The King's Two Bodies

"Professor 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 "Professor Ernst Kantorowicz has in this volume given us a monumental work of superb scholarship and profound learning, magnificently produced by Princeton University Press. Few, if any, contributions to the study of medieval thought comparable to this depth and width have been made for many years."--B. Chrimes, The Law Quarterly Review "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

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).

Introduction to the Princeton Classics Edition ix Preface (1997) by William Chester Jordan xxv Preface xxxiii Introduction 3 I. The Problem: Plowden's Reports 7 II. The Shakespeare: King Richard II 24 III. Christ-centered Kingship 42 1. The Norman Anonymous 42 2. The Frontispiece of the Aachen Gospels 61 3. The Halo of Perpetuity 78 IV. Law-centered Kingship 87 1. From Litury to Legal Science 87 2. Frederick the Second 97 Pater et Filius Iustitiae 97 Iustitia Meciatrix 107 3. Bracton 143 Rex infra et supra Legem 143 Christus-Fiscus 164 V. Polity-Centered Kingship: Corpus Mysticum 193 1. Corpus Ecclesiae mysticum 194 2. Corpus Reipublicae mysticum 207 3. Pro patria mori 232 Patria religious and legal 232 Patriotic Propaganda 249 Rex et Patria 259 VI. On Continuity and Corporations 273 1. Continuity 273 Aevum 275 Perpetua Necessitas 284 2. Fictio Figura Veritatis 291 Imperium semper est 291 Universitas non moritur 302 VII. The King Never Dies 314 1. Dynastic Continuity 317 2. The Crown as Fiction 336 Corona visibilis et invisibilis 336 The Fiscal Crown 342 Inalienability 347 Crown and Universitas 358 The King and the Crown 364 The Crown a Minor 372 3. Dignitas non moritur 383 Phoenix 385 Corporational Symptoms in England 401 Le Roy est mort ... 409 Effigies 419 Rex Instrumentum Dignitatis 437 VII. Man-centered Kingship: Dante 451 IX. Epilogus 396 List of Illustrations 507 Illustrations following 512 Bibliography and Index 513 Addenda 568