It wurk fan Gysbert Japix n-2 - Tresoar

seeks to retrieve a person's opinions on political, religious and cultural matters
through his personal relations (here applied out of necessity) is that it offers many
possibilities of checking interpretations by drawing more people into the investigation.
Moreover, the outcome relates more immediately to the person in concern than
the result of a general investigation into prevailing opinions in the seventeenth Century
without differentiation would do. Since the inventories of their bookcollections
are the most important sources for the information on the intellectual interest and
erudition of both the poet and his father, as many library inventories as possible of
inhabitants of Friesland from 1600 to 1680 have been collected and compared.
Nothing is known about GJ's youth, apart from what can be deduced from his origins.
His father Jacob Gysberts (henceforth JG) was as important a man as he was
controversial in Bolsward, the town in which or near to which also his son lived for
his entire life, with the exception of perhaps less than a year. JG was a joiner and a
tax collector. He may have designed the handsome town hall of Bolsward (1614). His
library inventory from 1644, when compared to the inventories of others, shows a
rather broad interest in politics and an exceptionally great interest in religious
issues. He was a pronouncedly orthodox Calvinist.
His voting for new provincial taxes in 1634 eamed JG the hatred of at least part of
the Bolsward citizenry. The general wave of Opposition against these taxes throughout
the province caused much political upheaval, which in 1635 lead to the dismission
of the municipality in Bolsward, as it did in other Frisian towns. Only through
Intervention from The Hague by the Council of State in 1637 could the authority of
the Frisian stadtholder - to whom belonged the privilege of appointing officials - be
restored. The Opposition was organized by prominent families from the nobility,
who mainly lived in the country side. Both sides had support in the towns. Until the
end of 1646 the local faction of Van Velsen, to which JG belonged, was the strengest,
after which year the other side gained the upper hand. In the early 1650s relations improved.
By the end of 1640 JG was appointed burgomaster for the period of two years
in lieu of a deceased memberof the magistrate. His appointment aroused much resistance,
but as presiding burgomaster he took control of the Council of burgomasters
and ruled with a firm hand. In 1644-1645 his faction fought out with the Presbitery
the question of the right of appointing new ministers. It caused a great deal of
commotion throughout Friesland, and the issue drew a lot of national attention, too.
Even Voetius, who sided with the Presbitery, made statements on the issue.
It was in this town, disrupted by disputes, that GJ was appointed municipal
schoolmaster in 1637, after having worked for some time as a schoolmaster in the
countryside. The appointment was made by the new magistrate of which his father, it
is true, formed no part, as he was a sworn member of the municipality, but in which
his faction had nonetheless a majority. This may have made the appointment a
friendly turn. What seems to be certain is that GJ agreed with his father in political
matters, for he himself was a friend of Van Velsen's, too.
For the rest, GJ was not involved in politics, something which he was not allowed
to, anyway, as a municipal official. His interest in politics does not seem to have been
great, witness the inventory of his library at the time of his death. What his book collection
does show, however, also when compared to other ones, is an exceptionally
great interest in literature, an interest which seems to be descernable from as early as
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