Jean Bodin:

In European countries, during the late 16^th to early 18^th centuries, the power of state which was typically governed by a king, grew at the expense of regional and individual liberties. Royal power has fallen to a low point during the religious wars and then rose sharply under Louis XIII.

Jean Bodin, an educated Frenchman, believed that religious civil war was a bad idea and that France should put the country before their attempts to enforce their religion. Bodin believed that peace was more important than religious unity and therefore considered a politique.

Bodin believed in a religion with Islamic, Jewish and Christian elements. He then wrote a book, the Colloquium of the Seven where he develops eclectic and syncretistic (mixing of religious doctrines) ideas. Although a staunch supporter of religious toleration, he advocated for the persecution of witches.

Bodin’s major political work is the Six Books of Commonwealth, which spoke of political and social organization, compared different forms of government, and the influence of climate and geography on politics.

Bodin’s central doctrine of unlimited and indivisible sovereignty where within every state there must be one person (or one defined group of people) with powers necessary to govern the community. He believed that sovereignty cannot be divisible between different people as a sovereign who was accountable to someone else would not really be sovereign; therefore no one has the right to impose limitations of the power or sovereigns. Although Bodin felt that people did not have the right to rebel against the sovereign, he said that it is our duty to not obey if a sovereign were to command things that are against the law of God or the law of nature. Such laws were ones that no one could break, no matter what, and therefor, if ordered by the sovereign to break the rules, one must disobey them but accept the punishment given.

Therefore, Bodin’s sovereignty was not completely unlimited because there are moral rules that even a sovereign cannot authorize breakage. Therefore one must ask was Bodin truly an absolutist?

(Me trying to find gifs for Bodin)

Thanks darlings!

Franny <3