Justus de Harduwijn
Justus de Harduwijn (* April 11, 1582 in Ghent, † June 21, 1636 in Oudegem in Dendermonde ) was a Dutch pastor. He is considered the most widely read poets of the 17th century and the Golden age of the Netherlands.
Life and work
Harduwijn was born in a politically turbulent time. After his birth city of Ghent had fallen in the middle of the 16th century, Philip II of Spain, the Protestant Ghent levied against the Catholics of Spain, who responded accordingly with a terrorist regime. Harduwijn came from a distinguished, prosperous and strong Catholic bookbinder family that Rome had remained loyal to the regime and supported. His parents were François de Harduwijn († 1609) and Livina Tayaert, the father was a member of the Council of Flanders and operated a bindery in Ghent. In addition, his father was also a poet. He wrote verses in Latin and French, and raised in his son a sense of languages and literature, as that also of his uncle, the humanists Maximiliaan de Vriendt († 1614) was influenced, who also wrote Latin poems.
Justus de Harduwijn was educated in the former Ghent elite college of the Jesuits and was taught by Simon van de Kerckhove at the scholastic litteraria. In 1600 he began studying theology and law at the University of Leuven and heard the Justus Lipsius. On April 11, 1607 he was ordained a priest in Ghent and was subsequently worked as a pastor in the villages Oudegem and Mespelaere of the diocese of Mechelen. His priestly work was unspectacular, about his daily life and his circumstances is nothing but survived. Despite its noble origin and its many contacts with contemporary personalities he seems to have lived a very retired life, there is speculation about the reasons for today.
In 1613 he published under the title De weerliicke Liefden dead Roosemond a collection of sometimes very intimate love poems he had written as a student. In order not to discredit the author, published Guilliam Caudron (1607-1992) the work anonymously. Today, only a single specimen is known, which is kept under registration number G 8342 in the University Library of Ghent.
1620 published Goddelicke Lof Sanghen and Val end Opstand David van and Seven leed tuygende Psalms, 1629 wenschen Harduwijns main work Goddelycke, the first Dutch translation and adaptation of Herman Hugo's Pia Desidera, the most famous meditation work in Latin in the 17th century.
Justus de Harduwijns works were particularly in the northern Netherlands, the United Provinces, a great success. He counted, even though he was only 54 years old, the most widely read writers of the Golden Age of the Netherlands and is today quoted in the Dutch population.