Jean Bodin (/boʊˈdæn/;French:[ʒɑ̃bɔdɛ̃];c. 1530 – 1596) was aFrenchjurist andpolitical philosopher, member of theParlement ofParis and professor of law inToulouse. Bodin lived during the aftermath of theProtestant Reformation and wrote against the background ofreligious conflict in France. He seemed to be a nominalCatholic throughout his life but was critical ofpapal authority over governments. Known for his theory ofsovereignty, he favoured the strong central control of a nationalmonarchy as an antidote to factional strife.
Towards the end of his life he wrote a dialogue among different religions, including representatives of Judaism, Islam and natural theology in which all agreed to coexist in concord, but was not published. He was also an influential writer ondemonology,[1] as his later years were spent during thepeak of the early modern witch trials.
Jean Bodin was successively a friar, academic, professional lawyer, and political adviser. An excursion as a politician having proved a failure, he lived out his life as a provincialmagistrate.
Bodin was born nearAngers, possibly the son of a master tailor,[citation needed] into a modestly prosperous middle-class background. He received a decent education, apparently in theCarmelite monastery of Angers, where he became anovice friar. Some claims made about his early life remain obscure. There is some evidence of a visit to Geneva in 1547–48 in which he became involved in aheresy trial. The records of this episode, however, are murky and may refer to another person.
Bodin obtained release from his vows in 1549 and went to Paris. He studied at theuniversity, but also at thehumanist-orientedCollège des Quatre Langues (now theCollège de France); he was for two years a student under Guillaume Prévost, a little-knownmagister in philosophy.[2] His education was not only influenced by an orthodoxScholastic approach but was also apparently in contact withRamist philosophy (the thought ofPetrus Ramus).
Later, in the 1550s, he studiedRoman law at theUniversity of Toulouse, underArnaud du Ferrier, and taught there. His special subject at that time seems to have been comparative jurisprudence. Subsequently, he worked on a Latin translation ofOppian of Apamea, under the continuing patronage ofGabriel Bouvery,Bishop of Angers. Bodin had a plan for a school on humanist principles in Toulouse, but failed to raise local support. He left in 1560.[3][4]
From 1561, Bodin was licensed as an attorney of theParlement of Paris. His religious convictions on the outbreak of theWars of Religion in 1562 cannot be determined, but he affirmed formally his Catholic faith, taking an oath that year along with other members of the Parlement.[5] He continued to pursue his interests in legal and political theory in Paris, publishing significant works onhistoriography and economics.
Bodin became a member of the discussion circles around thePrince François d'Alençon (or d'Anjou from 1576). He was the intelligent and ambitious youngest son ofHenry II, and was in line for the throne in 1574, with the death of his brotherCharles IX. He withdrew his claim, however, in favor of his older brotherHenry III, who had recently returned from his abortive effort to reign as theKing of Poland. Alençon was a leader of thepolitiques faction of political pragmatists.[6]
After the failure of Prince François' hopes to ascend the throne, Bodin transferred his allegiance to the new kingHenry III. In practical politics, however, he lost the king's favor in 1576–7, as delegate of theThird Estate at theEstates-General atBlois, and leader in his Estate of the February 1577 moves to prevent a new war against the Huguenots.[7] He attempted to exert a moderating influence on the Catholic party, and also tried restrict the passage of supplemental taxation for the king. Bodin then retired from political life; he had married in February 1576. His wife, Françoise Trouillart, was the widow of Claude Bayard, and sister of Nicolas Trouillart who died in 1587; both were royal attorneys in theProvost ofLaon and attorneys in theBailiwick ofVermandois, and Bodin took over the charges.[8]
Jean Bodin was in touch withWilliam Wade in Paris,Lord Burghley's contact, at the time (1576) of publication of theSix livres.[9] He later accompanied Prince François, by then Duke of Anjou, to England in 1581, in his second attempt to wooElizabeth I of England. On this visit, Bodin saw the English Parliament.[10] He brushed off a request to secure better treatment for English Catholics,[11] to the dismay ofRobert Persons, given thatEdmund Campion was in prison at the time.[12] Bodin saw some of Campion's trial,[10] he is said also to have witnessed Campion's execution in December 1581,[13] making the hanging the occasion for a public letter against the use of force in matters of religion.[14] Bodin became a correspondent ofFrancis Walsingham; andMichel de Castelnau passed on toMary, Queen of Scots a prophecy supposed to be Bodin's, on the death of Elizabeth, at the time of theBabington Plot.[15]
Prince François becameDuke of Brabant in 1582, however, and embarked on an adventurer's campaign to expand his territory. The disapproving Bodin accompanied him, and was trapped in the Prince's disastrous raid onAntwerp that ended the attempt, followed shortly by the Prince's death in 1584.[16]
In the wars that followed the death of Henry III (1589), theCatholic League attempted to prevent the succession of the ProtestantHenry of Navarre by placing another king on the throne. Bodin initially gave support to the powerful League; he felt it inevitable that they would score a quick victory.
