Introduction: Rank and Ritual in the Early Modern Court

In an essay entitled ‘Body, Brain, and Culture’, Victor Turner examined the question relating to the origin of human behaviour, asking whether it was genetically inherited, the result of social conditioning or a combination of both, adding that ‘one of those distinctive human features may be a propensity to the ritualization of certain of our behaviors’. Rituals, he argued, were transformative performances, ‘where symbols and values representing the unity and continuity of the total group were celebrated and reanimated’.¹ However, Catherine Bell concludes that ritual is not a basic, genetically derived feature of human behaviour, but rather a cultural and historical construct used to ‘help differentiate various styles and degrees of religiosity, rationality, and cultural determinism’.² Furthermore, rituals are not only moments of change, but also serve to affirm the entire order: for example in a hierarchical, monarchical society a coronation ritual defines the subjects’ status as well as that of the king or queen.³ Thereby, rank and ritual are linked: while rank is expressed in the formation of people and their respective stationing during a ritual, taking part in a ritual at a certain place — for example in a parade — affirms the individual rank a person holds in a society. Rank and ritual need to be analysed together. To discern ranks and the role hierarchical status played in early modern societies, the analysis of rituals is paramount, whereas rituals and their function need the context of rank to be fully understood.

Most early modern territories in Europe were monarchies or at least dominated by dynastic rule. A central feature of monarchy and dynastic rule is the court, as a place of residence, government and society as well as a meeting place for members of the political, military, social and religious elite of a country. The articles of this special issue of The Court Historian address the topics of rank and ritual at early modern courts.⁴ The authors focus on factors that changed rank and/or ritual, influenced one or the other or challenged pre-existing notions regarding rank and ritual. The case studies range from fifteenth-century Burgundian succession rites (Andrew Murray), Jacobean court masques in England (Nathan Perry), codifications of Ottoman ceremony in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Tülay Artan), changes in English hunting rituals (Tara Greig), to rituals relating to sexual dalliances at the court of George II (Stephanie Koscak).

At court, rituals were and are foremost a means of organising day-to-day life as well as special occasions such as dynastic events (weddings, baptisms, deaths) or political events (declarations of war, signing of peace treaties), which provided monarchs with opportunities to demonstrate their status and power to subjects and visiting dignitaries. Rank and ritual were defining elements of courtly life on the one hand and signs used by monarchs to represent sovereign powers on the other. Focusing the analysis on the issues of rank and ritual therefore allows for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of early modern European courts. The authors of the chapters in this volume discuss these two themes, analysing the correlation of rank and ritual and corresponding changes to rank and ritual through the examination of different models at early modern courts in Europe from the late fifteenth century to the eighteenth century.

Ritual

Victor Turner has defined ritual as ‘a stereotyped sequence of activities, involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests’.⁵ This definition of ‘ritual’ was adapted by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger for early modern Europe, and for secular as well as religious contexts. She defines ritual firstly as a ‘sequence of acts … repetitive and standardized in its outward form … and, therefore, recognizable’ by actors involved in the ritual as well as by spectators.⁶ Formalising the acts, either by tradition or written documents, and presenting them as being based on ancient tradition does not mean that rituals are not adaptable and changeable over time in order to suit the situations and actors involved. Secondly, she argues that rituals are much more than just statements: they actually change a situation, offering a ‘break’ between otherwise seamlessly evolving circumstances. Stollberg-Rilinger offers the examples of marriage rites and declarations of war whereby one sentence alters the course of an individual’s or a nation’s history. The third characteristic of a ritual is that it needs to be ‘staged and enacted’ to have any impact, for example, through marking it by special location, clothing, music, speeches or oaths. As the ritual needs to be a demonstrative, solemn and (at least in a certain sense) a public act, she concludes that ‘[i]t is not possible to perform a ritual accidentally’.⁷

