Jacob Westerbaen
Dutch poet, physician and writer (1599-1670)
Ridder Jacob Westerbaen (7 September 1599 – 31 March 1670), heer (squire) of Brantwyck-en-Ghybelant, was a Dutch poet.
Life
Westerbaen was born in The Hague, the son of a rope maker, and was initially schooled in the Staten-College, then as secretary and preacher of the Remonstrants of the Synod of Dort. There, he studied medicine, after which he established himself in 1623 as a physician in the Hague. Two years later, he married Anna Weytsen, the widow of Reinier van Groenevelt, despite opposition from her noble family.
He was a good friend of Constantijn Huygens. Later, he came into contact with Jacob Cats, Blasius (1639–1672) and Jan Vos (ca. 1610–1667), becoming good friends with all three. When Oldenbarnevelt was executed for political reasons, Westerbaen retained possession of the victim's walking stick, inspiring the Republic's great poet, Vondel, to his famous poem 't Stockske ("The Little Walking-Stick").
Westerbaen wanted to apply for work elsewhere: Ockenburgh near Loosduinen, where he lived from 1652 until his death. He described it in a poem imitating the style of Huygens.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jacob Westerbaen” is dutch poet, physician and writer (1599-1670). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jacob, Westerbaen and Dutch, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2521825. VIAF identifies the subject as 58256540. The Library of Congress control number is n91056614. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1599, 1670, 1623 and 1639.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jacob Westerbaen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.