From Natio to Corps (1575-1820): The Birth of a New Type of Student Association in the Netherlands

Abstract

Not a year goes by without another case of violent hazing in Dutch universities reported in the newspapers. It concerns one university, then another, but it hits the mark every year. University boards are trying to restrict the use of alcohol and implement rules on initiation rites, but not always with success. Occasionally there is a near death or even a death. Apparently hazing is an ineradicable phenomenon, and almost every year a historian of the history of universities has to explain to the media how this came about. In public opinion this has all to do with conservative students from the upper strata of society who have united in student corpora as they are called in the Netherlands, although we also see a trend towards ‘corporalization’ of other student associations that display mimicry behaviour. But is it correct to link hazing to the corpora that emerged in the nineteenth century? How did those corpora originate? And how did this development from the medieval nationes to the corpora occur? That is the central question in this contribution. Though many of the examples relate to the University of Utrecht, the argument is valid for the entire Dutch Republic.