ABSTRACT
In medieval Europe, the processional entry into a city traditionally functioned as the most public of royal theatrical displays, always containing some element of triumph and, after a military victory, being to a great extent constituted by a form of thanks-giving. Indeed, such a triumphal function defmed the earlier Roman notion of entry, and this purely processional form existed until the middle of the fourteenth century. 1 Already the important events in a monarch's reign - coronation, accession, marriage, the birth of children, death - were celebrated in such a processional manner, enabling the monarch 'to manifest himself at his most magnificent in the sight of his subjects' .2 The Roman triumphal form had thus been appropriated and extended to these important events in the life of the nation's ruler, and for specific reasons. 'At the root of the matter', notes Glynne Wickham, 'lies the delicate balance of relationships between ruler and subject in medieval Europe' (1 :52), relationships that, due to a Christian world-view, necessarily modified the basic assumptions implicit in the Roman triumphs. Wickham believes this led to a desire 'to imply acknowledgement by the subject that the particular ruler is the representative in their midst, chosen by God for their own good as a figurehead and arbiter of justice' (1:52). Already inherent in these medieval processions was an allegorical leap, the monarch in procession representing something other than themself and embodying something greater than a mere barrier to foreign threat or invasion.
