I have three main aims in this book. The first is simply to offer an outline account of the principal texts of late medieval and early modern political thought. I discuss in turn the chief political writings of Dante, Marsiglio of Padua, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Erasmus and More, Luther, Calvin and their disciples, Vitoria and Suárez, and the French constitutionalist theorists, including Beza, Hotman, Mornay and especially Bodin. No such survey of the transition from medieval to modern political theory has I think been attempted since the publication of Professor Pierre Mesnard's L'essor de la philosophie politique au XVIe siècle. Professor Mesnard's study is of course a classic one, and I cannot hope to emulate either his range or the depth of his scholarship. However, it is more than forty years since his book first appeared, and a number of major advances in the subject have been made since that time. Many new editions have been produced, often embodying important scholarly discoveries. And a large secondary literature has grown up, adding a great deal of new information, as well as challenging many received opinions about the leading texts. For these reasons it has seemed worthwhile to try to furnish a more up-to-date survey of the same period, taking account as far as possible of the more significant findings of recent research.

My second aim has been to use the texts of late medieval and early modern political theory in order to illuminate a more general historical theme.