Hobbes and the english civil war

Bodin lived during the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and wrote against the background of religious conflict in France. He seemed to be a nominal Catholic throughout his life but was critical of papal authority over governments and there was evidence he may have converted to Protestantism during his time in Geneva.

Towards the end of his life he wrote a dialogue among different religions, including representatives of Judaism, Islam and natural theology in which all agreed to coexist in concord, but was not published. He was also an influential writer on demonology , [ 4 ] as his later years were spent during the peak of the early modern witch trials.

Jean Bodin was successively a friar, academic, professional lawyer, and political adviser. An excursion as a politician having proved a failure, he lived out his life as a provincial magistrate.

Sovereign meaning in law

Bodin was born near Angers , possibly the son of a master tailor, [ citation needed ] into a modestly prosperous middle-class background. He received a decent education, apparently in the Carmelite monastery of Angers, where he became a novice friar. Some claims made about his early life remain obscure. There is some evidence of a visit to Geneva in —48 in which he became involved in a heresy trial.

The records of this episode, however, are murky and may refer to another person.

Lockean liberalism

Bodin obtained release from his vows in and went to Paris. Later, in the s, he studied Roman law at the University of Toulouse , under Arnaud du Ferrier , and taught there. His special subject at that time seems to have been comparative jurisprudence. Subsequently, he worked on a Latin translation of Oppian of Apamea , under the continuing patronage of Gabriel Bouvery , Bishop of Angers.

Bodin had a plan for a school on humanist principles in Toulouse, but failed to raise local support. He left in