10-01-2020, 02:50 PM
The article says that this crown was crafted specifically for the funeral, so it's not the same crown he wore.
But let me introduce some methodological considerations.
First of all, I agree that it's unreliable to use posthumous representations. The coins are things which allow one who has never seen the king to have the idea of what his crown looks like. However, coins may show simplified or "template" imagery.
Next, the crown. As far as I understand, a crown is a thing which is associated not with a particular person, but with the kingdom. The crown is passed to the successor from his predecessor, and it's not that each new monarch has a new crown, unless of course there is some special occasion to craft a new crown (like the previous one is lost, or the kingdom greatly expands and is in need of a new symbol).
It's a pity that the crown sheet posted by JKP lacks the description list specifying which is each particular crown.
I don't understand though how it is with the spouses. Suppose there is a reigning king and he wears the crown. He has a wife (the queen). Would the queen also wear a crown? If yes, would that be her "personal" crown used just for decorative purposes, or that crown is something which would be tranferred to a successor?
Then, the usage of crowns in the VMS.
Considering that those nymphs and circles represent the calendar, I can think of the following ideas of crown usage:
1) Marking the dates of some social importance associated with the Crown. I can think only of tax due dates.
2) Marking the dates relevant to the reigning kings and queens (dead monarchs would not be of importance in this context) as the consequence of public celebration of those days. I can think of birthdays, coronation days and saints' days of the monarchs.
3) Marking the the dates relevant to the kings and queens as a matter of idle personal recollection for the author's own amusement. In this context, death dates might be used as well. Here's the day when king N died, here's the day when queen Y died, and I have survived them all. The "es liegen drei Kaiser begraben in Prag" by Brecht bears some of this motif.
I will correct the thread name to reflect the broader topic.
But let me introduce some methodological considerations.
First of all, I agree that it's unreliable to use posthumous representations. The coins are things which allow one who has never seen the king to have the idea of what his crown looks like. However, coins may show simplified or "template" imagery.
Next, the crown. As far as I understand, a crown is a thing which is associated not with a particular person, but with the kingdom. The crown is passed to the successor from his predecessor, and it's not that each new monarch has a new crown, unless of course there is some special occasion to craft a new crown (like the previous one is lost, or the kingdom greatly expands and is in need of a new symbol).
It's a pity that the crown sheet posted by JKP lacks the description list specifying which is each particular crown.
I don't understand though how it is with the spouses. Suppose there is a reigning king and he wears the crown. He has a wife (the queen). Would the queen also wear a crown? If yes, would that be her "personal" crown used just for decorative purposes, or that crown is something which would be tranferred to a successor?
Then, the usage of crowns in the VMS.
Considering that those nymphs and circles represent the calendar, I can think of the following ideas of crown usage:
1) Marking the dates of some social importance associated with the Crown. I can think only of tax due dates.
2) Marking the dates relevant to the reigning kings and queens (dead monarchs would not be of importance in this context) as the consequence of public celebration of those days. I can think of birthdays, coronation days and saints' days of the monarchs.
3) Marking the the dates relevant to the kings and queens as a matter of idle personal recollection for the author's own amusement. In this context, death dates might be used as well. Here's the day when king N died, here's the day when queen Y died, and I have survived them all. The "es liegen drei Kaiser begraben in Prag" by Brecht bears some of this motif.
I will correct the thread name to reflect the broader topic.