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Author | Ernst Kantorowicz |
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Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Media type | |
Pages | 616 pp. |
ISBN | 978-0691017044 |
The King's Two Bodies (subtitled, A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology) is a 1957 historical book by Ernst Kantorowicz. It concerns medieval political theology and the distinctions separating the "body natural" (a monarch's corporeal being) and the "body politic". [1]
The book has had significant influence on the field of medieval studies, even as its methods and style of argumentation are viewed with wariness by contemporary scholars. [2] It is the recipient of the Haskins medal from the Medieval Academy of America. [3]
Stephen Greenblatt has said that the book is a "remarkably vital, generous, and generative work," [2] while the historian Morimichi Watanabe called it a "monumental classic." [3] Others have called it "an unnoticed volume on the shelves" that remains important and influential in disciplines including art history. [4] It is also said to have more admirers than readers. [5] Horst Bredekamp, an art historian, has referred to the book as a "continuous success". [4] It has been kept in print since 1957 by Princeton University Press and has been translated into Romanian, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. [4]
Scholarly technique in the book includes use of art, philosophy, religion, law, numismatics, and archaeology.
The King's Two Bodies is described by historian Paul Monod as "boldly conceived, meticulously researched, and beautifully written." It attempts to show how a monarchical state developed out of Christian religious beliefs, specifically as articulated in mid-Tudor England. At that time, English legal doctrine saw the physical body of the ruler as joined to a "perfect, immutable and eternal body of the whole polity." Kantorowicz then argues that this is a culmination of Catholic teachings about the body of Christ. [6]
The book is structured around an exploration of the numerous devices and technologies medieval theologians and lawyers developed to "defeat death" and "extend bodily existence far beyond carnal boundaries". [2]
Kantorowicz's magnum opus does not follow a linear or chronological structure. Some scholars have said it is "free-minded and unsystematic ... as though a happy society of fairies and spiders had come together to weave a learned web". [7] It begins with an introduction to the theme of the King's "two bodies" as found in the reports of Edmund Plowden, an Elizabethan jurist. It then revisits the appearance of the same ideas as developed by William Shakespeare in Richard II . The problem and its horizon of enquiry is thus established for the reader: what makes the "juridical fiction" of the symbolic body of the king possible? [8]
The author's excavation of these threads was not without controversy. Among Edmund Plowden's Reports, for instance, was a dispute over whether or not King Edward VI held the duchy of Lancaster as private property, or whether it belonged to the crown. The lawyers argued the latter:
the king has in him two Bodies, viz., a Body natural, and a Body politic. His Body natural (if it be considered in itself) is a Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident, to the Imbecility of Infancy or old Age … But his Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People, and the management of the public weal, and this Body is utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, and other natural Defects and Imbecilities, which the Body natural is subject to, and for this Cause, what the King does in his Body politic, cannot be invalidated or frustrated by any Disability in his natural Body. [9]
Whereas the medievalist F. W. Maitland saw "metaphysical nonsense" in remarks such as this, Kantorowicz perceived "a mystical fiction with theological roots, unconsciously transferred by Tudor jurists to the myth of the State". [10] [11]
The remainder of the text — the argument proper — then turns to "Christ-centered Kingship", "Law-centered Kingship" and "Polity-centered Kingship". These are a rough taxonomy of the multiple manifestations of mystical and corporeal kingship, which Kantorowicz tracks throughout history in a variety of cultures. The final three sections address respectively continuity and corporations (drawing on F. W. Maitland's analysis of "The Crown as Corporation"), [12] the immortality of the king (as transcendental, not physical, body) and "Man-centered kingship", which contains a close discussion of the work of Dante Alighieri.
A primary reason[ citation needed ] for a revival of interest in Kantorowicz's work in the post-WWII era was the use of the work by Michel Foucault in his classic Discipline and Punish , where he drew a parallel between the duality of the king and the body of a man condemned. [13] Reworkings of (and homages to) Kantorowicz's title have included The Queen's Two Bodies, [14] The Pope's Body, [15] The King's Two Maps, [16] the People's Two Bodies, [17] the King's Other Body, [18] and more. [10]
One of the more notable[ citation needed ] controversies involving Kantorowicz's legacy was Norman Cantor's claim that Kantorowicz was one of two "Nazi twins" (the other being Percy Ernst Schramm) due to the popular reception of his book on Frederick II among members of the Nazi party. Cantor's arguments,[ example needed ] however, were later regarded as a twisting of facts and a "massive libel." [19]
The Athanasian Creed — also called the Pseudo-Athanasian Creed or Quicunque Vult, which is both its Latin name and its opening words, meaning "Whosoever wishes" — is a Christian statement of belief focused on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. Used by Christian churches since the early sixth century, it was the first creed to explicitly state the equality of the three hypostases of the Trinity. It differs from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Apostles' Creed in that it includes anathemas condemning those who disagree with its statements.
