[Le peuple] estoit tant joyeux en coeur qu’il ne lui souvenoit de nulle tribulation precedente. Il estoit comme retiré du limbe et revenu des tenèbres à lumière et ne se reputoit moins heureux du peuple d’Israel lors qu’il yssy de la miserable servitude du roy Pharaon ; sa tristesse estoit convertie en leesse, sa douleur en doulceur, son helas en solas, son malheur en valeur…1.

1On 22 June 1478, the subjects of the war-ridden Burgundian Netherlands finally « retired from Limbo and proceeded from the darkness into the light ». In this highly charged language, Jean Molinet (1435‑1507), the famous Burgundian court-chronicler, waxed lyrical about the birth of Philip the Fair (1478‑1506) in Bruges. The acclaimed moment revived new dynastic prospects in a period of insecure political succession and foreign tension. In the months after the unanticipated death of Duke Charles the Bold (1433‑1477) on the battlefield of Nancy in January 1477, popular revolts extracted considerable legal concessions from the government. With the successful matrimonial alliance between duchess Mary of Burgundy (1457-1482) and the emperor’s son Maximilian of Austria (1459‑1519) in April, the insecurities calmed down somewhat. The Estates of the lands and a number of noblemen, however, greatly distrusted the Habsburg interests of the Austrian archduke. Moreover, the French King Louis XI (1423‑1483) had swiftly invaded Burgundy, Artois and Picardy, and posed a continuous military threat to Flanders and Hainaut. The aristocracy, as well as the majority of subjects, realized that their welfare and self-preservation depended on the survival of the Burgundian dynasty2.

2The newborn son and heir to the contested Burgundian inheritance, therefore reinforced the fiction of an uninterrupted natural dynasty whose fortunes were connected to the fate of the entire community and the patrimonial territories. The birth – celebrated by the urban community with huge bonfires, masses and dramaturgical performances by local chambers of rhetoric3 − was an excellent opportunity to make supra-regional claims about political continuity and the prolongation of the Burgundian line of succession4, in the new context of a controversial increase of Habsburg Hausmacht. Yet, even more so than birth, the transitional moment of baptism – essentially being an intimate religious sacrament that was conceived as a second, purifying « spiritual » birth – could be constructed into a public ceremony that far exceeded the liturgical ideals. On 28 June 1478, barely a week later, a splendid procession walked the distance between the princely residence at Bruges and the collegiate church of St Donatian on an elevated wooden gallery of about eight feet wide and four high. Halfway, this festive cortege composed of aldermen, high dignitaries, noblemen and noblewomen, crossed the central marketplace of the town. According to a late fifteenth-century description of the event, commotion suddenly erupted among the packed crowd. A couple of adherents of the French king had allegedly spread the rumour that the newborn was actually a girl. To dispel any lingering doubt about the baby’s gender, godmother Margaret of York (1446‑1503) briefly stopped the cortege. She undressed the little boy in public and suggestively took his testes in her hand. Thereupon, the packed crowd loudly responded with jubilant excitement5. After entering the church, the actual sacrament was concluded whereby Philip received his name, was adopted in the Christian community and recognized as a full member of the ruling family. Some while later, when the court was making preparations to leave Bruges for Ghent, little Philip was once more publicly exhibited on a golden cushion placed on the central staircase of the Prinsenhof residence so that « everyone could gaze at him ». Afterwards he was handed over to his wet nurse, who took place in an open litter with the child sitting on her lap. Subsequently they crossed the Flemish countryside, well visible and escorted by a huge noble retinue; bringing the new messiah to his people.

