A wealth of sources has been preserved about the organization and procedure of court ceremonial in the early modern period Nevertheless, in the eyes of European historians, they remained for a long time in the shadow of the prevailing political and social history, which focused almost exclusively on research into social structures and on the grand telling of national stories 1 It was only in the last third of the 20 th century that the dominant structural and sociological principles became the target of criticism by researchers dealing with the history of culture 2 They demanded that in contrast to the history of events, which emphasized the detailed reconstruction of depersonalized historical phenomena and processes, the main object of research should be humanity, and knowledge of its world of thought, value hierarchy and everyday behaviour
The concept, semantics and period typology of ceremonial at the early modern Habsburg courtsHuman behaviour and actions should not be examined in isolation solely through the lens of history, but in the context of other scientific disciplines 3 It is surely no accident that anthropology, ethnology and sociology have consistently dealt with ceremonial since the genesis of these scientific fields Moreover, they were able to provide historians with an appropriate methodology and terminology These disciplines proved that ceremonial represented a constitutive element in the social and spiritual life of various 1
As indicated by the current research on the wives and daughters of the Habsburg emperors on the threshold of the modern age, individual authors no longer devote themselves in their contributions to a mere outline of their basic biographical data and possible political influence Under the influence of new political history, in recent years they have begun to view the role of queens through the lens of dynastic history, in the context of their male counterparts In addition to anchoring the position of the empress in early modern power constitutions and contemporary legal discourse, they also often follow the symbolic depictions of these rulers on the basis of various communication situations connected with the exercise of power, such as coronation ceremonies and other rituals of transition between life and death -marriage, childbirth, death Nor is the importance of the communication networks of the empresses and their cultural patronage disregarded 1 The present study, which will be devoted to the first wife of Leopold I (1640-1705), Margaret Theresa of Spain (1651-1673), will follow the direction indicated The personality of the aforementioned empress, whom Leopold I married in 1666, has previously 1
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