The Dutch Elegant Jurisprudence

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, humanism flourished so abundantly in the Netherlands that it was called the “most elegant jur­isprudence” of Europe. Dutch jurists were able to merge the tradition of Roman law with Dutch feudal customary law, especially from the province of Holland, and to turn Roman-Dutch law into an autonomous legal system, predominantly Roman, which was applied in the Dutch colonies.

A child prodigy, Grotius was one of the leading theologians, jurists, and humanists of his time, and one of the most influential jurists of all ages. He is considered one of the founders of modern natural law and international law, as well as one of the founders of Dutch law. His reputation as a legal thinker

rests basically on three works: a) Mare liberum [The freedom of the seas, 1609], in defense of the free use of the seas and against the Spanish and Portuguese monopolization of the colonial trade; b) Introduction to the Jur­isprudence of Holland (written in Dutch in 1619), a short treatise that was the first explanation of the Roman-Dutch legal system; and c) De iuri belli ac pacis [On the law of war and peace, 1623], which presents an international legal system based on natural law and freed from traditional moral theology. Grotius was deeply familiar with Roman law and used it especially to find practical and ethical rules that were binding on nations. For him, Roman law was authoritative not because of any imperial authority, but because the standards of classical Europe reflected natural law as a logical necessity.