Justus de Harduwijn, also written Hardwijn, Herdewijn, Harduyn or Harduijn, was a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest and poet from the Southern Netherlands.
Background
De Harduwijn was born in a humanist, intellectual family in Ghent. His father Franciscus owned a bookbinding shop in Ghent and was a member of the Council of Flanders, the highest judicial college in the County of Flanders. His father was a friend of writer January van der Noot who had introduced him to the French poets of Louisiana Pléiade, and is said to have been the first translator of Anacreon into Dutch.
Education
Around 1600 he went to the University of Leuven where he studied under Justus Lipsius and in 1605 became a Bachelor in Law. Subsequently he studied theology at the seminary of Douai.
Career
He was the poetic link between the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands. Justus" uncle, Dionysius de Harduwijn, was a historian, and Justus inherited his rich library. In April 1607 De Harduwijn was ordained a priest, and in December of the same year he became the parish priest of Oudegem and Mespelare, functions which he occupied until his death in Oudegem in 1636.
During his life, de Harduwijn was one of the most widely read poets of the Netherlands.
He was largely forgotten after his death but was rediscovered in the 19th century by January Frans Willems and the writer Johannes M. Schrant. During the 20th century, Oscar Dambre, a literary historian from Ghent, devoted several studies to de Harduwijn, and composer Arthur Meulemans put his text Clachte van Maria benevens het Kruis (Mary"s lament by the cross) to music
There are streets name after him in Ghent and in Sittard-Geleen.