Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Jean Bodin on Oeconomics and Politics

2013; Routledge; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01916599.2013.796163

1873-541X

Anna Becker,

Historical Economic and Legal Thought

SummaryChallenging the common conception of Jean Bodin as an ‘anti-Aristotelian’ thinker, this article places Bodin's political thought in the context of oeconomics—the science, or art of the household—as it had developed in medieval and Renaissance commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy. The article argues that he thereby took part in a longstanding discussion in European political thought which saw the household as possessing a political dimension. Bodin's thought on the family is central to both his universal claims pertaining to his notion of the political and his more particular interest in sovereignty and the origins of absolutism. The article explores Bodin's analysis of the household as the starting point of his inquiry into the nature of a commonwealth and the foundation of his conception of the state; it examines the relationship of la police and l'oeconomie in detail, and argues that the conjugal relationship is the determinant for Bodin's conception of absolute rule and of the origins of supreme power.Keywords: Jean BodinAristotlehouseholdfamilysovereigntyPatriarchalism AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Doohwan Ahn, Annabel Brett, Martin van Gelderen, Jill Kraye, Iain McDaniel, Magnus Ryan, Richard Serjeantson, Richard Whatmore, and two anonymous readers, as well as to the members of the Cambridge History of Political Thought Seminar, where a preliminary version of this paper has been presented.Notes1 An exception is Aurélie du Crest, Modéle familial et pouvoir monarchique, XVIe–XVIIIe siècles (Aix-en-Provence, 2002), 143–78. See also Preston King, The Ideology of Order, second edition (London, 1999); Gordon J. Schochet, The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17thCentury England, second edition (New Brunswick, NJ, 1988), 31–36. Schochet's emphasis is on Bodin's proto-patriarchalism.2 See Julian H. Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory (Cambridge, 1973), vii; J. H. M. Salmon, ‘Bodin and the Monarchomachs’, in Jean Bodin: Verhandlungen der internationalen Bodin Tagung in München, edited by Horst Denzer (Munich, 1973), 359–78; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1978), II, 285 note 1; J. U. Lewis, ‘Jean Bodin's “Logic of Sovereignty”’, Political Studies, 16 (1968), 206–22.3 Julian H. Franklin, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty, edited and translated by Julian H. Franklin (Cambridge, 1992), ix–xxvi (xii–xiii).4 Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, II, 285.5 See Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, II; Franklin, Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory; Julian H. Franklin, ‘Sovereignty and the Mixed Constitution: Bodin and His Critics’, in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, edited by J. H. Burns (Cambridge, 1991), 298–328; Salmon, ‘Bodin and the Monarchomachs’, in Jean Bodin, edited by Denzer; Franklin, ‘Introduction’, in Bodin, On Sovereignty.6 I employ this term of art in order to capture what the Renaissance writers had in mind when they used the term oeconomicus, for instance when they talked about the vita oeconomica. The term referred to a part of Aristotelian practical philosophy, the science of the household (the oikos in Greek). See Jill Kraye, ‘Moral Philosophy’, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge, 1988), 303–86 (303–06).7 Jean Bodin, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1566), 179. See Anne Blair, The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 6, chapter IV; Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, II, 291; Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge, 1993), 26; Schochet, The Authoritarian Family, 32. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.8 Charles B. Schmitt, John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England (Montreal, QC, 1983), 218–19.9 Kenneth D. McRae, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweal [facsimile of the 1606 edition], translated by Richard Knolles, edited by Kenneth D. McRae (Cambridge, MA, 1962), A25. See also M. J. Tooley, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, abridged and translated by M. J. Tooley (Oxford, 1967), vii–xlii (xvi); Jürgen Dennert, ‘Bemerkungen zum politischen Denken Jean Bodins’, in Jean Bodin, edited by Denzer, 213–44 (219).10 Roger Chauviré, Jean Bodin, auteur de la République (Paris, 1914), 178.11 McRae, ‘Introduction’, in Bodin, Six Bookes, A27.12 Joachim Périon, De Republica qui Politicorum dicuntur libri VIII (Basel, no date); Ginés de Sepulveda, Aristotelis De republica libri VIII interprete et enarratore