Jean Bodin died, in Laon, during one of the manyplague epidemics of the time.[3]
Bodin generally wrote in French, with later Latin translations.[17] Several of the works have been seen as influenced byRamism, at least in terms of structure.
Bodin wrote in turn books on history, economics, politics, demonology, and natural philosophy;[18] and also left a (later notorious) work in manuscript on religion (see under "Religious tolerance"). A modern edition of Bodin's works was begun in 1951 asOeuvres philosophiques de Jean Bodin byPierre Mesnard [fr], but only one volume appeared.
In France, Bodin was noted as a historian for hisMethodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566) (Method for the easy knowledge of history). He wrote, "Of history, that is, the true narration of things, there are three kinds: human, natural and divine". This book was one of the most significant contributions to thears historica of the period, and distinctively put an emphasis on the role of political knowledge in interpreting historical writings.[3] He pointed out that the knowledge of historical legal systems could be useful for contemporary legislation.
TheMethodus was a successful and influential manual on the writing of technical history.[19] It answered by means of detailed historiographical advice the skeptical line on the possibility of historical knowledge advanced byFrancesco Patrizzi.[20] It also expanded the view of historical "data" found in earlierhumanists, with the immediacy of its concerns for the social side of human life.[21]
Jean Bodin rejected the biblicalFour Monarchies model, taking an unpopular position at the time,[22] as well as the classical theory of aGolden Age for its naiveté.[23] He also dropped much of the rhetorical apparatus of the humanists.
TheRéponse de J. Bodin aux paradoxes de M. de Malestroit (1568) was a tract, provoked by theories ofJean de Malestroit, in which Bodin offered one of the earliest scholarly analyses of the phenomenon ofinflation, unknown prior to the 16th century. The background to discussion in the 1560s was that by 1550 an increase in themoney supply in Western Europe had brought general benefits.[24] But there had also been appreciable inflation. Silver arriving via Spain from the South American mine ofPotosí, together with other sources of silver and gold, from other new sources, was causing monetary change.
