Vlast', obshchestvo, telo: antropomorfnaya paradigma v politicheskoj mysli srednevekovoj Zapadnoj Evropy

Abstract

The article based on the research of medieval West European political thought’s texts and mainly on the basic treatise “Policraticus” of John of Salisbury and works by other authors in XII century is devoted to analysis of concepts concerning power and society in light of “body politic” metaphor. The most representative and influential sources (and first of them is “Policraticus”) transmitting the idea of “body politic” in Latin intellectual culture are researched, the metaphor usage logic and ways of its usage in polemical tradition are identified. The “body hierarchy” considered in the article focuses in medieval authors opinion not only on mystical but real social and political arrangement, it underwent definite transformations connected with power and its welder’s figure reception through ages.