The Amsterdam Schouwburg festively opened in January 1638 with the performance ofVondel’s Gijsbreght van Aemstel. The play was situated in medieval Amsterdam, butaddressed nonetheless the seventeenth-century audience explicitly. In Gijsbreght vanAemstel political and moral instructions that related to the Amsterdam of Vondel’s agewere given. To approach these political and moral instructions, I will make use of MichelFoucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’. Foucault’s theoretical concept deals with theconstruction of power structures. Governmentality allows me to place Vondel’s text in acontemporary debate about how the state should be ordered, and in this way opens up aninterpretation of the instructions of the play accordingly. I will argue that the play condemned violentstruggles, and that the text presented an opposing stand on how the stateshould be ordered.To indicate how the play voiced an opinion about contemporary political debates, Iwill confront Gijsbreght van Aemstel with Hugo de Groots De Republica Enendanda.This early tract, by one of the most important scholars of the Dutch Republic, also playeda part in Vondel’s play. This way Vondel's text can be read as an exploration of politicalideas in a literary practice, in which the character of Gijsbreght van Aemstel is presentedas an ideal.
