ABSTRACT
Jean Bodin was a lawyer, economist, historian and one of the principal political theorists of sixteenth-century France. Writing at a time when France was torn by civil war, Bodin wrote The Six Books of the Commonwealth (originally published in French as Les Six livres de la République) in 1576 and it remains his best known work. In this work, Bodin developed a definition of sovereignty that clearly distinguished forms of State from forms of Government. In the following excerpt, Bodin explores the origins of corporate associations, guilds, estates, and communities together. For Bodin such corporate bodies of humans constituted a civil community in contrast to the natural community that was the family. Yet, Bodin emphasizes the importance of the “sacred flame” of “mutual affection” that is an extension of the mutual affection found in the natural community of the family and essential to resolving disputes and forging a collective identity.
