Overcoming the Feudal Society
Jean Bodin and Jaques Bossuet attack the very foundation of a Feudal society by defining and advocating legitimate political authority as power granted solely to a king, making all other nobility subservient or powerless. Wiesner states that for Jean Bodin "there was nothing divine about governing power. Men created governments solely to ensure their physical and material security... the ruling power had to exercise a sovereignty"(42). Wiesner believes Bodin placed limits on this sovereignty due to natural law and the need to respect property and the family (42). In The Six Books of the Republic, Bodin states that "the first principal of sovereignty is to give laws to the citizens" without these laws being accepted by superiors, equals, or inferiors (46). If the consent of superiors, equals, or inferiors is needed, the authority is shared. In other words. Sovereign power does not exist. Weisner explains that Jaques Bossuet expressed what has been called "the divine right theory of kingship: that is, th
This monarchy had to give the king tangible power and allow him to be placed in a sovereign setting that would never permit the country to forget this new power. During the sixteenth century, nobles had possession of military power, which they used in religious wars and to revolt against growing royal power. By means of scripture, a person sees that monarchial government comes from God. Religious minority also posed as a major concern. God chose a hereditary monarchy, excluding women from the sovereign power (47). These cultural differences could be as simple as local customs or as complex as a system of civil law (39). Royal authority towered as the only principal that could overcome all these centrifugal differences. Not only did they renounce the Catholic religion of the King and a majority of his subjects, but they possessed military power to fortify their cities under the Edict of Nates (39). Bossuet states that even the prophets revered the kings and looked upon them as associated with the sovereign empire of God, whose authority the kings exercise on earth. Wiesner further states that Bossuet "backed his political theories with scriptural authority" (43). Nobles everywhere still held considerable power as part of the system of feudal monarchy. Many providences had their own cultural differences that separated them from the centralized government in Paris. Nobles also held a considerable amount of political power, which gave form to their claims for voice in government. e king was God's deputy on earth, and to oppose him was to oppose divine law" (42).
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Acceptance Essays
