Towards a Genealogy of Political Theology : Schmitt, Peterson and Kantorowicz in Dialogue

This pioneering volume reconstructs a dialogue between three of the twentieth century’s most influential German intellectuals – Carl Schmitt, Erik Peterson and Ernst H. Kantorowicz – on the nature and scope of political theology.

Beyond a biographical study, Monsterrat Herrero investigates the theoretical themes that link these three figures’ key texts. Through close textual analysis, she traces how, in 1922, Schmitt outlined a methodological idea that Peterson developed in almost all his writings from 1931 onwards, and which would shape the historical research of Kantorowicz from 1946. This and other such instances reveal the overlooked conversation at play between the three thinkers. And Herrero argues that the web of influence does not stop there, as she claims that these early writings nurtured a myriad of interpretations which have turned political theology into the kaleidoscopic discipline it is today.

The dialogue that is revealed between these three intellectuals – a legal theorist, a theologian and a medieval historian – largely centres on issues where the political and the sacred intersect, in particular: political bodies, acclamations, martyrs and the arcana. Probing Schmitt’s, Peterson’s and Kantorowicz’s differing viewpoints, Herrero further demonstrates the striking relevance of many of these debates to contemporary concerns, from the relation between churches and states to political legitimation.

An essential resource for all those interested in political theology and the history of political ideas, Herrero’s book breaks new ground in more ways than one. It examines these three prominent thinkers together for the first time, introduces Anglophone readers to Peterson’s largely untranslated work and constitutes a fundamental step in tracing the unique genealogy of political theology.