Magia, sacralidad y realeza. Un balance sobre un hito historiográfico:Les rois thaumaturgues de Marc Bloch

Abstract

Some historians consider that a book is a milestone that opens new avenues to the writing of history, while others see it simply as the identification symbol of an academic school. This was the fate of Les Rois thaumaturgues by Marc Bloch (1924), a book that some French historians regard as the beginning of the histoire des mentalites. The book is a case study of the royal touch, a medieval ritual of healing the disease called scrofulae by touching with the hands of the kings of France and England. This article analyzes Bloch’s work in relation to the theories of the so-called “sacred kingship”, especially the one proposed by J. G. Frazer, and with the birth and development of the histoire des mentalites.