Bodin was afterMartín de Azpilicueta, who had alluded to the issue in 1556 (something noticed also byGómara in his unpublishedAnnals),[25][26] an early observer that the rise in prices was due in large part to the influx of precious metals.[27] Analysing the phenomenon, amongst other factors he pointed to the relationship between the amount of goods and the amount of money in circulation. The debates of the time laid the foundation for the "quantity theory of money".[28] Bodin mentioned other factors: population increase, trade, the possibility ofeconomic migration, and consumption that he saw as profligate.[29]
TheTheatrum Universae Naturae is Bodin's statement of natural philosophy. It contains many particular and even idiosyncratic personal views, for instance thateclipses are related to political events.[30] It argued against the certainty of the astronomical theory ofstellar parallax, and the terrestrial origin of the "comet of 1573" (i.e., the supernovaSN 1572).[31] This work shows majorRamist influences. Consideration of the orderly majesty of God leads to encyclopedism about theuniverse and an analogue of amemory system.[32]
Problems of Bodin became attached to some Renaissance editions of Aristotelianproblemata in natural philosophy. Further, Damian Siffert compiled aProblemata Bodini, which was based on theTheatrum.[33]
Jean Bodin's best-known work was "The Six Books of the Republic" (Les Six livres de la République), written in 1576.[34] The discussion regarding the best form of government which took place in those years around theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572) gave the inspiration. Bodin's, classical, definition of sovereignty is: "la puissance absolue et perpetuelle d'une République" (the absolute and perpetual power of a Republic). His main ideas about sovereignty are found in chapter VIII and X of Book I, including his statement "The sovereign Prince is accountable only to God".
TheSix livres were an immediate success and were frequently reprinted. A revised and expanded Latin translation by the author appeared in 1586. With this work, Bodin became one of the founders of the pragmatic inter-confessional group known as thepolitiques, who ultimately succeeded in ending the Wars of Religion under KingHenry IV, with theEdict of Nantes (1598). Against themonarchomachs who were assailing kingship in his time, such asTheodore Beza andFrançois Hotman, Bodin succeeded in writing a fundamental and influential treatise of social and political theory. In its reasoning against all types ofmixed constitution andresistance theory, it was an effective counter-attack against the monarchomach position invoking "popular sovereignty".[35]
The structure of the earlier books has been described as Ramist in structure. Book VI contains astrological and numerological reasoning.[36] Bodin invokedPythagoras in discussingjustice and in Book IV used ideas related to theUtopia ofThomas More.[37] The use of language derived from or replacingNiccolò Machiavelli'scittà (Latincivitas) as political unit (Frenchcité orville) is thoughtful; Bodin introduced republic (Frenchrépublique, Latinrespublica) as a term for matters ofpublic law (the contemporary English rendering wascommonweal(th)).[38] Bodin, although he referred toTacitus, was not writing here in the tradition ofclassical republicanism. TheOttoman Empire is analysed as a "seigneurial monarchy".[39] TheRepublic of Venice is not accepted in the terms ofGasparo Contarini: it is called an aristocratic constitution, not a mixed one, with a concentric structure, and its apparent stability was not attributable to the form of government.[40]
The ideas in theSix livres on the importance of climate in the shaping of a people's character were also influential, finding a prominent place in the work ofGiovanni Botero (1544–1617) and later inBaron de Montesquieu's (1689–1755)climatic determinism. Based on the assumption that a country's climate shapes the character of its population, and hence to a large extent the most suitable form of government, Bodin postulated that ahereditary monarchy would be the ideal regime for a temperate nation such as France. This power should be "sovereign", i.e., not be subject to any other branch, though to some extent limited by institutions like the high courts (Parlement) and representative assemblies (États). Above all, the monarch is "responsible only to God", that is, must stand above confessional factions.
