Biographical experience and the formation of diplomatic theory:
the example of Abraham de Wicquefort (1606-1682)
The following text is a draft version, consisting of an abbreviated and manipulated speech I will be giving at the faculty of the University of Vienne in November. I rewrote this draft to fit a wider public. This draft will hint at the methodical and theoretical direction of my thesis. Hopefully, this text will stimulated the interest of my readers and their inclination for a lively and open debate.
I like to thank my colleague Christof Muigg for his assistance with my translation. The original version in German can be found here: [Deutsche Version].
We are reading about military conflicts every day. The news, showing us images of violence, demand strategies and tactics of a peaceful coexistence. I am convinced that reflecting on the future does not only imply to think about technical innovations: The Italian Renaissance is a fitting example for how the recourse to history might stimulate our reasoning. Thus, by looking back to the past, how may humanitarian aid and a diplomacy promoting peace succeed? What do they actually need to deploy their agency at the best? They need field workers, mediators, helping in case of a conflict. These men and women need protection, they have to be shielded from violence (both at a physical and psychological level), infringements, assaults and repressions. In the past as well as in the present time, the law of nations is supposed to limit violence. But then, as a law, it is in practice limited by norms, which not all nations are inclined to share.
If the past might answer questions of the present by stimulating our reasoning, we as historians should take interest in the protection of diplomats practiced in the Europe of kings and queens, in the Early Modern Age. By doing research on humanist scholar and diplomat Abraham de Wicquefort (1606-1682), I intend to demonstrate the interaction of diplomatic theory and practice. Most academics agree that diplomatic theory and practice are somehow separated, as diplomats and scholars probably never mingled these both poles. With my research, I wish to prove them wrong, as Abraham de Wicquefort clearly stands for both, practice and theory: A vast amount of texts is Wicquefort’s legacy as a scholar. His most famous work, “The Ambassador and his Functions”, is, along with François de Callières’ “The Art of Negociation”, one of the most important handbooks on early modern diplomacy.
Please note that when I write about diplomats, the term “diplomat” does not show up until the 18th century. In the lifetime of Abraham de Wicquefort, people used different terms to refer to diplomats. One reason for this surprising fact was that it was the court of a prince or a king where people acted “diplomatically”: the sovereign’s court was the place where the king and his family lived.
Every one of them had his or her own private household. Since the sovereign and his family governed the realm from their permanent residence, administrative personnel started to take up residence, too. The court was the place where the sovereign, his family and their advisors ruled domestic and foreign policy. This is one of the main reasons why we need to overcome the modern notion of the public: the private households of the royal family and their staff cannot be distinguishable into the spheres of privacy vs. public. At court, not only the administrative staff but also courtiers, favorites, priests or monks, scholars, artists and merchants all tried to convince the ruling family that it was their advice which provide the best outcome. What they had in mind, was the best outcome for themselves and their peers. It was up to the ruler to decide which policy to pursue. This specific manner of decision-making is what academics call “personal rule”.
The mingle-mangle of the administration and the princely household led secondly to a juxtaposition of foreign policy with other influencing factors. Dynastic considerations were accompanied by religious matters. Wives had preferably to be of the same confession as their husband, be it Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist. If they weren’t forced to convert to the “true” confession before marriage. However, these marriages established ties between two princely families and therefore between two early modern states. Marriage connected two courts, leading to an exchange of domestics as well as nobles, who acted as brokers, transferring financial, social and cultural resources between their court of origin and the court they were married or sent to. Thus they created a resort of allied families striving for power and prestige in the European society of princes.
As indicated, the court was not only limited to nobles and courtiers, but equally for the “citizens” of a premodern state. While of a supposed lower social strata, they were eager to rise in the hierarchy of early modern society. To promote ones social rank, one needed either money or social resources. A good way to climb up the social ladder was an office at court, which was fairly expensive to buy as offices were not assigned on a merit-basis. One could as well rely on his merits in other fields, f. e. religion, culture or science. The natural sciences were not so sharply distinct from the humanities as we believe today. Employees who were able to read, write and who were knowledgeable in certain disciplines such as art, rhetoric, theology, jurisprudence or literature were sought-after: after all, it was hard to get your grip on administrative staff that was able to read and write! Thus, advocates such as Wicquefort were commonly employed for diplomatic missions.
Diplomacy in the early modern times was not a field of activity limited to a professional elite, it was more open and subtle. Men and women were equally employed to advise a sovereign or his family members to purse a certain foreign policy. The court provided many opportunities to approach the royal family and its advisors, which consisted of their courtiers, favorites or administrative personnel. As a foreign sovereign was sometimes able to gain access to a close-drawn network of people around the sovereign of another court, there was no need to employ a professional corps, as the effect was the same. Indeed, officially accredited diplomats were in the majority of cases even less effective, as they had not the countless options of approaching the ruler at his court, whereas the domestics, courtiers and ministers employed in his household were solely employed to do so.
