Courtiers and Court Life in Poland, 1386–1795
View publication
Book Series
East Central Europe, 476–1795 AD/CE, vol. 11
- Pages: approx. 250 p.
- Size:156 x 234 mm
- Illustrations:32 col., 3 maps b/w
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2027
- € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62557-7
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Feb/27)
- € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62558-4
- E-book
- Forthcoming
*How to pre-order?
In rites of union and farewell, Poland’s queens consort shaped authority through ceremony, memory, and display.
Subject(s)
BIO
Aleksandra Skrzypietz is Professor of History at the University of Silesia. Her research focuses on queenship, dynastic politics, and court culture in late medieval and early modern Central Europe. She is the author of numerous studies on Polish queens and editor of several international volumes on royal women, family networks, and ceremonial practices.
Summary
This volume repositions the weddings and funerals of Poland’s queens consort as central acts of political life. Far from ornamental display, these ceremonies operated as powerful instruments of communication, legitimation, and social integration. Through processions, liturgy, objects, and gesture, queens were publicly inscribed into the polity or commemorated as vessels of dynastic continuity. Bringing together leading scholars of Polish and Central European court culture, the volume traces the full ceremonial arc of queenship: arrival, marriage, coronation, death, and burial. It foregrounds the performative nature of these events, examining how cities, clergy, and elites collaborated in staging authority through ephemeral architecture, insignia, textiles, and sound.
Case studies range from medieval bridal entries to Baroque wedding spectacle, and from early sixteenth-century funerals to the remarkable delayed obsequies of the Sobieski dynasty. Placing queens at the centre of analysis, this book demonstrates how gender and power were enacted through ritual in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These ceremonies did not simply reflect authority; they produced it. By situating Polish material within wider European debates, the volume offers a new perspective on queenship, court culture, and the symbolic languages of monarchy.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Rituals and Ceremonies at the Court of Queen of Poland
ALEKSANDRA SKRZYPIETZ
Part I. Weddings
1. Ceremonial of Greeting and Entry Procession of the Royal Bride: Anna of Cilli (1401), Elizabeth of Austria (1454) and Barbara Zápolya (1512)
TOMASZ ROMBEK
2. The Triumphal Entry of Bona Sforza to Naples in 1517
DARIUS VON GÜTTNER-SPORZYŃSKI
3. Royal Entry of Anne of Austria to Cracow in 1592
ALEKSANDRA BARWICKA-MAKULA
4. The Arrival Ceremony and Its Communicative Significance: The Wedding and Coronation Entry of Constance of Austria in 1605
MARTA KUPCZEWSKA
5. Marriage Ceremony of Eleonore Maria of Austria in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Częstochowa in 1670
JACEK SZPAK
Part II. Funerals
6. Queen Barbara Radziwiłł’s pompa funebris in 1551
AGNIESZKA JANUSZEK-SIERADZKA
7. ‘She Left the World at the Age When Death Is Not Too Early’: Circumstances of Anna Jagiellon’s Death and Funeral Ceremonies
AGNIESZKA PAWŁOWSKA-KUBIK
8. ‘The Crown, sceptre, and royal globus cruciger placed on top […]’: Funeral Ceremonies of Queen Marie Casimire de la Grange d’Arquien Sobieska
ALEKSANDRA SKRZYPIETZ
Afterword. Reflection on the Ritual, Power, and Queenship: Communication, Transformation, and Memory
DARIUS VON GÜTTNER-SPORZYŃSKI
Index
