Grotius, Hugo
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
gro'shi-us, Hugo (1583-1645), a Dutch statesman, theologian, historian, and jurist. He was born at Delft, and was one of the most, if not the most learned man of his time. His real name was Hugo de Groot, but according to the fashion of the day it was Latinized. At the age of twenty he was chosen to write the annals of the Low Countries. He was educated for the law at the University of Leyden. He held various important public positions. He was at one time a minister to England, yet was banished for ten years from his native land. In theological matters Grotius was a Protestant, but he tried to reconcile the extreme views of the Protestant and Catholic. He succeeded in pleasing neither party. His friends thought he had a leaning toward popery. The church, of course, classed him with other heretics. Among his writings were a Commentary on the New Testament and several compilations of law. He is considered the father of the subject of international law now studied in college. He wrote in favor of settling international disputes by arbitration. He is credited with having set in motion the ideas that culminated 300 years later in the Hague Tribunal. The American delegates at the Hague Peace Conference placed a beautiful wreath of silver and gold on the tomb of Grotius at Delft. The wreath, which is a large one, is made up, on one side, of a branch of laurel with leaves of frosted silver and berries of gold. The other side is a branch of oak with silver leaves and gold acorns. The knot is tied with a gilded silver ribbon, bearing the arms of the Netherlands and the United States on enameled shields and the following inscription: To the Memory of HUGO GROTIUS; In Reverence and Gratitude, From the United States of America; On the Occasion of the International Peace Conference of The Hague. July 4th, 1899. See Hague ; Literature ; Dutch
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 sketch of Grotius's life still stands, though it softens the facts: he was not merely "banished for ten years" but sentenced to life imprisonment at Loevestein in 1619 after the fall of Oldenbarnevelt, and escaped in 1621 hidden in a book chest, dying in exile in 1645. The Hague Tribunal that Aiton saw as the culmination of his ideas was only the beginning: it was followed by the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1922, the United Nations and its International Court of Justice in 1945, the Nuremberg trials, and the International Criminal Court, which opened at The Hague in 2002. Modern scholars still read De iure belli ac pacis (1625) as a founding text but are less willing to call him the sole "father of international law," pointing to Spanish predecessors such as Vitoria and Suarez and to the Italian Alberico Gentili. They also read his Mare Liberum (1609) more sceptically, noting that his defence of free navigation was written in the service of the Dutch East India Company's commercial claims.
Written for this edition, 2026.