3In this short description, the ceremony of the princely christening stands out – in the first place − as a significant « dynastic » rite of passage. The social and spiritual functions of this liminal act are already well-known. Thanks to the cleansing, life-giving water, an infant was generally redeemed from original sin and transformed into a true Christian6. Simultaneous with the administering of the sacrament, the acquisition of a name affirmed the start of an individual’s social personality. In their princely format historians mostly interpret these ritual moments as tools of political legitimation or propagandist means to increase the international prestige of the court, especially when they developed into impressive baroque spectacles over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The historiography of the last decades has been much preoccupied with the wider role of state ceremonial. A traditional view of pageantry being at odds with social or political realities is now usually replaced by a more complex interpretation of how ritual mechanisms gave shape to authority. Apart from formal inaugurations and joyous entries of rulers in the capital cities of their domains, rites essentially belonging to a personal or familial sphere such as princely funerals are currently the subject of much debate7. In sharp contrast, however, the festivities surrounding births and christenings have received little systematic attention8. For example, recent overviews of the French Renaissance court by Monique Chatenet and Robert J. Knecht devote some pages to successive royal baptisms, describing the elaborate solemnities staged on these occasions. Yet they mainly classify the wealth of decoration, colours and festive props under the generalized heading of ceremonies that ensured the « dynastic succession »9. Thalia Brero’s painstaking study of the baptisms celebrated at the sixteenth-century court of Savoy reconstructed the festive blueprint. On the basis of short comparisons, she posited the hypothesis that the habits observed at the Sabaudian, English and Burgundian courts were based on French traditions which were propagated among other European ruling elites from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards10. Although based on a restricted number of Burgundian sources, her comparative approach broached the interesting question of a ceremonial exchange between princely courts. Nevertheless, if there was indeed a great deal of mutual influence between ritual vocabularies, how then should some marked differences be explained11? What were the political motivations of these diverging developments? And how can a comparison that not only looks at similarities, but also at context-bound singularities reveal something about policy at large? Differences in ritual infrastructure and gestures, no matter how insignificant these might seem at first sight, point to very specific relationships between a newly born infant, the ruling family, and the wider political community.

4For the Burgundian case, Rolf Strøm-Olsen recently convincingly demonstrated that christenings and other ceremonies tried to fashion a dynastic legitimacy that surpassed the dukes’ highly fragmented rule. To that end, the princely version of the transitory rite appropriated the liminal significance for political intents12. The present contribution takes this suggestion one step further and argues that princely christenings should be interpreted as an essentially « dynastic » rite of incorporation, which actually rendered a degree of reality to the abstract notion of familial continuity13. Such incorporation occurred in a threefold way: First, the princely offspring got assimilated in the wider dynastic complex. Secondly, power elites were also embedded as « spiritual relatives ». And finally, on a more abstract – yet, no less important – level, the urban community visually aligned its own interests and prosperity with the dynastic welfare of the ducal family. The ritual of 1478 was a crucial landmark in this respect. However, this did not imply that such ritual language was universal or predetermined. There existed a general script, based on the liminal religious rite, but it left enough room for variation and adaptation according to political circumstances. Subtle but crucial differences in ritual structure point at different dynastic agendas. They suggest alternative ways to reflect on notions such as dynastic membership, succession and public affinity. A comparison with the baptisms at the Valois court of France in the same period seems meaningful in this sense14. In spite of the shared ancestral background of the Valois dukes of Burgundy, French royal christenings enacted a different kind of affinity with dynasty and community. Their distinct profile, lacking the wider urban dimension and conducted in an equally imposing yet more secluded festive environment, reveals another political conception of familial identity. A short outline of the prominent characteristics of both traditions will, in the final section of this essay, lead to an attempt to interpret these diverging stakes in the wider context of rulership.

The urban dimension of an intimate moment: Burgundian-Habsburg christenings

5At both courts, the events in question roughly proceeded along the same lines15. Consequently, differences were not so much situated in the overall ritual structure itself, but rather at the level of the surrounding framework and in very specific choices and gestures. In the Low Countries, the christenings of princely offspring took place, in average, one or two weeks after birth. Given the time necessary for festive preparations and the arrival of prominent guests, the interval between birth and baptism was rather short. Since at least the early fifteenth century16, the solemnities themselves followed the same basic pattern: a procession started at the courtly residence in a lavishly decorated chambre de parement or a salle d’honneur, which was specially prepared for the occasion next to the private quarters of mother and child. It contained a bed of state furnished with crimson and satin, a red baldachin, embroidered tapestries and a buffet ostentatiously displaying precious plate. In this ceremonial bedroom, important attendants were first entertained before the commencement of the actual procession. The little child, dressed in a trained cloak of golden cloth, was then handed over to the person designated to carry him or her during the entire solemnity17. The carrying of the infant was definitely the most important of the responsibilities conferred on participants. In the Burgundian-Habsburg case, both boys and girls − firstborns or younger children – were all conducted to church in the arms of one of their godmothers. From 1478 onward, this honourable position was monopolized by both dowager duchess Margaret of York (the widow of Charles the Bold) and by Anne of Burgundy (ca. 1435-1508), dowager of Ravenstein (an illegitimate daughter of Philip the Good), either acting jointly or separately18. The prestigious task of carrying the child was entrusted to them for subsequent Habsburg baptisms up to 1505, reflecting the aspiration to encourage continuity with the legacy of the Valois dukes. The fils and filles de France, on the other hand, were usually carried to the font either by one of the godfathers (or his representative) or by another high ranking nobleman whose affinity to the royal child had to be further enhanced19.

