Born in 1529/1530 in Angers to a family of cloth merchants and lawyers, Jean Bodin had the means to pay for his education in Paris and then in Toulouse.1 Attracted at an early age by universals, Bodin carried out various large-scale learned quests that would culminate in works with very general themes such as the Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, which he published in 1566, at the age of thirty-six. Two years later he published his Response to the Paradoxes of Master Malestroit on the Rising Cost of Everything, an influential study of what would later be known as “inflation.” In the full title, Bodin describes himself as an advocate to the court.
The Six Books of the Republic, Bodin’s most influential book, appeared in 1576. H.W. Lloyd, his most recent biographer, writes about the context: “It was against an immediate background of controversy conducted in heated terms and violent unrest that he completed and published the Six Books of the Republic.”2 In 1586 Bodin published a Latin version that he himself had translated.
He was involved in political activism intermittently throughout his life, but what interested him most would be the pursuit of ordering and the setting down of knowledge (savoir). For example, major works that discuss comparative religions,3 the natural world,4 and witchcraft5 were published prior to his death in 1596.
Bodin’s thought about power, institutions, and tyranny is deeply and interestingly Aristotelian. In constructing the term “sovereignty” into a very strong concept, his answer to religious and civil turmoil was the absolute royal state.6
It is in Book II of the Six Livres de la République (Six Books of the Republic) that Bodin presents and comments upon Aristotle’s Politics, starting with definitions of the forms of government and tyranny. Indebted not only for the framing of the definitions, Bodin recounts materials from various sources that are less exemplary and more exploratory. Like the Philosopher, Bodin seeks a deeper understanding of the political than definitions can offer. The results are complex and cannot be reduced to the formulaic. His sense of excitement is contagious as he explores numerous accounts of political activity where tyranny is present.
Attentive throughout to how he perceives power in action, in the Six Books of the Republic, which will be read as individual topics indicated by subheading, Bodin briefly repeats his definition of the word “tyranny”: “For the one makes himself a sovereign prince by his own authority—without being elected or by succession, or change, or a just war, or a special calling from God.”7 And then he continues by noting that it is this type of tyrant whose death the writings and laws of antiquity envisaged. Monuments, he says, that are erected to honor tyrants should be torn down, or never built at all; and the histories written by persons in the tyrant’s pay should be torn up.
He builds his house on the ruins of his subjects’ houses.
He cruelly avenges those who curse him.
He triumphs in the shame of chaste women.
He divides his subjects in order to ruin them.
He hides as if his subjects were enemies.
He is fearful of his subjects.
He swallows his subjects’ blood, gnaws their bones, and sucks the marrow to weaken his subjects.
He engages thieves and the wicked [for employment].
He tramples the laws.
He is hated by everyone.
He makes war on his subjects.
He has foreign garrisons.
He keeps his subjects in perpetual fear.
He has no trust in his friends who often are treasonous and disloyal.
Bodin recognizes that peoples are different, and that they have to be governed differently. Also, there are conditions that require a good king to govern as if he were a tyrant: the argument from necessity.
When changes from one type of government to another take place, the murders, exiles, and confiscations that come about are not tyrannical. And when the prince is too easy-going (doux), the republic may be lost.9 What had happened to the Florentines under the Medici? The senators, nobles, and great lords of ancient Rome hated Domitian; but after his death, attitudes toward him became more favorable. Bodin comes down in favor of rigor and severity, rather than gentleness: “A nasty man makes a good king,” goes the proverb.10 Numerous historical examples are mentioned, including the French kings Charles III the Simple, and Charles, called Le Fainéant , “the Do-Nothing.”
Bodin brings up Francis I, who was viewed as “great, rich, and flourishing in arms and laws.” Later, however, Francis became “troubled and inaccessible” so no one dared approach him to ask for something when estats (titles), offices, and benefices were only given to persons of merit and honor. In addition, gifts were cut back to such a point that when the monarch died, there was a million in gold and 700,000 écus in the treasury, and the revenues for the March quarter had yet to be collected.11
Just the opposite took place under Henry II, a monarch so gentle, so gracious and so affable that the monies saved up by the father would be quickly disbursed. Estats (titles) were put up for sale, benefices were given without respect, and judgeships went to the highest bidder.12 His goodness should have been mixed with rigor, and his easiness with austerity.
