MONARCHOMACHS. - With this term (from μοναρχία and μάχημαι: those who fight monarchy), are designated those political writers, mostly non-Catholic, who, between 1550 and 1620, outlined a first theory of popular sovereignty, founding it on the original pact entered into between the people and the king (in contrast with its divine origin and, often, with the divine origin of all authority) which limited the powers of the sovereign. The term was used for the first time by W. Barclay in his work De Regno et regali potestate (Paris 1600).
If in medieval theories one finds hints of a certain popular sovereignty and of the right of resistance, in the monarchomachs, on the other hand (ordinarily linked to philosophical principles altogether different, individualistic and rationalistic), popular sovereignty and the right of resistance are the fundamental themes around which the whole political organization is constructed. Granted that the dignity of the human person does not tolerate being subjected except to laws coined by itself; that human reason is autonomous, and therefore authority too cannot belong directly to one alone but to the multitude: between the king and the subjects stands the fundamental right of the State, the pact, the original covenant. The king will no longer be directly of divine origin and often, for many writers, not even indirectly; but he will be, in accordance with the constitution, a simple magistrate or delegate of the people, who can always call him back to respect for the sworn pacts. The right of active resistance is the legitimate guarantee of the people for the observance of the original pact: to renounce such a right means to consent to the establishment of a tyrannical regime. The monarchomachs were strenuous assertors of tyrannicide (v. TYRANNY AND TYRANNICIDE).
The first writer who presents a clear formulation of monarchomach themes is M. Salomonio degli Alberteschi, professor of law at the University of Rome, who composed, around 1516, dedicating it to Leo X, a small work De Principatus (Rome 1544), where he maintains that the power of the prince is limited by the fundamental laws of the State, which he is bound to respect quoad vim coactivam. The prince is pars civitatis, therefore not the source of the order that brings civil society into being, but bound to that same society of which he is a part and from which his power derives (De Principatus, I, Paris 1578, p. 25). The lex regia de potestate, with which the Roman people granted the prince the summa potestas, does not represent an irrevocable alienation of the latter, but a simple concession, determined by historical exigencies and bound to precise conditions. From 1550 is an anonymous little treatise: De iure magistratum in subditus et officio subditorum erga magistratus, where the themes that would be treated by the subsequent monarchomach literature are more fully clarified. In it there is discussion of whether magistrates must render account to the citizens for the laws they sanction; the relations between the doctrines favoring tyrannicide and religion are studied, and, above all, whether conventions and pacts between citizens and magistrates may be admitted on the juridical plane. But the work that aroused the liveliest polemics is the De iure regni apud Scotos (1579) of G. Buchanan (1506-82), humanist writer and Scottish historian. According to Buchanan the king derives his authority from the pact entered into between him and the people (De iure etc.; par. 58, Lyon 1725, p. 86), and should he contravene the agreed conventions he must be considered a tyrant and, as such, must be banished from society. In this writer, as in the anonymous author of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579), which is usually attributed to the Huguenot Du Plessis Mornay (1549-1623), one notes by now the decided tendency, manifest in the monarchomachs still inspired by Christian principles, to place as the foundation of political inquiry, no longer, as had been the case for medieval writers, the passages of the Digest, but the most important episodes, from the political point of view, of the Old Testament. The monarchomachs could thus bring in support of their theories the pact entered into between God and the people of Israel and the commitment assumed by the latter to maintain it, and to make it respected also by the king, who was to be replaced, should he have failed in the sworn faith (Vindiciae, Lyon 1643, p. 227).
F. Hotman, French jurist (1524-90), author of the Francogallia (1573), in order to demonstrate his fundamental thesis, popular sovereignty, relies on a study of a historical-institutional character. The study of the French monarchy, he says, demonstrates that it belonged to the people to confer the supreme royal dignity; to the Estates General, which the king must consider as the expression of the popular will, therefore belong the decisions on public affairs, the election or deposition of the king, the judgment of princes accused of treason, the granting of appanages to the members of the crown. The decisions of the king have value solely within the ambit of the law, sanctioned by the assemblies of the representatives of all citizens (op. cit., ch. 25, Frankfurt 1665, p. 283).
One usually numbers among the monarchomachs also John Mariana (v.) (1537-1624), Spanish Jesuit, author of the De Rege et regis institutione (Toledo 1598). It cannot be denied that some monarchomach principles are shared by him, but in him the sense of the derivation of authority from God is still alive, albeit through the popular designation of the person of the sovereign. On the other hand it cannot be denied either that he was among the few to depart from traditional Catholic thought with the legitimization of tyrannicide.
It will be necessary to recall moreover among the monarchomachs of lesser importance: John Poynet (1516-56) with his treatise: A short treatise of politique power and of the true obedience which subjects owe to Kings and other civile governors (1556); John Boucher (1548-1644) with the De iusta Henrici III abdicatione e Francorum regno (Paris 1584); William Rose (1542-1602) with the De iusta reipublicae christianae in reges impios et haereticos authoritate (ibid. 1590); Lambert Daneau (1530-1595), with the Politicae christianae libri VII (Geneva 1596).
The most complete treatment of monarchomach theories, and the resolution of the new problems inherent in them, is owed to the German jurist Jo. Althusius, author of the Politica methodice digesta (Herborn 1614). The right of resistance recognized to the people, if it could have the meaning of a political value to be proposed for the attainment of determined ideals, could certainly not be recognized as one of the constitutive principles of the state organization, without this degenerating into the most complete anarchy. It was necessary to transform the right of resistance into a juridical institution, which would permit its full application, without incurring the total destruction of the State. Althusius, having recognized sovereignty in the people, a concept framed in rigorous juridical schemas by J. Bodin with his work Les six livres de la république (Paris 1576), admits in the constitution illustrated by him two powers: the ephors and the summus magistratus. The former, by commission of the people, exercise the rights of the latter in the face of the governors; to the second, elected in the name of the people by the ephors, is entrusted the administration of the rights of the community. The summus magistratus, who in his activity of government must always have the common good in view, will prove revocable on the part of the ephors, as soon as he has violated the pacts sworn at the act of election: the jus resistentiae et exautorationis, since it belongs to the people as a collectivity, must be exercised solely by the ephors, in the forms and for the reasons sanctioned by the constitutional law of the State.
The contribution of the Monarchomach writers to political thought was therefore considerable; to them is owed the enunciation of all those principles (social contract, popular sovereignty, exercise of popular sovereignty) that would contribute, albeit with all the errors and judgments attached to them, to the establishment of the democratic parliamentary State, just as earlier they had contributed to the undermining of absolute monarchies and to the French Revolution.