Bodin On Historical Attainment Of Jurisconsults

The 16 century is a time in which nation-states of western Europe tried to break away from the grand unification of Roman church and became truly independent monarchy states. Law and political thinkers of each country were arguing for their own state power. Jean Bodin, a law and political thinker, advocated jurisconsults to read history in his earlier work Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem. The reasons of this advocacy are: the declining authority of Roman law in law study and practice highlighted the need to reconstruct the legal system in regard to universal history; jurisconsults who will be legislators of the state and thus make for dominant force of the future ruling class, need to study history intensively, for in history the best part of universal law and legislation substratum lies hidden, the essense of drawing from history is to take nation but not common humanity as the new political identity; and the essence of history education is the inculcation of bygone rulers upon the future ones, as well as the cultivation of the virtue of prudence. Therefore, history reading is the necessary path to legal study, history is the indispensable attainment for jurisconsults. History study plays the grand role of being the mirror and reference for ruling a state. Knowing history intimately, understanding sovereignty and on whom it resides and its relationship with ruling a state, and developing the virtue of prudence, are the ultimate aims of training jurisconsults.Methodus, a guild to read history, teaches jurisconsults the methods and key points in reading histoy. There are three kinds of history, in which the one concerning human affairs should be the starting point; universal history is more significant for universal law than others, credible historians with practical experiences should be chozen; the credibility of history narration can be judged according to the nature of different nations, and rulers need to adopt matching form of state accoding to the nature of the nation; the issues of ruling a state, of changes within the state are the essence and greastest reward of history, as well as the most part of historical narration. These issues are doomed to involve the supreme power of the state, that is, the sovereignty and its contents, as well as its residing. The residing of sovereignty determines the form of a state. History of changes in states shows that the best form of state is monarchy, and the monarch should be hereditary. The theory of sovereignty revealed the order constitution and distribution of powers in a monarchy, laid the foundation for the legal construction of modern country. Meanwhile, the theory of sovereignty shows that a monarch only needs to obey the leges imperii which requires that he should make political decision above positive laws in state of national emergency.Methodus is Bodin‘s early work which touches upon a lot of subjects. It is a work on which Bodin‘s whole theoretical system was established, in principle it includes all the aspects of his ideology. Meanwhile the the contents and style of Methodus highlight Bodin‘s role as a classical political philosopher who favors to inquiry knowledge of the whole.