Meeting of rulers
The meeting of rulers or the meeting of rulers is a technical term in historical studies and describes personal meetings of monarchs as a means of politics. For the meetings of heads of state and government, the term summit was established in the 20th century .
Encounters with rulers are not an invention of the Middle Ages . There were already ancient and biblical models. Well known is a meeting between the two Cheruscan princes Arminius and Flavius on the Weser , who abused each other across the river. In the Bible in the Book of Kings [1:10] the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon can be found. Meetings of queens or regents are rare.
Contrary to the widespread assumption in literature, there was neither an end nor a break in meetings of rulers as a means of politics after the Middle Ages. The use of meetings of rulers knows certain waves, which depend on the situation of international relations and the personalities of the individual rulers. Especially princes who were striving for a rise in rank (dukes of Burgundy in the 15th century) or climbers (Napoleon) use rulers' meetings intensively in order to be able to demonstrate their equality with kings in ceremonies.
The elaborate ceremonial of rulers' encounters was increasingly seen as a problem at the end of the early modern period, so that many princes began to travel incognito in order to save costs and effort, but still be able to use the direct encounter as a means of their politics.
ceremonial
Meetings of rulers were not written down in writing, unlike other ceremonies such as B. the choice of a king or the coronation developed. Presumably this is related to the lack of a legally constitutive function. Since meetings of rulers were neither legally binding nor law-creating acts, they lacked a written protocol and in this way offered greater scope for implementation. They orientated themselves on written traditions and precedents, only a small part of which were written down.
The ceremonial of medieval rulers' encounters has had a relatively fixed form since the 11th century, but could vary depending on the circumstances, so that individual acts were changed, omitted or added. As a rule, the following elements can be identified as components of rulers' meetings: negotiation by messenger, meeting, greeting, actual negotiation, conclusion of a contract, mutual visits, reception, drinks , gifts and farewell. Some of these elements could be repeated during an encounter, which increased the solemn character of the gathering.
Despite the great constancy of forms, not all actions always had the same weight. Therefore, it is not possible to draw a simple scheme of the ceremonial of the meeting of rulers. The process depended on numerous external conditions. The order of the elements, however, has a certain logical connection. The strictest symmetry has been observed in their implementation, i.e. That is, when two rulers of equal rank meet, the visit of one to the other's camp is usually followed by a return visit.
A common mass was only established as an element of rulers' meetings in the 11th century. However, it was more of an exception, especially when the meetings took place in a conflict-prone environment. A common meal, on the other hand, was never missing and has already been proven under the Merovingian kings. It served to confirm and strengthen friendship and peace agreements. Whatever the nature of the encounters, the individual steps were never determined by one party alone, and could not have been, as the solution reached presupposed an agreement in both camps. B. The place and time of the meeting, the preparation of meals or the exchange of gifts. The shapes of the individual elements changed and were adapted to the style of the time.
The choice of location was dependent on the rank of the two rulers. As a rule, the lesser went to the rulership of the superior, while equality could be expressed through a meeting at a neutral third place in the border region. Particularly noteworthy here are the very frequent meetings in the Middle Ages on bridges over rivers, some of which were built especially for this purpose, which separated the two domains from each other. In addition to the marking of the border area by the river, the mutual need for security also played an important role.
Visits differ from meetings with rulers in that they catch up with the visitor at the border and at the end by guiding the guest out again. Thus, in contrast to the meetings, there was always a protocol-based end during visits. The solemn act of solicitation was all the more important as it clearly set the guest apart from a paying vassal. The course of action, like Adventus, can be divided into three essential parts: the arrival of the ruler, the meeting by the urban population or by the host's envoy at the state or city limits and finally the escort of the ruler into the city or by the visited territory. Depending on their rank, the host ruler came to meet his visitor to different degrees. In addition, visits always posed the problem of accommodating and entertaining the guest. A guest seldom took care of himself from his own means in order to maintain his independence.
Reasons and functions
The subjects hoped that the direct meeting of two rulers in times of war would restore peace. The two rulers only had to meet, then all misunderstandings that had arisen through the poor administration of the royal advisors would be cleared away, according to the prevailing opinion in the Middle Ages. Heinrich von Langenstein wrote this thought down as early as 1381, at the beginning of the papal schism. Historiographers like Chastellain also thought in the 15th century that Charles VII, King of France, and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, simply did not understand each other because they had never seen each other. This widespread belief persists to this day and is repeatedly projected at current meetings of heads of state and government.
Meetings with rulers were highly complicated diplomatic feats with a long tradition that took place in relatively fixed forms. A distinction must be made between those that were staged by mutual agreement and, for this reason, very solemn and extensive, and those that were characterized by opposites and therefore tended to be rather tight. For research into the Middle Ages, the distinction between good and bad traditional gatherings also plays an important role.
The reasons for meeting rulers cannot be clearly answered. The motives for this differed from case to case. There were no compelling legal reasons for a meeting of two rulers. In contrast to visits, meetings were often used to conclude a contract. This could of course also be done through envoys, but a demonstration of friendship between two monarchs could marginalize both external and internal enemies. The meeting thus contributed to securing one's own position. This repercussion on domestic politics becomes very clear when a weak potentate presents himself as an equal partner of a powerful ruler in an alliance. Ceremonial visits had a similar effect. Their own rule was staged through appropriate acts of representation and demonstration.
In the Middle Ages, "interstate" treaties were based on the personal relationships of the rulers. In the early days, amicitia or fraternitas were the basis for any type of contract. The origins for this lie in Germanic times. However, Roman forms can also be found. Even in pre-classical Greece , friendship was a prerequisite for signing an alliance treaty.
Initially, peace and alliance treaties were identical in the Middle Ages. Over the centuries, however, they have been differentiated in that the treaties of alliances listed individual obligations with increasing precision. The conclusion of bilateral agreements with larger powers also became important as a means of building and securing rule by smaller princes. There is a close connection between the conclusion of intergovernmental agreements and the emerging sovereignty status of the participating countries.
Visits were only made if there was already a friendly agreement. An important motive for such visits were pilgrimages or the arrangement of joint military actions. At least in a ceremonial sense, the (rare) imprisonment of a ruler has the same elements as a visit.
literature
- Daniel Eisenmenger: "Cosa digna de memoria ver dos tan grandes Principes [...] amigos de honra y tan poderosos." Summit meetings in Early Modern History: the example of Charles V and Francis I. In: Pliegos de Yuste. No. 11/12, 2010, ISSN 1697-0152 , pp. 55-60 .
- Werner Kolb : Meetings of rulers in the Middle Ages (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. Vol. 359). Lang, Bern et al. 1988, ISBN 3-261-03796-2 (also: Zurich, University, dissertation, 1987/1988).
- Johannes Paulmann : Pomp and Politics. Monarch encounters in Europe between the Ancien Régime and the First World War. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-77160-4 (also: Munich, University, habilitation paper, 1999).
- Gerald Schwedler : Meeting of rulers of the late Middle Ages. Forms - rituals - effects (= medieval research. Vol. 21). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7995-4272-2 ( online ).
- Ingrid Voss : Meeting of rulers in the early and high Middle Ages. Investigations into the encounters of the East Franconian and West Franconian rulers in the 9th and 10th centuries as well as the German and French kings from the 11th to the 13th centuries. (= Supplements to the archive for cultural history. 26). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1987, ISBN 3-412-08086-1 (At the same time: Gießen, Universität, Dissertation, 1985/1986).