6Upon leaving the ceremonial bedroom, the child joined the rest of the noble retinue gathered in the great hall of the residence from whence the cortege headed for the church. All contemporary descriptions emphasize the hierarchical composition of these trains. They mainly consisted of courtiers, noblemen, the spiritual godparents of the child and a number of high prelates. The so-called mystères or honneurs du baptême (salt, the baptismal candle, water basins and towel and the aube or chrisom cloth) were carried in front of the child and the godparents by three or four secular noblemen from important families. These were essentially liturgical objects necessary for the administration of the sacrament, but in aristocratic and princely christenings they also functioned as markers of social prestige and dynastic affinity20. Furthermore, prominent members of the organizing municipality and of other towns also participated in the marching order, joining the courtly company once it left the palace. Every one of these participants occupied a well-defined position that had to be observed throughout the whole ceremony.

7The second ritual unit consisted of the actual sacrament of the baptism, taking place at and inside the sumptuously decorated church. After being undressed on a small table at the right side of the choir, the godparents held the child above the elevated font. The officiant then concluded the liturgical formula, applied the chrism and proclaimed the child’s name. Afterwards, the entire procession returned in the same order back to the residence where the godparents delivered the new Christian back to his or her mother21. Festivities took off in the city, with bonfires and banquets, lasting normally around three days. Philip the Fair’s baptism, however, gave rise to no less than eight days of exuberant joy22. In the Low Countries, these events were all staged inside the great public churches of Brabantine and Flemish urban centres, and not in private chapels or smaller baptisteries23. When born in the Koudenberg palace of Brussels, the collegiate church of St Gudula usually emerged as the place to be, with the influential ecclesiastical chapter having some sort of monopoly on dynastic ritual. Only in case of exceptional cold winter weather, the organizers opted for smaller churches near to the palace. Due to the high child mortality, the apparent risks coming with the open-air exposure of the little child had to be mitigated as much as possible. This explains the choice for the adjacent abbey church of St James-on-the-Koudenberg for Philip the Good’s first son Antoine (1430‑1432) on 18 January 1431 and for Mary of Burgundy in February 1457. In both instances, the chapter of St Gudula had to give its formal permission for this special modification24. Another exception was Mary of Hungary (1505‑1558), who was baptized in September 1505 in the church of Our Lady of the Sablon25. Other such happenings took place in the civic heart of Bruges (the church of St Donatian) or Ghent (the church of St John, presently the cathedral of St Bavo). As the past venues of regional oath swearing and other politically-charged acts, all these public buildings could boast a long memory of intertwined ducal claims and civic privileges. The spatial layout of the ceremonial thus fused an intimate use of palatial architecture with the more open scenery of urban pride. Instead of a confrontation of two separate worlds, all these ritual highlights were presented as the inseparable constituents of political wellbeing. Moreover, the considerable distances between the princely residence and the aforementioned religious landmarks exposed the infant fully to the vibrant public sphere. At first, a double row of wooden barriers had to mark off the itinerary and kept the multitude at a proper distance. The highly charged event of 1478 introduced an innovation that further enhanced the visibility of the small protagonist, at the same time also underlining hierarchical order. The elevated walkway erected for Philip the Fair – actually the first documented usage of such a construction − spanned a distance of no less than 400 meters26. Although not every christening featured such plank bridges, they became a recurring phenomenon. All in all, the ritual surrounding of the baptisms of Burgundian and Habsburg infants can be outlined as a carefully orchestrated public spectacle, conducted in the heart of civic space.

8This far-reaching public dimension opened up many possibilities for symbolic dialogue and exchange between all parties involved. Several palpable channels thereby created and consolidated the bond between the newborn and the community of subjects: Among other forms of visual symbolism, urban and provincial heraldry was always proudly displayed next to the ducal coat of arms. Staged theatrical discourses and allegorical pageants furthermore aligned the idea of dynastic welfare with the interests of the ruled territories27. In November 1498, the young Eleanor of Austria (1498‑1558), the firstborn child of Philip the Fair and Juana of Castile (1479‑1555), was greeted amidst great splendour at Brussels. Alongside the processional route, banners depicted the arms of the city and the province of Brabant, as well as the Burgundian cross of Saint Andrew and the ducal device of firesteel and flint. Eleven regularly spaced platforms displayed the blazon of grandfather Maximilian who acted as godfather. A number of youngsters from the city were stationed on sixteen ephemeral arches and other platforms, either singing or holding scrolls with prophetic texts28. The four chambers of rhetoric were compensated by the city for performing several « tableaux vivants », a fact also documented for Isabella of Austria (1501‑1526) in 1501 and Mary in 150529. The future emperor Charles V (1500‑1558) was carried to the font on 7 March 1500 on an impressive, illuminated bridge painted in the yellow, red and white colours of his father. The advancing procession encountered this time three sets of thirteen triumphal arches adorned with the armorial images of all the hereditary lands of the archducal couple and dedicated to the principles of wisdom, justice and concord. These heraldic signifiers were again combined with civic and provincial banners. On either side of the walkway, tableaux exemplified civic themes and biblical precedents30. When the small heir gradually proceeded underneath all of these markers of accumulated rulership on the liminal path of being integrated in the social world, he ritually assimilated this myriad armorial stock.

