This volume offers an innovative analysis of Roman political culture in Italy from the first to the sixth century AD on the basis of seven case studies.

Leiden University College The Hague is an institute of Leiden University, located in the City of The Hague. This small and highly international community brings together passionate and motivated staff and students, who want to study and tackle the global challenges that face humanity. The intensive…

Interested in studying Ancient History at Leiden University? Find out what our alumni said about this master's programme.

Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam

This book explores the return of six outstanding Kandyan artefacts to Sri Lanka by the Dutch government in 2023. It captures numerous reflections of the international interdisciplinary research team that investigated the provenance of these artifacts and the remarkable layered history that the research…

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

A comparative study on the spatial origin and development of towns in the northern Netherlands, 700-1400.

There are various links between Rembrandt and Leiden University

People in Asia increasingly feel the need for a strong identity. This is the consequence of developments such as globalisation and the realisation that Asian countries such as China and India are becoming new world powers. Professor Hilde De Weerdt studies how political ideas and national identity spread…

Lodewijk Petram, author of the book 'The World's First Stock Exchange', discussed the rise of the Amsterdam stock exchange in the 17th century in the ninth Hazelhoff Guest Lecture.

How did British scholars and scientists in the period of discipline formation envision, experience and resist scholarly temptations?

Leiden University offers ambitious students the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Leiden was European City of Science in 2022: for a year Leiden was the capital of European science. Leiden University was a proud partner of Leiden2022.

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Reproducing past, present and future: colonial visions and experience in Asia in the residencies

Memoria de un Paisaje Sagrado

On May 17th, Arthur Crucq succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Arthur on this great result.

The Europa Institute has been the beneficiary of a generous grant from the H.L. Wesseling Fund. The Fund was established in memory of Professor Henk Wesseling (6 August 1937 – 18 August 2018), Dutch historian, Professor of contemporary history at Leiden University, and former rector of the Netherlands…

This book on Alba is edited by Maurits Ebben, Margriet Lacy-Bruijn and Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier. Each of its fifteen chapters are dedicated to developing a new understanding of a sometimes misunderstood figure in European history.

Hieratic Papyrology

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

This project studies the development of civic engagement in the Netherlands from the mid-eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries, through a focus on the local and regional levels.

The one-year MA in Russian and Eurasian Studies at Leiden University is a unique programme that stands out for its interdisciplinary approach and relevance to current global affairs.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century. The Javanese sultanates were incorporated into the…

LUCIS affiliated members are researchers outside Leiden University who are actively involved in the study of Islam and/or Muslim societies and who regularly participate in LUCIS activities. LUCIS affiliate membership offers possibilities to cooperate with LUCIS as well as network opportunities. Contact…

Justin Bennett teaches in the Institute of Sonology of the Royal Conservatoire (KC) in the Hague. He is also a member of Jubilee, a platform for artistic research and production in Brussels.

docARTES is a doctoral programme for performers and composers. It offers a unique environment for critical reflection on musical practice.

The revolutionary organizations in Paris and Berlin around 1848.

Impressions by Dr. Lilian Ruhe

This study examines the system and poetics of literary patronage in the Renaissance by presenting a comprehensive analysis of the poetry of Giannantonio Campano. In this way, it addresses two themes largely overlooked by modern scholarship.

Rembrandt experts have been puzzling over this painting from 1626 for years. The work may have been commissioned by someone from University circles and may depict a judgment. It can be seen at Gravensteen, a building that served as a prison between 1463 and 1955. This historical building later became…

How did parties as political organizations emerge?

Read more about the partner organizations of the Summerschool Global History in the 2020s.

Taught by top researchers from a wide range of disciplines, the MA Chinese Studies at Leiden University combines in-depth knowledge with advanced language proficiency with a year-long stay in China.