John of Salisbury, Christine de Pizan, and the Metaphor of the “Body Politic”

The idea that a polity is like a human body is ancient, but became the master metaphor for politics in the European Middle Ages. The medieval “body politic” placed the king at the head of the body, commanding it; his spies are the eyes and ears, and his spokesman the mouth; knights are the hands and arms that bear sword and shield; scribes and bureaucrats are the stomach and other organs that disperse nourishment; and the lowly peasants are the legs and feet, whose labors support the political body. The metaphor emphasizes two key concepts, interdependence and hierarchy, which helped justify the feudal class system. Moreover, the body politic actually fueled conflict, as kings and popes warred over who should rule: the monarch as the head or the clergy as the heart or soul. The body politic remained dominant through the Renaissance and early modernity, famously appearing in both Hobbes and Rousseau. Organic political metaphors are still influential today.

The body politic first appeared in the sixth-century BCE “Fable of the Belly” of Aesop, later used in 494 BCE by a Roman senator, Menenius Agrippa, to negotiate an end to a plebian revolt. He likened the classes of Rome to parts of the body, saying the plebians were the hands and arms and the senate the stomach, so the arms must feed the belly or the city as a whole would perish. Throughout antiquity, a plethora of organic metaphors organized political thought. For example, Plato compared virtue to health, advocating a moderate diet for the body and, correspondingly, a diet of philosophy rather than sophistry for the psyche. In his Republic, justice means all parts of his ideal polity in are balance, like the bodily humors in a healthy body.

English philosopher, diplomat, and bishop John of Salisbury (late 1110s-1180) established the medieval paradigm of the body politic in his Policraticus (1159), the first important work of political theory of the Middle Ages. Since John was involved in the disputes between king Henry II and archbishop of Canterbury Thomas á Becket, the body politic was already implicated in papal/prince conflicts.

In the Policraticus, John argues the prince should govern in the interests of the entire political body and should punish corrupt officials who enrich themselves at the expense of the whole. He excoriates tyrants who indulge their vices and despoil the political body, and even arrives at an early theoretical justification for tyrannicide. The Policraticus is an example of the medieval genre of “mirrors for princes,” handbooks of practical and moral instruction about governing written for young aristocrats. Lessons were by “exempla,” tales of admirable princes from history and legend worthy of imitation. Medieval texts also relied heavily on arguments from authority, citing ancient thinkers and statesmen such as Aristotle (“The Philosopher”) or Cicero ( “Tully”). Indeed, John appears to have invented a letter from Plutarch to the revered Roman emperor Trajan to give his own arguments weight.

The first French woman of letters, Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-c. 1430), furnished another prime example of the body politic. Born in Venice, Christine was the daughter of a court physician and astrologer of Charles V of France, and her father and husband encouraged her education. After being widowed at age twenty-five, she turned to writing to make a living.

Among her works was The Book of the Body Politic (1406), another mirror for princes. Each of its three sections deals with the proper behavior of one of society’s classes – royalty, nobility, and commoners – which each correspond to part of the body politic. Christine uses the metaphor in traditional ways, emphasizing unity over conflict while at the same time justifying established hierarchies; her political body is also masculine, based on the model of the war-fighting male, despite the fact she was a woman writer who in other works attended to women’s concerns. The prince, as the head of the political body, is sovereign and in command of the body. She says, “in order to govern the body of the public polity well, it is necessary for the head to be healthy, that is virtuous. Because if it is ill, the whole body will feel it. Therefore we begin by speaking of medicine for the head, that is, for kings and princes…” Throughout, Christine discusses the nobles as the hard-working class, undoubtedly reflecting class prejudice.

Our reading for this month is Christine de Pizan’s Book of the Body Politic (entire, including the editor’s excellent introduction) and the following sections of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus:
Bk III chs 1-4, 6, 10, 15
Bk IV chs 1-5, 7-13
Bk V prologue, chs 1-3, 6-11
Bk VI prologue, chs 1, 2, 8, 9, 20-22, 24-26, 29
Bk VII chs 12, 17-18, 20-22.

Please see here for secondary resources.