The work soon became widely known. Gaspar de Anastro made a Spanish translation in 1590.[41]Richard Knolles put together an English translation (1606); this was based on the 1586 Latin version, but in places follows other versions. It appeared under the titleThe Six Bookes of a Common-weale.[42][43][44]
Bodin's major work onsorcery and thewitchcraft persecutions was "Of the Demon-mania of the Sorcerers" (De la démonomanie des sorciers), first issued in 1580, with ten editions published by 1604.[45] In it he elaborates the influential concept of "pact witchcraft" based on adeal with the Devil[46] and the belief that the evil spirit would use a strategy to impose doubt on judges to look upon magicians as madmen and hypochondriacs deserving of compassion rather than chastisement.[47]
The book relates histories of sorcerers,[48] but does not mentionFaust and his pact.[49] It gave a report of a 1552 publicexorcism in Paris,[50] and of the case ofMagdalena de la Cruz ofCordova, an abbess who had confessed to sexual relations with the Devil over three decades.[51] Bodin cited Pierre Marner onwerewolf accounts fromSavoie.[52] He denounced the works ofCornelius Agrippa, and the perceived traffic in "sorceries" carried out along theSpanish Road, running along eastern France for much of its length.[53]
He wrote in extreme terms about procedures in sorcery trials, opposing the normal safeguards of justice.[54] This advocacy of relaxation was aimed directly at the existing standards laid down by the Parlement of Paris (physical or written evidence, confessions not obtained bytorture, unimpeachable witnesses).[55] He asserted that not even one witch could be erroneously condemned if the correct procedures were followed, because rumours concerning sorcerers were almost always true. Bodin's attitude has been called a populationist strategy typical ofmercantilism.[56][57][vague]
The book was influential in the debate over witchcraft; it was translated into German byJohann Fischart (1581),[58][59] and in the same year into Latin byFrançois Du Jon asDe magorum dæmonomania libri IV.[60] It was quoted byJean de Léry, writing about theTupinamba people of what is nowBrazil.[61]
One surviving copy of the text, located in the University of Southern California's Special Collections Library, is a rare presentation copy signed by Bodin himself, and is one of only two known surviving texts that feature such an inscription by the author.[62] The USCDémonomanie dedication is to a C.L. Varroni, thought to be a legal colleague of Bodin's.
Jean Bodin became well known for his analysis of sovereignty, which he took to be indivisible, and to involve full legislative powers (though with qualifications and caveats). WithFrançois Hotman (1524–1590) andFrançois Baudouin (1520–1573), on the other hand, Bodin also supported the force ofcustomary law, seeingRoman law alone as inadequate.[63][64]
He hedged the absolutist nature of his theory of sovereignty, which was an analytical concept; if later his ideas were used in a different, normative fashion, that was not overtly the reason in Bodin.[65] Sovereignty could be looked at as a "bundle of attributes";[66] in that light the legislative role took centre stage, and other "marks of sovereignty" could be discussed further, as separate issues. He was apolitique in theory, which was the moderate position of the period in French politics; but drew the conclusion that onlypassive resistance to authority was justified.[67]
Bodin's work on political theory saw the introduction of the modern concept of "state" but was in the fact on the cusp of usage (with that ofCorasius), with the older meaning of a monarch "maintaining his state" not having dropped away.[68]Public office belonged to the commonwealth, and its holders had a personal responsibility for their actions.[69] Politics is autonomous, and the sovereign is subject to divine and natural law, but not to any church; the obligation is to secure justice and religious worship in the state.[70]
Bodin studied the balance of liberty and authority.[71] He had no doctrine ofseparation of powers and argued in a traditional way aboutroyal prerogative and its proper, limited sphere. His doctrine was one of balance as harmony, with numerous qualifications; as such it could be used in different manners, and was. The key was that the central point of power should be above faction.[72] Rose sees Bodin's politics as ultimatelytheocratic,[73] and misunderstood by the absolutists who followed him.[36]
Where Aristotle argued for six types of state, Bodin allowed onlymonarchy,aristocracy anddemocracy. He advocated, however, distinguishing the form of state (constitution) from the form of government (administration).[74] Bodin had a low opinion of democracy.[75]
Families were the basic unit and model for the state;[76] on the other handJohn Milton found in Bodin an ally on the topic ofdivorce.[77] Respect for individual liberty and possessions were the hallmark of the orderly state, a view Bodin shared with Hotman andGeorge Buchanan.[78] He argued againstslavery.[79]
In matters of law and politics, Bodin saw religion as a social prop, encouraging respect for law and governance.[80]
Bodin praised printing as outshining any achievement of the ancients.[81] The idea that theProtestant Reformation was driven by economic and political forces is attributed to him.[82] He is identified as the first person to realize the rapid rate of change of early modern Europe.[83]
In physics, he is credited as the first modern writer to use the concept ofphysical laws to define change,[84] but his idea of nature included the action of spirits. In politics, he adhered to the ideas of his time in considering a political revolution in the nature of an astronomical cycle: achangement (French) or simply a change (as translated 1606) in English;[85] from Polybius Bodin took the idea ofanacyclosis, or cyclic change of constitution.[86] Bodin's theory was that governments had begun as monarchical, had then been democratic, before becoming aristocratic.[87]
In 1576, Bodin was engaged in French politics, and then argued against the use of compulsion in matters of religion, if unsuccessfully. Wars, he considered, should be subject to statecraft, and matters of religion did not touch the state.
