In the 16th century, the word commonwealth referred generally to the body politic (in the sense of the Latin res publica) as the entity of political and social order, but also the common good (“common weal”) that was associated with that entity. The concept it founded was not anti-monarchical, but it did constitute an addition to the definition of England as a “realm” or “kingdom,” i.e. the dominion of a monarch. Around the mid-16th century, “commonwealth” became a key concept for proponents of a Humanism that was often Christian in inspiration, that concerned itself with …