ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a passage in Crowds and Power by the Bulgarian-born Austrian novelist, essayist, sociologist and playwright Elias Canetti, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. It focuses on Canetti's thoughts before discussing the Habsburg court festivals which arguably reflect them. During the second half of the fifteenth century, however, starting from Burgundy many of these traditional court festivals were more and more marked by programmes which crucially relied on a humanistic frame of reference. Furthermore, the Renaissance transformed court festivals, as Jacob Burckhardt noted, into an official art that drew on the new humanistic knowledge as a vehicle for expression of the power, prosperity and prestige of rulers. The prestige of a medieval festival depended on its success in drawing a crowd: 'An incredible multitude of people from different countries and tongues was gathered there. In a similar fashion, for court festivals organised by princes an innumerable crowd from any place whatsoever was gathered there.
