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In 1957 Ernst Kantorowicz published a book that would be the guide for generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. In The King´s Two Bodies, Kantorowicz traces the historical problem posed by the "King´s two bodies"--the body politic and the body natural--back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates, by placing the concept in its proper setting of medieval thought and political theory, how the early-modern Western monarchies gradually 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."

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"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

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Ernst H. Kantorowicz taught at the University of California, Berkeley and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. His books include Frederick the Second and Selected Studies.

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