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1
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,... more 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.
Bringing together liturgical works, images, and polemical material, The King's Two Bodies explores the long Christian past behind this political theology. It provides a subtle history of how commonwealths developed symbolic means for establishing their sovereignty and, with such means, began to establish early forms of the nation-state.
Kantorowicz fled Nazi Germany in 1938, after refusing to sign a Nazi loyalty oath, and settled in the United States. While teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, he once again refused to sign an oath of allegiance, this one designed to identify Communist Party sympathizers. He was dismissed as a result of the controversy and moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he remained for the rest of his life, and where he wrote The King's Two Bodies. less 
Helen CastorThe whole idea of The King’s Two Bodies is that of the divide between the king’s natural body and his representation of the body politic, a more abstract political authority. Those two things come together and have to be worked out in law and authority and language – but it’s always a male body. The physical being of the king is part of that relationship, and the fact is that the very different... (Source)
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2
Marina Warner explores the tradition of personifying liberty, justice, wisdom, charity, and other ideals and desiderata in the female form, and examines the tension between women's historic and symbolic roles. Drawing on the evidence of public art, especially sculpture, and painting, poetry, and classical mythology, she ranges over the allegorical presence of the woman in the Western tradition with a sharply observant eye and a piquant and engaging style. more Marina Warner explores the tradition of personifying liberty, justice, wisdom, charity, and other ideals and desiderata in the female form, and examines the tension between women's historic and symbolic roles. Drawing on the evidence of public art, especially sculpture, and painting, poetry, and classical mythology, she ranges over the allegorical presence of the woman in the Western tradition with a sharply observant eye and a piquant and engaging style. less Helen CastorYes, and my last two choices make an interesting pair for me, because they’re both about culture, symbolism and language. And I think Marina Warner’s work is phenomenally interesting. It’s the kind of history I could never write, so I love pouring myself into it. (Source)
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3
What were the women of the Civil War era like? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Antonia Fraser brings to life the many women she has researched. more What were the women of the Civil War era like? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Antonia Fraser brings to life the many women she has researched. less Helen CastorThis is one of the idiosyncratic things on this list, because the obvious thing to choose would have been another of her books, The Warrior Queen, which is much more obviously about queens and power, and is a great book as well. But The Weaker Vessel, which is a social history of women in 17th-century England, was really the first book that, a long time ago, made me think about the experience of... (Source)
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4
A long-overdue and dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians at work today.
She was crowned Queen of Scotland at nine months of age, and Queen of France at sixteen years; at eighteen she ascended the throne that was her birthright and began ruling one of the most fractious courts in Europe, riven by religious conflict and personal lust for power. She rode out at the head of an army in both victory and defeat; saw her second husband assassinated, and married his murderer. At twenty-five she entered captivity at the hands of her... more A long-overdue and dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians at work today.
She was crowned Queen of Scotland at nine months of age, and Queen of France at sixteen years; at eighteen she ascended the throne that was her birthright and began ruling one of the most fractious courts in Europe, riven by religious conflict and personal lust for power. She rode out at the head of an army in both victory and defeat; saw her second husband assassinated, and married his murderer. At twenty-five she entered captivity at the hands of her rival queen, from which only death would release her.
The life of Mary Stuart is one of unparalleled drama and conflict. From the labyrinthine plots laid by the Scottish lords to wrest power for themselves, to the efforts made by Elizabeth's ministers to invalidate Mary's legitimate claim to the English throne, John Guy returns to the archives to explode the myths and correct the inaccuracies that surround this most fascinating monarch. He also explains a central mystery: why Mary would have consented to marry – only three months after the death of her second husband, Lord Darnley – the man who was said to be his killer, the Earl of Bothwell. And, more astonishingly, he solves, through careful re-examination of the Casket Letters, the secret behind Darnley's spectacular assassination at Kirk o'Field. With great pathos, Guy illuminates how the imprisoned Mary's despair led to a reckless plot against Elizabeth – and thus to her own execution.
The portrait that emerges is not of a political pawn or a manipulative siren, but of a shrewd and charismatic young ruler who relished power and, for a time, managed to hold together a fatally unstable country. less Helen CastorThe thing I admire so much about John Guy’s work is his ability to go into the archive and bring an extraordinary forensic eye to bear on documents which have already been pored over by generations of historians – and yet to bring something new to it. (Source)
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5
This is the first comprehensive and fully documented study of the Empress Matilda to be published in English. Much of the serious work on her life and historical importance has never been translated from German, and almost all has concentrated on the years of her struggle with Stephen for the English crown. This book examines her career as a whole, including the years as consort of the Emperor Henry V and as regent in Normandy for her son Henry II. It illustrates the problems of female succession in the early twelfth century, and gives a balanced assessment of Matilda's character and... more This is the first comprehensive and fully documented study of the Empress Matilda to be published in English. Much of the serious work on her life and historical importance has never been translated from German, and almost all has concentrated on the years of her struggle with Stephen for the English crown. This book examines her career as a whole, including the years as consort of the Emperor Henry V and as regent in Normandy for her son Henry II. It illustrates the problems of female succession in the early twelfth century, and gives a balanced assessment of Matilda's character and achievements in the context of her own times. less Helen CastorThis is a wonderful piece of authoritative medieval history. Marjorie Chibnall is a historian I admire enormously. The book isn’t aimed at telling a rollicking good story, but it is careful in its judgement and superbly scholarly. What it opened up for me was all the possibilities of the 12th-century world. I came to this as a late-medieval historian, because the area that I worked on first of... (Source)
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