Office Is a Thing Borrowed

Jean Bodin on Offices and Seigneurial Government

Bibliographic Data

ID6350788
AuthorsDaniel Lee (0000-0003-0789-058X, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume41
Issue3
Pages409-440
Publication date2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591713476050
OpenAlexW2170826547
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Jean Bodin’s analysis in Six Livres de la République is often understood as evidence of his alleged political absolutism. This article examines Bodin’s theory of offices to argue that this is a misguided view of Bodin’s political thought. I begin by revisiting Bodin’s distinction between the “sovereignty” and the “government” of the state. It is in the analysis of the latter that Bodin constructs a normative doctrine warning of the dangers of “ seigneurial” rule. As I show, Bodin’s purpose was to reject seigneurial rule by contrasting it with lawful rule, the mode of government in which public power was discharged according to law and custom, not by seigneurial will. Essential to Bodin’s analysis was a concept of public office that envisioned the officer as an independent intermediary “borrowing” public powers, not from higher magistrates or from the prince (as medieval lawyers traditionally argued), but only from the impersonal state

Absolute monarchy · Doctrine · Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Normative · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Medieval and Early Modern Justice · Philosophy

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