Sacrum Monarchiae Speculum. Der Sacre Ludwigs XV. 1722: Monarchische Tradition, Zeremoniell, Liturgie (review)

The ceremony of the French Royal Court can be regarded as the most important and influential model in early-modern Europe. Scholars therefore have inquired into both general theoretical questions and special practical aspects. Royal liturgy, however, has been researched to a much lesser extent. The coronation of the French king combines court ceremony and ecclesiastical liturgy in a peculiar way. Josef Johannes Schmid, by focusing on the “sacre” of Louis XV in 1722, on the one hand demonstrates the relevant items of this special act. On the other hand, his concentration on this well-chosen particular case enables him to integrate a much wider range of topics and methods of other disciplines such as musicology and art history. Hence, he explores and explains in masterly fashion the implicit basic ideas and powerful performances of both secular and sacral claims of the French monarchy from its medieval roots up to its final high point before the Revolution. The book—beyond introduction and conclusion—is divided into nineteen chapters and comprises an extensive bibliography, a list of the illustrations, and indices of persons and places.

Instead of the common term Einführung the author uses a very suggestive Italian phrase as a title for the introduction—“Il viaggio a Reims” (The journey to Reims)—and adds the elucidating German subtitle “Annäherung an ein Phänomen” (approach to a phenomenon). Schmid here introduces the reader to the main questions reflecting the relevant sources and publications. Beyond the important materials in the archives of Paris he presents and examines for the first time many manuscripts preserved in the lesser-known provincial archives.

In the first three chapters the author recalls the history of the French kingdom and its myth up to the “great period” of King Louis XV. He also analyzes musical documents as important historical sources of social, political, and cultural life. The following three chapters deal with the ecclesiastical, liturgical, and biblical dignity of the French kingship, the life of Louis XV as dauphin and young child, and the symbolic meaning of art and liturgy of the cathedral “Notre Dame” in Reims.

The remaining thirteen chapters (pp. 259–613) constitute the main part of the book explaining the “sacre” itself. Beginning with the preparations at court and in the cathedral, the processional route, and the eve of the great day, Schmid describes and analyzes in great detail the consecration and the coronation, later focusing on the music in general, the liturgy of the Mass, and the royal meal. He concludes this part with the celebrations after the ceremony— for example, the parade in the city, “cavalcade du roy”; the festivities of the Order of the Holy Spirit; and the touching of the rite of new king—and the return via Saint Denis, Paris, and Versailles. His extensive literary and musicological skills enable the author to demonstrate the “Echo du Sacre” in feast culture, literature, and music. In the last chapter, he reflects a number of other special aspects including later adoptions after the Napoleonic era. The conclusion is more than a mere list of facts and results: Its headings consist of contemporary quotations from the program of a theater manager that inspire the author’s further reflections.

Schmid’s substantial volume is a great contribution to the research on the history of the court, liturgy, and music. Instead of repeating the aspects of decline and decadence of the Ancien Régime on the eve of the French Revolution, he concentrates on a last peak of royal power and solemnity. This focus opens a new approach of wider interdisciplinary research for historical questions: to use not only numerous pictures but also musical compositions, not as texts, but as ceremonial performances within ecclesiastical liturgy, court ceremonies, and civic ritual. The special christological impact within the “sacre” is claimed in a unique way for the French king, as Schmid points out...