Anna Maria van Schurman, letter to André Rivet |
Ms. 8*.F.191 |
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Utrecht, 18 March 1635.
Paper, 1 bifolium, 230x178 mm. Latin.
Provenance From the possession of F.C. Wieder (1874-1943). Acquired at an auction at Beijers', Utrecht, 21 April 1959, lot 32.
She was called 'the tenth muse'. Anna Maria van Schurman, born in Cologne in 1607 and resident of Utrecht from the age of seven, enjoyed fame as one of the most learned and artistically talented women of her day, even when she was still quite young. Circa 1620 another gifted young lady, Anna Roemers Visscher, composed a panegyric to her and in 1625 both were highly praised by Jacob Cats, the great Dutch homespun philosopher. Anna Maria's knowledge of theology, her erudition and artistic talents did not go unnoticed by other intellectuals, with whom she soon maintained close contact. Her thinking was greatly influenced by the Utrecht professor of Theology Gisbertus Voetius, whose lectures she was allowed to attend – from behind a curtain so as not to scandalise the male students – as well as by the theologian André Rivet, whom she regarded as her second father.
Anna Maria kept up a lively correspondence with Rivet on the question of whether women are fully equipped to pursue a life of scholarship and if so, whether that would qualify them to actually engage in such a pursuit. Van Schurman collected all her arguments in a treatise that was laid out along scholastic lines and was, together with a number of the letters, published in 1641 under the title of Dissertatio de ingenii mulieribus ad doctrinam. More than Rivet, who set great store by traditions and conventions, Van Schurman took up a principled position. The acquisition of knowledge and insight should not be a privilege for women who have been endowed by God with an exceptional mind, but should be a right given to all women and should even become a duty for those with too much leisure time.
The intensive correspondence with Rivet was not restricted to this one issue. Both were also greatly interested in the rise of Cartesianism. René Descartes' rationalist view of nature and society constituted a radical break with the ideas of the day and had far-reaching theological implications because of Descartes' strict separation between knowledge and faith. The French philosopher first unfolded his ideas in his Discours de la méthode (Leiden 1637), which he completed during a long stay in Utrecht. The earliest evidence for his presence in Utrecht is the letter displayed here, which Anna Maria van Schurman wrote to André Rivet on 18 March 1635. In characteristically impeccable Latin she confesses to having visited the controversial philosopher in the following passage:
Neither do I wish to withhold from you the fact that I visited Monsieur Descartes recently; a man, it is said, of great, if not unparalleled learning, who does not seem to value very highly the development of the sciences in the usual sense of that word, saying that nothing contained in those sciences can contribute to true Science and that he has found another way that will enable that stage to be reached much more speedily and assuredly.
Van Schurman did not take part in the public debate that was fuelled by Cartesianism particularly among Leiden and Utrecht theologians, but she seems to have rejected Descartes' ideas. That need not surprise us, in view of the influence of Voetius, who was his fiercest opponent. Nevertheless, Van Schurman, too, would reject the then current Aristotelian-Christian doctrines when she was older, although for quite different reasons than Descartes. In her Eukleria ('Good choice'), published in 1673, she gave an account of her new insights, which were neither in accordance with traditional philosophical systems nor with that of contemporary Cartesian Rationalism, but which constituted a personal notion of God rooted in inner experience that brought the believer closer to 'true Science'.
The fact that, in spite of all the praise, talented women such as Van Schurman were never given the opportunity to develop themselves fully probably contributed to this about-turn. The other unmistakable influence on her thinking was that of Jean de Labadie, who was the leader of a movement that aimed for a strongly internalised religious life. However, the most decisive factor in her life was her own independence of mind. To the consternation of the circle of intellectuals to which she had belonged until that time, in 1669 Van Schurman exchanged her beloved Utrecht for a Labadist commune, which, after some wanderings, settled down in the Frisian village of Wiuwert. A burial-vault in the village church still contains a number of mummified corpses which, according to legend, are the remains of Labadists. Anna Maria van Schurman died in Wiuwert in 1678. Since her death her memory has lived on as that of a femme savante and a feminist avant la lettre, but she might equally well be remembered as a forerunner of eighteenth-century Pietism.
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