Oldal 93 [93]
THE INFLUENCE OF EARLY MODERN THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE
but divine by grace and by consecration.”** In order to separate Christ’s two
bodies, Carolingian theologians developed two terms: the “corpus naturale”
referred to the Eucharist, the physical presence of Christ, whereas the “corpus
mysticum” signified the “organized body of the Christian community." For
several centuries, European monarchs and Rome would argue whether the
“corpus mysticum” referred to the Christian community led by the Pope or the
group of subjects under the dominance of a certain prince. Since the Church
declared itself not only as an ecclesiastical authority but also a political and
legal entity, the secular application of this notion soon became inevitable. In
England, the sharp distinction between the Church’s and the King’s authority
became even more distinct after the Act of Supremacy, by which Henry VIII
replaced the Pope as head of the English Church and therefore subordinated
the “corpus mysticum” to his own “corpus politicum.”##
During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, out of fear of an absolutist monarch, a
group of Catholic lawyers including Anthony Brown, William Rastel, and
Edmund Plowden used a secular version of the two bodies concept to highlight
the difference between the legal status of an ordinary subject and a monarch
and also to find legal grounds for preventing the Queen from strengthening her
power too much. The book that records their ideas was published in 1588 under
the title Les Commentaries ou Reports de Edmund Plowden.*” Their arguments
derived from their interpretation of the case of the Duchy of Lancaster, *#
which dealt with the Queen’s intention to revise Edward VI’s donations of
Dutchy land in order to grant it to one of her favorites. Commenting upon
this legal debate, Edmund Plowden argues that the King incorporates two
clearly distinguishable but non-separable bodies in himself. One of them,
which stands for the monarch’s mortal and passionate self, he calls the “Body
natural,” which is “subject to all Infinities that come by Nature or Accident,
to the Imbecility of Infancy or old Age, and to the like Defects that happen to
the natural Bodies of other People.”?“* The “Body politic,” on the other hand,
is an immortal essence that cannot be seen, yet it is void of all the deficiencies
by which the other one is weakened. Since this second body is more perfect
33° Ernst H. Kantorowitz: The King’s Two Bodies: a Study in Medieval Political Theology, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1957, 77.
340 Ibid., 196.
34 Ibid., 229.
3% Ibid., 7-24.
343 The Queen’s lawyers wanted to claim Edward’s grant invalid on the basis of the fact that
the king was underage or, in their words, a “minor” when he had donated this piece of land,
which he was not entitled to do in accordance with ordinary common law. On the other
hand, common lawyers like Rastell and Browne claimed that the Queen’s arguments were
insufficient, since in their view, this law banning minors from donating land applied only to
ordinary people, whereas the king possessed not only a body natural but also a body politic,
and the latter was never subject to the restrictions of age. Axton: The Queen’s, 16-17.
344 Plowden in Kantorowitz: The King’s, 7.
BE
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