Hugo Grotius ( GROH-shee-əss; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Hugo de Groot (Dutch: [ˈɦyɣoː də ˈɣroːt]) or Huig de Groot (Dutch: [ˈɦœyɣ də ˈɣroːt]), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft and studied at Leiden University. He was imprisoned in Loevestein Castle for his involvement in the controversies over religious policy of the Dutch Republic, but escaped hidden in a chest of books that was regularly brought to him and was transported to Gorinchem. Grotius wrote most of his major works in exile in France.
Grotius was a major figure in the fields of philosophy, political theory and law during the 16th and 17th centuries. Along with the earlier works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, his writings laid the foundations for international law. Two of his books have had a lasting impact in the field: De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) dedicated to Louis XIII of France and the Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) for which Grotius has been called the "father of international law". Grotius has also contributed significantly to the evolution of the notion of rights. Before him, rights were, above all, perceived as attached to objects; after him, they are seen as belonging to persons, as the expression of an ability to act, or as a means of realizing something.
Peter Borschberg suggests that Grotius was significantly influenced by Francisco de Vitoria and the School of Salamanca in Spain, who supported the idea that the sovereignty of a nation does not lie simply in a ruler through God's will, but originates in its people, who agree to confer such authority upon a ruler. It is also thought that Grotius was not the first to formulate the international society doctrine, but he was one of the first to define expressly the idea of one society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws. As Hedley Bull declared in 1990: "The idea of international society which Grotius propounded was given concrete expression in the Peace of Westphalia, and Grotius may be considered the intellectual father of this first general peace settlement of modern times." Additionally, his contributions to Arminian theology helped provide the seeds for later Arminian-based movements, such as Methodism and Pentecostalism; Grotius is acknowledged as a significant figure in the Arminian–Calvinist debate. Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is also considered an "economic theologist".
After fading over time, the influence of Grotius's ideas revived in the 20th century following the First World War.
Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Grotius was the first child of Jan Cornets de Groot and Alida van Overschie. His father was a man of learning, once having studied with the eminent Justus Lipsius at Leiden University, as well as of political distinction. His family was considered Delft patrician as his ancestors played an important role in local government since the 13th century.
Jan de Groot was also the translator of Archimedes and a friend of Ludolph van Ceulen. He groomed his son from an early age in a traditional humanist and Aristotelian education. A prodigious learner, Grotius entered Leiden University when he was just eleven years old. There he studied with some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger, and Rudolph Snellius. At age 16 (1599), he published his first book: a scholarly edition of the late antique author Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts, Martiani Minei Felicis Capellæ Carthaginiensis viri proconsularis Satyricon. It remained a reference for several centuries.
In 1598, at the age of 15, he accompanied Johan van Oldenbarnevelt on a diplomatic mission to Paris. On this occasion, the King Henri IV of France would have presented Grotius to his court as "the miracle of Holland". During his stay in France, he passed or bought a law degree from the University of Orleans. In Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and then as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601. It was on this date that the States of Holland requested from Grotius an account of the United Provinces' revolt against Spain; Grotius is indeed contemporary with the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands. The resulting work, entitled Annales et Historiae de rebus Belgicis, describing the period from 1559 to 1609, was written in the style of the Roman historian Tacitus and was first finished in 1612. The States, however, did not publish it, possibly because of the way the work resonated with the politico-religious tensions within the Dutch Republic (see below).
Throughout his life Grotius wrote a variety of philological, theological and politico-theological works. In 1608, he married Maria van Reigersberch; they had three daughters and four sons.
The Dutch Republic was at war with Spain. Although Portugal and Spain were united under the same monarch, Portugal was not yet at war with the Dutch. In 1603, Grotius's cousin, Captain Jacob van Heemskerk, captured the Portuguese merchant carrack Santa Catarina off present-day Singapore. Heemskerk had sailed for the United Amsterdam Company, one of the companies whose activities were taken over by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602. Although he had not been authorized by the company or the government to initiate the use of force, many shareholders were eager to accept the valuable cargo that he brought back.
The legality of keeping the prize was disputed. Some shareholders objected that they had invested in a commercial enterprise whose ships were intended for peaceful trade, not for offensive warfare or the seizure of Portuguese and Spanish vessels. The Portuguese, meanwhile, demanded the return of their cargo. Representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of Heemskerk's actions.
The result of Grotius's efforts in 1604–05 was a long treatise, provisionally entitled De Indis (On the Indies) and later known as De Jure Praedae (On the Law of Spoils). Grotius sought to ground his defence of the seizure in principles of natural justice, extending his argument beyond the case at hand to consider the grounds for the lawfulness of war more generally. The treatise was not published in full during Grotius's lifetime.
A chapter of De Jure Praedae was published separately in 1609 as The Free Sea (Mare Liberum). In it, Grotius argued that the sea could not be appropriated as territory and that it should remain open to navigation and trade. His argument provided a justification for Dutch challenges to Portuguese claims of exclusive navigation and trade in Asian waters.
Grotius's argument became influential in later debates over freedom of the seas, but the principle had earlier precedents. The 16th-century Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria had defended rights of travel and communication under the principles of jus gentium. Grotius's position was later contested by the English jurist John Selden, whose Mare clausum (The Closed Sea) defended claims of sovereignty over maritime areas. Freedom of the seas subsequently became an important principle of international law and remains applicable to much of the high seas.
Arminian controversy, arrest and exile
Aided by his continued association with Van Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius made considerable advances in his political career, being retained as Oldenbarnevelt's resident advisor in 1605, Advocate General of the Fisc of Holland, Zeeland and Friesland in 1607, and then as Pensionary of Rotterdam (the equivalent of a mayoral office) in 1613. Also in 1613, following the capture of two Dutch ships by the British, he was sent on a mission to London, a mission tailored to a man who wrote Mare liberum [The Free Seas] in 1609. However, it was opposed by the English by reason of force, and he didn't obtain the return of the boats.