The Pope’s Two Bodies: A Note on Medieval Juridical Theology

The medieval Papal Revolution was the first successful attempt by a body of intellectuals to affirm what we would now call the political priority of principles. At that time, this priority was expressed in juridical and theological terms. In my essay, I start from Kantorowicz’s sidelining of medieval ecclesiastical duplications to show a more general downplaying of the cultural (and political) hegemonic role of the Papal Revolution and its long-term legacy. I trace the transformations in the European lexicon of notions such as corporation, world, body politic, theology, and abstraction to argue that the synergy between the Papal and the scribal revolution actually constructed law, theology, and politics as we know them. More in general, this synergy in its Scholastic embodiment produced our familiar image of the world as an object and a content of books. I suggest that reconsidering how the Papal Revolution both triggered and joined a series of processes that turned the page of our history may perhaps support our effort to turn the page again.