Joanne-Genesio Sepulveda (Paris, 1548); Denis Lambin, Aristotelis De reipublicae bene administrandae ratione libri VIII (Paris, 1567). Abbreviated, and in common use, the work is called De Republica. In addition to his translation, Lambin published in 1570 his Oratio […] habita pridie quem librum III Aristotelis De republica optime administranda explicaret, qua in oratione primum regis erga se beneficium commemorat, deinde qua ratione hoc munus ab eius maiestate impetravit, exponit […](Paris, 1570). For the République as a work in the tradition of the Aristotelian commentaries, see Dennert, ‘Bemerkungen zum politischen Denken Bodins’, in Jean Bodin, edited by Denzer, 217; Henri Weber, ‘Utilisation et critique de La Politique d'Aristote dans La République de Jean Bodin’, in Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 1500–1700, edited by R. R. Bolgar (Cambridge, 1976), 305–13 (306).13 See Tooley, ‘Introduction’, in Bodin, Six Books, xvi.14 See William J. Booth, ‘Politics and the Household. A Commentary on Aristotle's Politics Book One’, History of Political Thought, 2 (1981), 203–26 (216). For the importance of the household in Aristotelian thought, see also William J. Booth, Households: On the Moral Architecture of the Economy (Ithaca, NY, 1993); D. Brendan Nagle, The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle's Polis (Cambridge, 2006).15 Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République [hereafter République], edited by Christane Frémont, Marie-Dominique Couzinet and Henri Rochais, 6 vols (Paris, 1986), I, chapter 1, 27; Jean Bodin, De republica libri sex [hereafter De Republica] (Frankfurt, 1594), 1. Both the French version and Bodin's own translation of his work into Latin have their own merits; to do Bodin's thought justice I have used both versions.16 Although the Roman Latin differentiated between familia and domus, in my usage of the terms I shall use the terms ‘family’ and ‘household’, ‘domus’ and ‘familia’, ‘mesnage’ and ‘maison’ interchangeably, thus following the early modern usage of the terms. For the Roman concepts of the terms, see Richard P. Saller, ‘“Familia, Domus”, and the Roman Conception of the Family’, Phoenix, 38 (1984), 336–55.17 République, I, chapter 2, 39.18 République, I, chapter 2, 39; De Republica, 12.19 République, I, chapter 2, 40; De Republica, 13. In this quote Bodin used civitas to translate république; more often he rendered it res publica. In the instances I have quoted here, it is clear that Bodin used both to refer to what in English would be the ‘commonwealth’ or ‘commonweale’ (as indeed respublica/civitas were rendered by the 1606 translation by Richard Knolles), depicting what we would now understand as ‘the state’. However, Bodin claimed to differentiate sharply between res publica and civitas; see République, I, chapter 6. See also Annabel Brett, Changes of State (Princeton, NJ, 2011), 1, 131–33.20 République, I, chapter 1, 30; De Republica, 4.21 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis, edited and translated by Walter Miller (London, 1913), 56.22 Aristotle, Politics, translated by T.A. Sinclair and revised by T.J. Saunders (London, 1992), 1252b15 and following.23 Donato Acciaiuoli, In Aristotelis libros octo Politicorum commentarii (Venice, 1566), 14v.24 Louis Le Roy, Les Politiques d'Aristote: esquelles est monstree la science de gouverner le genre humain en toutes especes d'estats publiques (Paris, 1576), 11.25 Leonardo Bruni, Oeconomica [Economics] translated by Gordon Griffiths in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct in Business and Marriage’, in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, edited by Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins and David Thompson (Binghamton, NY, 1987), 300–17 (305–317 [307]).26 Jacques Lèfevre d'Étaples, Politicorum libri VIII, Commentarii; Oeconomicorum II, Commentarii; Hecatonomiarum VII; Oeconomiaruum publicarum I; Explanationis Leonardi in Oeconomica II (Paris, 1506), 127.27 John Case, Thesaurus Oeconomiae, sev commentarius in Oeconomica Aristotelis; in quo verae divitiae familiarum, earumque leges, partes, & officia describuntur (Oxford, 1597), 29.28 See Elaine Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (Cambridge, 2003), especially chapter 4, 79–104; Fred D. Miller, ‘The State and the Community in Aristotle's Politics’, Reason Papers, 1 (1974), 61–69 (63).29 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, edited and translated by Roger Crisp (Cambridge, 2000), 1160b.30 See James M. Blythe, ‘Family, Government and the Medieval Aristotelians’, History of Political Thought, 10 (1989), 1–16; Cary J. Nedermann, ‘Private Will, Public Justice: Household, Community and Consent in Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis’, The Western Political Quarterly, 43 (1990), 699–717.31 République, I, chapter 6, 111; De Republica, 71.32 Bruni in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 307.33 Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 302. See also Josef Soudek, ‘The Genesis and Tradition of Leonardo Bruni's Annotated Latin Version of the ps.