There are commentaries on Solon’s and Valorius’s laws that have to do with whether the suspect tyrant has taken command of fortresses and garrisons. Sulla, the Roman dictator, took power away from the people when he had an army at his command in the city.
Asking whether a tyrant may be killed, Bodin presents the usual issue, that is, how he came to power; and he implies that this makes little difference. Similarly, he recognizes that, if possible, a tyrant may be brought before a court of law and sentenced to death; but he again leaves the remark as an observation, not a requirement.
“Doctors and theologians,” citing Aquinas, have answered that tyrants may be killed; but Bodin does not state whether he agrees with them, or disagrees. Old-Testament accounts of tyranny and tyrannicide tell of violent and bloody acts that do not yield an emphatic answer as to whether there was divine intervention. Nebuchadnezzar was tyrannical; so was Saul, who under the influence of a malin esprit, a “malevolent spirit,” killed God’s priests without cause.13 By suspending categorical judgment, Bodin may simply have been respecting the overarching emphasis on observation, rather than approving an action that depended on specific conditions—not unlike Aristotle’s approach on the same issues.
In a very weighty remark made after listing the monarchies where kings are absolute sovereigns—France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ethiopia, Turkey, Persia, and Russia—Bodin states that subjects have no right to attack their monarch either by assault (voie de fait) or by justice, that is, through the courts, no matter how wicked, impious, and cruel he may be.14 In the royal presence, magistrates no longer have authority. It is not lawful for a subject to judge his prince, or a vassal his lord, or a servant his master. The Lex Julia and lèse-majesté are mentioned just before Bodin moves on to two historical examples that are just, although they prompt a sense of pathos.
A Norman gentleman during the reign of Francis I had had bad thoughts about killing the king,15 a capital crime of lèse-majesté for which he was condemned to death, despite his subsequent repentance.
In another case, a monk (a Franciscan, that is, a “Cordelier”) who was “insane” (insensé) pulled out a sword against Henry II without doing him any harm. Nevertheless, despite his being “furious” (furieux), which usually was excused by law, he was sentenced to death.
God’s laws and “the Julia ” forbade assaulting a magistrate. Bodin scoffs at people who doubt the existence of God, and asserts that he will not waste time addressing them. He seems surprised that there are people who, despite the clarity of printed books, argue that it is possible to take up arms against a tyrannical prince. At this point, he cites Luther (and Calvin) in support of his argument, as if adopting their point of view: “a special order is received from God.”16
Having cited some historical examples, Bodin adds: “But one must not turn this special order from God into a model for plots and rebellions by mutinous subjects against their sovereign prince…. In an upright monarchy it is never lawful to assail, or fight against, or attack the life or the honor of one’s king.” Then he adds: “We read that the Protestant princes of Germany, before taking up arms against the emperor, asked Martin Luther if it was lawful; and he bluntly replied that it was not legal, no matter what tyranny or impiety one might cite.”17 Bodin laments the ruin of many illustrious houses in Germany; he quotes Cicero; and he remarks that the emperor is not, however, a sovereign prince (as he defined one).
Farther down his exhaustive list of examples, Bodin returns to Roman history, commenting that it was Cicero who passed legislation that required a dictator to be forgotten after his death, and that most of the legislation promulgated under Caesar, Nero, and Domitian remained the law.
Most tyrants are surrounded by éponges (“spongers”) and mignons (“favorites”) who become the targets of popular fury. Tiberius had Sejanus, Nero had Tigillinus, Dionysius the Younger had Philistus, King Henry of Sweden had George Preschon. In some instances, entire families—including wives, children, servants, and clients—would be killed. Their statues and the histories they had sponsored would also be destroyed. Bodin conveys something approaching a sense of wonder as he describes phenomena that seem never to have been framed into laws.
A telling example is King Charles VII of France, who permitted his rebellious relative to be tried and sentenced to death for lèse-majesté . On the king’s order, the sentence was not, however, carried out. Indeed, a prince should not put someone of his own blood into the executioner’s hands: in doing so, he “forges the knife against himself.”18 The emperors of Constantinople, and the kings of Spain and of England dirtied their hands in this way. It is far better, asserts Bodin, that for the monarch’s utmost security, people believe that the sovereign prince is holy, inviolable.19