From oaths and hand-kissing to coronations and baptisms, Power and Ceremony in European History considers the governing practices, courtly rituals, and expressions of power prevalent in Europe and the Ottoman Empire from the medieval age to the modern era.
Bringing together political and art historical approaches to the study of power, this book reveals how ceremonies and rituals - far from simply being ostentatious displays of wealth - served as a primary means of communication between different participants in political and courtly life. It explores how ceremonial culture changed over time and in different regions to provide readers with a nuanced comparative understanding of rituals and ceremonies since the middle ages, showing how such performances were integral to the evolution of the state in Europe.
This collection of essays is of immense value to both historians and art historians interested in representations of power and the political culture of Europe from 1450 onwards.

Anna Kalinowska is Senior Researcher in the Institute of History at Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland.
Jonathan Spangler is Senior Lecturer in History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of The Society of Princes (2009) and editor of The Court Historian.
Pawel Tyszka is Head of Historical Research at The Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland.

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Introduction, Anna Kalinowska (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) and Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Part I. Coronation and Enthronement
1. Where exactly is the throne? Locating sovereignty in sixteenth-century Ottoman succession rituals, N. Zeynep Yelce (Sabanci University, Turkey)
2. Proclamations and coronations in Palermo (1700-1735): Performing kingship and celebrating civic power, Pablo González Tornel (Universitat Jaume I, Spain)
3. Nicholas Dixon, The evolution of the British coronation rite, 1761-1953, Nicholas Dixon (Independent Scholar, UK)
Part II. Ceremonial of Royal Courts
4. The daily court ceremonial of the French queen in the reign of Henry III, Vladimir Shishkin (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia)
5. Courtly and ceremonial spaces in Spanish Royal Sites: an evolution from the Renaissance to the Baroque, José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain)
6. Royal baptism in the Spanish court: art and ritual from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya (Universitat Jaume I, Spain)
7. From Marshal to Monarch. State ceremonies and Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte in post-Napoleonic Sweden, Mikael Alm
Part III. Ceremonial of Institutions and Representative Bodies
8. Not the ruler, but the land: Estates and ceremonial order at the Diet of Besztercebánya, 1620, Gábor Kármán (Institute of Hungary in Budapest, Hungary)
9. Oath-taking and hand-kissing: ceremonies of sovereignty in a "Monarchia composita", the States of the House of Savoy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Andrea Merlotti (Centro studi delle Residenze Reali Sabaude, Italy)
Part IV. Tangible and Intangible Elements in Staging Ceremonies
10. Jagiellonians and Habsburgs: heraldic dynastic representation in Central Europe from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, Géza Pálffy (Institute of Hungary in Budapest, Hungary)
11. Operas and masquerades: court rituals and entertainments under Ernest Augustus and George I of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1660-1727) in the Electorate of Hanover and Great Britain, Babara Arciszewska (University of Warsaw, Poland)
12. Public staging, visualization and performance of eighteenth-century Danish absolutism: Queen Caroline Mathilde's journey across Funen as ritual, Michael Bregnsbo (University of Southern Denmark at Odense, Denmark)
Select Bibliography
Index