ABSTRACT
The people in the Middle Ages did not have a concept of rituals that corresponds to our modern understanding of the term. However, they had a sense for the extraordinary character of certain symbolic acts such as custom (mos), festivity (solemnitas) or rite (ritus). The belief of the binding character of what was demonstrated and said during such acts beyond the present time was inherent to rituals. The binding nature of these acts arose from the participants’ claim to act as per tradition and thereby recreate it. Rituals were staged in public because this underlined the extraordinary and memorable character of the event and again increased the binding nature. The chapter shows how rituals stabilized and recreated the political order.
