S3E17: What Kind of Kings Crown Themselves?

History Behind News Program

King Charles III will be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But Napoleon crowned himself!

As my guest, Dr. Jaume Aurell, tells it, many monarchs have performed self-coronation. What is interesting is that they did this, perhaps defying firmly adhered-to precedence, to establish their own authority, their own supremacy, and to send a clear and visual message about their real and perceived power. Quite tellingly, as Dr. Aurell explains, generally, successors of self-crowning monarchs within the line of their dynasty did not perform self-coronation. This is perhaps because they felt secure in the legitimacy and of their reign.

There is yet another historic element here. Did you know that most catholic monarchs, such as those in Spain, Italy and Germany centuries ago, did not like being crowned by a member of the clergy? However, in countries that later became protestant, monarchs readily accepted the ritual of being crowned by say… a bishop. As my guest will explain, this is because protestant kings have had more control over the church in their countries. And the case of King Charles III is a prime example of this, as he is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. For this conversation, Dr. Aurell joined from Spain, where he is a professor of Medieval History at the Department of History at the University of Navarra. His main subjects of research are medieval and modern historiography, historians' autobiographies, and Medieval Coronations. He has published many peer-reviewed articles and books, two of which we discuss here:

1) Medieval Self-Coronations: The History and Symbolism of a Ritual (2020) (on Amazon), and

2) Genealogies of the West: Civilization, Religion, Consciousness (2023) (on Amazon)

Interestingly, although this is not an episode about Persia or Iran, our story and my conversation with Dr. Aurell about the history of self-coronations begins and ends with Persia/Iran. To learn more about Dr. Aurell and his extensive research and publications, you can visit his academic homepage.

Also, here is another episode about British and other European royal families:

S2E31: The Family On The Throne, History of Royal Self-Staging, Dr. Mehrkens

I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Adel

Host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠History Behind News⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcast

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1. 🎵 attribution, links and license for the theme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Music promoted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.free-stock-music.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
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3. The image on the left is of Roger II receiving the crown from Jesus Christ, and its by Matthias Süßen. License & description available on Wikipedia.
4. The image on the right Joséphine kneels before Napoléon during his coronation at Notre Dame. Behind him sits pope Pius VII. The image is in Public Domain.

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