ECKHART HELLMUTH the Funerals of the Prussian Kings in the Eighteenth Century

ECKHART HELLMUTH The Funerals of the Prussian Kings in the Eighteenth Century in MICHAEL SCHAICH (ed.), Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 451–472 ISBN: 978 0 19 921472 3 The following PDF is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence. Anyone may freely read, download, distribute, and make the work available to the public in printed or electronic form provided that appropriate credit is given. However, no commercial use is allowed and the work may not be altered or transformed, or serve as the basis for a derivative work. The publication rights for this volume have formally reverted from Oxford University Press to the German Historical Institute London. All reasonable effort has been made to contact any further copyright holders in this volume. Any objections to this material being published online under open access should be addressed to the German Historical Institute London. DOI: 16 The Funerals of the Prussian Kings in the Eighteenth Century ECKHART HELLMUTH The court and court ceremonial are highly popular topics for historical research at present. Peter Burke's 1992 study, The Fabrication of Louis XIV, in particular, has been a major factor in ensuring that historians look more carefully at the forms in which kingly power is represented. 1 As a result, they have become much more aware that courts presented themselves in very different ways. Thus, for example, there are considerable differences between the relatively coherent policy of image-creation such as that pursued by Louis XIV(1643-1715) or the Spanish court under Philip IV (1621-65), 2 and the loose programme of representation followed by the Viennese court at the time of Leopold I (1658- 1705), as analysed by Maria Goloubeva. 3 When looking at life at court, historians' attention is drawn to a whole series of events.4 The spectrum ranges from coronations and first audiences to performances of baroque opera. And a canon of terms for the description of such events has developed, including 'self-legitima- tion', 'status affirmation', 'representation of power', 'glorification', 'the theatricalization of monarchical rule', 'image policy', and 'propaganda'. Recently, however, doubts have arisen about a Linda Bri.iggemann helped in obtaining the sources used in this essay. Christoph von Ehrenstein provided important references to recent literature on the history of the court. I am grateful to both. 1 Peter Burke, The Fabrication ef Louis XIV (New Haven, 1992). 2 Jonathan Brown and John H. Elliott (eds.), A Palace for a Kmg: The Buen Retiro and the Court ef Philip IV (New Haven, 2003). 3 Maria Goloubeva, The Glorification ef Emperor Leopold I in Image, Spectacle and Text (Mainz, 2000). 4 See e.g.John Adamson (ed.), The Prince!, Courts ef Europe: RiJual, Politics and Culture Under theAncien Regime 1500-1750 (London, 1999); Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, 'Zeremoniell, Ritual, Symbol: Neue Forschungen zur symbolischen Kommunikation in Spatrnittelalter und Fri.iher Neuzeit', Zeitschrifl far historische Forschung, 27 (2000), 389-405; ead., 'Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne: Begriffe--Thesen-Forschungsper- spektiven', .(eitschrifl.fiir historische Forschung, 31 (2004), 489-527. 452 ECKHART HELLMUTH number of these terms. Thus in John Adamson's remarkable essay published a few years ago, 'The Making of the Ancien-Regime Court', we read: it is [now] apparent that key elements in the traditional interpretation need to be cast in a very different mould. First, the recovery of the liturgi- cal element in aulic ceremonial, largely pioneered by Italian scholars, has fundamentally modified the older analysis of household ritual in terms of 'theatre' and 'propaganda'. We are dealing with rituals where the 'message' is so deeply embedded in the 'medium', to borrow Clifford Geertz's phrase, 'that to transform it into a network of propositions is to risk ... both of the characteristic crimes of exegesis: seeing more in things than is really there, and reducing a richness of particular meaning to a drab parade of generalities'. Secondly, where these household practices are concerned, it should be remembered that the daily 'audience' for most court ceremonial was the courtiers themselves. Like the liturgies of the Church, to which it provided a complement, the act of participation in court ceremonial defined a cadre that shared in the 'holiness' ofpower.5 Adamson is not saying here that the issue of the audience was irrelevant to those who staged court ceremonial. Naturally there were events, such as coronation processions, which aspired to reach as large an audience as possible. To be sure, however, scholars of ceremonial have reminded us, with good reason, always to look carefully at the addressee of each particular ceremony. Barbara Stolberg-Rillinger has shown, using the example of Prussia, that the ceremonial of individual courts was frequently directed less at their own subjects than at a 'supra- territorial courtly public'. 