Introduction of vehicles into the imperial court cerimonial

While considerable research has been carried out into the preserved carriages of the Viennese court, which today are kept in the Wagenburg (Imperial Mews) in Schönbrunn, when it comes to how vehicles came to be used at the imperial court we are still completely in the dark. For that reason, the research project which is the subject of the application looks for the first time at the introduction of state vehicles into the imperial ceremonial. It is based on the hypothesis that at the imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire too - parallel to other European courts, for instance those in Spain, England or Bavaria - around the middle of the 16th century, carriages were first used to carry rulers on ceremonial occasions and so they gradually replaced the horse as the characteristic mode of transport of the Middle Ages. The research project is to focus on the following topics and questions: What conditions lead to carriages being used by the Austrian Habsburgs? Was the imperial court the first of the royal courts of Europe to start using state carriages as part of its ceremonial or are the roots of this development somewhere else? How did the provision of the prestigious carriages in the imperial fleet of vehicles evolve? What were the occasions for which members of the imperial family started to use carriages instead of horses? What effects did the increasing use of carriages have on the court ceremonial, ruler iconography and the imperial stables which have hardly been researched for the period of the early modern era? Central European carriage-builders of the 16th and 17th century The evolution of carriages from the early imperial whirlicotes to the baroque coronation coach in terms of technical improvements and artistic changes On the one hand, the year 1530 was chosen as the start date for the research period as developments at other European courts show it to be probable that before then, vehicles were only used in exceptional cases as part of the court ceremonial at the courts of the Austrian Habsburgs too while, on the other hand, the end date is set at 1658, the date of the coronation of Leopold I in Frankfurt, as this was the first time an emperor had entered the coronation city in a carriage and the event marked the complete integration of state carriages in the imperial ceremonial.