Bodin argued that a state might contain several religions; this was a very unusual position for his time, if shared byMichel de l'Hôpital andWilliam the Silent. It was attacked byPedro de Rivadeneira andJuan de Mariana, from the conventional opposing position of a state obligation to root out religious dissent.[88] He argued in theSix livres that theTrial of the Knights Templar was an example of unjustified persecution, similar to that of the Jews and medieval fraternities.[89]
In 1588, Bodin completed in manuscript a Latin workColloquium heptaplomeres de rerum sublimium arcanis abditis (Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime). It is a conversation about the nature of truth between seven educated men, each with a distinct religious or philosophical orientation - a natural philosopher, a Calvinist, a Muslim, a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, a Jew, and a skeptic.[90] Because of this work, Bodin is often identified as one of the first proponents ofreligious tolerance in the western world. Truth, in Bodin's view, commanded universal agreement; and theAbrahamic religions agreed on theOld Testament (Tanakh).[91]Vera religio (true religion) would command loyalty to the point of death; his conception of it was influenced byPhilo andMaimonides.[92] His views onfree will are also bound up with his studies in Jewish philosophy.[93] Some modern scholars have contested his authorship of the text. The "Colloquium of the Seven regarding the hidden secrets of the sublime things" offers a peaceful discussion with seven representatives of various religions and worldviews, who in the end agree on the fundamental underlying similarity of their beliefs.
Bodin's theory, as based in considerations of harmony, resembles that ofSebastian Castellio.[94] He has been seen as a scriptural relativist, anddeist, withMontaigne andPierre Charron;[95] also in the group of learnedChristian Hebraists withJohn Selden,Carlo Giuseppe Imbonati, andGerhard Vossius.[96] By reputation, at least, Bodin was cited as an unbeliever,deist oratheist by Christian writers who associated him with perceived free-thinking and sceptical tradition of Machiavelli andPietro Pomponazzi,Lucilio Vanini,Thomas Hobbes andBaruch Spinoza:Pierre-Daniel Huet,[97]Nathaniel Falck,[98]Claude-François Houtteville.[99]Pierre Bayle attributed to Bodin a maxim about the intellectual consequences of the non-existence of God (a precursor ofVoltaire's, but based on a traditional commonplace of French thinkers).[100]Wilhelm Dilthey later wrote that the protagonists in the Colloquium anticipate those ofGotthold Ephraim Lessing'sNathan der Weise.[101]
The Colloquium was one of the major and most popular manuscripts in clandestine circulation in the early modern period, with more than 100 copies catalogued.[102] it had an extensive covert circulation, after coming into intellectual fashion. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica states "It is curious thatLeibniz, who originally regarded theColloquium as the work of a professed enemy of Christianity, subsequently described it as a most valuable production".[103] Its dissemination increased after 1700, even if its content was by then dated.[104] It was interpreted in the 18th century as containing arguments fornatural religion, as if the views expressed by Toralba (the proponent of natural religion) were Bodin's; wrongly, according to Rose, whose reconstruction of Bodin's religious views is a long way from belief in a detached deity.[105]Grotius had a manuscript.Gottfried Leibniz, who criticized the Colloquium toJacob Thomasius andHermann Conring, some years later did editorial work on the manuscript.Henry Oldenburg wanted to copy it, for transmission toJohn Milton and possiblyJohn Dury,[106] or for some other connection in 1659.[107] In 1662 Conring was seeking a copy for a princely library.[108] It was not to be published in full until 1857, by Ludwig Noack, from manuscripts collected byHeinrich Christian von Seckenberg.[109]
Bodin was influenced by philosophic Judaism to believe in the annihilation of the wicked 'post exacta supplicia'.[110]
