In the late Middle Ages, it was believed that the king possessed two distinct bodies: the first was the natural and mortal body, subject to time and human frailty; the second was the political body, with a perpetual character, which by passing from one individual to another escaped the limits of human nature and death. The idea of the dual body of the ruler expressed in metaphorical terms the emergence of political sovereignty and the state, which transcended the contingent individual who found himself at the head of the latter.

Historically, the natural body of the king has been predominantly male. But it has also been female. Ancient Egypt, Nubia, Japan from the late 500s to the late 1700s, Spain, and, most famously, the United Kingdom, have had female leaders. And even in the Italian states before unification in the 1860s there was no shortage of women in leadership, such as Joan II of Naples, or Eleonora D’Arborea in Sardinia in the fifteenth century.

All these queens found themselves holding the reins of power in contexts extremely hostile to women. Femininity was mostly associated with dispositions considered detrimental to the art of government, such as irrationality and weakness. The female body, in other words, was not conceived of as a political body.