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In the medieval period, the monarch was seen as the embodiment of the community of his kingdom, the body politic. And while we've long since shed that view, it nonetheless continues to influence our understanding of contemporary politics. This book offers thirteen case studies from premodern and contemporary Europe that demonstrate the process through which political corporations-bodies politic-were and continue to be constructed and challenged. Drawing on history, archaeology, literary criticism, and art history, the contributors survey a wide geographical and chronological spectrum to offer a panoramic view of these dynamic political entities.
List of contents
Pawel Figurski, Karolina Mroziewicz, Aleksander Sroczynski Introduction, Premodern Rulership lvaro Carvajal Castro Assembly Politics and Conflicting Discourses in Early Medieval León (10th-11th c.) Foteini Spingou The Supreme Power of the Armour and the Veneration of the Emperor's Physical Body in Twelfth-Century Byzantium Pawel Figurski The Exultet of Boleslaw II of Mazovia and the Sacralization of Political Power in the High Middle Ages Wojciech Kozlowski 'International' Christian Society and Its Political Theology in Thirteenth-Century Latin Christendom Karolina Mroziewicz The King's Immature Body: Representations of Child Coronations in Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia (1382-1530) Aleksander Sroczynski We Were the Trojans: Rhetoric and Political Community in Medieval and Early Modern Sarmatia and Illyria ¿gnes Máté The Life and Afterlife of Pontifical Indiscretions in the Renaissance Emilia Olechnowicz The Queen's Two Faces: The Portraiture of Elizabeth I of England Contemporary Political Power Gábor Szegedi Blood, Honour, and the Norm: Race Defilement and the Boundaries of Community in Hungary, 1941 Piotr Slodkowski Dual Approaches to Communist Engagement: Helena Krajewska and Marek Wlodarski Andrzej Probulski The Supermen's Two Bodies: The Body, the Costume, and the Legitimacy of Power in the DC Universe Narratives Alexandra Ion And Then They Were Bodies: Medieval Royalties, from DNA Analysis to a Nation's Identity, List of Figures, Endnotes, Index
About the author
Karolina Mroziewicz (Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University, Cracow) received her PhD in cultural studies from the University in Warsaw. Currently she works on the role of pre-modern images of kings in constituting national narratives in Central Europe.
Aleksander Sroczynski (PhD candidate, University of Warsaw) researches Old-Polish and Old-Croatian cultures.