9Once the prominent train left the courtly residence, the « public part » of the ceremony was completely organized and paid by an urban committee. Large amounts of wood for the construction of the ephemeral galleries, platforms and scaffolds had to be supplied from surrounding forests. Holes were hacked into the floor of the churches to attach the font and to place supporters for decorative tapestries. In 1498, for instance, between twenty-six and thirty-eight carpenters were remunerated by the city of Brussels for constructing the processional infrastructure. The total costs for the city amounted to no less than 370£ 14s. 1d., almost three times the expenses made by Ghent for Philip the Good’s second son Josse († May 1432) back in 143231. Moreover, the organizing cities also imitated the sponsor’s generosity by presenting baptismal gifts to the newborn. These included, for instance, a set of four gilded jugs filled with silver coins, four gilded bottles and a costly cup presented by Bruges to Philip the fair in 1478 or the silver miniature ship donated by Ghent to Charles in 150032. Through such profound civic participation, both physically as well as financially, the town-dwellers thus bargained a privileged bond between their city and their overlords, ritually demanding the future observance of good rule. After the troublesome period of civil strife in the Netherlands in the 1470s and 1480s, such harmonious association of the dynasty with the ambiguous Burgundian inheritance and its subjects was of the utmost importance.

A courtly scenery: French baptisms

10In late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century France, a civic dimension was completely lacking. Christenings of royal infants were organized in the royal castles of Plessis-lès-Tours, Blois, Amboise, Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. Some of these were important palatial complexes where the sovereigns often resided for a long time. But in comparison to the urban centres of the Low Countries they were all situated in very modest urban agglomerations that had no real tradition of communal autonomy. Moreover, the sacrament itself mostly took place in court chapels within the walls of the castle. The baptismal procession for Dauphin François (28 February 1518‑1536) on 25 April 1518 at Amboise, for instance, walked across an elevated walkway of wooden planches covered by costly carpets and vaulted with garlands of foliage and lacs d’amour. This construction definitely recalled the civic bridges made for Philip the Fair and Charles of Austria but was more modest in length. It connected the two courtyards of the castle – spaces opulently adorned with respectively an impressive baldachin strewn with fleurs de lis and tapestries depicting famous mythological scenes − with the entry of the collegiate church of Saint-Florentin, a building completely enclosed within the residence. In line with the same prescriptions followed at the Burgundian court, the solemn cortege was launched at the child’s elevated lit de parement in a formal salle d’honneur. Musicians, officers of arms, gentlemen of the king’s household and the knights of the Order of St Michael then preceded the ceremonial hub with four noblemen bearing the chrism, the basin and ewer, the candle and the salt. Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino (1492-1519), who stood proxy for pope Leo X (1475-1521) as godfather, had the honour of carrying the dauphin to the font, accompanied by the ambassadors of the Holy See, the emperor and the Spanish king. The train concluded with the king’s mother, the sisters of respectively the king and queen and the dauphin’s little sisters Louise (1515-1518) and Charlotte (1516-1524). Traversing the aforementioned courtyards into the church, the noble company bathed in the light of more than four-hundred torches held by royal archers and members of the Swiss guard, which made « the night look as if it were day »33.

