Costumed Role Reversal in Courtly Ceremonies
Role playing games were a constant part of courtly festivities. While Burgundian Mummeries were extremely popular in the late Middle Ages, the Early Modern Period was dominated by various role-playing games such as kingdoms, shepherds' feasts and peasants' weddings. The challenge of these games was primarily to play a role of an unknown person and in this context to get a glimpse into proper courtiers’ demeanor. During Epiphany, kingdoms were played in monasteries, where the role of a king was given to the person who found a bean in a piece of cake eaten beforehand.
The special feature was the unknown identity of the players, who were costumed beyond recognition, and the element of surprise when they were unmasked at the end of the game. For these reasons, the roles were determined often in a lottery, and the players who were chosen usually had their costumes made by themselves afterwards.
However, was there more to these role-plays in elaborate garments? Were they purely for royal amusement or were they part of diplomacy? In my presentation I will discuss these questions, as well as the connection between the function and features of the event.
Uta Dorothea Sauer studied Musicology, History, Sociology and Psychology at the Technische Universität Dresden. After graduating, she was a research fellow at TU Dresden (until 2017). During this time, she did her doctorate on ‘Dance and Representation of the Wettins and their Allies in the Protestant Area 1600-1725’ (publish in 2018). From this time onwards, she has turned her professional interests towards Modern Cultural History. In this context she is working as an author and researcher at the Institute for Saxon History and Anthropology (ISGV). Furthermore she was a guest scientist at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. During the period 2019-21 she was working on the project 'German Heritage in Letters' at the German Historical Institute, Washington DC in cooperation with the Department of International History at Trier University. Since 2022, she has been employed as lecturer on History at the Preparatory Colleges of TU Dresden (TUDIAS) and Unipark Institute, Dresden.