Elbertus Leoninus

Elbertus Leoninus was the Latinized name of Elbert de Leeuw (1519 or 1520 in Zaltbommel – 6 December 1598 in Arnhem[1]), Dutch jurist and statesman, who helped negotiate the Pacification of Ghent.

Together with Viglius van Aytta, another influential jurist, he managed to persuade the government of the Habsburg Netherlands to endow three more chairs at the Leuven law faculty in these years.

In 1575 he led the delegation of the Brussels government of Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens to the abortive peace negotiations with William the Silent and the rebellious provinces at Breda.

The next year (17 January 1586) he welcomed Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester on behalf of the States-General as governor-general of the northern Netherlands, and saw his membership of the new Raad van State renewed.

His many writings in the field of law were compiled in Centuria consilium (Antwerp, 1581 and later), and after his death edited by his grandson Elbert Zoes as Emendationum sive observationum libri septem (Arnhem, 1610).

[5] He also wrote historical works: When he died in 1598, one day after his friend Philips of Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde (who had sat on the opposite side at the negotiations over the Pacification of Ghent in 1576) the Calvinist Arnhem Consistory refused him a funeral service, because they had their doubts about his orthodoxy.