At court, rituals helped to illustrate and affirm a monarch’s power, while at the same time delineating the social status of the other persons involved in the ritual. In general, court ceremony encompasses all public acts connected with rule and rulership, including coronation, homage, entrances, festivities for special occasions, audiences, religious services, processions, baptisms, weddings, funerals and even formal, ritualised performances of going to bed or rising in the morning. Indeed, entertainments such as jousting, hunting and the theatre, as well as body language or clothes, can be included in court ceremonial too.⁸

Ritualistic events were often conducted within a religious context, which Clifford Geertz states is a universal feature of human culture rather than one distinctive to specific peoples.⁹ As the theory of divine rule took firmer root in Europe in the early modern period, it should have provided monarchs with a rationale for their exercise of power and a deterrent against those who sought to criticise it. Even though, contemporarily, divine right was not applied to a specific person’s rule but rather monarchic rule as such or the rule of a specific familial line, rituals could symbolise the blessed status of a specific ruler, especially in societies where political and religious spheres were interwoven and inseparable.¹⁰ To illustrate the point, Catherine Bell highlights the intricate court ceremonial in Louis XIV’s France, characterising the country as a ‘theatre-state’, in which the ‘complex ritual life of the court creates a reflection of the solemn order of the universe and a model for the appropriate social order’.¹¹ The religious nature of most royal rituals supported the elevated status of monarchy as being nearer to God. Members of the clergy were involved in most royal rituals, symbolising the connection between temporal and spiritual power. Institutions of religion were also used to strengthen rank, for example when religious titles were issued to members of the political elite; in other cases, members of the clergy took office and gained high ranks because of their roles as spiritual advisors and confessors.

Of particular relevance to this set of essays is Bell’s discussion of political rites, notably the way in which they were used to construct, display and promote monarchical power. Thus, display, as in the impact and pomp of a state occasion, was a prominent strategy used by rulers ‘to define a community of ordered and legitimate power relationships’.¹² Generalising from the Madagascan bath ritual, Marc Bloch argues that such rituals demonstrate the legitimation of authority because they make ‘royal power an essential aspect of a cosmic social and emotional order which is unitary and unquestionable’.¹³ The political court thereby serves as a mirror of the universe. Bell tends to agree with Bloch, commenting that political rituals use symbols to define specific communities bound by shared values and goals, legitimising these values and goals ‘by linking their iconicity with the perceived values of the cosmos’.¹⁴ Indeed, in so-called ‘theatre states’, a term coined by Glifford Geertz in relation to nineteenth-century Java, political ritual did not symbolise the power of the state, it was rather the purpose of it: power served pomp rather than the reverse. In such countries, ‘[m]ass ritual was not a device to shore up the state; the state was a device for the enactment of mass ritual’.¹⁵ Bloch, however, critiques Geertz’ notion of the theatre state, which, he argues, divorces the political aspect of kingship from the ritualistic one: ‘Surely it is in this connection between the royal ritual and the non-royal ritual that the source of the power of the royal ritual to move [emotionally] is to be found.’¹⁶ David Cannadine, at the end of the introduction to the book he edited with Simon Price, Rituals of Royalty, concludes that ‘[r]itual was not the mask of force, but is itself a type of power’.¹⁷

Within the palace, domestic household ritual overlapped with court ceremonial. The English king, Charles I, having viewed Spanish court etiquette as a prince, adopted similar elaborate ceremonial whenever he dined in state. As Kevin Sharpe states, ‘[s]uch rituals publicly emphasized the reverence due to the king’s body and the mystical majesty of monarchy’.¹⁸ The crown dispensed a great deal of patronage, filling the great offices of the kingdom and so downwards with members of the social elite, as well as appointing them to posts within the royal household. In an era of personal rule, there was considerable overlap, and in a highly regularised and ritualistic environment there were many posts to be filled. A prerequisite to survive and thrive at court was to understand rituals and their symbolic language. To master the language of ritual could help one’s advancement and offer protection against personal attacks, which happened often while nobles and other persons jostled for place in order to gain regular access to the monarch. Ignorance of the language of rituals was a serious obstacle to a courtly career. The household regime of Louis XIV of France was governed by a particularly strict routine, delivering a daily ritual that catered for the sovereign’s every need. Officials followed the protocol to the letter, whether washing, shaving, dressing or even wiping the monarch’s bottom. Even this very menial job was coveted because it brought the incumbent into intimate contact with the monarch and the potential for reward and influence.¹⁹

