Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (May 3, 1895 – September 9, 1963) was a German historian of medieval political and intellectual history and art, known for his 1927 book '' Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite'' on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and '' The King's Two Bodies'' (1957) on medieval and early modern ideologies of monarchy and the state. He was an elected member of both the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

Life

Early life and education

Kantorowicz was born in Posen (then part of

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

) to a wealthy, assimilated German-Jewish family, and as a young man was groomed to take over his family's prosperous liquor distillery business. He was also the cousin of author and Muslim homosexual activist Hugo Marcus. Kantorowicz served as an officer in the

German Army The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

for four years in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. According to his biographer Robert E. Lerner, Kantorowicz served in a field artillery regiment and fought at

Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...

, where he was wounded. He was awarded the Iron Cross, second class in 1915. He was later sent to the Ottoman front as a translator and liaison for Otto Liman von Sanders, commander of the Ottoman Fifth Army. In 1917, he was awarded the Iron Crescent, the "Ottoman counterpart of the Iron Cross." According to his friend Maurice Bowra and cousin-in-law Arthur Salz, Kantorowicz was later dismissed by von Sanders after having an affair with his mistress, and returned to Germany in May of 1918. After the war, he matriculated at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

to study economics, at one point also joining a right-wing militia that fought against Polish forces in the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) and helped put down the

Spartacist uprising The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising () or, more rarely, Bloody Week, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German Revolution of 1918� ...

in Berlin. The following year, he transferred briefly to the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

, where once again he was involved in armed clashes between leftists and pro-government militias, but soon thereafter settled on the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

where he continued to enroll in economics courses while developing a broader interest in Arabic, Islamic Studies, history, and geography. While in Heidelberg, Kantorowicz became involved with the so-called '' George-Kreis'' or George circle, a group of artists and intellectuals devoted to the German symbolist poet and aesthete Stefan George, believing that George's poetry and philosophy would become the foundation of a great revival of the nationalist spirit in post-war Germany. In 1921, Kantorowicz was awarded a doctorate supervised by Eberhard Gothein based on a slim dissertation on "artisan associations" in the Muslim world.

Frankfurt

Despite the furor over the Frederick book, and not having written a formal ''

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

sschrift'' (second thesis to qualify for a professorial appointment), Kantorowicz received an (honorary) professorship at the University of Frankfurt in 1930, though he remained in Berlin until 1931. By December 1933, however, Kantorowicz had to cease giving lectures due to increasing pressure on Jewish academics under the new Nazi regime, though he gave a subversive "reinaugural" lecture titled "The Secret Germany"—a motto of the ''George-Kreis''—setting out his position in light of the new political situation on November 14 of that year. After taking several leaves of absence, he was finally granted an early retirement with a pension in 1935. He remained in Germany until departing for the United States in 1938, when after the

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

riots it became clear that the situation for even assimilated Jews such as himself was no longer tenable.

From Berkeley to Princeton

Kantorowicz accepted a lectureship at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1939. After several years, Kantorowicz was finally able to secure a permanent professorship, but in 1950, he famously resigned in protest when the UC Regents demanded that all continuing faculty sign a loyalty oath disavowing affiliation with any politically subversive movements. Kantorowicz insisted he was no leftist and pointed to his role in an anti-communist militia as a young university student, but nonetheless objected on principle to an instrument which he viewed as a blatant infringement on academic freedom and freedom of conscience more generally. During the controversy in Berkeley, two eminent German émigré medievalists working in Princeton, Theodore Mommsen (grandson of the great classical historian) and the art historian

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 – March 14, 1968) was a German-Jewish art historian whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography, including his hugely influential ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art ...

, persuaded

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

, director of the prestigious

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

, to appoint Kantorowicz to the Institute's faculty of Historical Studies. Kantorowicz accepted the offer in January 1951 and moved to Princeton, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Works

''Frederick the Second''

Although his degree was in Islamic economic history, Kantorowicz's interests soon turned to the European Middle Ages and to ideas about kingship in particular. His association with the elitist and culturally conservative ''George-Kreis'' inspired Kantorowicz to undertake writing a sweeping and highly unorthodox biography of the great Holy Roman emperor Frederick II, published in German in 1927 and English in 1931. Instead of offering a more typical survey of laws, institutions, and important political and military achievements of Frederick's reign, the book struck a distinctly panegyrical tone, portraying Frederick as a tragic hero and an idealized "Roman German". It included no footnotes and seemed to elide historical events with more fanciful legends and propagandistic literary depictions. The work elicited a combination of bewilderment and criticism from the mainstream historical academy. Reviewers complained that it was literary myth-making and not a work of serious historical scholarship. As a result, Kantorowicz published a hefty companion volume (''Ergänzungsband'') in 1931 which contained detailed historical documentation for the biography.

''The King's Two Bodies''

In 1957, Kantorowicz published his masterpiece, '' The King's Two Bodies'', which explored, in the words of the volume's subtitle, "medieval

political theology Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which Theology, theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Scho ...

". The book traced the ways in which theologians, historians, and canon lawyers in the Middle Ages and early modern period understood "the king" as both a mortal individual and an institution which transcends time. Drawing on a diverse array of textual and visual sources, including

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

, ''The King's Two Bodies'' made a major contribution to the way historians and political scientists came to understand the evolution of ideas about authority and charisma vested in a single individual versus transpersonal conceptions of the realm or the state in pre-modern Europe. The book remains a classic in the field.