11The royal baptisms organized at Fontainebleau in the 1540s were likewise conducted in the domestic chapel of the residence. The future François II (1544-1560) was on 10 February 1544 entrusted to the care of his uncle and godfather Charles, duke of Orléans (1522-1545). A gallery in the palace and a temporary descente de bois led the festive procession into the interior chapel of Saint-Saturnin34. At Elizabeth de France’s (1545-1568) christening (4 July 1546)35, the procession crossed the distance between the royal quarters and the chapel of the Holy Trinity, a building equally incorporated in the palace complex itself. Spectators who were not able or allowed to witness the most intimate parts of the ceremony could marvel at a luxurious pyramid of nine storeys high, crammed with royal treasures, pieces of art and precious gifts, which was erected on the oval courtyard36. In February 1548, it was decided that the baptismal procession for Claude de France (1547-1575) had to use the rather small, exterior passageway above the portico of the cour ovale which increased visibility for courtly spectators. Due to spatial limitations, however, the traditional arrangement of honorary guards along the route had to be left out37. For the children born and christened at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the focal points of the ritual were again a decorated bedroom with a grand lit de parement and the royal chapel, connected by the richly embellished staircase and courtyard where the royal archers and the Swiss guard took their position38.

12On all these occasions, the audience, that had to be impressed, was exclusively composed of courtiers, staff members, and foreign emissaries (e.g. ambassadors of other courts, the retinue of foreign godparents etc.). The composition of the train equally reflected this characteristic. Every contemporary description mentions that the marching order always consisted of musicians, heralds, officers and individuals attached to the royal household, knights of St Michael, the bearers of the mysteries and the child, the child’s governess, and the female members of the dynasty (without the mother, yet including the queen mother, the royal princesses and high noblewomen). Ceremonial space between the residence and the chapel was entirely lined by archers and Swiss guards39.

13All of this contrasted with the solemn cortege in the Low Countries which also enlisted aldermen, civic officials, guild deans and members of the magistracy as active participants in the back-and-forth interaction between palace and church. These men with a civic background always made up a well-defined, first cluster. On the side-line, urban guildsmen and members of the shooting confraternities stood watching. When the liturgical service ended, dignitaries or heralds – sometimes representing both court and city – distributed gold and silver coins in commemoration of the act40. As each important Netherlandish town boasted its own governmental tradition and social profile, this « civic participation » came in variable appearance. Yet it remained a noteworthy feature well into the sixteenth century. No less than two hundred « men of the law of Bruges » as well as deputies from Ghent and other Flemish cities went ahead of the noble retinue preceding little Philip in 1478. Artisans holding more or less four hundred torches paid by the city stood, at regular intervals, along the entire length of the route41. In contrast, only twenty members of the Brussels magistracy are documented for Eleonora’s procession. In the case of the Ghent parade of 1500, the aldermen of the two benches and all other temporary officeholders walked in front of the gentlemen of the archducal household, the members of the council of Flanders and the ducal chancery42. This unique mixture of urban and courtly aspirations – which set the ceremony apart from the aulic dominated Valois rite − initially survived the relocation of the ceremony to the Iberian Peninsula. The Valladolid christening of Charles V’s son Philip (1527‑1598) in June 1527, for instance, still featured the regidores, corregidores and other civic officials in the active part of the procession43.

14The more select nature of French royal baptisms enclosed different accents in political intentions: Instead of visually aligning dynastic welfare with an urban community at large, the French Monarchy primarily tried to forge an enduring bond with capricious power elites and specific foreign allies. Especially the legal institution of godparenthood was a very tangible instrument to evoke such affinity with the royal family as it created a bond considered equal to natural kinship44. Therefore, it became integrated in their diplomatic system of alliance building and appeasement. The careful choice of godparents was an additional means to ease political tensions, resolve conflicts and reinforce bonds of fidelity. At moments, the instrument of spiritual kinship even dovetailed with more traditional political bonds and agreements. For example, the Franco-Burgundian peace treaty of 21 September 1435 concluded at Arras was in February 1436 further consolidated with the choice for Duke Philip the Good (1396-1467) as godfather for King Charles VII’s (1403-1461) son:

[…] ad ce que tout le monde puist mieulx congnoistre et percevoir que de vray intérest avons accepté, voullons et désirons icelle paix inviolablement entretenir, et … pour toujours mieulx accroistre et continuer amour entre nous et vous, nostre lignée et la vostre45.

15On 13 August 1516, the Archduke Charles signed the treaty of Noyon with François I (1494-1547), temporarily ending Habsburg-Valois hostilities in Italy. A couple of months later, the former was requested to act as a sponsor for Charlotte de France (born on 23 October). In a commission dated on 6 November, Charles sent 1,016 Philippes d’or as a gift for his new grandchild and her entourage. During the actual ceremony in the castle of Amboise, Philip of Cleves, the lord of Ravenstein (1459-1528) acted as his proxy46.