The daily routine was played out within the confines of buildings which were constructed to accommodate the rituals pertaining to the monarchy. State and reception rooms gave way to rooms of increasing privacy and restricted access, granting privileged admittance to those whom the monarch wished to honour in return for attending to his or her domestic and intimate needs. For instance, Theobalds, the Hertfordshire seat of Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I’s chief minister, was built with visits of the Queen in mind.²⁰ Versailles in Louis XIV’s time, and the William and Mary extension of Hampton Court, were similarly designed to accommodate matching suites of rooms for the king and queen, symbolically emphasizing the rank of visitors allowed in each room through furnishing, decoration and spatial arrangements. However, spatial organisation could vary according to circumstances and change with evolving court rituals.²¹ Ritual was in the above-mentioned cases a determinant of the built environment of court. The use of rooms and places within them symbolised rank just as well as the placement of persons in group activities.

Rank

Rituals also serve to represent, contest, negotiate, achieve and supersede rank. The political and social order is neither permanent nor evident and can only be recognised by signs and symbols such as, for example, those used in rituals. Rank is literally the standing of a person, that is, the place someone occupies in relation to someone else.²² Respect, honour, appearance and distinction are all part of the semantic field connected with rank.²³ The order in which participants took part in a procession demonstrated, for example, the social hierarchy because it followed lists of courtiers written down according to their noble rank or by placement at banquets or meetings of legislatures. Dismissed by earlier historiography merely as signs of individual vanity or distractions from ‘real politics’, conflicts about rank and rank itself were of vital importance for early modern societies, as Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger and others have shown in their analyses of these conflicts at various European courts.²⁴ For example, the institutionalisation of the Imperial Diet as a regular assembly of all members of the Holy Roman Empire in one room meant that earlier, more fluid forms of a social order gave way to a visible ranking due to the seating of the participants. Economic or political power played a part in assigning the proper seats but taking a certain seat could in itself lead to a higher or lower rank.²⁵ Seating as a visible symbol of rank was therefore one of the most disputed topics in early modern courtly societies.

Early modern Europe was very hierarchical in structure, with finely delineated gradations determining such matters as attendance at court, voting for or becoming members of representative institutions, exemption from taxation, the clothes one could wear or the jobs one could take up, or even what recreational pursuits one could engage in. Some commoners, who became wealthy through trade or the professions, could buy noble titles. Indeed, in 1611, James VI of Scotland and I of England created the new title of baronet as a means of making money. This creation of a new rank purely to gain money caused outrage among established genteel families, even though the practice of buying noble titles had long existed.²⁶ In France a distinction was made between the noblesse d’épée, that is, the old nobility, and the noblesse de robe, whose titles derived from the holding of certain administrative or judicial posts (even though recent historiography makes it clear that this distinction was not as sharp or as definite as previously thought).²⁷ Voltaire satirised the snobbishness of the old nobility of France in Candide, ou l’Optimisme, published in 1759, in which he recounted the fictitious adventures of the eponymous hero, the son of a baron’s sister, who did not marry the father of her child because he could only prove seventy-one of his armorial quarterings.²⁸ The invention of new titles happened at any level of rulership. The Habsburgs created the title ‘archduke’ to position themselves at a higher rank than all other dukes, putting themselves on a par with the prince-electors of the Empire.²⁹ Similarly, Cosimo de’ Medici, duke of Tuscany (1519–74), wanted not only to outrank other dukes in Italy but also to stress his sovereignty vis-à-vis the Holy Roman Empire. In alliance with the Papal States, he thus succeeded in elevating his status when Pope Pius V declared his domain to be a ‘grand duchy’ in 1569.³⁰

