Bodin Publishes Les Six Livres
1576
The French political philosopher Jean Bodin published Les Six Livres de la Republique, articulating the first systematic theory of sovereignty as indivisible and absolute. Writing in the middle of France's religious wars, he argued that only a strong monarch could hold a religiously divided state together. His insistence that sovereignty must be indivisible provided the theoretical framework for the absolute monarchies of the seventeenth century.
In context
Also in 1576 (3 other events on record)
- Spanish Fury at Antwerp · Europe · War
- Titian Dies in Venice · Europe · Culture
- Frobisher Sails for the Northwest Passage · North America · Exploration
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Politics
Era
Renaissance (1501–1650), one of 715 events from that era on Saeculum.