The King's Two Bodies

Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895–1963) taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Conrad Leyser is associate professor of medieval history at Worcester College, University of Oxford. He is the author of Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great. William Chester Jordan is professor of history at Princeton University. He is the author of From England to France: Felony and Exile in the High Middle Ages (Princeton).
Originally published in 1957, this classic work has guided generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. Throughout history, the notion of two bodies has permitted the postmortem continuity of monarch and monarchy, as epitomized by the statement, "The king is dead. Long live the king." In The King's Two Bodies, Ernst Kantorowicz traces the historical dilemma posed by the "King's two bodies"-the body natural and the body politic-back to the Middle Ages.

The king's natural body has physical attributes, suffers, and dies, as do all humans; however the king's spiritual body transcends the earth and serves as a symbol of his office as majesty with the divine right to rule. Bringing together liturgical works, images, and polemical material, Kantorowicz demonstrates how early modern Western monarchies gradually began to develop a political theology. Featuring a new introduction and preface, The King's Two Bodies is a subtle history of how commonwealths developed symbolic means for establishing their sovereignty and, with such means, began to establish early forms of the nation-state. "There is one book that says it all. An old book, nearly a classic. . . . This book, published in 1957, is titled The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology."---Bernard-Henri Levy, New Republic "Kantorowicz has written a great book, perhaps the most important work in the history of medieval political thought, surely the most spectacular, of the past several generations. Here, in superbly designed chapters based upon the best scholarship in every field even remotely concerned with the Middle Ages, is the development of the theory and symbolism of the early national states from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries."---P. N. Riesenberg, American Political Science Review "A monumental work of superb scholarship and profound learning, magnificently produced. . . . Few, if any, contributions to the study of medieval thought comparable to this depth and width have been made for many years."---B. Chrimes, Law Quarterly Review