Nonetheless, (invented) titles were not the only cases whereby titles and their translation determined rank and ritual. The different court traditions were also influenced by language differences. Most notably, the Imperial court in Vienna used Latin as its official language, but in Latin some crowned heads were only addressed as serenitas (‘highness’), not majestas (‘majesty’). In British-Austrian relations in the eighteenth century, therefore, the British were determined to use French for diplomatic correspondence, as in that language, the kings of Great Britain and Ireland were styled majesté by the Imperial chancellery. The different titles related to different ceremonial greetings and rituals used, for example, in public audiences at court. Through the prism of the public attendees, ceremonial practice in turn determined one’s status at court.³¹ The sovereignty of a monarch, shown by his diplomatic representatives in audiences and daily life at foreign courts, corresponded with a certain social status (rank) of these diplomats, which was in turn expressed in ceremony (rituals).³²

Ceremony as Symbolic Communication

Given the context, rank and ritual were inextricably linked in the iconography of early modern European monarchical rule, the latter providing the protocols (and theatrics) that showcased the unique status and authority of the person at the centre of the drama, whether in the household, at court or in public. Ceremony represents the common rules and norms of a society and, by participating, consent is offered. If a ritual serves to change the status and rank of a person or the state of a society, ceremony acknowledges and affirms them in the long run. This idea is captured by the phrase, ‘all rituals are also at the same time ceremonies, not all ceremonies rituals, however’.³³ The coronation of a successor to a kingdom’s throne changed the relationship between him and his people to sovereign and subjects — and was therefore a ritual — whereas a re-affirmation of a coronation during religious festivities was merely a ceremony.³⁴

Early modern courtly public processions and ceremonies were displays of splendour and majesty designed to invoke a sense of awe, and project an image that the ruler at the centre of it embodied the realm in his or her own person.³⁵ A supporting cast headed by nobles, chief officers of the monarchy and members of the clergy enhanced the perception of onlookers, who might include visiting dignitaries and even other monarchs. The sensory experience of participants and onlookers at grand public events like these made them more susceptible to the message being conveyed, creating ‘a sense of condensed totality’ and shaping ‘people’s experience and cognitive ordering of the world’.³⁶ Furthermore, through these ritualistic events, the social order was established and strengthened. The presence of the emperor, the electors, princes and other members of the Holy Roman Empire in its assembly, the Imperial Diet, not only represented the Empire but remade it every time because the acts they passed applied to the entire Empire pars pro toto.³⁷

Single acts performed as part of a ceremony, such as a subject kneeling in front of a monarch during an enfeoffment, were symbolic acts. Most rituals consisted — and consist to this day — of several symbolic acts, which could be executed differently according to the situation. Bowing the head to someone while seated shows equal rank if the other is also seated, or superior rank if the other is standing. The same goes for symbolic acts like doffing one’s hat, hand-kissing or kissing/embracing in general, raising a glass or sharing a meal, a drink or a bed.³⁸ The different set of symbolic acts and their execution was a matter of negotiations especially in regard to the first official audience of any diplomat.