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term Darwinism in April 1860.
The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, commonly called Richard II, is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written around 1595. Based on the life of King Richard II of England, it chronicles his downfall and the machinations of his nobles. It is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays about Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V.
Public law is the part of law that governs relations and affairs between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that are of direct concern to society. Public law comprises constitutional law, administrative law, tax law and criminal law, as well as all procedural law. Laws concerning relationships between individuals belong to private law.
Nicole Oresme, also known as Nicolas Oresme, Nicholas Oresme, or Nicolas d'Oresme, was a French philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology, astronomy, philosophy, and theology; was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and one of the most original thinkers of 14th-century Europe.
An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain traditions around New Year, Carnival and Easter. In European cultures, effigies were used in the past for punishment in formal justice when the perpetrator could not be apprehended, and in popular justice practices of social shaming and exclusion. Additionally, "effigy" is used for certain traditional forms of sculpture, namely tomb effigies, funeral effigies and coin effigies.
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic trait or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is maintained and has evolved through natural selection.
Sir Edmund Plowden was a distinguished English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period.
Biopower, coined by French social theorist Michel Foucault, refers to various means by which modern nation states control their populations. In Foucault's work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms often linked less directly with literal physical health. Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collège de France, and the term first appeared in print in The Will to Knowledge, Foucault's first volume of The History of Sexuality. It is closely related to a term he uses much less frequently, but which subsequent thinkers have taken up independently, biopolitics, which aligns more closely with the examination of the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed under regimes of authority over knowledge, power, and the processes of subjectivation.
Hugh of Saint-Cher, O.P. was a French Dominican friar who became a cardinal and noted biblical commentator.
Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz was a German historian of medieval political and intellectual history and art, known for his 1927 book Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and The King's Two Bodies (1957) on medieval and early modern ideologies of monarchy and the state. He was an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ernst Robert Curtius was a German literary scholar, philologist, and Romance languages literary critic, best known for his 1948 study Europäische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter, translated in English as European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.
In art history, a speech scroll is an illustrative device denoting speech, song, or other types of sound.
The doctrine of capacities is a concept in political theory of medieval England which asserts a distinction between the person of the King and the institution of the Crown. The roots of this political theory can be traced back to the years shortly after the Norman Conquest. Here the distinction was made between the ecclesiastics in their temporal and spiritual capacities. When William the Conqueror brought a case against his brother Odo of Bayeux, Odo defended himself by claiming that as a bishop he could not be prosecuted by lay authorities. William replied that he was not being prosecuted in his capacity as bishop, but in his temporal capacity as Earl of Kent. In the reign of Edward I, the principle was applied to the chancellor, to distinguish between his official capacities. Even more significantly, Edward I himself tied the doctrine to the institution of the monarchy, when he tried to revoke a grant he had made as prince after he became king, claiming that he was to be considered a different person then.
The Haskins Medal is an annual medal awarded by the Medieval Academy of America. It is awarded for the production of a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies.
The body politic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed as the body's head, and the analogy may also be extended to other anatomical parts, as in political readings of Aesop's fable of "The Belly and the Members". The image originates in ancient Greek philosophy, beginning in the 6th century BC, and was later extended in Roman philosophy. Following the high and late medieval revival of the Byzantine Corpus Juris Civilis in Latin Europe, the "body politic" took on a jurisprudential significance by being identified with the legal theory of the corporation, gaining salience in political thought from the 13th century on. In English law the image of the body politic developed into the theory of the king's two bodies and the Crown as corporation sole.
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Medieval aesthetics refers to the general philosophy of beauty during the Medieval period. Although Aesthetics did not exist as a field of study during the Middle Ages, influential thinkers active during the period did discuss the nature of beauty and thus an understanding of medieval aesthetics can be obtained from their writings.
Frederick the Second is a biography of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, by the German-Jewish historian Ernst Kantorowicz. Originally published in German as Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite in 1927, it was "one of the most discussed history books in Weimar Germany", and has remained highly influential in the reception of Frederick II. The book depicts Frederick as a heroic personality, a messianic ruler who was "beseeltes Gesetz", the law given soul, but also a charismatic and calculating autocrat—"probably the most intolerant emperor that ever the West begot".
Marie Axton (1937–2014), birth name Marie Horine, was an American scholar of Elizabethan drama, who made her academic career in the United Kingdom. She married Richard Axton of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1962. In 1979 she became the first woman appointed a junior proctor by the University of Cambridge.
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