added zest is given to the study of Dutch prize law by its inevitable association with Grotius. His De Jure Praedae , in spite of its promising title, reveals less about Grotius' historical studies than De Jure Belli ac Pads in which a 1438 decision of the Court of Holland concerning the treatment of neutrals is twice quoted.

The wise man is never merely a private citizen: The Roman Stoa in Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Praedae (1604–1608)

1608. Study of the mechanism of atmospheric interaction with the fatigue of metals

This article reconstructs the printing history of Hugo Grotius's Mare liberum (The Free Sea, 1609). It examines the political circumstances which prompted the pamphlet's publication, but then seemed to conspire against it, and relates these to Grotius's revision of chapter 12 of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, the one surviving copy of De iure praedae (The Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, 1604-1608). While preparing chapter 12 for the press, he made a serious effort to tone down its bellicose rhetoric, erasing, for example, all references to the Spanish claims to the Americas. His aim was to placate the French envoy Pierre Jeannin and his own political patron Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the driving forces behind the negotiations for the Twelve Years' Truce (1609-1621). In the context of these negotiations, Grotius was at pains to downplay his radical rights theories. The subjective right of punishment only received a mention in the conclusion of Mare liberum, for example. Yet a discarded outline for the pamphlet's preface shows that the argument of De iure praedae remained uppermost in his mind, witness the outline's denunciation of the 'poisonings, perfidy and crimes of the Portuguese'. Both De iure praedae and Mare liberum had been commissioned by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for the express purpose of influencing political developments in its favour. Yet neither treatise had the impact originally intended by Grotius and the VOC directors. Ironically, these occasional writings became classics of international law instead.

In the early morning hours of 25 February 1603, the Dutch commander Jacob van Heemskerck (1567-1607) attacked a richly laden Portuguese carrack at the entrance of Singapore Straits. Van Heemskerck's seizure of the Santa Catarina has been a famous episode in Dutch history ever since. This chapter corrects the imbalance in Hugo Grotius scholarship. It compares and contrasts Van Heemskerck's voyage to the East Indies (1601-1604) with its conceptualization in De Jure Praedae. The capture of the richly laden Santa Catarina was literally a godsend for Van Heemskerck, whose voyage to the East Indies had been dogged by bad luck right from the start. Grotius' innovations in legal theory and practice were still far in the future, however, when the Alkmaar and White Lion anchored off Pulau Tiuman in order to intercept the Japan carrack.Keywords: Alkmaar; De Jure Praedae; East Indies; Hugo Grotius; Jacob van Heemskerck; Pulau Tiuman; Santa Catarina; Singapore Straits

This article reconstructs the printing history of Hugo Grotius's Mare liberum ( The Free Sea , 1609). It examines the political circumstances which prompted the pamphlet's publication, but then seemed to conspire against it, and relates these to Grotius's revision of chapter 12 of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, the one surviving copy of De iure praedae ( The Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty , 1604-1608). While preparing chapter 12 for the press, he made a serious effort to tone down its bellicose rhetoric, erasing, for example, all references to the Spanish claims to the Americas. His aim was to placate the French envoy Pierre Jeannin and his own political patron Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the driving forces behind the negotiations for the Twelve Years' Truce (1609-1621). In the context of these negotiations, Grotius was at pains to downplay his radical rights theories. The subjective right of punishment only received a mention in the conclusion of Mare liberum , for example. Yet a discarded outline for the pamphlet's preface shows that the argument of De iure praedae remained uppermost in his mind, witness the outline's denunciation of the 'poisonings, perfidy and crimes of the Portuguese'. Both De iure praedae and Mare liberum had been commissioned by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for the express purpose of influencing political developments in its favour. Yet neither treatise had the impact originally intended by Grotius and the VOC directors. Ironically, these occasional writings became classics of international law instead.