State occasions such as receptions of ambassadors, coronations and royal marriages and funerals were therefore highly stylised, choreographed and status-conscious affairs.³⁹ Conflicts regarding ceremonial questions of rank and ritual were thus not ‘much ado about nothing’, but rather concerned vital questions of status and power. Wrongly executed ceremonies made the results invalid: stumbling, coughing or laughing could nullify a ritual’s aim.⁴⁰ In highly hierarchical societies, where the social order was remade and re-affirmed by rituals and ceremonies, symbolic acts during a ritual could lead to an elevation in rank or to a degradation. In 1728, the Imperial envoy to the British court, Philipp Count Kinsky, negotiated his first audience with King George II and Queen Caroline so well that he gained the ritualistic greeting due to an ambassador, a higher diplomatic rank than owed to him according to his credentials. Following this audience, he enjoyed this higher rank in relation to other diplomats at the court, but his presumption resulted in the displeasure of his fellow diplomats as well as of members of the court and government.⁴¹ Although rank and ritual were often presented as unchanging, ancient traditions, to which long histories and old age added a certain legitimacy, this was (and is) in no way true. The above-mentioned cases as well as the articles in this special issue serve as examples to show that most rituals were changeable, adaptable, quite often just invented traditions. Successive rulers would put their own stamp on each and change the precise forms of rituals.⁴²

Rank and Ritual in Early Modern Courts

Of all the state occasions typical of early modern princely states, nothing reflected the centrality of rank and ritual in the projection of monarchical rule more than funeral and coronation ceremonies, the former denoting the passing of one incumbent of the throne and the latter the assumption of power by his or her successor. As public demonstrations of the transfer of power, they were conducted with the pomp and ceremony required of such solemn events and given additional validity by the presence of the most important and influential subjects in the realm. In his essay on the sword-ritual in the fifteenth-century Burgundian court, Andrew Murray draws a distinction between the funerals of Philip the Bold (1404) and John the Fearless (1419) on one hand, and that of Philip the Good (1467) on the other. Whereas the former two emphasised the procession rather than the burial, the latter witnessed the introduction of and focus on the sword-ritual. Murray uses this example to redefine Geertz’s concept of the ‘theatre state’ in a ‘visual model’ which provides a new explanation of the way court ceremonies seemed to represent wider society. But changes introduced to succession rituals also prove the changeable nature of rituals.

Tülay Artan illustrates this point in relation to the codification of rules that governed rituals relating to state ceremony in the Ottoman Empire since 1676. After the establishment of a protocol office under a master of ceremonies, its officer, Mehmet Efendi, assembled material in his Book of Protocol of 1690, which discussed a wide range of procedures, including rules governing religious festivals, the distribution of alms, ceremonies for royal births and marriages and the ordering of governmental meetings. An appendix detailed the protocols to be adopted when receiving, accommodating and feasting foreign ambassadors. The process of codification continued into the eighteenth century, but, as Artan points out, the protocols, though codified, did not remain immutable. Rules governing ceremonies multiplied because of the manoeuvring of courtiers for place and influence and served to negotiate rank and ritual.

Court rituals and representations of rank could also be negotiated within the framework of court entertainment, which itself could be part of a ritualistic event or be held in remembrance of one. In England, Elizabeth I presided over her Accession Day Tilts, held on 17 November, in which aristocratic jousters tilted at great expense in her honour.⁴³ Serious injuries did not prevent monarchs from using sports as ritualistic events of court life, showing, reinforcing and representing their and their courtiers’ rank.⁴⁴ As Peter Edwards has written elsewhere, ‘a tournament, with its pomp and colour and its archaic rituals, spiced with an element of danger, perfectly encapsulated the aristocratic approach to life’.⁴⁵ The sport declined in the seventeenth century, whereas horse-racing and hunting rose to prominence as courtly divertissements. While at the Newmarket races with the court in 1638, Viscount Conway wrote to a friend that ‘[w]hen we do not hunt we hawk … the rest of the time is spent in tennis, chess and dice, and in a word, we eat and drink and rise up to play, and this is to live like a gentleman, but what is a gentleman but his pleasure’.⁴⁶ Hunting and hawking, especially when performed on horseback, was highly stylised, costly and exclusive.⁴⁷ Using the situation in England as an exemplar, Tara Greig’s article in this volume discusses the respective protocols, lore, and mystique of the hunt, though the precise forms — and even the rationale — changed as stag-hunting gave way to chasing foxes. Over time, hunting transitioned from a challenge and a way to show honour to an act satiated with rituals affirming rank and status and a display of rank through the use of expensive horses, clothes, and even the destruction of fields by noble hunting parties. Rank and ritual therefore remained essential elements, while showcasing participants’ skill, horsemanship and courage.

