PhD ceremony Mr. M. Green: The Huguenot Jean Rou (1638-1711). Scholar, educator, civil servant

PhD ceremony: Mr. M. Green, 14.30 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: The Huguenot Jean Rou (1638-1711). Scholar, educator, civil servant

Promotor(s): prof. M.P.A. de Baar

Faculty: Theology and Religious Studies

Michael Green’s dissertation has two primary focuses: a comparative examination of the educational ideas and practices of Jean Rou (a Huguenot scholar, educator and civil servant) and his position as an intellectual; and secondly, analysis of the means by which Jean Rou created and managed his career in France and abroad, through networking and intellectual activities.

Jean Rou (1638-1711), was a Huguenot scholar, educator and civil servant. Despite success working as a lawyer at the Parlement de Paris, he dedicated himself to the pursuit of intellectual activities, and became an active participant of the Republic of Letters. However, Rou's Tables de l’histoire universelle caused much controversy, because of allegedly anti-Catholic remarks he made; the Catholic Church brought charges against him and he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Upon his release, Rou left France and travelled to England where he gained employment as a private tutor to a noble family. Returning briefly to his motherland, he then departed again for the United Provinces, settling in the The Hague. There, he had the good fortune to be hired to teach the sons of the future Governor of Suriname Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijk. Finally, Jean Rou was appointed translator of the States-General of the United Provinces in 1689, a very high-ranked position for a foreign-born civil servant in the Dutch Republic.