Coromandel lacquer screen is a Chinese folding screen made from the 17th century to 19th century in China. The screen is usually about 250cm high, 600cm width and consisting of twelve panels. Although these screens were made in China during the Qing dynasty, they received their name from India’s Coromandel coast, where they were transshipped to Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by merchants of the English and Dutch East India companies. The Dutch traders carried these screens from Bantam in Java, and in early accounts they were frequently called Bantam screens as well as Coromandel screens. This paper examines Coromandel lacquer screen's art historical significance in the incising global interaction and consumer culture in the 17th and 18th centuries. It first discusses historical and cultural background of production in China which have been little known about. The primary sources focus on the record of <i>Xiu Shi lu</i>, the 16th century book about lacquer, and the inscriptions left on the screens. They will give information about when the screens were produced, what was the purpose of them, and the technique of decoratively incising lacquer and adding polychrome to the voids, called <i>kuan cai</i> in Chinese. The lacquer screen features a continuous scene run through all twelve panels, just like a hand-scroll painting with variety of colours. The prominent subjects for decoration are human figures, landscape and bird-and-flower. The narrative theme with human figures, such as Birthday Reception for General Guo Ziyi and the World of Immortals were shaped by literature or play. Also, the parallels between the lacquer screens and the paintings on the same theme are found. The scenes with Europeans are rare but bring various interpretations within the historical context of the time. The landscape themes, such as the Scenes of Lake Xihu and the Nine Bend in Mountain Wuyi, were depicted famous scenic spots in China. The composition and expression of the screens were probably inspired by landscape woodblock prints, it’s because the technique of lacquer screen and woodblock cutting are similar. Lastly, bird-and-flower theme has a long tradition of wishing longevity, happiness and peace in one’s life and produced in various medium. Thanks to the enormous progress in navigation and discovered sea roots in the 16th century, Dutch and England East India Companies imported quantities of Chinese lacquerworks in the 17th century. As Chinoiserie gain popularity all over Europe, Chinese objects were consumed in various ways. Imported Coromandel lacquer screens were incorporated into European interiors. They were cut into a number of panels, which mounted within wood paneling on walls and inserted into contemporary furniture. The lacquer screen also inspired European’s imitation of Asian lacquer known by a variety of names. This paper surveys Coromandel lacquer screen’s domestic production, exploding consumption and global conquest from the 17th century to 18th centuries, when the screen was explosively made. The lacquer screen is an active participant in cross-cultural interaction, not merely a passive commodity of china. Investigating the material culture of the lacquer screen, it was originally created in chinese domestic background concerned with social prestige, in Europe, consumed to show off exotic luxury and triggered a new stylistic changes in chinoiserie.

Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Jacob van Heemskerck's Capture of the Santa Catarina and Its Justification in De Jure Praedae (1604-1606) 2. Hugo Grotius and the Spanish Black Legend: Humanist Historiography and Moral Philosophy in De Jure Praedae 3. Why Was De Jure Praedae Written? 4. Hugo Grotius and the Peace Negotiations between Spain and the United Provinces, 1607-1608 5. Hugo Grotius and the Truce Negotiations between Spain and the United Provinces, 1608-1609 6. VOC Spokesman and Lobbyist during the Twelve Years' Truce Epilogue Bibliography Author Index Subject Index

This essay discusses some of the ways in which De iure praedae may be understood to constitute a republican text. It is my argument that the 'Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty' should be firmly located within the over-arching republican discourse of the juvenilia, although the text's republican content is not immediately apparent. On close examination, a republican sub-text is detectible through the author's treatment of the discursive object of the text, the Dutch East India Company (the VOC), a corporate body. By attempting to legitimate the VOC's natural right to wage just war, Grotius invests a private entity with a public mark of sovereignty. This investiture of a non-state actor with public international legal personality forces a careful reappraisal of two central characteristics of seventeenth-century republican thought: (i) the divisibility of sovereignty, and (ii) the fluid demarcation between the 'public' and the 'private' spheres. I conclude that the VOC may be accurately denoted a 'corporate sovereign', an entity whose legal personality is derived from the corporatist principles that underlined early republican and federalist theory.

This essay discusses some of the ways in which De iure praedae may be understood to constitute a republican text. It is my argument that the 'Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty' should be firmly located within the over-arching republican discourse of the juvenilia, although the text's republican content is not immediately apparent. On close examination, a republican sub-text is detectible through the author's treatment of the discursive object of the text, the Dutch East India Company (the VOC), a corporate body. By attempting to legitimate the VOC's natural right to wage just war, Grotius invests a private entity with a public mark of sovereignty. This investiture of a non-state actor with public international legal personality forces a careful reappraisal of two central characteristics of seventeenth-century republican thought: (i) the divisibility of sovereignty, and (ii) the fluid demarcation between the 'public' and the 'private' spheres. I conclude that the VOC may be accurately denoted a 'corporate sovereign', an entity whose legal personality is derived from the corporatist principles that underlined early republican and federalist theory.