Habsbourg governance. The origins of Monarchy and Political Prudence in Juan de Mariana’s De rege

Abstract

In De rege et regis institutione libre tres (1599), the Jesuit Juan de Mariana (1536-1624) offers a comprehensive analysis of European monarchical government. Mariana examines and refutes contemporary ideas of monarchical absolutism together with the legalistic cultures from which they arose. Mariana weighs doctrines from scholastic natural law theory and Roman law against historical experience and conceives a language of political prudence or Catholic reason of state that puts the pursuit of political consensus over conflict and the unrestrained exercise of royal power. De rege offers a political understanding that respects the plurality of political cultures within the Spanish Habsburg monarchy and a political language that reflects the reality of governing an early modern poly–centric body politic.

Keywords

• Juan de Mariana
• Spanish political thought (16-17 centuries)
• Habsburg government
• political prudence
• sovereignty
• theory of monarchy