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Limit on taxing power and the right to tyrannicide — Juan de Mariana

1599 AD · Transmission: Global
LawLegalHispanic

Jesuit Juan de Mariana publishes in Toledo in 1599 De rege et regis institutione, dedicated to Philip III. He argues the king is not owner of his subjects' goods and cannot impose new taxes without the people's consent, given through the Cortes; from this he draws an extreme conclusion: if the ruler becomes a tyrant with no legal means of removal, a private individual may be justified in killing him. The work became notorious after Henry IV of France's assassination in 1610; the Paris Parlement ordered its public burning. A decade earlier, in his De monetae mutatione (1609), Mariana denounced currency devaluation as disguised taxation without consent, a publication that cost him an Inquisition trial and imprisonment.

InstitutionSociety of Jesus
Historical regionCrown of Castile
Primary sourceJuan de Mariana, De rege et regis institutione libri tres (Toledo, 1599); Tractatus septem, including De monetae mutatione (Cologne, 1609)
Secondary sourceEncyclopedia.com; Harald E. Braun; Alexandra Merle
Original languageLatin
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