Indoors, musical events such as operas, ballets or court masques were popular both as an entertainment and as a means of advertising the social hierarchy and glorifying the ruler but could also be used to challenge both. Court masques were designed to burnish the monarch’s image. They represented a genre that rulers could control because they patronised playwrights to create scenarios which accentuated their status and magnificence. Indeed, Sharpe argues that they were ‘political liturgies’, disseminating an ideology ‘through the meanings and mysteries they communicated and mediated’.⁴⁸ In this respect, Nathan Perry’s essay on George Chapman’s ‘Memorable Masque’ suggests the opposite. It was performed in honour of the marriage of Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England, to Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, in Whitehall in 1613, but criticized the King’s policy. If the court masque did inveigh against aspects of James’s policy, Perry states, the production has to be put into the context of the tensions that existed between court factions at the time. In particular, the veiled allusions represent the views of his son Prince Henry’s faction, who supported a militant Protestant, anti-Spanish, pro-colonial agenda in opposition to the pacific, pro-Spanish and insular policies of the Howard faction. The masque of 1613 therefore reflected the views of Prince Henry, who was heavily involved in the preparations for the wedding and who surely was aware of the masque’s subject matter. It thereby challenged contemporary notions of rank and ritual, criticising the King within a courtly ritual and challenging his authority in his own court.

Stephanie Koscak’s essay on contemporary attitudes towards the sex life of Frederick, Prince of Wales, shows the contemporarily well-accepted notion that a prince having a mistress demonstrated his fitness to rule. A mistress was connected with virility and power (or prowess) as well as notions of rank and ritual. Frederick’s father, George II, had mistresses even if he was deeply attached to his wife and ‘ … seemed to look upon a mistress rather as a necessary appurtenance to his grandeur as a prince than an addition to his pleasures as a man … ’.⁴⁹ A royal mistress represented the high rank of her suitor, was important in holding events in his honour, and was part of the network of patronage that centred around a prince. Public opinion, as reflected in plays and the pamphlet literature of the day, was generally indulgent, even favourable, towards Frederick.

As the case studies in this special issue show, rank and ritual need to be considered together to be fully analysed. This holds true for monarchies throughout Europe from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Rank influenced one’s position and participation in a ritual, whereas rituals determined, confirmed or challenged ranks. Ritualistic traditions were mutable and changeable to serve the needs of the time or the persons participating in them, but to gain acceptance, changing rituals were often presented as a continuous norm rather than new inventions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charlotte Backerra

Charlotte Backerra

Charlotte Backerra is Assistant Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Göttingen, Germany. She has published on international relations, diplomatic history, royal studies and gender history, including a monograph on Anglo-Austrian relations (in German), and co-edited volumes on the concept of the ‘Royal Nation’ and most recently on Confessional Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2020).

Peter Edwards

Peter Edwards

Peter Edwards is Professor Emeritus at Roehampton University, London. He has published on equine history and on the logistics of early modern warfare. His publications also include an edition of essays on William Cavendish, 1^st duke of Newcastle, and a monograph on his uncle, William Cavendish, 1^st earl of Devonshire.

Carolina Armenteros (guest editor)

Carolina Armenteros (PhD Cantab.) is a European historian and the director of the Centre for European Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic, where she also teaches and conducts research. She has published multiple books and articles on monarchical thought and politics, most recently Monarchy and Liberalism in Spain: The Building of the Nation-State, 1780–1931 (Routledge, 2020).

ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4331-5793

Notes

1 V. Turner, The Anthropology of Performance (New York, 1988), pp. 156-7.

2 C. Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford, 1997), p. ix.

3 G. Althoff and B. Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Spektakel der Macht? Einleitung’, in B. Stollberg-Rilinger, M. Puhle, J. Götzmann and G. Althoff (eds), Spektakel der Macht: Rituale im Alten Europa 800-1800 (Darmstadt, 2008), pp. 15-19, p. 15.

