Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (1895-1963) was a German-Jewish historian of medieval political and intellectual history, known for his 1927 book Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and in particular The King's Two Bodies (1957). 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right). ...

Kantorowicz was born in Posen (now Poznan, Poland) to a wealthy, assimilated German-Jewish family and as a young man was groomed to take over the family business (primarily liquor distilleries). After four years' service in the Army in World War I, he decided not to return to the business world, but went instead to study philosophy at the University of Berlin, at one point also joining a right-wing militia that helped put down the Spartacist uprising. The following year, he moved to the prestigious University of Heidelberg to study history with Karl Hampe and Friedrich Baethgen, two noted medievalists. While in Heidelberg, Kantorowicz became involved with the so-called Georgekreis, a group of artists and intellectuals devoted to the German poet and aesthete Stefan George and who shared an interest in art, literature and Romantic mysticism. PoznaÅ„ (in Polish ; full official name: The Capital City of PoznaÅ„, Latin: Posnania, German: Posen, Yiddish: פּױזן Poyzn) is a city in west-central Poland with over 578,900 inhabitants (2002). ... The Poznan is also a breed of horse. ... Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million The First... There is no institution called the University of Berlin, but there are four universities in Berlin, Germany: Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) Technical University of Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin) Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin) This is... The Spartacist League (Spartakusbund in German) was a left-wing Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during and just after the politically volatile years of World War I. It was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (nicknamed Red Rosa) along with others such as Clara Zetkin. ... The Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (German Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; also known as simply University of Heidelberg) was established in the town of Heidelberg in the Rhineland in 1386. ... Karl Hampe (1889 - 1936) was a German historian of the Middle Ages, particularly the history of the Empire in the High Middle Ages. ... Stefan George (Bingen, Hesse, July 12, 1868 - Locarno, December 4, 1933) was a German poet and translator. ... In England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an aesthete was a person who was usually well educated, had exaggerated tastes and cultivated a style of dress and manner calculated to annoy the mainstream of intellectual society. ... Stefan George (1910) Stefan George (Bingen, Hesse, July 12, 1868 – Locarno, December 4, 1933) was a German poet and translator. ... In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant cultural movement of much of the nineteenth century. ...

His association with the elitist and culturally conservative Georgekreis inspired Kantorowicz's unorthodox, aesthetic-cultural biography of the great Holy Roman emperor Frederick II. Instead of offering a more typical treatment of laws, institutions and important political achievements, the book took a decidedly poetic turn, portraying Frederick as an idealized spiritual, as much as political, leader of the German nation. The work elicited a combination of bewilderment and criticism from the mainstream historical academy. Reviewers complained that it was a literary tribute 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. See: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194-1250, king 1211/12-1250, emperor since 1220) Frederick II of Austria (?-1246, duke of Austria 1230-1246) Frederick II of Sicily (1272-1337) - who called himself Frederick III - see the article for details. ...

Despite the the furor over the Frederick book, Kantorowicz received an appointment to an academic chair at University of Frankfurt. In 1935, Kantorowicz had to resign his university position due to Nazi racial policies, but remained in Germany until 1938. Upon leaving, he took up a teaching position for a short time at Oxford before moving to the University of California at Berkeley in 1939. After a controversy prompted by his reaction to McCarthyism (he refused to take a loyalty oath required of all UC employees), he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Not long after arriving in Princeton, he published his masterpiece, The King's Two Bodies, which explored, in the words of the volume's subtitle, "medieval political theology." In particular, the book traced the ways theologians, historians and canonists in the Middle Ages and early modern period understood the office and person of the king, as well as the idea of the kingdom, in corporeal and organological terms. The figure of the European monarch was a unique product of religious and legal traditions that eventually produced the notion of a "king" as simultaneously a person, an office, and an embodiment of the community of the realm. The book remains a classic in the field. University of Frankfurt may refer to two (or three) German universities: the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) in Frankfurt am Main the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)) in Frankfurt (Oder), or its historical predecessor which existed... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ... Sen. ... Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A. (although it is not part of Princeton University), designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the...

Kantorowicz was the subject of a controversial biographical sketch in the book Inventing the Middle Ages (1991) by the late American medievalist, Norman F. Cantor. Cantor, who knew Kantorowicz at Princeton, suggested that, but for his Jewish heritage, Kantorowicz (at least as a young scholar in the 1920's and 30's) 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 was a member of the Nazi Party. Kantorowicz's defenders (particularly his student Robert L. Benson) responded that although as a younger man Kantorowicz embraced the Romantic ultranationalism of the Georgekreis, he had only disdain for Nazism and was a vocal critic of Hitler's regime. Norman F. Cantor (born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1930, died in Miami, Florida, United States on September 18, 2004) was a historian who specialized in the medieval period. ...

References

• Alain Boureau, Kantorowicz: Stories of a Historian (1990, English translation 2001)
• Norman F. Cantor, "The Nazi Twins: Percy Ernst Schramm and Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz," in Inventing the Middle Ages (New York, 1991), pp. 79-117.
• Medieval Scholarship Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline: History Volume 1, ed. Helen Damico & Joseph B Zavadil (New York, 1995), biographical essays for "Ernst H. Kantorowicz" by Robert F. Benson and "Percy Ernst Schramm" by Janos Bak, both of whom respond to allegations in Cantor's book.
• "Defending Kantorowicz," Letter to the New York Review of Books by Robert L. Benson, Ralph E. Giesey and Margaret Sevcenko, Aug. 13, 1992.[1]

External link

• German-language biographical article