Jean Bodin

The present study is concerned with aspects of the complex forming of modern European states in the works of the Lutheran jurist Dietrich Reinking. Reinking is well-known for his loyalty to the German emperor in the so-called Reichspublizistik (the new science of German imperial constitutional law). However, only few scholars have further elaborated on his late work "Biblische Policey" (1653), which is at the centre of this article about Reinking’s state theory. As a so-called politica Christiana (Gute-Policey literature), the "Biblische Policey" reveals as the basic theological framework an enriched lore of the Lutheran three-estate theory. Reinking refers not only directly to Luther’s Lectures on Genesis, but also, for instance, to the shaping of later orthodox Lutheran theologians (as a principle of church constitution). And yet the difference to contemporary theological works is most obvious, as Reinking did not show much interest in denominational positioning, but was rather concerned with the fundamental controversy of the reason of state (Staatsraison). Since, overall, one can determine tensions and progress in the gradual integration of the theory of reason of state (anti-Machiavellism, neo-Stoicism respectively Tacitism) as well as in his construction of a “biblical state” (the relation of the empire to the territorial state, and the three estates to monarchy; differentiation of the state and society; separation of church and state competences), it is plausible to consider Reinking a paradigm for emergent processes and trends of modern stateformation. Ultimately, the question of the relevance of religious, denominational, and explicitly biblical orientations and models is raised again.

Chapter 5 of the Methodus and chapter V.1 of the République are traditionally identified as the main loci of Bodin’s reasoning on the environmental and spatial components of human life. However, perceptive remarks on the interplay between geography and power, place and community, territory and population, are more widely dispersed throughout his works. In this paper, I shall focus on Bodin’s view of the relationship between territory and population, first by examining his idea of what an ‘ideal’ territory and an ‘ideal’ population should look like, and secondly by analysing his populationist stance on the optimal balance between territorial extension, economic development, and demographic weight. I shall seek to show how Bodin builds on, and at the same time distances himself from, a longstanding tradition of politico-philosophical reflexion on such matters (from Plato to Machiavelli), and how by doing so he sets the terms of further research on these topics by later authors such as the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Botero (author of the Reason of State, the Universal Relations and the Causes of the Greatness and Magnificence of Cities) and the seventeenth-century English demographers. By delving deeper into such aspects of Bodin’s political geography, I hope to situate Bodin’s concern with space and territory at the very heart of his idea of sovereign power.

"In 1603, Dutch Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk plundered a Portuguese merchantman, the Santa Catarina, travelling from Macao to Melaka. The sale of the cargo at a public auction made traders across Northern Europe aware of the riches to be reaped from Asian trade. However, the episode raised legal questions and the United Dutch East India Company (VOC) commissioned the young Hugo Grotius to defend Heemskerk's actions. Grotius produced two classic legal texts, The Law of Price and Booty and its spin-off, The Free Sea, among the greatest works in the history of international legal and political thought. His observations dealt with free trade in the East Indies, the Dutch Republic's military conflict with the Portuguese and Spanish in Asia, and the legal and moral grounds for attacking and plundering Portuguese and Spanish mercantile shipping.

This book considers the background to the treaties then content and significances, and what Grotius actually knew about Southeast Asian politics and Portuguese institutions of trade and diplomacy when he wrote them.

Grotius' work on the freedom of the sea was a cornerstone in his enduring reputation as one of the founders of modern international law. The present book provides a valuable resource for historians of Southeast Asia and for students of international relations, political theory, maritime history and public law.
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My paper seeks to explore a few early modern antecedents of the idea that sovereignty may be encumbered with some obligations and duties vis-à-vis non-sovereigns and even strangers.  The early modern writers who thought about sovereignty and the law of nations in the context of a world of religious and civil strife and emerging sovereign states approached the concept of sovereignty both from a domestic as well as an international point of view.  While legal thinkers such as Jean Bodin (1530-1596) grappled with the concepts needed to analyze sovereignty and the state in a universal way apt to transcend historical contingencies, natural lawyers such as Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) developed ideas about rights and duties of actors in a state of nature.  Theories about limitations on sovereignty and obligations on the part of sovereigns, however weak, toward strangers and non-sovereign individuals often arose out of the fertile conceptual ground of Roman private law, in particular rules from property law governing usufruct and servitudes, rules from the law of succession and rules from contract law.  These early modern thinkers, especially Grotius, were also among the first to formulate the distinction, which has wide currency today, between “perfect” duties of justice and “imperfect” duties of beneficence.  While we have come to assume that the “perfect” duties of justice are primarily domestic whereas at least some “imperfect” duties of beneficence are in principle global, an examination of Grotius’ views shows that his distinction does not map neatly onto the differentiation between domestic and global.

"This paper argues that there is no such thing as knowledge for its own sake. Since knowledge is currently the dominant economic resource it is important for the specialist to broaden his mind in order to develop within himself the humanistic attitude that will enable him to use his knowledge for good rather than for evil purposes.
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