ABSTRACT
The most impressive German court at the end of the Thirty Years War was that of Munich, the 'German Rome', as the Jesuit poet Jakob Balde apostrophized it in an elegant Latin sonnet. It is widely assumed, and still frequently reiterated in general and literary histories that the German courts of this age were but a pale imitation of Versailles. Among the diverse influences on the character and ceremonial of German court life, one of the most important was the Burgundian tradition, which came to Vienna by way of Spain and remained dominant there until the late eighteenth century. The rise of Vienna in the second half of the seventeenth century to be the leading German court was largely a consequence of the Great War. Religious observances in fact took up a singularly large amount of time at the devout Viennese court, as at that of Madrid.
