Jean Bodin
born 1530, Angers, France
died June 1596, Laon
French political philosopher whose
exposition of the principles of stable
government was widely influential in
Europe at a time when medieval systems
were giving way to centralized states.
He is widely credited with introducing
the concept of sovereignty into legal
and political thought.
In 1551 Bodin went to the University
of Toulouse to study civil law. He
remained there as a student and later as
a teacher until 1561, when he abandoned
the teaching of law for its practice and
returned to Paris as avocat du roi
(French: “king’s advocate”) just as the
civil wars between Roman Catholics and
Huguenots were beginning. In 1571 he
entered the household of the king’s
brother, François, duc d’Alençon, as
master of requests and councillor. He
appeared only once on the public scene,
as deputy of the third estate for
Vermandois at the Estates-General of
Blois in 1576. His uninterested conduct
on that occasion lost him royal favour.
He opposed the projected resumption of
war on the Huguenots in favour of
negotiation, and he also opposed the
suggested alienation, or sale, of royal
domains by Henry III as damaging to the
monarchy. When the duc d’Alençon died in
1583, Bodin retired to Laon as
procurateur to the presidial court. He
remained there until his death from the
plague 13 years later.
Bodin’s principal writing, The Six
Bookes of a Commonweale (1576), won him
immediate fame and was influential in
western Europe into the 17th century.
The bitter experience of civil war and
its attendant anarchy in France had
turned Bodin’s attention to the problem
of how to secure order and authority.
Bodin thought that the secret lay in
recognition of the sovereignty of the
state and argued that the distinctive
mark of the state is supreme power. This
power is unique; absolute, in that no
limits of time or competence can be
placed upon it; and self-subsisting, in
that it does not depend for its validity
on the consent of the subject. Bodin
assumed that governments command by
divine right because government is
instituted by providence for the
well-being of humanity. Government
consists essentially of the power to
command, as expressed in the making of
laws. In a well-ordered state, this
power is exercised subject to the
principles of divine and natural law; in
other words, the Ten Commandments are
enforced, and certain fundamental
rights, chiefly liberty and property,
are extended to those governed. But
should these conditions be violated, the
sovereign still commands and may not be
resisted by his subjects, whose whole
duty is obedience to their ruler. Bodin
distinguished only three types of
political systems—monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy—according to whether
sovereign power rests in one person, in
a minority, or in a majority. Bodin
himself preferred a monarchy that was
kept informed of the peoples’ needs by a
parliament or representative assembly.
