Jean Bodin: Encyclopedia - Jean Bodin

Jean Bodin

Jean Bodin (1530-1596) was a French jurist, member of the Parliament of Paris and professor of Law in Toulouse. He is considered by many to be the father of political science. He wrote several books, but the Inquisition condemned most of them because the author demonstrated sympathy for Calvinist theories, and Calvinists, called Huguenots in France were prosecuted by the Catholic church as other Protestant or Reformed Christian cults were in other Catholic countries.

His books divided opinion: some French writers were admiring, while Francis Hutchinson was his detractor, criticising his methodology. Bodin's written works contained several allusions to witch trials and the procedures that should be followed, giving him the reputation of a sanguinary man.

• De la République

His most famous book was his 1576 treatise Six Livres de la République, which described the sovereign as a ruler beyond human law and subject only to the divine or natural law. Bodin's ideas in the Six Books on the importance of climate in the shaping of a people's character was also quite influential, finding a prominent place in the work of contemporary Italian thinker Giovanni Botero (1544-1617) and later French philosopher Charles de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755).

• on Witchcraft (La Démonomanie des Sorciers)

Bodin recommended 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.

Categories: 1530 births | 1596 deaths | Political scientists | French essayists | Witchcraft

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