In late-medieval thought, according to Professor Ernst Kantorowicz's
classic study of "medieval political theology," the immortal body politic of
the king became distinct from the perishable "body natural" of the mortal
ruler and emerged as an abstract, independent, corporate entity that stood
for the body politic of the state. However, because of the metaphor of "the
king's two bodies" upon which Professor Kantorowicz has concentrated,
the king's higher body politic was ultimately closely connected with the
king's lower "body natural" and could never be completely severed as an
abstract, independent entity from the person of the Idng. When Professor
Kantorowiez discusses "the abstraction of a personified state," ¹ he ignores
the limitations inevitably inherent in the metaphor. As long as the state
remained the personification of the king, it could not be fully abstract and
separate from the king's individual person. In other words, the public law
of the state could not be an entity wholly separated from the private law,

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