Court (royal) - Court Seats

Court Seats

One of the criteria of Norbert Elias' concept of a court society is that it existed in space. Because the German word hof, meaning an enclosed courtyard, can apply to a rural farmstead with outbuildings and walls forming the perimeter, it has also been used for the palatial seat where the court was held. Thus hof or "court" can become transferred to the building itself. For example, though the grand residence Hampton Court on the Thames above London has been a palace where Thomas Wolsey held court as Catholic cardinal (built after the Italian ideal for a cardinal's palace) until his fall and its confiscation by Henry VIII and where William and Mary held court, 1689–94—and though it is built round two main courts—the structure itself, however, is no longer the seat of a court in the sense of this article.

As an example, ambassadors to the United Kingdom are still accredited to the Court of St. James's, and courtiers of the monarchy still have offices in St James' Palace, London. The present monarch, however, holds court at Buckingham Palace, where dignitaries are received.

Some former seats of power (see official residence):

• Castile, medieval Christian province in central current Spain
• Alhambra in Granada, seat of the last Muslim dynasty in current Spain
• The Forbidden City, imperial palace complex walled off from Beijing
• Wawel Castle (Kraków) and Warsaw's Royal Castle (Poland)
• Château de Versailles near Paris in France
• Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria
• Sanssouci in Potsdam near Berlin
• The Vatican in the Papal States
• The Kingdom of Portugal
  • The Royal Alcáçova of Coimbra - under the House of Borgonha
  • The Royal Alcáçova of São Jorge, Lisbon - under the houses of Borgonha and Aviz
  • The Royal Palace of Évora - under the reign of Manuel I of Portugal
  • The Royal Palace of Sintra - under the reigns of Manuel I of Portugal and John III of Portugal
  • The Palaces of Ribeira, Lisbon - under the Houses of Aviz-Beja, Habsburgo, and Braganza
  • The Palace of Ajuda, Lisbon - under the House of Braganza
• The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Urbino, seat of a duchy in the Marche
• The Red Fort, palatial fortress of the Mughal emperors in Delhi, India
• Shaniwar Wada palace fort of the Maratha Peshwas in Pune, India
• Great Palace of Constantinople in Constantinople