Birthplace of The King's Two Bodies

Even more scenes from summer (I'm working actively on some more substantive research-related material that I will write up and share some pieces shortly on this blog).  Now that I'm on sabbatical, I am appreciating things on campus that have escaped my notice for years.  One is this building, which I've rushed by for years on my way to teach:  It is the birthplace of Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies.  I routinely mention to my graduate students that The King's Two Bodies was originally conceived in Berkeley, after Kantorowicz arrived and before he left for Princeton after his refusal to swear the loyalty oath: I didn't realize, however, until fairly recently that the book's conception took place here.  But it makes perfect sense that it should.

Durant Hall today; the original Boalt Hall

Locals at Berkeley should recognize this - it's near Sather Gate, Dwinelle, Wheeler, just downhill from the Campanile.  Today, this is a central administrative building on campus called 'Durant Hall.'  The main offices for the College of Letters and Sciences and their respective Deans and staff are housed here.  

But until 1951, this was the home of Berkeley's Boalt Memorial Hall of Law. 

You can see that it once served as a law building by examining details of the exterior - fasces, classical emblems of lawful authority, carved into the design of the window.  These were fairly common architectural features for law schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as courts and legislatures.    

Max Radin, one of Berkeley's celebrated legal theorists and scholar of Roman law, had his office here apparently.  It was a conversation between Radin and Kantorowicz here that originally motivated Kantorowicz to pursue the project that would eventually become The King's Two Bodies: