Royal Entry Research Articles

A Method to the Madness?

Abstract This article assesses the 1534–1535 Anabaptist kingdom of Münster and how its leader, Jan of Leiden, asserted the legitimacy of his divinely anointed kingship. Rather than dismiss Jan of Leiden’s displays of supremacy as arbitrary, radical, or mere delusions of grandeur, I seek to contextualize the spectacle of Münster through an appeal to the power of cultural memory and chivalry. At least three applications of chivalric power are narrated in contemporary accounts of Münster. These relate to clothing, royal entries, and tournament events. By paying particular attention to these applications of chivalric power, we can surmise with more clarity just what Jan of Leiden and his advisors envisioned for the city and themselves and how that vision made sense within the social imaginary of late medieval Europe from which chivalry drew its symbolic power.

Episcopal entries and urban liberties in late medieval and Renaissance France, c. 1200–c. 1600

Abstract In comparison to the ceremonial entries of French kings, little work has been done on episcopal entries. Whereas royal entries underwent a period of massive elaboration during the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, there was less change to bishops’ entries during this period, especially in towns where civic administrations used these ceremonies to compel bishops to acknowledge their rights. While less susceptible to modification than royal entries, important changes did occur to the episcopal entry by the later sixteenth century because of the increased Counter-Reformation emphasis on the power of the bishop, as well as the impact of the Wars of Religion. By the seventeenth century, the requirement to confirm urban liberties at entries was far less a part of an episcopal entry than it had been during the heights of this ceremony during the later Middle Ages. Nonetheless, the episcopal entry remained an important way for towns to recruit brokers.

Un poema inédito de Joan Sist en honor de Blanca de Sicilia

This article introduces and edits a previously unpublished poem by Joan Sist –a priest from València– copied in a 16th-century manuscript by the Majorcan humanist Joan Binimelis. The extant text is incomplete and rather corrupted, but it has great interest from the point of view of literary history for several reasons: firstly, it is the only witness to Sist's literary activity, which was known despite the fact that no piece seemed to have survived. Secondly, it is the first composition dedicated to Blanca, queen consort of Sicily and later queen of Navarre. The author's identification and the rubric allows me to propose a specific event as the ocasion that originated this song: the royal entry into the city of València of the monarch Martí I of Aragon, queen Maria de Luna and their new daughter-in-law, Blanca of Navarre, on 30 th March 1402. For this evento, the first public presentation of the queen of Sicily, second wife of Martí el Jove, Joan Sist composed a conventional song of praise, borrowing from the song also intended for the queen of Sicily, probably her predecessor on the trone Maria, by Andreu Febrer.

Review: Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire

Review: <i>Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire</i>

Royal Entries in Conquered Towns. Mosques, Cathedrals and the Power of Buildings (Castile-Leon, 11th-13th Centuries)

Written sources of the kingdoms of Castile-Leon describing processions and royal entries in the 11th-13th Centuries are not commonly found. The absence of such ceremonies makes it difficult to recognize the topography of power through remarkable buildings as well as the hierarchies among their ecclesiastical and secular participants. This absence prevented the kings of Castile and Leon from being seen publicly and visiting some iconic processional spots which provided the right atmosphere for the most solemn rituals in a medieval monarch’s life. King Alfonso VI’s entry into Toledo in 1085 set a new precedent put into practice by his successors during the Christian conquests of al-Andalus cities, which took place until the mid-13th Century. The transformation of the congregational mosques in the conquered cities provided a unique opportunity for victorious monarchs to display their power through the appropriation of urban spaces. The king’s central role in the ecclesiastical rituals of purification and the subsequent control over the fate of the most representative buildings allow these processions to be considered as spatial and ritual phenomena.

When the town becomes a stage: royal entries and municipal power in medieval Montpellier (14th-15th Centuries)

The urban chronicle of Montpellier known under the nickname of the “Petit Thalamus” (1204-1423) is the oldest one written in a vernacular language all over Western Europe; it contains the narrations of many princely, royal and even pontifical and imperial entries in the town. It allows us to question the emergence and the evolution of a ritual, not so much from the point of view of the monarchy but of the urban authorities. More than the ritual itself, the study of these narrations, compared when possible to other urban sources, reveals the process of memory selection by the consulate of Montpellier, magnifying some of the entries-especially the pontifical one made by Urbain V in 1367-and leaving some others into oblivion. It also highlights the flexibility of a civic ceremony-which can, sometimes, be turned into a mere performance deprived of political meaning-used by the magistrates to reinforce their own power on urban spaces and to inscribe their domination into the streets, the minds of the inhabitants and the memory of the community.

Introduction. Processions and Royal Entries in the Petrification of Space during the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Introduction. Processions and Royal Entries in the Petrification of Space during the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Public Celebrations, the Other, and Emotional Responses. New approaches to the Iberian Royal entries in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Traditionally, when dealing with the study of urban celebrations in the Middle and Early Modern periods, historiography has accepted the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk to point out the magnificence and diversity of artistic expressions that were part of these ephemeral events. Without totally opposing this idea, reinforced by methodological currents such as the history of emotions, this paper aims to reflect on the concept of urban celebrations. We will provide new perspectives in the study of these performances, especially their short-lived nature, which prevented the people from having access to all the acts and messages that involved these events. To this end, we propose a new approach to documentary and literary sources, from the point of view of the analysis of the Muslim other. We study its visual representation as well as its role as a spectator and active participant, especially as a dancer or musician. This allows us to present a new methodological framework using Valencia as a case study.

Margaret and the Festival Book: The French Royal Entry in the Renaissance: the Status of the Printed Text

Margaret and the Festival Book: <i>The French Royal Entry in the Renaissance: the Status of the Printed Text</i>

Civic Pride and Royal Incorporation: Henri IV in Limoges

This article examines an account of Henri IV’s entry ceremony into Limoges in 1605 that was written by Simon Descoustures, a local official and avocat du roi. I argue that this account opens up theoretical terrain on which to rethink narratives of royal power in early modern France. Henri IV’s royal entries have previously been understood as part of a broader effort to shore up his authority in the wake of the religious wars. In Descoustures’s text, however, while the people of Limoges welcome Henri IV into their city, they do so on their own terms, extending the spatial and temporal framework through which their encounter with the king takes place. By attending to the materiality of Limoges’s ancient origins and its enduring civic pride, I demonstrate how the city incorporates Henri IV into its civic body, rather than allowing itself fully to be subsumed into the king’s body politic.

Les Immigrants et l’espace urbain de Lyon au xvie siècle: une colonie florentine de Lyon

Abstract From the early sixteenth century, foreigners had been part of the procession of royal entries into Lyon. Immigration became commonplace after Louis XI granted Lyon four annual free fairs. Among these foreigners, Florentines were notable for their number and their wealth, and their solid relationship with royalty. The role of ‘nations’ was crucial in the settlement of Italian immigrants in Lyon. The Florentine ‘nation’ (merchant community) had its own constitution, consisting of fifty articles that managed its organization and defended its rights. This article shows how the Florentines took root in Lyon, influenced their place of residence, and chose either settlement or emigration. The presence of ‘nations’ was pivotal in determining the extent to which Italians sought citizenship. In France, the king had a right of windfall (‘droit d’aubaine’) to take possession of the bequests of foreigners who lived and died in the kingdom, and naturalization was necessary to exempt them from this right. The article also examines the relationship between ‘droit d’aubaine’ and naturalization. By analysing the migration of Italians to Lyon and their activities thereafter, this article aims to shed light on the relationship between urban society and ‘others’ in the sixteenth century.

A Difficult Balancing Act: The Visits of Spanish Monarchs in Early Modern Naples (1506-1702)

This essay centres on the royal visits in Naples of Ferdinand the Catholic (1506-7), Charles V (1535-6) and Philip V (1702). The historiography has emphasized the visits' formal aspects, particularly the intricate artistic programmes accompanying the royal entry. The focus here, however, is on those untoward aspects, purposefully avoided in the official documentation - tensions between individuals or groups, mishaps, ceremonial blunders, conflicts of precedence, etc. The findings of this essay show that although the antagonistic nature of the Neapolitan elites shines through in these occasions, their amount of assertiveness varies according to the political sensitivity of each visit and their perception of the monarch's power and prestige

‘As Well by the English as by the Strangers’: Performing a Multicultural London in The Magnificent Entertainment

The pageantry marking James VI & I’s royal entry into London in 1604 featured the participation of Italian and Dutch immigrants who contributed two of the entry’s triumphal arches. This article examines the role of these immigrant communities within the production, and textual reproduction, of James’s royal entry. The pageant records present contrasting approaches to the multiculturalism of early modern London. The first, represented by Thomas Dekker’s official pageant text The Magnificent Entertainment, divides the city into ‘the English’ and ‘the strangers’, whose presence is celebrated for the symbolic possibilities of creating unity out of multiplicity. In the second approach, recoverable within the Italian and Dutch arches, immigrant populations maintain their distinct identities as unified communities possessing the historical and cultural right to welcome James to their city.

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625–1642, by Siobhan Keenan

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625–1642, by Siobhan Keenan

Reconsidering the Boredom of King James: Performance and Premodern Histories

The royal entry of King James I into London in 1604 serves as an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between public, urban performance and the primary sources that ostensibly document it. The author revisits his own past study of this occasion, revising and expanding previous conclusions about early modern English performance in light of new research and theory. The article deploys new thinking about performance historiography, arguing that such perspectives unsettle the easy placement of an event in historical chronology, disrupt archival logic, and insist on a degree of historiographical ambiguity. The legacy of new historicism is considered in tandem with current theories of performance history, and a hybridization of new historicism and performance theory is considered in relation to historiographic practice.

‘Remplis l’air d’alegresse pour ce seigneur chery des cieux’: Music in the Entries of Nobility and Other Dignitaries in Late Renaissance France (c.1585–c.1615)

AbstractAlthough royal entries have long been studied by scholars, those undertaken by nobles and other political figures have generally attracted less attention. This is particularly true in musicological literature, a fact undoubtedly attributable to the paucity of surviving documentation on this topic. Yet music often played an important part in these spectacles, both by underlining the dignitary’s status and by enhancing key components of the symbolism deployed. Rather than concentrating on one particular event, this article brings together information about as many entries as possible made by such figures into French cities in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This enables us to make general observations about the types of music used in these events (such as fanfares, Te Deums and dance music) in order to draw possible connections with extant musical sources, and also to ponder why certain musical elements mattered more than others to the contemporaries describing these occasions.

All the World on Stage: Performance and Global Knowledge in Early Modern Portuguese Festivals

Public festivals in early modern Portugal, such as royal entry of Philip III into Lisbon in 1619, were one way in which global geography of Portuguese imperial expansion was communicated to a wide audience at home. This article examines representation of non-European peoples in Real tragicomedia del descubrimiento y conquista del Oriente, a play performed for Philip III's entry at Jesuit college in Lisbon. A published account of this theatrical performance, Joao Sardinha Mimoso's Relacion de la real tragicomedia (1620), offers a glimpse of not only play's exoticized representations of the Orient and Brazil, but also of a dark-skinned student-actor who infuses his performance of a Brazilian King with his own African-derived cultural knowledge and traditions. By focusing on Mimoso's references to actor and his performance rather than on foreign land he is supposed to represent, we can consider participation of non-European subjects in production and circulation of global knowledge.

Images of the heresy and political discourses in the festivals of the Lisbon court: from the Iberian Union to the alliance with the Anglican England

El objetivo del presente texto es mostrar, de modo diacrónico, cómo se representó la herejía en general, y el protestantismo en particular durante la edad moderna en las decoraciones efímeras de las entradas regias portuguesas, mostrando una evolución en los asuntos seleccionados así como la progresiva desaparición de dicha iconografía por las alianzas matrimoniales con la Inglaterra anglicana.

&lt;em&gt;L’entramès de Mestre Vicent&lt;/em&gt;: resplandor de la autoridad del predicador

El presente artículo aborda múltiples aspectos, algunos inéditos, referentes a l’entramès de Mestre Vicent. Entre los objetivos del estudio descuella la reconstrucción virtual y documentada de aquel carro que, quizá albergando la primera representación de Vicent Ferrer, desfiló en Valencia a finales de 1414 con ocasión de la entrada real de Fernando I. Otras cuestiones de especial relevancia atañen a la autoría del programa iconográfico y al proselitismo que denotaba aquella estructura, cuyos máximos beneficiarios fueron el Trastámara y la propia ciudad. Metodológicamente, se subraya la complejidad que entraña ceñir la interpretación del entremés amparada exclusivamente en la literatura, máxime cuando los otros vértices del triángulo de expresión medieval, oralidad y figuración, arrojan luz propia respecto al objeto de estudio.

Kissing, Complaining, and Handing Over Keys: Castile and its Royal Entries at the End of the Middle Ages

This paper demonstrates that, even though late-medieval ceremonial entries in Castile shared many elements with other European festivities, some of their features were closely linked to local traditions and reveal the changes the Castilian state was undergoing at the dawn of the Early Modern Period. The first section analyses the role of the ritual kiss, focusing on the ceremonial entries of Princess Margaret of Austria. The second part shifts its attention towards the role played by city councils and the messages of discontent they manifested during the organisation of these ceremonies. The third part deals with the clash of royal and aristocratic ideals through a study of the ceremonial handover of keys at the city gates that the Monarchy employed to stage its victories over the local aristocracy.