Humanities and History: The Unpublished Essays of Ernst Kantorowicz

Ernst Kantorowicz was one of the greatest historians of the twentieth century. His 1927 biography of Frederick II is still in print, and his masterwork, The King’s Two Bodies (1957), continues to inspire scholars in a wide variety of fields. From 1935 until his death in 1963, Kantorowicz published some forty essays on an astonishing variety of subjects that reflect the superabundance of his ideas and interests. But he also left behind a number of unpublished essays that rank with his best work. Humanities and History presents for the first time Kantorowicz’s unpublished essays written in English.

Seven of these essays address subjects across an enormous chronological span, from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissance: “Synthronos: On Throne-sharing of Gods and Men,” “Roman Coins and Christian Rites,” “Coronation Scenarios Eastern and Western,” “Charles the Bald and the Natales of the King,” “Roma and the Coal,” “Glosses on Late-Mediaeval State Imagery,” and “The Dukes of Burgundy and the Italian Renaissance.” These essays are rounded out by two worthy occasional pieces: an essay on “Humanities and History” and a talk on “Postage Stamps and the Historian.”