Royal Entry - Origins and Development

Origins and Development

The Entry began as a gesture of loyalty and fealty by a city to the ruler, with its origins in the adventus celebrated for Roman emperors, which were formal entries far more frequent than triumphs. The first visit by a new ruler was normally the occasion. For the capital they often merged with the Coronation festivities, and for provincial cities they replaced it.

The contemporary account from Galbert of Bruges of the unadorned "Joyous Advent" of a newly installed Count of Flanders into "his" city of Bruges, in April 1127, shows that in the initial stage, undisguised by fawning and triumphalist imagery that came to disguise it, an Entry was similar to a parley, a formal truce between the rival powers of territorial magnate and walled city, in which reiteration of the city's "liberties" in the medieval sense, that is its rights and prerogatives, were set out in clear terms and legitimated by the presence of saintly relics:

"On April 5... at twilight, the king with the newly elected Count William, marquis of Flanders, came into our town at Bruges. The canons of Saint Donatian had come forth to meet them, bearing relics of the saints and welcoming the king and new count joyfully in a solemn procession worthy of a king. On April 6... the king and count assembled with their knights and ours, with the citizens and many Flemings in the usual field where reliquaries and relics of the saints had been collected. And when silence had been called for, the charter of the liberty of the church and of the privileges of Saint Donatian was read aloud before all... There was also read the little charter of agreement between the count and our citizens... Binding themselves to accept this condition, the king and count took an oath on the relics of saints in the hearing of the clergy and people".

The procession of a new Pope to Rome was known as a possesso. During the Hundred Years' War, the entry of the ten-year-old Henry VI of England, to be crowned king of France in Paris, 2 December 1431, was marked with great pomp and heraldic propaganda. Outside the city he was welcomed by the mayor in a blue velvet houppelande, his retinue in violet with scarlet caps, and representatives of the Parlement de Paris in red trimmed with fur. At the porte Saint-Denis the royal party were greeted with a grand achievement of the French arms that Henry claimed, gold fleurs de lis on an azure ground. The king was offered large red hearts, from which doves were released, and a rain of flowers pelted the procession. At the symbolic gateway, a canopy of estate embroidered with more gold lilies was erected over the young king, who was carried in a litter supported on six lances carried by men dressed in blue. Through the city there were welcoming pageants and allegorical performances: before the Church of the Innocents, a forest was erected, through which a captured stag was released and "hunted".

A ruler with a new spouse would also receive an Entry. The entry of Queen Isabeau of Bavaria into Paris in 1389 was described by the chronicler Froissart. The Entries of Charles IX of France and his Habsburg queen, Elizabeth of Austria, into Paris, March 1571, had been scheduled for Charles alone in 1561, for the entrate were typically celebrated towards the beginning of a reign, but the French Wars of Religion had made such festivities inappropriate, until the peace that followed the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye signed in August 1570. Until the mid-14th century, the occasions were relatively simple. The city authorities waited for the prince and his party outside the city walls, and after handing over a ceremonial key with a "loyal address" or speech, and perhaps stopping to admire tableaux vivants such as those that were performed at the entry into Paris of Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, described in detail by the chronicler Froissart, conducted him through the streets which were transformed with colour, with houses on the route hanging tapestries and embroideries or carpets or bolts of cloth from their windows, and with most of the population lining the route. At Valladolid in 1509

the town was so gay, so decked out in wealth and canopies and luxurious carpets, that not even Florence or Venice could match it. All the beautiful ladies were delighted to be on display and were definitely worth seeing, everything was so brilliantly arrayed, that I, who am of the town and have never left it, could not recognize it.

Heraldic displays were ubiquitous: at Valladolid in 1509, the bulls in the fields outside the city were caparisoned with cloths painted with the royal arms and hung with bells.

Along the route the procession would repeatedly halt to admire the set-pieces embellished with mottoes and pictured and living allegories, accompanied by declamations and the blare of trumpets and volleys of artillery. The procession would include members of the three Estates, with the nobility and gentry of the surrounding area, and the clergy and guilds of the city processing behind the prince. From the mid-14th century the guild members often wore special uniform clothes, each guild choosing a bright colour; in Tournai in 1464 three hundred men wore large embroidered silk fleur de lys (the royal badge) on their chests and backs, at their own expense. The prince reciprocated by confirming, and sometimes extending, the customary privileges of the city or a local area of which it was the capital. Usually the prince also visited the cathedral to be received by the bishop and confirm the privileges of the cathedral chapter also. There a Te Deum would be customary, and music written for the occasion would be performed