ABSTRACT
Coronations were important ceremonies of rulership in early modern Europe, but their symbolic significance declined from 1450 to 1800. They recognised the legal succession of a new monarch and represented a commitment to the constitutional principles of the realm. Coronations were also liminal rituals that transformed the royal person into the consecrated body of a priest. By the 1500s, however, courts supplied a constant menu of festivities, commemorations and celebrations, centred on the ruler. Religious reform and political revolts challenged the quasi-sacred nature of consecrated kingship. Coronations no longer determined the monarch’s image in the minds of a courtly or even a popular audience; instead, kings and queens engaged in a continuing series of performances that played to changing politics.
