ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how civic ritual modelled on the well-known ceremony of a princely ‘joyous entry’ could be used to facilitate the orderly take-over of a town occupied by a hostile military force. Elements of obedience and mutual accord were part of these military rather than ‘joyous’ entries, offering a claim to legitimacy as well as shielding inhabitants from the excesses of soldiers sacking the town. The case-studies analysed here refer to towns in Livonia, Poland and Denmark captured by the Swedish Kings Gustavus Adolphus, Charles X and Charles XII between the 1620s and the early eighteenth century.
