A Brill Calendar: December 12

Jan Van Hout and Leyden

Few individuals shaping and nursing Leyden University’s entrance into the Halls of European Academic Fame have been more endearing to posterity than Jan van Hout.

Van Hout died on December 12 1609; in the city in which he was born, a city he loved with all his heart - just two days before his 67th birthday.

Four rather miserable years of his life – 1569 to 1573 – were endured in hiding in Emden, Lower Saxony, just across the border of Groningen Province, due to a fear of persecution engendered by his benevolent treatment of people advocating religious reform. Emden was a popular ‘safe haven’ in those hectic early days of the rebellion against Habsburg Spain.

When van Hout fled Leyden, he had served the City Council as a Secretary for some five years. Upon his safe return, he resumed his influential function only to be faced with the dramatic and dreadful siege of Leyden by the Spaniards and, following it, the creation of the first University in Holland; founded as a supreme reward for heroic resistance. The new entity in his city was fostered and strengthened by Secretary van Hout with dedication and all the means he could possibly muster; he continued in his office as a devoted civil servant until his death-bed.

The man can’t be said to have benefitted from an elaborate and formal education in scholarly learning; yet he advocated innovative Renaissance ideals in literature & poetry, while trying his hand in this regard personally. The scant remains of this involvement don’t indicate a great poet. Van Hout's active mind may have spent too much energy, and his soft heart would have been tried too often in improving the conditions under which poor people were obliged to survive in Leyden.

A glimpse into his soul is given perhaps by his motto: ‘Hout en Wint’, a crisp and double-edged sentence in Dutch. It stands for ‘Timber and Wind’ as well as for ‘Keep and Gain’; the pun on his surname can’t be accidental.