Lineage in Kantorowicz's work

Scholars in recent years have traced the origins of the ''King's Two Bodies'' to Kantorowicz's specific time and place in 1920s and 1930s Germany, and driven in part by his wish to respond to contemporaneous theories about the theological origins of modern sovereignty. Likely due to the polarizing reception of Kantorowicz's first book about the life of Frederick II ('' Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite'') due to its lack of footnotes, Kantorowicz did rigorous research for ''The King's Two Bodies'' and cites heavily throughout the book. In ''Frederick II,'' the ruler was shown to be the founder of the secular state, at that point a new type of political entity that expressed the wishes of a lay culture that had been spreading for a century in Europe. Scholars draw a direct lineage of intellectual ambitions from the early to late Kantorowicz. In ''Frederick II'' ideas about the relation between the monarch and the state are proposed but only fulfilled in the Tudor legal doctrine Kantorowicz elaborates and interprets in ''The King's Two Bodies'': that "a successful secular state" finds its basis in "an all-encompassing body politic housed in the monarch’s body." Kantorowicz also believed that the doctrines advocated by these jurists-cum-theologians were ultimately fictitious yet emotionally satisfying. He believed that any political theory is based not on truth but non-rational psychological power. William Shakespeare's play '' Richard II'' includes many themes relevant to the book including conceptions of the

body politic The body politic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed as the body's head, and the analogy may also be extended to other anatomical part ...

. Kantorowicz was concerned with the problem of ideas from the theological or religious world being transferred to the secular, a process that he believed characterized modernity. Thus, theological ideas are made juridical; liturgical political; and the notion of Christendom becomes a "humanistic community of mankind."

Reception

Cantor controversy

Kantorowicz was the subject of a controversial biographical sketch in the book ''Inventing the Middle Ages'' (1991) by the medievalist

Norman Cantor Norman Frank Cantor (November 19, 1929 – September 18, 2004) was a Canadian-American medievalist. Known for his accessible writing and engaging narrative style, Cantor's books were among the most widely read treatments of medieval history in E ...

. Cantor suggested that, but for his Jewish heritage, the young Kantorowicz could be considered a Nazi in terms of his intellectual temperament and cultural values. Cantor compared Kantorowicz with another contemporary German medievalist, Percy Ernst Schramm, who worked on similar topics and later joined the Nazi Party and served as the staff diarist for the German High Command during the war. In addition to highlighting Kantorowicz's elitist nationalism in the Weimar period, Cantor claimed that Kantorowicz had been under the protection of the Nazi government. Kantorowicz's defenders, including his student Robert L. Benson,''"Defending Kantorowicz,"''
Letter to the ''New York Review of Books'' by Robert L. Benson, Ralph E. Giesey and Margaret Sevcenko and response by Robert Bartlett, Aug. 13, 1992. responded that although as a younger man Kantorowicz embraced the Romantic ultranationalism of the ''George-Kreis'', he had only contempt for Nazism and was a vocal critic of Hitler's regime, both before and after the war. Other historians who have criticized Kantorowicz in other respects have also since rejected Cantor's arguments, including David Abulafia and Robert E. Lerner. Conrad Leyser, summarizing the controversy in his 2016 introduction to ''The King's Two Bodies'', describes Cantor's account as a "tissue of falsehoods and half-truths", but also a predictable reaction to Kantorowicz's own suppression of his German past.. Michael Lipkin, also in 2016, concluded that Cantor was right to note the right-wing politics of ''Frederick the Second'' in particular, but he "cripples his argument by massaging his story".

Bibliography

*''Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite,'' Georg Bondi, 1927. *''Das Geheime Deutschland,'' Vorlesung, 1933.

Works in English

*''Frederick II.: 1194–1250'' (1931)
online
at Archive.org) *"A Norman Finale of the Exultet and the Rite of Sarum", ''The Harvard Theological Review'', 34 (2), (1941). . . . *"Plato in the Middle Ages", ''The Philosophical Review'', 51 (3), (1942). . . *''Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship'', University of California Press, (1946). . *"The Quinity of Winchester", ''Art Bulletin'', Vol. XXIV, (1947). . . *''The Fundamental Issue: Documents and Marginal Notes on the University of California Loyalty Oath'', Parker Print. Co., 1950. . *"Dante's 'Two Suns'", in ''Semitic and Oriental Studies,'' 1951. *"Pro Patria Mori in Medieval Political Thought", ''The American Historical Review'', 56 (3), (1951). . . *''"''Inalienability: A Note on Canonical Practice and the English Coronation Oath in the Thirteenth Century", ''Speculum'', Vol. XXIX, 1954. . *"Mysteries of State: An Absolutist Concept and its Late Medieval Origins", ''Harvard Theological Review'', Vol. XLVIII, 1955. . . *''The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology'', Princeton University Press, (1957). . . .
''Frederick the Second, 1194–1250''
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1957. . *"The Prologue to Fleta and the School of Petrus de Vinea," ''Speculum'', 32 (2), 1957. . . *"On the Golden Marriage Belt and the Marriage Rings of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection", ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers'', 14, 1960. . . *''"The Archer in the Ruthwell Cross"'', ''The Art Bulletin'', 42 (1), 1960. . . *"Gods in Uniform", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', Vol. CV, 1961. . . *''"Puer Exoriens: On the Hypapante in the Mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore,"'' Perennitas, 1963. *''Selected Studies'', J.J. Augustin, 1965. .

References

External links

Short biography and quotes from Ernst KantorowiczGuide to the Ernst Kantorowicz Collection
at the

Leo Baeck Institute, New York The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking J ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kantorowicz, Ernst 1895 births 1963 deaths Writers from Poznań People from the Province of Posen 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 20th-century Freikorps personnel German conservatives in the German Resistance Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States German Jewish military personnel of World War I Jewish historians German medievalists Institute for Advanced Study faculty Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Heidelberg University alumni Academic staff of Heidelberg University Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt University of California, Berkeley faculty American medievalists German art historians German male non-fiction writers Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Historians from California American male non-fiction writers Members of the American Philosophical Society