Buzzbuzzbuzz.
Hey, Medievalists (and anyone else interested in the subject):
I'm currently reading the most fascinating book: The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology by Ernst H. Kantorowicz. It's a bit old, as far as the scholarship's concerned -- originally published in 1957 -- and the the author (a non-practicing Jew who fought with the Germans during WWI and then later fled to the US after he refused to swear the oath of allegiance to Hitler, and who was then persecuted throughout the U.S. because he refused to swear the oath to McCartney) had, to some extent, a political axe to grind. And it's easily the densest book I've ever read (it's taking me forever to get through it, because I have to read slowly just to understand.)
But, all flaws aside, it's really interesting. I've read a ton of books that outline Medieval politics and/or ideology along the terms of, 'this is what people thought and this is where they got those ideas from', but this is the first time I actually feel like I've been given any kind of insight into why people thought as they did, and how and why that thought process evolved over time.
And the scope of the book is truly insane; this guy must have read everything, everywhere, in every language. The 568 page book actually reads more like a collection of related essays than a comprehensive work, jumping from literary criticism to discussions of religious ideology to explanations of political theory between chapters. (Just to give you an idea, the eight chapters are titled, The Problem: Plowden's Reports; The Shakespeare: King Richard II; Christ-Centered Kingship; Law-Centered Kingship; Polity-Centered Kingship: Corpus Mysticum; On Continuity and Corporations; The King Never Dies; and Man-Centered Kingship: Dante.) *grins* It's like a history/literature double major's wet dream. His arguments cover the entire Medieval period, early through late, across the entire continent of Europe. Insanity. It's absolutely fantastic. And the writing style is beautiful, to boot (an unexpected and rare treat for old scholarship, as the rest of you surely know.)
Just to give a taste, this is the summary of one of his more comprehensible arguments XD :
The Norman Anonymous had expressed the king's supra-temporal qualities by attributing to him a divine and God-like nature by grace. But the ideas of the Norman Anonymous propounding the king as a gemina persona because he was the "image of Christ" even with regard to the two natures, belonged to the past. Frederick II, as the lex animata, had sought the sempiternal essence of his rulership somewhere in an undying Idea of Justice, and had changed, so to speak, from a vicarius Christi to a vicarius Iustitiae, an office which still had semi-religious connotations. However, the metaphysical concepts and eschatological ideas of the imperial court may have fitted the conditions of Italy and of the great war against the papacy; but they did not fit Bractonian England. Bracton himself was more sober and, in a way, more secular than were the lawyers at the court of Frederick II. To be sure, the king in the Bractonian age changed also; and if we were to make an overstatement and understand by "fisc" the public sphere at large, we might perhaps say that he changed from a vicarious Christi to a vicarious Fisci. That is, the perpetuality of the supra-personal king began to depend also on the perpetuality of the impersonal public sphere to which the fisc belonged. At any event, what ultimately the rulers of the thirteenth century had in common was that they borrowed their touch of sempiternity not so much from the Church as from Justice and Public Law expounded by learned jurisprudents -- be it by name of Iustitia or Fiscus.
I've only read the first four chapters so far, but it's the sort of book that makes you dizzy - in a good way - and so, in addition to just wanting to take a break for a second, I also wanted to recommend it to those of you interested in this stuff. Like I said, it's dense; but I feel like I understand a lot of this legal jargon so much better now. I've encountered these concepts before (the differences between king and King, etc.), but I didn't realize how lacking my understanding was until I started reading this book. And those of you who are actually studying late Medieval history (as opposed to early, like me) will probably have an easier time wading through all the references.
I actually understand now how the Puritans could mobilize English armies in the name of the King and then use them against the king. (Or, as Kantorowicz puts it: "Without those clarifying, if sometimes confusing, distinctions between the King's sempiternity and the king's temporariness, between his immaterial and immortal body politic and his material and mortal body natural, it would have been next to impossible for Parliament to resort to a similar fiction and summon, in the name and by the authority of Charles I, King body politic, the armies which were to fight the same Charles I, king body natural.")
Also, his examples are fun: like the French bishop who insisted he was celibate as a bishop while being married as a baron. XD
And also, for my own notes concerning something I'm writing:
To summarize, in some respects the king was under the law of prescription; he was a "temporal being," strictly "within Time," and subjected, like any ordinary human being, to the effects of Time. In other respects, however, that is, with regard to things quasi sacrae or public, he was unaffected by Time and its prescriptive power; like the "holy sprites and angels," he was beyond Time and therewith perpetual or sempiternal. The king, at least with regard to Time, had obviously "two natures" -- one which was temporal and by which he conformed with the conditions of other men, and another which was perpetual and by which he outlasted and defeated all other beings. (171)
And finally, just something interesting, perhaps (for my fellow Americans especially) to think about:
"We may wonder whether it is the logic or irony of history that the solemn Roman cult of gods and public functions should be found at the root of modern deification and idolization of state mechanisms."
