Management of Estates in the Seventeenth Century: John De Witt, The States of Holland and the States General

Abstract

A perusal of the volumes published over the decades by or for our Commission shows a preponderance of two kinds of study. The first is directed to the history of legal ideas and political theories concerning representative assemblies, the second to their practical reality. It is not my intention to call into question the desirability of either approach; I would prefer to reaffirm instead the necessity of both to understand the larger historical past in which we are interested. Clearly each assists the other and neither is sufficient unto itself. What I wish to do is to expand somewhat the dimensions of the second category, the studies of what was done rather than what was thought. The bulk of the studies of the reality dimension of assemblies of estates has been directed to their formal structure; my interest here lies rather in how they were operated. I wish to see the institution in process, but it is proper to add that it is possible to do so only because so much excellent work has been done in the study of the structure of the assemblies as such.

Presented originally at a meeting of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions, Bryn Mawr College, 1968. Published subsequently in Representative Institutions in Theory and Practice (Brussels: Les Éditions de la Librairie Encyclopédique, 1970). Reprinted with permission.