Introduction

One of the most interesting figures to emerge from the academic world and the Republic of Letters of the second half of the eighteenth century is Adriaan Kluit. He wrote and translated poetry, did philological work, compiled word lists, and strove to develop a standard Dutch. At Leiden University he grew into an original professor of Dutch national history with a profound influence on the public discourse in the last phase of the Republic of the United Netherlands and the nascent Batavian Republic. The thread running through his linguistic and historical work is his critical use of ancient sources, which in fact made him the first academic mediaevalist to introduce the diplomatic editing of charters. He brought to bear his study of ancient sources on both the regulation of the Dutch language and on his views on the sovereignty of the Dutch state. He thereby laid the foundations for a sense of unity from which in the course of the nineteenth-century scholars could mould a Dutch national identity.

Studies and Life at the Literary Societies

Kluit saw the light of day in Dordrecht on 9 February 1735, the eighth scion of an apothecary and a Walloon pastor's daughter. He attended the Latin school in his place of birth. From 1755 to 1760 he studied at Utrecht University, where he received a broad education in the classical languages, Dutch language and literature, history and law.