We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Desacralising Rituals
from Part II - Infamy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2020
The eighth chapter studies the possible occurrence of Frederick II’s self-coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Sunday, 17 March 1229, an event that remains shrouded in mystery. It is still difficult to discern the borders between reality and fiction, desire and its realisation, invention and propaganda. This chapter engages with the question of the extent to which we can affirm the historicity of Frederick II’s self-coronation. It addresses the crucial issue of the nature of this gesture, recognised as transgressive by posterity – but, importantly, not always by contemporaries – in the context of preconceived ideas about the relationship between the temporal and spiritual.It emphasises the provocative nature of Frederick’s ritual with the crown: an excommunicated king wearing the crown in the Holy Sepulchre, in the absence of the patriarch of Jerusalem, opposed by the military orders, eyed suspiciously by the aristocracy of Outremer and fighting off the armies of his former father-in-law in Sicily. It is natural that this gesture was received in the West with the opprobrium the emperor and his collaborators expected.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
