The book you need to read:

Ernst Kantorowicz THE KING'S TWO BODIES : A STUDY IN MEDIAEVAL POLITICAL
THEOLOGY

A classic. Still in print. Easy to get through the usual sources (Amazon,
your friendly neighborhood bookstore.)

He deals only with the medieval period, but, as a starting point, you
couldnt wish anything better. Indeed, the little bit of historical trivia
that you quote from THE TUDORS obviously comes straight from Kantorowicz.

On the sacred character (mystical, thaumaturgical) I recommend Marc Bloch:
LES ROIS THAUMATURGES, another classic, translated from the french as THE
ROYAL TOUCH (alas, not so easy to get, and fairly expensive, but you could
get it from interlibrary loan.

Pierre Bellemare


On Fri, 21 Aug 2009, tamarabower wrote:

> Forgive me this is somewhat off topic -
>
> In the TV show "The Tudors" it mentioned that the King was not allowed to
attend funerals. Is this accurate? I am interested to know more about why the
King was not allowed to attend funerals. Was this true of all European Kings of
that period? Were Queens allowed to attend funerals? I tried to google this to
no avail.
>
> The TV show explained that the people should not see the King at a funeral,
because they should not associate the King with death. They should always
associate the King with life.
>
> Of course a TV show is not a good reference, so I am trying to find a better
source.
>
> I am interested in this because I heard the same thing about Egyptian
Pharaohs,that they did not attend funerals. But I don't have any real
information on this.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
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