16In June 1519, eight months after signing a formal peace, the English king Henry VIII (1491-1547) became godfather to the future Henri II of France (1519-1559), henceforth considering himself « a very father unto him »47. On the contrary, the duke of Savoy who had been petitioned to serve as second godfather in the hope of distracting him from an alliance with the Swiss, refused the honour48. The Anglo-French treaty of Ardres (7 June 1546) once again repeated such strategy. Shortly after its conclusion, François I invited Henry VIII to be the sponsor of his granddaughter49. The English king subsequently sent his treasurer, Sir Thomas Cheney (ca. 1485-1558), to hold the girl over the baptismale font, naming her Elizabeth after Henry’s own mother50. Other prominent sponsors of French royal children included pope Leo X (1518), the duke of Lorraine (1518), king John III of Portugal (1549), the duke of Ferrara (1549) and King Edward VI of England (1551). Even corporate bodies could be selected as godparents for the Enfants de France, like the cantons of Switzerland in November 1547 for Claude de France or the Venetian Signoria whose ambassador held the princess Madeleine (1520-1537) above the font in 152051. Godmothers were usually recruited among the women of the extended royal family (aunts, grandmothers or related princesses and female rulers).

17In sum, French christenings did not really intend to bargain the affinity of a very specific community of subjects. They rather targeted the international community of fellow princes. This goal required a timely coincidence between the ritual and favourable diplomatic developments. It might explain the ever increasing interval between the moment of birth and the moment of baptism (even amounting to an average of seventy-seven days by the 1540s) in France52.

18The institution of sponsorship was also more than a strictly liturgical bond to the Burgundian dukes. They frequently acted themselves as godparents for the children of their administrative corps. With regard to their own offspring, foreign parties were at first preferred as spiritual kinfolk. After 1433, however, the choice usually leaned towards family members and native noblemen, whose enduring loyalty to the dynasty was of primary importance. A final shift in the political objectives behind these choices came with the crisis of the late 1470s. From then on, spiritual sponsorship was part of a very conscious Habsburg policy to reward fidelity and to secure noble support53.

Incorporation or confirmation?

19The foregoing demonstrates that parts of the ritual vocabulary at both courts could be easily attuned to the opportunities of the moment. At the same time, if approached in a general sense, the actual course of the ceremonies enacted diverging visions about the relation of the individual child to the ruling family as a whole. Princely christenings were a unique component of the festive traditions cultivated in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands. In other political processions, entries and celebrations, the persons of the duke and the duchess always took pride of place. Their charismatic appearance in front of the community of subjects negotiated the extent of authority54. Yet, in the context of baptism, the role ascribed to the ducal body was highly restricted. In fact, the parents of the princely child were notably absent from the event, thereby creating a dimension wherein temporary and limited rulership was briefly suspended. The duchess, remaining in strict seclusion after the delivery, stayed behind in solitude. She only reappeared in public after at least forty days to be purified at churching55. Burgundian sources likewise fail to mention any participation of the reigning duke. This segregation of the child from its natural parents underlined the transitional character of the ceremony, only to be dissolved at their reunion56. Only after the full completion of the sacrament, the infant emerged as a full member of the ruling family with a political identity publicly recognized by siblings and subjects alike.

20A series of particular attributes and ritualized gestures performed this meaningful transformation: Pipers and the ringing of church bells invariably announced the start of every procession. Alongside the route, everything was lavishly draped with luxury cloth and furnished with the heraldic colours and coat of arms of the parents and the patrimonial inheritance. An abundance of artificial light formed another key aspect. Chroniclers emphasized with remarkable precision the number of torches used, which transformed a daily life setting into a ceremonial space of a higher order. The amount of illumination even increased at every occasion57. In a short appreciation of Mary of Burgundy’s christening of 1457, maître d’hôtel Olivier de La Marche (1425-1502) especially praised the astonishing use of light58. No less than four hundred torches were held by the inhabitants of Brussels, crowding on both sides of the processional causeway. Father Charles of Charolais furthermore commissioned two hundred torches, half of them carried by the noble hommes walking in front of the child. The remaining hundred were distributed inside the sanctuary59. If we may believe one description, the total amount of torches for Philip the Fair twenty-one years later, amounted to fourteen hundred.60 The most imposing spectacle of light, however, was without doubt performed in Ghent for Charles. In addition to the abundantly illuminated walkway, an artificial bridge of ropes strung between the belfry and the tower of St Nicholas was adorned with six to seven hundred burning torches and paper lanterns. On top of the latter a large wheel rotated another set of fire-pans and torches, while the gilded dragon on top of the belfry blew fire from mouth and tail61. When light, colour and sound overwhelmed the senses, what was the possible function attributed to silence and obscurity?

