How did the Reformation encourage political thinkers to search for a new basis for authority?

The Reformation fundamentally disrupted the traditional basis of divinely sanctioned authority in Europe, as the Holy Roman Empire fractured and religious unity collapsed. With the established order torn apart by conflict, political thinkers faced an urgent need to identify a new foundation for stability, loyalty, and obedience.1

In their search for this new basis, theorists—particularly Protestants—looked to the biblical concept of a covenant, drawing inspiration from the Old Testament agreements between God and the Israelites. This religious model was adapted into a secular framework: instead of God choosing a people, the people were now viewed as choosing their governors or mode of governance through a social contract.1

By framing the political unit as being established through a promise or compact, philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke shifted the source of legitimacy from divine right to the consent of the governed, effectively making individual members of society the co-authors of the laws they obeyed.1