4 Most of the texts collected in this volume were read at the conference ‘Monarchy and Modernity since 1500’ held at the University of Cambridge in January 2019, which was organised by one of this volume’s guest editors, Carolina Armenteros.

5 V. Turner, ‘Symbols in African Ritual’, Science 179.16 (1972), pp. 1100-05, p. 1101.

6 B. Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Much Ado About Nothing? Rituals of Politics in Early Modern Europe and Today. 24^th Annual Lecture of the GHI, Washington DC, November 11, 2010,’ Bulletin of the GHI Washington 48 (2011), pp. 9-24, p. 11.

7 Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Much Ado About Nothing?’, p. 12.

8 M. Hengerer, ‘Hofzeremoniell’, in W. Paravicini, J. Hirschbiegel and J. Wettlaufer (eds), Handbuch Höfe und Residenzen im spätmittelalterlichen Reich: Ein dynastisch-topographisches Handbuch, 3 vols (Göttingen, 2003-2007), vol. III, pp. 433-56, pp. 434-5.

9 C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), p. 48.

10 See C. Sarti, ‘Divine Right of Dynasty’, in L. Geevers and H. Gustafsson (eds), Dynasty and State Formation in Europe, 1500–1700 (forthcoming 2021).

11 Bell, Ritual, pp. 129-30. See below for a discussion of the theatre-state. As Bell also argues, ritual was particularly important to absolutist monarchs because they based their authority on an outside, incorporeal authority, that is, by divine right. This point is debatable, as absolutist monarchs were not the first to see themselves as ruling by God’s will, but this was rather a consistent feature of European monarchy.

12 Bell, Ritual, pp. 128, 129.

13 M. Bloch, ‘The Ritual of the Royal Bath in Madagascar: The Dissolution of Death, Birth and Fertility into Authority’, in D. Cannadine and S. Price (eds), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 271-97, p. 294.

14 Bell, Ritual, p. 129.

15 C. Geertz, Negara, The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton, 1980), p. 13; C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York, 1973), p. 357.

16 Bloch, ‘The Ritual of the Royal Bath in Madagascar’, p. 295.

17 D. Cannadine, ‘Introduction: Divine Rites of Kings’, in Cannadine and Price (eds), Rituals of Royalty, pp. 1-19, p. 19.

18 K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven & London, 1992), pp. 217-8.

19 W. R. Newton, Derrière la façade: vivre au château de Versailles au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 2008), p. 96.

20 J.M. Sutton, Materializing Space at an Early Modern Prodigy House: the Cecils at Theobalds, 1564–1607 (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 14, 85-6. Tülay Artan notes in her chapter in this volume that a seventeenth-century Ottoman ceremonial book carefully records the spatial organisation and nomenclature of the Topkapı palace and the palace at Edirne.

21 Sutton, Materializing Space, p. 14.

22 B. Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Zeremoniell als politisches Verfahren: Rangordnung und Rangstreit als Strukturmerkmale des frühneuzeitlichen Reichstags’, in J. Kunisch (ed.), Neue Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Reichsgeschichte (Berlin, 1997), pp. 91-132, p. 95.

23 See for example B. Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Logik und Semantik des Ranges in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in R. Jessen (ed.), Konkurrenz in der Geschichte: Praktiken — Werte—– Institutionalisierungen (Frankfurt and New York, 2014), pp. 197-227.

