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), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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, a ...

Career

Early life and education

Kantorowicz was born in Posen (then part of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

) 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 served as an officer in the

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

for four years in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. After the war, he matriculated at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

to study economics, at one point also joining a right-wing militia that fought against Polish forces in the

Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) Greater Poland Uprising (also Wielkopolska Uprising or Great Poland Uprising) may refer to a number of armed rebellions in the region of Greater Poland: * Greater Poland Uprising (1794) * Greater Poland Uprising (1806) Greater Poland uprising ...

and helped put down the

Spartacist uprising The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising (), was a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolutio ...

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

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, 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, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

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 Stefan Anton George (; 12 July 18684 December 1933) was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literary ...

, 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.

''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.

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 many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

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) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

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 land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

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 A loyalty oath is a pledge of allegiance to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member. In the United States, such an oath has often indicated that the affiant has not been a member of a particular organization or ...

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 Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

, Theodore Mommsen (grandson of the great classical historian) and the art historian

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a high ...

, persuaded

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

, director of the prestigious

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

, 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.

''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 theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term ''political theology'' is often used to denote religious thought about political principled qu ...

". 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 ( 26 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 nation ...

and

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...

, ''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.

Death

Kantorowicz died in his home in Princeton of an

aortic aneurysm An aortic aneurysm is an enlargement (dilatation) of the aorta to greater than 1.5 times normal size. They usually cause no symptoms except when ruptured. Occasionally, there may be abdominal, back, or leg pain. The prevalence of abdominal aorti ...

at age 68.

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 historian who specialized in the medieval period. Known for his accessible writing and engaging narrative style, Cantor's books were among the most widely rea ...

. 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 falsely 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 David Abulafia (born 12 December 1949) is an English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, ris ...

and

Robert E. Lerner Robert E. Lerner (born 1940 in New York) is an American medieval historian and professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University. Lerner gained his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1964, where he studied wi ...

. 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".

Works

*''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. {{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 Heidelberg University faculty Goethe University Frankfurt faculty 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