Ein ´Etiquette-Normale´ für den österreichischen Kaiserhof

Between 1810 and 1813 the Master of Ceremonies Count Gundacker Heinrich Wurmbrand drafted an Etiquette-Normale für den österreichischen Kaiserhof, which is a unique source for the reconstruction of everyday ceremonies at the Viennese court after the Napoleonic era. It is an elaborate manuscript, which aimed, as Wurmbrand wrote in a letter, to instruct the people at court on how to behave decently and calmly and to ensure regularity in the daily routine. Wurmbrand drafted the manuscript in the period between the end of the Holy Roman Empire 1806 and the Congress of Vienna 1814/15, which was crucial for the formation and foundation of the Austrian Empire. These years are not only characterized by the Napoleonic Wars, but also by the development of different reform projects, which aimed to modernize the Empire and dealt with the rank and political status of the newly founded Empire in Europe. In this context, court ceremonial played an important role. The daily and yearly routine at court expressed not only the monarchs rank and dignity, but also the hierarchies of court society itself and even in the nineteenth century the close connection between the Emperor and the sacral sphere of divine rights. The Etiquette-Normale therefore presents an attempt to regulate court ceremonial after years of political transformations and turmoil. It not only defined the role of the Emperor, but also the ranks of the members of his entourage and the status of the court servants in a complex, symbolic system of relations. Court and court society are presented as a well-ordered mechanism to celebrate the dignity and rank of the Austrian Empire invented in 1804 and to legitimize it through symbolic communication.