21Molinet’s description of Eleanor’s baptism in 1498 suggests how such dynastic incorporation was accomplished. When the cortege moved towards the church of St Gudula, the accompanying trumpeters all held their instruments under their arms. In the same fashion, heralds covered their emblazoned tabards. Only after the sacrament was completed, musicians suddenly raised their trumpets and played all the way back to the palace. At that very moment, the emblazoned tabards of the officers of arms were unfolded and put on, proudly parading the ducal blazon. The child’s Christian name was officially proclaimed by the officiant62.

22As such, the infant became associated with the armorial patrimony of the dynasty and its associated lands. Jointly with the social advancement of name-giving at the font, the ritual interaction with parental and ducal symbolism thus assimilated him or her as a full member of the dynasty. Narrative accounts hint that the processions for Charles of Austria in March 1500 and for Mary of Hungary in September 1505 were conducted in a similar manner: A loud sound of clarions gave the signal to return to the residence. It is possible that (a part) of the light endorsed the same objective, although this is not explicitly revealed in Burgundian sources. Contemporary ordinances existing for the English court do specify that torches carried in front of the child should remain unlit until the sacramental rite was concluded63. It was an almost literal enactment of the recurring from-darkness-into-the-light-metaphor.

23This alternation between silence and sound, and the sudden profusion of heraldic colours marked the liminality of the first ritual component and underlined the act of incorporation performed in the second. During the « mute » and « dim » part, the princely child lingered in an ambiguous state. It was not yet a Christian, and was without a proper name still excluded from the dynastic complex. Integration and aggregation were only accomplished after receiving the sacrament and during the return to court. The ritual acts performed this process: Water, for instance, signified a religious rebirth, while trumpets and the selective exposition of the ducal arms and emblems – after all marks of both ancestral affiliation and hereditary titles – symbolically incorporated the infant into the imagined community of relatives and forebears.

24While it is hard to discern a clear evolution in descriptive sources, some telling changes with a wider political resonance are to be observed in the course of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. At the christening of the future Philip II, the king of arms of Castile still waited before putting on his tabard until the infant received its name at the font64. The Spanish princely baptisms of the second half of the sixteenth century continued these Burgundian-Habsburg precedents in a formal sense, though new ritual elements crept in, corresponding to altering conceptions of power. From the 1570s onwards, the ceremony gradually withdrew from the urban space to a more exclusive courtly setting. After 1629 the ritual was usually conducted in the intimacy of the capilla real. The interplay with civic ambitions and symbolism now completely dropped out of the picture65. Other innovations likewise hinted at a profound transformation of the political significance of the liminal rite. The child was, from the sixteenth century onwards, mostly carried by the first gentleman of the bedchamber (sumiller de corps) or by the male royal favourite instead of by the dynastic matriarchs whose prominent presence had characterized the Burgundian-Habsburg antecedents. The ruler himself, whose initial absence had accentuated a transitional and supra-personal meaning, now started to follow the proceedings from nearby windows and church balconies, though still largely hidden from public sight. What concerns the performative role of the symbolism and the heralds, nowhere do the sources mention any difference in the use of their emblazoned tabards before or after chrismation66. This suggests that they no longer ritually supported the adoption of the infant in the dynastic community. Moreover, a junta appointed by Philip IV (1605-1665) on 22 May 1647 codified that henceforth the officers of arms were only to assist the christenings of a hereditary prince or an infanta primogénita, strictly delineating their political value before their socio-religious emancipation67.

25Similar mediators of transition can be identified at the French court. The events where enacted in the evening when a profusion of light from torches and wax candles more easily underscored the extraordinary moment. However, most sources do specify that music accompanied the retinue from the beginning and was thus not limited to one particular stage. The heraldic banners of trumpeters and the tabards of heralds were unfurled for the duration of the complete ceremony. Once the infant was submerged in the holy water, the principal king of arms cried « Vive Monseigneur le Dauphin ! » or another appropriate name and title. These titles were already attributed to the children when they were born, while they only received a proper personal name at the font68. Those who died before receiving full sacramental recognition – although emergency baptism was usually performed at birth to ensure salvation – remained non nommé (specified in documents as « NN »)69. The infant’s personal heraldic attributes, connected to their rank in the royal hierarchy, were likewise displayed before the moment of christening70.

