Jean Bodin (1530–1596)
Law and politics
Bodin became well known for his analysis of sovereignty, which he took to be indivisible, and to involve full legislative powers (though with qualifications and caveats). With François Hotman (1524-1590) and François Baudouin (1520-1573), on the other hand, Bodin also supported the force of customary law, seeing Roman law alone as inadequate.
He hedged the absolutist nature of his theory of sovereignty, which was an analytical concept; if later his ideas were used in a different, normative fashion, that was not overtly the reason in Bodin. Sovereignty could be looked at as a “bundle of attributes”; in that light the legislative role took centre stage, and other "marks of sovereignty" could be discussed further, as separate issues. He was a politique in theory, which was the moderate position of the period in French politics; but drew the conclusion that only passive resistance to authority was justified