The Queen’s Fantastic Body

Abstract

Ernst H. Kantorowicz, in his seminal work The King’s Two Bodies, argues that a sovereign has two bodies: one mortal, physical body subject to illness and death, and another immortal, dynastic body equivalent to the administrative mechanism. Notably, it is the king who has two bodies, not the queen. The king’s dynastic body is his administrative persona, but the queen’s official body depends on her maternity for the continuation of the dynasty. This essay argues that a queen can have two bodies and explores female rulers’ ways of claiming the rhetorical doubling of a sovereign body independent of maternity. It also proposes a comparative approach. This essay reads the mythological representation of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) in Marie de France’s Arthurian tale Lanval against Empress Wu Zetian 武則天 (624–705)’s self-mythologization as the avatar of the Goddess of Pure Radiance in the Commentary on the Great Cloud Sutra. It illustrates how female rulers wielded political symbolism through a reshuffling of symbolic orders, which provides a window into the roles of Celtic myths in a medieval French Christian society and Buddhism in a medieval Chinese Confucian society.