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The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton Classics)

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Description

Originally published in 1957, this classic work has guided generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. All over history, the notion of two bodies has permitted the post mortem continuity of monarch and monarchy, as epitomized by the commentary, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” In The King’s Two Bodies, Ernst Kantorowicz traces the historical problem posed by the “King’s two bodies”–the body natural and the body politic–back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates, by placing the concept that in its proper setting of medieval thought and political theory, how the early-modern Western monarchies steadily began to develop a “political theology.?

The king’s natural body has physical attributes, suffers, and dies, naturally, as do all humans; but the king’s other body, the spiritual body, transcends the earthly and serves as a symbol of his office as majesty with the divine right to rule. The notion of the two bodies allowed for the continuity of monarchy even when the monarch died, as summed up in the formulation “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

Bringing together liturgical works, images, and polemical material, The King’s Two Bodies explores the long Christian past in the back of this “political theology.” It provides 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.

Kantorowicz fled Nazi Germany in 1938, after refusing to sign a Nazi loyalty oath, and settled in the USA. Whilst teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, he once again refused to sign an oath of allegiance, this one designed to identify Communist Party sympathizers. He used to be dismissed on account of the controversy and moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he remained for the remainder of his life, and where he wrote The King’s Two Bodies.

Featuring a new introduction, 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.

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