Editing Social contract (section)

===Renaissance developments===
[[Quentin Skinner]] has argued that several critical modern innovations in contract theory are found in the writings from French Calvinists and Huguenots, whose work in turn was invoked by writers in the [[Low Countries]] who objected to their subjection to Spain and, later still, by Catholics in England.<ref>Quentin Skinner, ''The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 2: The Age of the Reformation'' (Cambridge, 1978)</ref> [[Francisco Suárez]] (1548–1617), from the [[School of Salamanca]], might be considered an early theorist of the social contract, theorizing [[natural law]] in an attempt to limit the [[Divine Right of Kings|divine right]] of [[absolute monarchy]]. All of these groups were led to articulate notions of popular [[sovereignty]] by means of a social covenant or contract, and all of these arguments began with proto-"state of nature" arguments, to the effect that the basis of politics is that everyone is by nature free of subjection to any government.

These arguments, however, relied on a corporatist theory found in Roman law, according to which "a populus" can exist as a distinct legal entity. Thus, these arguments held that a group of people can join a government because it has the capacity to exercise a single will and make decisions with a single voice in the absence of sovereign authority—a notion rejected by Hobbes and later contract theorists.