ABSTRACT
During the seventeenth century the staging of ceremonies centred on the body of the Spanish king was an essential aspect of monarchical rule in the New World viceroyalties. These ceremonies were also important to the political self-fashioning as head cities (capitals) of Lima and Mexico City in the Kingdom of Peru and New Spain. Although the royal ceremonies that commemorated the passing of one king and proclaimed the succession of another were far less frequent and regular than the viceregal entries that marked the beginning of each new viceroy’s tenure in office, royal or kingly rituals were nonetheless of great symbolic significance for the creation and cultural maintenance of political allegiances to the distant monarch. The figure of the king and the ceremonies that surrounded his body and image were important elements of a ritual or theatrical idiom of imperial rule that staged the political relationship between the distant monarch and his subjects as one of intimacy and benevolence. In other words, the ceremonies created and managed a royal presence that could be seen, heard and touched. The effect of this royal theatre appears to have been the cultivation or confirmation of strong fidelities towards the king among all segments of the New World body politic.