-Aristotelian Economics’, Scriptorum, 12 (1958), 260–68; Josef Soudek, ‘Leonardo Bruni and His Public: A Statistical and Interpretative Study of his Annotated Latin Version of the ps.-Aristotelian Economics’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 5 (1968), 49–136.34 Auguste Diès, Le nombre de Platon. Essai d'exégèse et d'histoire, Extrait des Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XIV (Paris, 1936), 59–60, 66, 69.35 Bruni in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 309.36 Bruni in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 309.37 Aristotle, Politics, 1276a24–34.38 République, I, chapter 6, 111; De Republica, 71.39 République, I, chapter 6, 117; De Republica, 76.40 République, III, chapter 7, 173–74.41 De Republica, 521.42 De Republica, 522.43 République, III, chapter 7, 174.44 De Republica, 522.45 See Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship; Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley, CA, 1993), 33–43.46 République, III, chapter 7, 175. Translation taken from Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, translated by M.J. Tooley, 97–98. [first referenced fn.9]47 République, III, chapter 7, 177. Translation taken from Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, translated by M.J. Tooley, 98.48 For the meaning of droit gouvernement, see Pierre Mesnard, ‘Jean Bodin a-t-il établie la théorie de la Monocratie?’, in La Monocratie, Recueils de la Societé Jean Bodin, XXI (Brussels, 1969), 637–55; George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory, third edition (London, 1963), 402; J. H. Burns, ‘Sovereignty and Constitutional Law in Bodin’, Political Studies, 7 (1959), 174–77 (177); Bernd Wimmer, ‘Anmerkungen’, in Jean Bodin, Sechs Bücher über den Staat, edited by Peter C. Meyer-Tasch, 2 vols (Munich, 1981), I, 576–77.49 République, I, chapter 1, 30.50 Pierre Mesnard, ‘Jean Bodin’, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 8 vols (London, 1967), I, 325–28 (326). See also Pierre Mesnard, L'essor de la philosophie politique au XVIe siècle, second edition (Paris, 1952), 480; Lewis, ‘Bodin's “Logic of Sovereignty”’, 217.51 De Republica, 13; République, I, chapter 4, 75–76; De Republica, 42.52 Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘The History of the Word Politicus’, in The Languages of Political Theory in the Early Modern Europe, edited by Anthony Pagden (Cambridge, 1990), 41–56 (45).53 République, I, chapter 6, 111; De Republica, 71.54 Franklin, Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory, 25.55 République, I, chapter 2, 39.56 Le Roy, Les Politiques, 19.57 Aristotle, Politics, 1253a18–a29.58 Le Roy, Les Politiques, 19.59 République, I, chapter 2, 39.60 De Republica, 12.61 République, I, chapter 2, 39; De Republica, 12–13.62 Ginevra Conti Odorisio, Famiglia e stato nella ‘Republique’ di Jean Bodin, second edition (Turin, 1999), 22 note 21.63 Odorisio, Famiglia e stato nella ‘Republique’ di Bodin, 22 note 21.64 Odorisio, Famiglia e stato nella ‘Republique’ di Bodin, 39.65 Odorisio, Famiglia e stato nella ‘Republique’ di Bodin, 18–19.66 Odorisio, Famiglia e stato nella ‘Republique’ di Bodin, 22 note 21.67 See for this Paolo Napoli, ‘“Police”: la conceptualisation d'un modèle juridico-politique sous l'ancien régime’, Droits, 20 (1994), 151–60 and 21 (1995), 183–96. Albert Rigaudière, ‘Les ordonnances de police en France à la fin du Moyen Age’, in Policey im Europa der frühen Neuzeit, edited by Michael Stolleis (Frankfurt, 1996), 97–161; Bernard Durand, ‘La notion de police en France du XVe au XVIIIe siecle’, in Policey in Europa, edited by Stolleis, 163–211; Andrea Iseli, ‘Bonne Police’: Frühneuzeitliches Verständnis von der guten Ordnung eines Staates in Frankreich (Epfendorf, 2003).68 Edmond Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle, 7 vols (Paris, 1925–1967), VI, 61–62.69 Le Roy, Les Politiques, 157.70 De Republica, 12.71 Bruni in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 302.72 See Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 69.73 Pierre de Belloy, De l'authorité du Roy, et crimes de Leze Majeste, qui se commettent par ligues, designation de successeur & libelles escrits contre la personne & dignité du Prince (Paris, 1587), 19v.74 République, I, chapter 2, 40–41; De Republica, 14.75 See also Christian Bruschi, ‘“Mesnage” et Republique’, in L'oeuvre de Jean Bodin. Actes du colloque tenu à Lyon à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de sa mort 1596 (Paris, 2004), 21–38 (26–30).76 République, I, chapter 2, 42; De Republica, 15.77 République, I, chapter 2, 40; De Republica, 13.78 