ABSTRACT
The modern public/private dichotomy (res publica versus res privata) does not apply to early modern patrimonial monarchies, as early modern dynastic courts, privy councils, and secret cabinets were the very sites of political rule. The bodies of kings and queens were public bodies, and dynastic rituals of birth, marriage, and death were public rituals with strong political dimensions. Therefore, this chapter examines how eighteenth-century changes to the traditional public/private dichotomy render the term ‘privacy’ unsuitable as a category for historical analysis. I suggest replacing the public/private dichotomy with the dichotomies of front stage/back stage or formal/informal. As Erving Goffman’s vocabulary suggests, front stage and back stage were two sides of the same coin. Relying on examples from the eighteenth-century imperial court in Vienna, this chapter reveals that court members were accustomed to moving back and forth between these two stages and to switching between two different modes of behaviour.
