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2 results

  • 3 - The Hand of God

  • from Part I - Heritage
  • Jaume Aurell, Universidad de Navarra, Spain
  • Book:
    Medieval Self-Coronations
    Published online:
    20 May 2020
    Print publication:
    11 June 2020, pp 85-95

  • Summary

    The third chapter examines the iconography of the ‘hand of God’ spread during the late Roman Empire from the mid-third century onwards, and in the context of interactions between pagan, Jewish and Christian cultures. This particular iconography leads directly to the idea of self-coronation – although still an iconographic rather than performative reality – since it conveys the emperor being crowned by a celestial hand from above, without priestly intervention. Numismatic sources emerge here as crucial evidence, particularly in the case of third- and fourth-century Roman emperors. The iconography of the emperor being crowned by the hand of God did not extend to early Byzantium, but survived in medieval art through the iconography of the king or emperor being crowned by Jesus Christ.

Medieval Self-Coronations
  • The History and Symbolism of a Ritual
  • Jaume Aurell
  • Published online:
    20 May 2020
    Print publication:
    11 June 2020
  • Based on narrative, iconographical, and liturgical sources, this is the first systematic study to trace the story of the ritual of royal self-coronations from Ancient Persia to the present. Exposing as myth the idea that Napoleon's act of self-coronation in 1804 was the first extraordinary event to break the secular tradition of kings being crowned by bishops, Jaume Aurell vividly demonstrates that self-coronations were not as transgressive or unconventional as has been imagined. Drawing on numerous examples of royal self-coronations, with a particular focus on European Kings of the Middle Ages, including Frederic II of Germany (1229), Alphonse XI of Castile (1328), Peter IV of Aragon (1332) and Charles III of Navarra (1390), Aurell draws on history, anthropology, ritual studies, liturgy and art history to explore royal self-coronations as privileged sites at which the frontiers and limits between the temporal and spiritual, politics and religion, tradition and innovation are encountered.