6 This is illustrated, among other things, by the fact that important ceremonial events were captured in texts and images which subsequently circulated in European court society. The parvenus among the European powers in particular, including Prussia, saw these as a means of demonstrating the rank which they held, or aspired to hold. The ceremonies which have exerted a particular fascination on historians undoubtedly include the obsequies held on the death of a monarch. In the cosmos of courtly self-representa- tions, the extravagant funeral rites which often stretched out 5 John Adamson, 'The Making of the Ancien-Regime Court 1500--1700', in id. (ed.), Prince!), Courts ef Europe, 7-41, at 31---2. 6 Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, 'Hofische Offentlich.keit: Zur zeremoniellen Selbstdar- stellung des brandenburgischen Hofes vor dem europaischen Publikum', Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preussischen Geschicllie, NS (1997), 1451 6. The Funerals of the Prussian Kings 453 over several weeks or even months assumed a special place. They were an expression both of the true faith of a particular dynasty and of the continuity of its power. Thus it is not surpris- ing that funeral rites regularly filled many pages in the hand- books of ceremonial which experienced a remarkable boom in the German-speaking territories in the early eighteenth century.7 These books recorded how monarchs, princes, and high aristo- crats were buried in the past and the present. Pattern books, as it were, they provided orientation for contemporary courts in their competition for prestige. The staging of a court funeral, however, was not merely an act of imitation, constantly referring back to earlier funerals. On the contrary, it was often a creative act in which those who dictated the ritual took into account both the personality of the deceased and his rank, real or assumed. Norbert Elias's words: 'Death is a problem of the living. Dead people have no problems,' though written in a different context, are very apt here. 8 Although there is no doubt about the central significance of obsequies in the cosmos of the courtly world, the historiography of Prussia has paid relatively little attention to this subject.9 This is astonishing, because Prussia possessed a tradition of grand funerals. Although its kings-with the exception of Prussia's first king, Frederick I (1688-1713) 10-were not crowned, they were extravagantly buried. Thus on the occasion of Frederick I's funeral in 1713, the Prussian court put on a display of all the splendour of which a baroque court was capable. 11 First the embalmed corpse was presented on a 'pearl bed' in the palace; then it was displayed for eight weeks in a magnificent castrum doloris in the palace chapel, to which the public was admitted. 7 Milos Vee, Zeremoniafwissensckaft im Fiirstenstaat: Studien zur juristischen und politischen Theorie ahsohltisti.scher Herrschefisrepriisenl,atwn (Frankfurt, 1998). 8 Norbert Elias, Uber di.e Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren T agen: Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt, 2002), vi. 17. 9 There are, of course, exceptions, e.g. Uwe Steiner, 'Triumphale Trauer: Die Trauerfeierlichkeiten aus AnlaB des Todes der ersten preuBischen Konigin in Berlin im Jahre 1705', Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preussischen Gescmchte, NS, II (2001), 23-52. 10 See, most recently,Johannes Kunisch (ed.), Dreihundert]ahre Preujlische Kiinigskrii111lng: Eine T agungsdokumenJ,atwn (Berlin, 2002). 11 Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin (henceforth GSA), Brandenburgisch-Preufiisches Hausarchiv (henceforth BPH), Rep. 45 K 4: Acta wegen des koniglichen Leichen- begangnisses Sr. Majest:at Konigs Friedrich I. (1713); Benjamin Ursin von Bar, Christ- Kiinigli.ches Trauer- und Ekrengedachtnis, des W~land Allerdurchl.auchtigsten, Gr'lflmiichtigsten Fiirsten und Herrn, Herrn Friderichs (Colin an der Spree, no year). 454 ECKHART HELLMUTH The removal of the corpse from the chapel to Berlin's cathedral, accompanied by 10,000 soldiers, was a remarkable spectacle, and the exequies, held in the cathedral with temporary architectural structures, a wealth of armourial bearings and emblems, and a cult of light, had much in common with a performance of baroque theatre. The sarcophagus, finally, in which Frederick I was laid to rest was more of a memorial than a coffin. 12 These extravagant rites were modelled on the funerals of the Great Elector (1640-88) and Queen Sophie Charlotte (1668-1705). 13 This essay, however, will not examine these two funerals in greater detail because they do not appear to differ essentially from other baroque funerals. Instead, it will focus on the funerals of Frederick William I (1713-40) and his son, Frederick the Great (1740-86). Not only was there an inner connection between them, but each was remarkable in its own, special way. I Over a long period, Frederick William I had made careful preparations for his death. As early as 1731 he had ordered a simple tomb to be built in the newly erected garrison church in Potsdam.

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