I'm currently reading the most fascinating book: The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology by Ernst H. Kantorowicz. It's a bit old, as far as the scholarship's concerned -- originally published in 1957 -- and the the author (a non-practicing Jew who fought with the Germans during WWI and then later fled to the US after he refused to swear the oath of allegiance to Hitler, and who was then persecuted throughout the U.S. because he refused to swear the oath to McCartney) had, to some extent, a political axe to grind. And it's easily the densest book I've ever read (it's taking me forever to get through it, because I have to read slowly just to understand.)
But, all flaws aside, it's really interesting. I've read a ton of books that outline Medieval politics and/or ideology along the terms of, 'this is what people thought and this is where they got those ideas from', but this is the first time I actually feel like I've been given any kind of insight into why people thought as they did, and how and why that thought process evolved over time.
And the scope of the book is truly insane; this guy must have read everything, everywhere, in every language. The 568 page book actually reads more like a collection of related essays than a comprehensive work, jumping from literary criticism to discussions of religious ideology to explanations of political theory between chapters. (Just to give you an idea, the eight chapters are titled, The Problem: Plowden's Reports; The Shakespeare: King Richard II; Christ-Centered Kingship; Law-Centered Kingship; Polity-Centered Kingship: Corpus Mysticum; On Continuity and Corporations; The King Never Dies; and Man-Centered Kingship: Dante.) *grins* It's like a history/literature double major's wet dream. His arguments cover the entire Medieval period, early through late, across the entire continent of Europe. Insanity. It's absolutely fantastic. And the writing style is beautiful, to boot (an unexpected and rare treat for old scholarship, as the rest of you surely know.)
Just to give a taste, this is the summary of one of his more comprehensible arguments XD :
The Norman Anonymous had expressed the king's supra-temporal qualities by attributing to him a divine and God-like nature by grace. But the ideas of the Norman Anonymous propounding the king as a gemina persona because he was the "image of Christ" even with regard to the two natures, belonged to the past. Frederick II, as the lex animata, had sought the sempiternal essence of his rulership somewhere in an undying Idea of Justice, and had changed, so to speak, from a vicarius Christi to a vicarius Iustitiae, an office which still had semi-religious connotations. However, the metaphysical concepts and eschatological ideas of the imperial court may have fitted the conditions of Italy and of the great war against the papacy; but they did not fit Bractonian England. Bracton himself was more sober and, in a way, more secular than were the lawyers at the court of Frederick II. To be sure, the king in the Bractonian age changed also; and if we were to make an overstatement and understand by "fisc" the public sphere at large, we might perhaps say that he changed from a vicarious Christi to a vicarious Fisci. That is, the perpetuality of the supra-personal king began to depend also on the perpetuality of the impersonal public sphere to which the fisc belonged. At any event, what ultimately the rulers of the thirteenth century had in common was that they borrowed their touch of sempiternity not so much from the Church as from Justice and Public Law expounded by learned jurisprudents -- be it by name of Iustitia or Fiscus.
I've only read the first four chapters so far, but it's the sort of book that makes you dizzy - in a good way - and so, in addition to just wanting to take a break for a second, I also wanted to recommend it to those of you interested in this stuff. Like I said, it's dense; but I feel like I understand a lot of this legal jargon so much better now. I've encountered these concepts before (the differences between king and King, etc.), but I didn't realize how lacking my understanding was until I started reading this book. And those of you who are actually studying late Medieval history (as opposed to early, like me) will probably have an easier time wading through all the references.
I actually understand now how the Puritans could mobilize English armies in the name of the King and then use them against the king. (Or, as Kantorowicz puts it: "Without those clarifying, if sometimes confusing, distinctions between the King's sempiternity and the king's temporariness, between his immaterial and immortal body politic and his material and mortal body natural, it would have been next to impossible for Parliament to resort to a similar fiction and summon, in the name and by the authority of Charles I, King body politic, the armies which were to fight the same Charles I, king body natural.")
Also, his examples are fun: like the French bishop who insisted he was celibate as a bishop while being married as a baron. XD
And also, for my own notes concerning something I'm writing:
To summarize, in some respects the king was under the law of prescription; he was a "temporal being," strictly "within Time," and subjected, like any ordinary human being, to the effects of Time. In other respects, however, that is, with regard to things quasi sacrae or public, he was unaffected by Time and its prescriptive power; like the "holy sprites and angels," he was beyond Time and therewith perpetual or sempiternal. The king, at least with regard to Time, had obviously "two natures" -- one which was temporal and by which he conformed with the conditions of other men, and another which was perpetual and by which he outlasted and defeated all other beings. (171)
And finally, just something interesting, perhaps (for my fellow Americans especially) to think about:
"We may wonder whether it is the logic or irony of history that the solemn Roman cult of gods and public functions should be found at the root of modern deification and idolization of state mechanisms."