Jean Bodin (1530–1596), born in Angers
, was a
French jurist and political philosopher, member of the
Parlement of Paris
and
professor of law in Toulouse
. He
is best known for his theory of
sovereignty (see
Divine Right of Kings).
Bodin lived during the
Reformation, writing against the
background of religious and civil conflict—particularly that, in
his native France, between the (Calvinist)
Huguenots and the state-supported
Catholic Church. He remained a
Catholic throughout his life but was critical of papal authority
and was sometimes accused of crypto-Calvinism. Towards the end of
his life he wrote a dialogue between different religions, including
representatives of Judaism, Islam and natural theology, in which
all agreed to coexist in concord.
His books divided opinion: some French writers were full of praise,
while the later Scottish philosopher,
Francis Hutchinson was his detractor,
criticising his methodology.
He died in
Laon
during a bubonic
plague epidemy.
De la République
Jean Bodin's most famous work was written in 1576. The ideas in the
Six Books of the
Commonwealth (
Les Six livres de la République) on
the importance of climate in the shaping of a people's character
also were influential, finding a prominent place in the work of
contemporary Italian thinker
Giovanni
Botero (1544-1617) and later in French philosopher the
Baron de
Montesquieu's (1689-1755)
climatic determinism.
Bodin's classical definition of sovereignty is: “ ” (Sovereignty is
that absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth). His
main ideas about sovereignty are found in chapter VIII and X of
Book I. Including his statement "The sovereign Prince Hugo Mota is
only accountable to God".
Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem
In France, Bodin was most noted as a historian for his
Methodus ad facilem
historiarum cognitionem(1566)(
Method for the Easy
Understanding of History.) He writes, "Of history, that is,
the true narration of things, there are three kinds: human, natural
and divine." As a politician himself, Bodin contributed to the
restoration of France as a strong
nation-state.
Finally, Bodin was among the first to recognize the
interrelationship between the amount of goods and the amount of
money in circulation. The boatloads of silver arriving in Spain
from the Bolivian (then Peruvian) mine of Potosí were wreaking
inflationary havoc at the time. Bodin laid the foundation for the
"
quantity theory of
money."
Colloquium of the Seven
In 1588 Bodin wrote the Latin work
Colloquium heptaplomeres de
rerum sublimium arcanis abditis. It is a conversation about
the nature of truth amongst 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. The 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica states "It is curious
that
Leibnitz, who originally
regarded the
Colloquium as the work of a professed enemy
of Christianity, subsequently described it as a most valuable
production." Because of this work, Bodin is often praised as one of
the first proponents of religious tolerance in the western
world.
On Witchcraft (La Démonomanie des Sorciers)
Perhaps Bodin most controversial statement was his recommendation
of
torture, even in cases of the disabled
and children, to try to confirm guilt of
witchcraft. He asserted that not even one witch
could be erroneously condemned if the correct procedures were
followed, suspicion being enough to torment the accused because
rumours concerning
witches were almost always
true. Some scholars have attributed Bodin's attitude towards
so-called witches as part of a populationist strategy typical of
mercantilism.
References
- Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime
By Jean Bodin, Marion Leathers Kuntz, Penn State Press, 2008
(original pub. 1975) ISBN 0271034351
- 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica
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