The King's body : sacred rituals of power in medieval and early modern Europe

The King's Body offers a unique and up-to-date overview of a central theme in European history: the nature and meaning of the sacred rituals of kingship. Informed by the work of recent cultural anthropologists, Sergio Bertelli explores the cult of kingship, which pervaded the lives of hundreds of thousands of subjects, poor and rich, noble and cleric. His analysis takes in a wide spectrum, from the Vandal kings of Spain and the long-haired kings of France, to the beheaded kings of England and France, Charles I and Louis XVI. Bertelli explores the multiple meanings of the rites related to the king's body, from his birth (with the exhibition of his masculinity) to the crowning (a rebirth) to his death (a triumph and an apotheosis). We see how particular occasions such as entrances, processions, and banquets make sense only as they related directly to the king's body. Bertelli also singles out crowd-participatory aspects of sacred kingship, including the rites of violence connected with the interregnum (perceived as a suspension of the law) and the rites of expulsion for a tyrant's body, emphasizing the inversion of crowning rituals. First published in Italy in 1990, The King's Body has been revised and updated for English-speaking readers and expertly translated from the Italian by R. Burr Litchfield. Deftly argued and amply illustrated, this book is a perfect introduction to the cult of kingship in the West; at the same time, it illuminates for modern readers how strangely different the medieval and early modern world was from our own.

The King's Body offers an overview of a central theme in European history: the nature and meaning of the sacred rituals of kingship. Informed by the work of recent cultural anthropologists, Sergio Bertelli explores the cult of kingship, which pervaded the lives of hundreds of thousands of subjects, poor and rich, noble and cleric. His analysis takes in a wide spectrum, from the Vandal kings of Spain and the long-haired kings of France, to the beheaded kings of England and France, Charles I and Louis XVI.

Publishers Weekly

Since the 18th century, political theory has focused on the making of the state rather than on the role of the king or sovereign as political ruler. Relying on minute details and exhaustive research, Bertelli, a historian at the University of Florence, demonstrates that from the early Middle Ages up through the 17th century the centrality of the sovereign provided the key element in maintaining the order of society. Societies thought of their kings as divine. The king's body thus became the ground where the sacred and the profane, the supernatural and the natural intersected. Consequently, Bertelli argues, rituals developed emphasizing the divine sovereignty of the king. In one of his most interesting examples, Bertelli explores the ways that the death of a sovereign led to both an interregnum where the law was suspended temporarily as the realm waited for a new ruler and for the body of the king to decompose and to attempts to bury the king's body parts in various locations so that he would be present throughout the kingdom. In rich detail, Bertelli looks at sacred rituals surrounding birth, enthronement and death that defined kingship, showing that in the Middle Ages the modern distinction between the political and the religious did not exist. His study will be accessible and of interest primarily to scholars. 91 illus. (Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Preface to the First Edition......Page 14 Preface to the English Edition......Page 16 Introduction......Page 20 1 His Majesty......Page 29 2 Viva Lex......Page 54 3 Rituals of Violence......Page 58 4 Qui Venit in Nomine Domini......Page 81 5 A Baldacchino, Horse Trappings, and a Fistful of Money......Page 116 6 Stuffed Bulls and Plenty of Oats......Page 133 7 A Wax Lamb......Page 147 8 Oriens Augusti......Page 158 9 Magnanimi Lombi......Page 170 10 Spurious Offspring......Page 190 11 Ostentatio Genitalium......Page 196 12 The Lord’s Dinner......Page 210 13 The King Is Dead!......Page 233 14 The Body Denied......Page 250 15 Nolite Tangere Christos Meos......Page 272 Bibliography......Page 290 Index......Page 316 "The King's Body offers an overview of a central theme in European history: the nature and meaning of the sacred rituals of kingship. Informed by the work of recent cultural anthropologists, Sergio Bertelli explores the cult of kingship, which pervaded the lives of hundreds of thousands of subjects, poor and rich, noble and cleric. His analysis takes in a wide spectrum, from the Vandal kings of Spain and the long-haired kings of France, to the beheaded kings of England and France, Charles I and Louis XVI."--BOOK JACKET.