26Another remarkable disparity concerns the presence of the king and queen. In October 1492, for example, King Charles VIII (1470‑1498) awaited Charles-Orland (1492‑1495) in the chapel of Saint-Jean in the castle of Plessis-lès-Tours holding the hand of the pious eremite who had prophesized the child’s rather atypical name71. The official description of the dauphin’s christening in April 1518 states that the king and queen watched the complete church service from behind a latticed screen, a detail also documented for later ceremonies72. Should we conclude from this that – in contrast to their Burgundian and early Habsburg counterparts – French royal offspring had already a well-circumscribed political identity before their official social and religious recognition? It is difficult to answer this conclusively, as the available sources hardly document every aspect with the same sense of detail. Nevertheless, some insight in contemporary attitudes can be deduced from circumstantial evidence. The seventeenth-century historian André Duchesne (1584-1640), looking for precedents to enhance the lavish festivities for the birth of the Dauphin Louis (1601-1643) in September 1601, claimed that is was an ancient custom for the French king and the princes of the Blood to be witnesses of royal births and to verify the observance of the Salic law. If it was a boy, a ceremonial sword was put in the child’s hand « to use for the protection of the kingdom of France & the French ». Moreover, a firstborn son was saluted – he continued − as if « it had a crown on its head and the sceptre in his hand »73. Although there is little proof for the actual existence of such early ceremony, the fact that select spectators were allowed to witness the actual child-birth is indeed underwritten by ambassadorial reports74. In sharp contrast with the selectiveness and courtly setting of baptism, the queen’s childbirth did occasion quite accessible and inclusive public rejoicings with bonfires and church services in the numerous urban centres of the kingdom and even abroad, comparable to the Low Countries75. Ritual recognition of the specific status of the child and his or her adoption in the hierarchized universe of the royal court already seems to have been completed at the moment of biological birth, before an official spiritual emancipation. An anonymous manuscript dating from 1515, for example, imagined François I’s baptism as the immersion of a crowned infant – and thus already invested with full royal powers – in the purifying water of the Faith76.

27In short, although all these interpretations were made long time after the actual events, they say something about the convictions prevailing in France. Meaningful incorporation into the dynasty, which was structured by an internal hierarchy that reflected the rank of succession to the crown, was already completed when a royal child came into the world, not during the christening. The extent of an infant’s political potential was thus fixed before receiving a full-fletched social personality and Christian name. This immediate defining of the child’s future destiny prefigured the rigid differentiation of the titles, status and capacities of the members of the French royal family in the second half of the sixteenth century77.

28As a concluding remark, one can state that the development of the ceremonial of princely baptism at the turn of the sixteenth century – although having a universalized religious meaning – was motivated by different political agendas. It indeed betrays an entangled history of ceremonial interaction. Exchange and imitation among courts led to the general introduction of christening festivities with roughly the same outlook. Yet the different ways in which central aspects such as illumination, sound and silence, colours, intermediary symbols and spatial participation were employed, enacted a different relationship between the child and the wider political community. Especially from the 1470s onwards, christenings conducted in the scarcely pacified and internally divided Low Countries strongly reinforced the fiction of dynastic continuity. The institution proved a very useful instrument to assimilate native noblemen, obstinate urban communities, and the new infant in an overarching, familial bond. Publicly exhibited in a procession and church service organized in a predominantly civic context, the ceremony established the political identity of the child vis-à-vis the subjects. Festive cooperation between court and city was thus actively used by the urban world to enter into a privileged bond with the princely child. At the same time, the newborn was also turned into a member of the dynasty. Acquiring political significance was therefore a gradual process, precisely reaching its ritual highpoint during the baptism.

29In Valois France royal christenings were less obviously such « dynastic rites of passage », as the royal children were already fully integrated into the hierarchized court society before their social and religious transition. Participation in the equally opulent French ritual was selectively limited to the royal household, high noblemen and foreign representatives. All took place within the confines of the residence, without civic elements or allegorical pageantry bargaining the terms of a wider affinity between child and community. Some of the striking differences with the ceremonial observed in the Low Countries demonstrate that the child’s political identity was not the outcome of the liminal moment, but was – at least from the sixteenth century onwards – fixed at birth. This early assimilation imposed a strict order of succession to the throne. Instead of forging bonds with subjects, the christenings staged by the self-confident monarchy rather aimed at international recognition. An exclusive splendour was therefore carefully timed and planned as to exploit the right political moment. Hence, by the seventeenth century, the official baptisms of the Bourbon successors were even postponed at will ; five years after birth for the future Louis XIII in 1606 and more than six years for the Grand Dauphin (1661‑1711) in 1668, with as showy result boys able to answer the questions of the officiant themselves78.