Bodin, Jean (1530–1596)

Jean Bodin, perhaps born in 1529, in Angers, France, died in Laon, France. Scholars principally remember him for his theory of sovereignty, which provided a central organizing principle for the development of the modern legal theory of the state.

Bodin was born into a successful bourgeois family. He studied and taught civil law at the University of Toulouse during the 1550s and then moved to Paris to practice law in 1560 or 1561. In 1571, he was appointed master of requests and counselor to the Duke of Alençon, one of France's royal princes. In 1576, chosen as a deputy for the Third Estate for Vermandois at the Estates-General of Blois, he opposed royal policies on religion and taxation that caused him to lose favor with the king's party. After the Duke of Alençon died in 1583, Bodin moved to Laon, where he remained until his death.

Bodin wrote his major historical and political works in response to the civil and religious wars that raged throughout France from the early 1560s to the 1590s. His first major work, the Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, 1566), outlined a program for the study of history that ultimately aimed to compare the laws of all states to identify the best and most enduring laws of human society. In his most famous political work, the Six livres de la république (Six Books of a Commonwealth, 1576; rev. Latin ed., 1586), he proposed a new definition of the concept of sovereignty, which he claimed was imperative for establishing order in human society.

Bodin defined the concept of sovereignty more abstractly than his predecessors did, as the supreme, absolute, and perpetual seat of power within a state, unlimited in power, function, or duration. He also greatly expanded the legislative prerogatives of sovereignty. While still arguing in the manner of medieval thinkers that princes should govern according to divine and natural law, Bodin claimed that only the sovereign ruler could establish the authoritative interpretation of these laws. Barring an obvious transgression of divine or natural law, subjects were rightfully required to obey the sovereign's commands even when these commands apparently contravened higher principles.

Bodin wrote two other notable books during his lifetime. His De la démonomanie des sorciers (On the Demon-Mania of Witches, 1580) provided rulers with principles for detecting and punishing witches within their realms and was the most widely published work on demons and witches during this period. He also wrote but did not publish the Colloquium heptaplomeres de rerum sublimium arcanis abditis (Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime, 1593), which is widely considered an important defense of religious toleration. In this work, seven individuals representing different religions and philosophical positions openly discuss the nature of the true religion, but ultimately agree to disagree on most religious issues.