19th-century author Eliphas Levi esteemed Bodin as a student of Jewish esoterism: "The Kabalist Bodin who has been considered erroneously of a feeble and superstitious mind, had no other motive in writing his Demonomania than that of warning people against dangerous incredulity. Initiated by the study of the Kabalah into the true secrets of Magic, he trembled at the danger to which society was exposed by the abandonment of this power to the wickedness of men."[111]
Bodin was apolymath, concerned withuniversal history which he approached as a jurist. He belonged to an identifiable French school of antiquarian andcultural history, withLancelot Voisin de La Popelinière,Louis Le Caron,Louis Le Roy,Étienne Pasquier andNicolas Vignier.[112]
Bodin's theory of the "Frankish Gauls", proposing a non-German genealogy for France, was still being reviled byLeibniz in the 18th century. Bodin argued thatfrank actually meant "free" in the Gallic language and, based onCaesar, he said the Gauls had crossed theRhine to escape the Roman yoke, and so were called Franks, and the country of France derived its name from them (who were originally Gauls).Leon Poliakov discussed this inThe Aryan Myth:[113]
Etymological speculation and childish word games of this kind have been rife in western history ever since the Fathers of the Church, but it was the humanists of the Renaissance who first utilized them in the service of a new born chauvinism. It may be remarked, furthermore, that Bodin's theory attributes to the Frankish Gauls certain virtues which were unknown to the enslaved Gauls.
Historical disciples includedJacques Auguste de Thou andWilliam Camden. The genre thus founded, drawing social conclusions, identified itself as "civil history", and was influenced particularly byPolybius.[114] TheMethodus has been called the first book to advance "a theory of universal history based on a purely secular study of the growth of civilisation".[115] Bodin's secular attitude to history therefore goes some way to explain his perceived relationship to Machiavelli. While Bodin's common ground with Machiavelli is not so large, and indeed Bodin opposed the Godless vision of the world in Machiavelli,[116] they are often enough paired, for example byA. C. Crombie as philosophical historians with contemporary concerns; Crombie also links Bodin withFrancis Bacon, as rational and critical historians.[117] Both Bodin and Machiavelli treat religion as situated historically.[118]
Bodin drew largely onJohann Boemus, and also classical authors, as well as accounts fromLeo Africanus andFrancisco Álvares. He showed little interest, however, in theNew World.[119] In terms of theories ofcultural diffusion he influencedNathanael Carpenter, and many subsequently, with his "south-eastern origin" theory of the transmission from peoples of the Middle East to Greece and Rome (and hence to Northern Europe).[120] Another follower wasPeter Heylyn in hisMicrocosmus (1621).[121] In anthropology Bodin showed indications ofpolygenism as theory of human origins.[122] In clearer terms, on the other hand, he believed that mankind was unifying, the drivers being trade, and the indications of therespublica mundana (world commonwealth) and international law as developing. This was within a scheme ofVaticinium Eliae or three periods of 2000 years for universal history, to which he had little commitment, though indicating its connection with the three climate regions and their predominance.[123]
The "south-eastern" theory depended for its explanation on Bodin's climate theory and astrology: it was given in theMethodus, and developed in Book VI of theSix Livres. He made an identification of peoples and geographical sectors with planetary influences, in Book V of theSix Livres.[124] His astrological theory is combined with theHippocratic tradition; but not in the conventional way ofPtolemy. It has been suggested that he took them from a follower ofCardano,Auger Ferrier.[125]
Bodin's conception ofsovereignty was widely adopted in Europe. In a form simplified and adapted by others, such as the French juristsCharles Loyseau (1564–1627) andCardin Le Bret (1558–1655), it played an important role in the development ofabsolutism.[126]