République, I, chapter 2, 40; De Republica, 13.79 De Republica, 13.80 République, I, chapter 2, 39–40.81 Aristotle, Politics, 1259b5–6. To quote Leonardo Bruni's translation I have used the edited version in Albert the Great, Opera Omnia, edited by Augustus Borgnet, 38 vols (Paris, 1891), XIII, 70.82 République, I, chapter 3, 52.83 République, I, chapter 2, 40.84 De Republica, 14.85 République, I, chapter 3, 52; De Republica, 22–23.86 République, I, chapter 3, 52; De Republica, 22.87 République, I, chapter 3, 52; De Republica, 22.88 République, I, chapter 3, 52; De Republica, 22.89 République, I, chapter 3, 52; De Republica, 22.90 De Republica, 22.91 Le Roy, Le Politiques, 1. See also Le Roy, Le Politiques, 63–64.92 Aristotle, Politics, 1254a28–b2; Bruni in Magnus, Opera Omnia, XIII, 24.93 In order to render the Greek despotikos (the rule of the master over his slave) truthfully into Roman Latin, without using, as Moerbeke had done, the neologism despoticus, Bruni introduces a rare adjective from dominus: dominicus. Pier Vettori translated it as imperium erile. Le Roy uses ‘commandement seigneurial’. The translators tried to convey both the political and the private meaning of despotikos as both master of slaves and tyrant; see Bruni in Magnus, Opera Omnia, XIII, 24; William of Moerbeke, Liber primus politicorum, in Aristoteles, Ethica, Politica (Venice, 1473), 51r (Moerbeke's translation can also be found in Magnus, Opera Omnia, XIII, 24); Pietro Vettori, Commentarii in VIII libros Aristotelis de optimo statu civitatis (Florence, 1576), 24; Le Roy, Les Politiques, 29. Leonardo Bruni and his followers also translate the Greek despotikos for household ruler or household-manager into pater familias, thus transferring the Roman concept into the Greek text.94 Aristotle, Politics, 1254b2–6.95 Aristotle, Politics, 1259a37–40.96 Aristotle, Politics, 1259a40–b4. See also Malcolm Schofield, Saving the City: Philosopher Kings and Other Classical Paradigms (London, 1999), 130–31.97 See Bruni in Griffiths, ‘Moral Conduct’, in Humanism of Bruni, edited by Griffiths, Hankins and Thompson, 315.98 Rubinstein, ‘The History of the Word Politicus’, in Languages of Political Theory, edited by Pagden, 45.99 Acciaiuoli, Aristotelis libros octo Politicorum commentarii, 40r-v.100 Antonio Montecatini, In politica hoc est in civiles libros Aristotelis Antonii Montecatini ferrariensis progymnasmata (Ferrara, 1587), 441, 442.101 For medieval Aristotelian commentators on marriage, see Pavel Blažek, Die mittelalterliche Rezeption der aristotelischen Philosophie der Ehe. Von Robert Grosseteste bis Bartholomäus von Brügge (1246/1247–1309), (Leiden, 2007).102 See, for example, Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630 (Cambridge, 2004), 199.103 Johann P. Sommerville, ‘Introduction’, in Robert Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Writings, edited by Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge, 1991), xvi. See also Schochet, The Authoritarian Family, 31–36.104 Cesare Cuttica, ‘Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism: Robert Filmer and French Ideas (c. 1580–1630)’, Renaissance Studies, 25 (2011), 559–79 (564).105 See République, II, chapter 1.106 See République, II, chapters 1, 6, and 7.107 République, II, chapter 7, 121; De Republica, 375. République, II, chapter 2, 34; De Republica, 305. République, II, chapter 7, 122.108 Jean Bédé, Le droit de roys contre le cardinal Bellarmin & autre jésuites (Franckentahl, 1611), 3, quoted in Cuttica, ‘Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism’, 576.109 Filmer, Patriarcha, 16.110 Filmer, Patriarcha, 7.111 République, IV, chapter 1, 7; De Republica, 580 (where the reference to ‘consent’ is omitted).112 Sarah Hanley has also pointed out that early modern state-building centred around a ‘Marital Law Compact’ that empowered rulers as husbands, not fathers, and ‘encompassed both family and state units’; see Sarah Hanley, ‘The Monarchic State in Early Modern France: Marital Regime, Government and Male Right’, in Politics, Ideology, and the Law in Early Modern Europe, edited by Adrianna E. Bakos (Rochester, NY, 1994), 107–26, (112, footnote 14).113 République, I, chapter 4, 63; De Republica, 31.114 République, II, chapter 5, 80; De Republica, 342.115 See Cuttica, ‘Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism’, 569–71, 561.116 République, II, chapter 5, 80; De Republica, 342.117 Bodin, Six Bookes of a Commonweal, 225; République, II, chapter 5, 80; De Republica, 342.118 See Walter Euchner, ‘Eigentum und Herrschaft bei Bodin’, in Jean Bodin, edited by Denzer, 261–79 (266).119 Belloy, De l'authorité du Roy, 10v, quoted in Cuttica, ‘Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism’, 574; François Le Jay, De la dignité des rois et princes souverains (Tours, 1589), 25v, quoted in Cuttica, ‘Anti-Jesuit Patriotic Absolutism’, 575.