Le magistrature in Bodin

This essay is based on a deepened analysis of the main political works of Jean Bodin and is a part of a collective investigation concerning the different patterns of “republican” magistracy and their evaluation in the history of western political thought. As the other scientific contributions collected in the monographic issue 2007-2 of the review “Il pensiero politico” (entitled Magistrature repubblicane. Modelli nella storia del pensiero politico), it was first presented as a paper during a Congress on the same subject (Perugia and Gubbio, autumn 2006) and was subsequently duly revised and increased in view of its publication. Its main attention concentrates on the pages of Bodin’s Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem and République, in which the author, starting from his general conception of the magistrate’s power and duties and of their relationship to the summum imperium of the sovereign, to the subordinate public officers (lacking in imperium publicum), and to the simple subjects or cives, aimed to demonstrate the “scientific” worth of his original theory of the gubernatio: indeed, having recourse to an historical comparative method, he proved the rightness of his original distinction between State and government with reference to the political and institutional system of the most outstanding States in the world history, including Monarchies, and popular or aristocratic Republics. This effort is particularly evident in Methodus, where Bodin pointed out and put in comparison several historical political patterns, describing in detail the original characters and the evolution of their institutions and of their administrative and judicial organization, i.e. the proper field of the magistrate’s imperium legitimum and of its main functions: the legis actio and the judicis officium. From this point of view, Bodin did not make any difference between Monarchies and Republics and he did not hide, for instance, his admiration of the Roman republic’s equilibrated governmental system, or his great interest in the political institutions of other famous Republics. He was especially anxious to prove that, as well as in the Monarchies, in all “popular” States, and particularly in Rome, where its authority was very high, the Senate hadn’t had or still had not at the time, any share nor of the sovereignty, nor of the magistrate’s imperium legitimum: it was a consultative organism, indeed, accomplishing the political function of the consilium, which was and should remain quite distinct from the sovereign’s summum imperium and from the magistrate’s executio. In this way Bodin confuted the theory of the “mixed” State, tough he considered –at least ideally- the magistrate’s subordinate and “moderate” power being a factual moral moderating restraint to the sovereign’s power. Nevertheless, Bodin pointed out that his analysis of the republican magistracy was mainly based on the right institutional patterns as established by the constitutional rules of each republic considered by him, apart consequently from their real political and administrative praxis, which had been or still was very often corrupted and abusive. That’s why, with increased vehemence in République, he sharply criticized all kind of popular State, where inefficiency and corruption easily affected the magistrates and the public administration. Consequently, also from this point of view, Bodin could affirm the excellence of the monarchical regime. In this way, his “scientific” analysis of the republican magistracy, especially in the République, led directly to his peculiar monarchical ideology, based on an ideal of self-moderating absolute power of the Kings and on a program of social pluralism as regards the subject’s participation to the working of the governmental machine.