The “Simple Burgher” of D. V. Coornhert (1522–1590): A Dutch Freethinker Opens the Door to a New Age

Abstract

Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522–1590) was a Dutch philosopher, poet, playwright, and polemicist who has held the fascination of many historians. Although he lived in the sixteenth century, he expressed extraordinarily modern ideas, while making his living as an etcher and engraver and later in life as a town secretary and notary.¹ With his arguments for religious toleration and individual human rights and his perception of human nature as essentially good and rational, not to forget his early call for a reform of criminal justice, Coornhert seemed decades, if not centuries, ahead of his time.² Outspoken and almost permanently at odds with the authorities of his time,³ one could even be tempted to say Coornhert would have fitted well in the circles of the more radical Enlightenment thinkers who would later begin to shape the modern world.⁴ Such outspoken admiration for a historical person usually spawns a counter reaction, and, indeed, a more recent study suggests that the modernity and originality credited to Coornhert stands “in direct proportion to the ignorance of his [modern] interpreters.”⁵ An informed reader would have to recognize that Coornhert was very much a man of the sixteenth century: a humanist whose ideas were deeply influenced by classical learning, mystical thinkers, and the social issues and religious upheavals of his time. As often happens in this kind of historical debate, both sides have valid arguments but tend to overemphasize their point.