A Brill Calendar: March 12

The Death of Schultingius

Few students have gone to Leyden University to fathom depths of the intellectual and existential mysteries, or to aggrandize the domain of knowledge in any manner, let alone specifically.

One vital task of the Academy consisted in producing professionals qualified to act as reliable ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church, as physicians fighting disease and healing wounds, or as advocates, notaries and solicitors in legal affairs. In this respect, the career of Antonius Schultingius (Nijmegen, July 23 1659 – Leyden, March 12 1734) is typical.

After earning his legal degree in Leyden and acquiring experience as a practitioner of Law, Anton Schultingh – as he was baptized – went through Dutch academic ranks of Her Majesty Justitia, teaching in Harderwijk as from 1691, in Franeker, Friesland after 1694, and finally, much later, and most gratifyingly in the apex of the educational hierarchy, as a Professor at his own Alma Mater in 1713.

The University had provided since its very beginnings a consistent and uninterrupted intellectual and ethical environment in matters of jurisdiction, jurisprudence and legal fundamentals; and still basked in the light of its supreme alumnus, the great Grotius (1583 – 1645). The continuity enabled the emergence of a national school & tradition, recognized as such outside the territory of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. Humanist and philological considerations were inextricably interwoven with juridical practice in this ‘Holland School’.

Schultingius’s academic existence must have been rather unhurried and wasn’t subjected to a ‘Publish or Perish’ terror. The mass of his tracts, studies and surveys saw print (in four volumes) for the first time between 1770 and 1774; the next edition, in seven tomes, materialized between 1804 and 1835.