Influentially, Bodin defended an orderlyGallican monarchy againstHuguenots, and any external interference.[127][128] These general ideas became political orthodoxy, in the reign ofHenry IV of France, tending to the beginnings ofabsolutism. Bodin had numerous followers as political theorist, includingPierre Grégoire, in whom withFrançois Grimaudet legislative authority starts to become closer to thedivine right of kings, andWilliam Barclay.[129][130]Pierre Charron inLa Sagesse of 1601 uses the idea of state from Bodin but with fewer limitations on royal power;[131] Charron in this work argued for a secularneo-stoicism, putting together ideas ofMontaigne and Lipsius with those of Bodin.[132] Charles Loyseau in the years 1608-10 published absolutist works with the emphasis on orderliness in society, going much beyond Bodin's writing of thirty years earlier, a trend that continued into the 17th century.[133]
As a demonologist, his work was taken to be authoritative and based on experience as witch-hunting practitioner. As historian, he was prominently cited byNicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy in his 1713Methode pour etudier l'Histoire.[134]Montesquieu read Bodin closely; the modern sociology hinted at in Bodin, arising from the relationship between the state apparatus on the one hand, and society on the other, is developed in Montesquieu.[135]
Jean Bodin's rejection of the Four Monarchies model was unpopular, given the German investment in theHoly Roman Emperor as fourth monarch,[136] the attitude ofJohannes Sleidanus. The need to accommodate the existing structure of the Empire with Bodin as theorist of sovereignty led to a controversy running over nearly half a century; starting withHenning Arnisaeus, it continued unresolved to 1626 and the time ofChristopher Besoldus. He drew a line under it, by adopting the concept ofcomposite polyarchy, which held sway subsequently.[137] Leibniz rejected Bodin's view of sovereignty, stating that it might amount only to territorial control, and the consequence drawn by writers in Bodin's tradition thatfederalism was chimeric.[138]
Generally, the English took great interest in the French Wars of Religion; their literature came into commonplace use in English political debate,[139] andAmyas Paulet made immediate efforts to find theSix livres forEdward Dyer.[140] Shortly Bodin's works were known in England: toPhilip Sidney,Walter Ralegh, and toGabriel Harvey who reported they were fashionable in Oxford. His ideas on inflation were familiar by 1581.[141] Somerville makes the point that not all those who discussed sovereignty in England at this period necessarily took their views from Bodin: the ideas were in the air at the time, and some such asHadrian à Saravia andChristopher Lever had their own reasoning to similar conclusions.[142]Richard Hooker had access to the works, but doesn't reference them.[143]John Donne cited Bodin in hisBiathanatos.[144]
Bodin's view of parallelism of French and English monarchies was accepted by Ralegh.[145]Roger Twysden dissented: in his view, the English monarchy had never fitted Bodin's definition of sovereignty.[146]Richard Beacon inSolon His Follie (1594), directed towards English colonisation in Ireland, used text derived from theSix livres, as well as much theory from Machiavelli; he also argued, against Bodin, that France was amixed monarchy.[147] Bodin influenced the controversial definitions ofJohn Cowell, in his 1607 bookThe Interpreter, that caused a furore in Parliament during 1610.[148]Edward Coke took from Bodin on sovereignty; and like him opposed the concept of mixed monarchy.[149]
While Bodin's ideas on authority fitted with the theory ofdivine right of kings, his main concern was not with the choice of the sovereign. But that meant they could cut both ways, being cited by parliamentarians as well as royalists.Henry Parker in 1642 asserted the sovereignty of Parliament by Bodinian reasoning.[150]James Whitelocke used Bodin's thought in discussing theKing-in-Parliament.[149] The royalistRobert Filmer borrowed largely from Bodin for the argument of hisPatriarcha.John Locke in arguing decades later against Filmer inTwo Treatises of Government didn't go behind his work to attack Bodin; but his allyJames Tyrrell did, as didAlgernon Sidney.[151] Another royalist user of Bodin wasMichael Hudson.John Milton used Bodin's theory in defending his anti-democratic plan for a Grand Council, afterOliver Cromwell's death.[152]