24 Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Zeremoniell als politisches Verfahren’, p. 92. See for example, B. Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Die Wissenschaft der feinen Unterschiede. Das Präzedenzrecht und die europäischen Monarchien vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert’, Majestas 10 (2002), pp. 125-50; A. Pečar, Die Ökonomie der Ehre: der höfische Adel am Kaiserhof Karls VI. (1711–1740) (Darmstadt, 2003); M. Füssel, Gelehrtenkultur als symbolische Praxis: Rang, Ritual und Konflikt an der Universität der Frühen Neuzeit (Darmstadt, 2006); T. Weller, Theatrum Praecedentiae: zeremonieller Rang und gesellschaftliche Ordnung in der frühneuzeitlichen Stadt: Leipzig 1500–1800 (Darmstadt, 2006).

25 Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Zeremoniell als politisches Verfahren’, pp. 100-02.

26 K. Van Eerde, ‘The Creation of the Baronetage in England’, Huntington Library Quarterly 22, no 4 (1959), pp. 313-22.

27 B. Sandberg, Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France (Baltimore, 2010), pp. 6-7.

28 Voltaire, Candide, ou, L’optimisme (Paris, 1766), ch. 1, p. 4.

29 C. Thomas, ‘Privilegium maius (1358/1359) als Erweiterung des Privilegium minus, 1156 September 17’, in E. Bruckmüller and P. Urbanitsch (eds), Ostarrîchi – Österreich 996–996: Menschen, Mythen, Meilensteine (Horn, 1996), p. 650, http://wwwg.uni-klu.ac.at/kultdoku/kataloge/20/html/1818.htm.

30 E. Panicucci, ‘La questione del titolo granducale: il carteggio diplomatico tra Firenze e Madrid’, in Toscana e Spagna nel secolo XVI: Miscellanea di studi storici (Pisa, 1996), pp. 7-58, pp. 12-13, 45-58.

31 Ch. Backerra, Wien und London, 1727–1735: Internationale Beziehungen im frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2018), pp. 265-6.

32 A. Krischer, ‘Souveränität als sozialer Status: Zur Funktion des diplomatischen Zeremoniells in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in R. Kauz, G. Rota and J. P. Niederkorn (eds), Diplomatisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im mittleren Osten in der Frühen Neuzeit (Vienna, 2009), pp. 1-32.

33 K. J. Leyser, ‘Ritual, Zeremonie und Geste: das ottonische Reich’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993), pp. 1-26, p. 2.

34 F.-J. Arlinghaus, ‘Rituale in der historischen Forschung der Vormoderne’, Zeitschrift für neuere Rechtsgeschichte 31 (2009), pp. 274-91, p. 279.

35 See various chapters in G. Versteegen, S. Bussels and W. Melion (eds), Magnificence in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden, 2020).

36 Bell, Ritual, pp. 160-61.

37 B. Stollberg-Rilinger, Des Kaisers alte Kleider: Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (Munich, 2008), p. 300.

38 See in general Stollberg-Rilinger et al., Spektakel der Macht.

39 See for the very special case of two monarchs meeting, as did Henry VIII and Francis I on the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520, Calendar of State Papers Venetian, III, 1520–26 (London, 1926), pp. 20-21, 43.

40 Stollberg-Rilinger, ‘Much Ado About Nothing?’, p. 10.

41 Backerra, Wien und London, pp. 263-4.

42 Bell, Ritual, pp. 193-5. See also Artan’s article in this special issue, where she illustrates this point in relation to the codification of rules governing the rituals relating to state ceremonial in the Ottoman Empire.

43 P. Edwards, Horse and Man in Early Modern England (London, 2007), pp. 138-9.

44 Henry VIII suffered serious injuries while jousting in 1524 and 1536, while in 1559 King Henry II of France died when a splinter from a shattered lance pierced his eye. M. Graves, Henry VIII: A Study in Kingship (London, 2003), p. 62; Edwards, Horse and Man, p. 130.

45 Edwards, Horse and Man, p. 127.

46 Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I, p. 234.

47 See also R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (London, 1621), pp. 158, 339.

48 Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I, pp. 227, 230.

49 R. Sedgwick (ed.), Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II by John, Lord Hervey (New York, 1970), vol. I, pp. 40-44, p. 42.