What about noble family networks? It was a secret that one’s aunt was not only passing by on the way to a famous bathing resort just for small talk: the visit of a noble woman or man was bitter business. Alliances of noble families and their marriage-based networks had one purpose: to serve their family. There was an unforgiving struggle for social, cultural and financial resources at the princely courts of Europe, and families could rise and shine or vanish. The arbiter of this struggle was the prince, as he or she disposed of an outstanding prestige. The royal family was nearly always able to manage the distribution of resources bringing the nobles to each others throats. In exchange for merit, reputation, honors or financial resources, nobility was obliged to serve, for example in charges. One costly but regarding the reputation rewarding charge was to serve as an officially accredited diplomat, representing the sovereign at another court. For more delicate matters such as peace treaties, noble women or men resorted to their family network, allowing a continuous communication between two or more courts even in times of war, when all official communication was cut off. What nobles weren’t able to do was negociating, as they usually lacked the juridical knowledge to draw up a contract. Hence, rulers resorted to a social strata were studying at a university was conceived as the start of a career promoting one’s family: the “tiers état”.
In fact, this is the social origin of Abraham de Wicquefort: He was born 12/24/1606 as the son of a family of merchants in Amsterdam, the van Wickenvoorts. Sadly, we know little of his childhood, but we do know that he did law at the University of Leiden, where he earned his doctoral degree in 1626. As soon as 1627 we find Abraham in Paris, where he was about to become the diplomat of princes such as Frederic Wilhelm I. (1620-1688), Elector of Brandenburg. To gain information and to entertain himself, Abraham participated at a society of scholars, the so-called “cabinet” of the brothers Pierre and Jacques Dupuy. Every afternoon, this circle of scholars and diplomats talked about French politics. Sadly for him, the prime minister cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661) thought of Abraham de Wicquefort as being to well-informed on French politics. He suspected Abraham furthermore to damage actively the foreign relation of France towards certain princes of the Holy Roman Empire, leading to the banishment of Abraham de Wicquefort and his family in 1659. Abraham returned to his home country, the united states of the Netherlands, where he found employment as the official states historian. He was private secretary of the leading Dutch politician Johan de Witt (1625-1672), too. When de Witt and his brother were murdered for political reasons, Abraham was found guilty for high treason and was therefore imprisoned. It was not until 1670 that he was able to escape his prison, thanks to his daughter Anna Dorothea. Abraham fled to the court of duke Ernst August of Braunschweig-Calenburg (1629-1698), where his brother Joachim worked as a diplomat. Spending the rest of his life working hard on his last book, “The Ambassador and his Functions”, Abraham de Wicquefort died 1682 at the age of 77 years and was probably buried at the town’s church in Celle.
This brief biography demonstrates how Abraham de Wicquefort was at least two times victim of repressions against his person. Impressed profoundly by this experience, Wicquefort tried to find legal arguments against this practice. As such, he was able to argue for the immunity and territoriality of diplomats by examining legal cases from the 16th and 17th century, where they remained unpunished.
Retracing his biography, I intend to analyze how Wicquefort thought about early modern society and its structures in general and its diplomacy in particular. What were his reasons to write about diplomacy? Why was he trying to find a solution to the problem of diplomatic immunity although similar treaties dealing with the matter already existed? Why did his work, especially “The Ambassador and his Functions”, became so famous, and wherein are we today still influenced by his thoughts on diplomatic immunity?
On a broader level, I like to demonstrate that diplomatic practice and theory are indeed not separated. Scholars such as Hubert Languet, Jacques Bongars, Ezechiel Spanheim or the famous Hugo Grotius were working as diplomats, too. Why were only Grotius and Wicquefort writing on the law of nations? Family, career, the international society of scholars known as the republic of letters, social networks and the function as a political and cultural intermediary must be analyzed to answer my questions and to serve as indicators for further research on this topic.
There is only one main difference I am already aware of: Wicqueforts “failure”. Abraham de Wicquefort never played an important part in foreign affairs, and he only became famous for his work after his death. Thus, the chances of his children to advance in the social hierarchy of Early Modern Europe were diminished in comparison to a possible but unsuccessful éclat of Wicqueforts political efforts and social ambitions. Wicquefort never acquired fame for his diplomatic work. Only now, Abraham de Wicqueforts “Ambassador and his Functions”. Why is his work still such a “big hit” among modern scholars? This is the question I ask myself daily and which, at least for still some time, will not lose its fascination for me.