Sir John Eliot summarized work of Arnisaeus as critic of Bodin,[145] and wrote in theTower of London following Bodin that a lawful king, as opposed to atyrant, "will not do what he may do", in hisDe iure majestatis.[153]Robert Bruce Cotton quoted Bodin on the value of money;[154]Robert Burton on politics in theAnatomy of Melancholy.[155]
Richard Knolles in the introduction to his 1606 translation commended the book as written by a man experienced in public affairs.[156]William Loe complained, in preaching to Parliament in 1621, that Bodin with Lipsius and Machiavelli was too much studied, to the neglect of Scripture.[157]Richard Baxter on the other hand regarded the reading of Bodin,Hugo Grotius andFrancisco Suárez as a suitable training in politics, for lawyers.[158]
Bodin's views on witchcraft were taken up in England by the witch-hunterBrian Darcy in the early 1580s, who argued for burning rather than hanging as a method of execution, and followed some of Bodin's suggestions in interrogatingUrsula Kemp.[159][160] They were also radically opposed byReginald Scott in his sceptical workDiscoverie of Witchcraft (1584).[161] LaterFrancis Hutchinson was his detractor, criticising his methodology.
In Italy Bodin was seen as a secular historian like Machiavelli. At the time of theVenetian Interdict, Venetians agreed with the legislative definition of sovereignty. In particularPaolo Sarpi argued that Venice's limited size in territorial terms was not the relevant point for the actions it could undertake on its own authority.[163]
LaterGiambattista Vico was to take Bodin's cultural history approach noticeably further.[164]
Works of Bodin were soon placed on theIndex Librorum Prohibitorum for various reasons, including discussion of Fortune (againstfree will), andreason of state. TheMethodus went on the Index in 1590;[165]Robert Bellarmine as censor found it of some merit in its learning, but the author to be a heretic or atheist, critical of the papacy and much too sympathetic toCharles Du Moulin in particular.[166] Other works followed in 1593.[167] All his work was placed on the Index in 1628; the prohibition on theTheatrum continued into the 20th century.[168] Venetian theologians were described as followers of Machiavelli and Bodin by Giovanni Amato.[169]
Bellarmine'sTractatus de potestate summi pontificis in temporalibus reiterated, against Bodin's sovereignty theory, an indirect form of the traditionalpapal deposing power to release subjects from the duty of obedience to tyrants.[170]Jakob Keller, in an apologetical work on behalf of limited justifications fortyrannicide, treated Bodin as a serious opponent on the argument that subjects can only resist a tyrant passively, with views on the Empire that were offensive.[171]
In 1583, Bodin was placed on the Quiroga Index.[172] Against tyrannicide, Bodin's thought was out of step of conventional thinking in Spain at the time.[173] It was recognized, in an unpublished dialogue imagined between Bodin and a jurist ofCastile, that the government of Spain was harder than that of France, the other major European power, because of the more complex structure of the kingdom.[174]
Jean Bodin's view of witchcraft was hardly known in Spain until the 18th century.[175]
In theRepublique, at least, religion captures Bodin's attention because of its influence on the sovereign's capacity to keep the peace. A false religion is nevertheless useful because it 'doth yet hold men in fear and awe, both of the laws and of the magistrates [...]' (IV, 7, 539). If fear of hellfire lends credibility to the law, then religion is a welcome ally [...] In other words, Bodin advances a social-prop theory of religion. The utility of religion does not hinge upon its truth.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
.svg)
