Baudart, Willem (1565-1640)

Dutch scholar and Calvinist minister. A leading biblical scholar, he was chosen as one of the translators of the Old Testament for the Dutch Bible commissioned by the Synod of Dort in 1619. He also wrote a history of the Revolt of the Netherlands, and Morgenwecker (1610), an attack on the truce negotiated between the Netherlands and Spain in 1609.

He was born at Deinze, near Ghent, but his parents fled from religious persecution to England, and he was educated at Sandwich and Canterbury. In 1577 the family returned to Flanders. Baudart studied at Leyden, Franeker in Friesland, Heidelberg, and Bremen, and became proficient in Hebrew and Greek. He returned to the Netherlands in 1593.

In 1596 he published an index to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bibles. His attack on the truce which Oldenbarneveldt had negotiated with Spain - in full the tract is entitled Morgenwecker der Vrye Nederlandtsche provinciën/The Dawn of the Free Netherlands Provinces - was influential and widely read.