The ceremonies on the Diets involved the reception of the King/Queen or his/her commissioners visiting the Parliament, and the mutual greeting and farewell rituals of the Upper and the Lower Houses. The official opening was signed by the deliverance of the royal propositions, in which the ruler, exercising his/her royal rights, prescribed the issues negotiated at the Par-liament. The Diet was finished with the sanction of the legal articles. Coro-nations and Palatinal elections did not take place on all Diets, but these cer-emonies always happened during an already opened Parliamentary session.
Between 1687 and 1765 the Hungarian rulers entered to the Diets held in Pozsony seven times where four coronations took place.
The rulers’ entering ceremony to Pozsony consisted of two phases: the first at the crossing of the country and the second at that of the city’s border.
The rulers left Vienna with a splendid entourage and stopped in Petronell for one night. The next day they continued their journey until they arrived at Wolfsthal, where a smaller deputy of the Hungarian estates welcomed them. The delegation was always led by a prelate. Following the greeting addresses and the kissing of the ruler’s hand, the royal retinue proceeded to Köpcsény, which is located on the kingdom’s border. Here the Arch-bishop of Esztergom welcomed the ruler in the name of the estates. After his speech the rulers let the prelate and his retinue kiss their hand. The next stop was at the limits of Pozsony. The procedure of the ceremony followed medieval Western European models and its main elements remained un-changed through the centuries. The clerk of the city held his speech at the Vienna gate of Pozsony, then he handed over the keys of the city, and the members of the city council appeared in front of the ruler to kiss his/her hand. The armed citizens of Pozsony lined the streets up to the castle, where the ruler and his/her entourage went on. At the castle, the Arch-bishop of Esztergom received the ruler in the name of the clergy and sprin-kled him with holy water. The ceremony was concluded with a thanksgiv-ing service celebrated in the chapel of the castle.
The procedure changed three times in the first half of the 18thcentury.
Before 1687 four battalions of armed citizens fired a salvo in the courtyard of the castle of Pozsony. In 1687, however, this custom was abandoned in order to prevent the horses from being frightened. At the next royal en-trance in 1712, this element was again omitted from the ceremony with ref-erence to the case of 1687. The march of the aristocrats’ private armies to the frontier was also left out from the choreography. On the surface, this move was explained by the imminent threat of the plague and by the ruler’s intention not to employ the estates’ financial means. Obviously enough, the decision must have been motivated by security reasons as well, as we should not forget that the war of independence of Ferenc Rákóczi had just finished. The aforementioned two components were not rein-stalled into the procedure any more. In 1751 Maria Theresa cancelled the stay at Petronell and the greeting in Wolfsthal due to financial reasons.
From this year, the estates received their ruler at the frontier of the King-dom of Hungary.
The ruler expressed his/her benevolence to his/her subjects through his/her garment, while the citizens of Pozsony in turn decorated their city to show their reverence towards the sovereign. In 1712 Charles III (Charles VI as Holy Roman Emperor) entered the city in a Hungarian dress, which referred to his goodwill and intention to respect the country’s traditions.
Ten years later, however, the Hungarian dress was not considered impor-tant any more. In this case the preparatory conference referred to a decision made in 1714, when the Hungarian garment was deemed unnecessary ex-cept for the coronation ceremony of Charles III’s Queen. As a consequence, the King appeared in a German dress in Pozsony. In 1741 Maria Theresa, who mourned the recent death of his father, arrived at Wolfsthal wearing black clothes, but proceeded only after changing her garment to a solemn dress.
If the King did not appear at the opening ceremony of the Parliament per-sonally, he sent royal commissioners. In the beginning of the 18thcentury it happened only twice. As opposed to the imperial Diets, where the emperor was mostly represented by his commissioners, the Hungarian Diet was of utmost importance for the ruler, which is underlined by the fact that he omitted them only in two cases. At the first in 1708, Joseph I originally intended to take part, and the organization of his entrance and his stay at Po -zsony began in early Spring accordingly. He cancelled his attendance, how-ever, due to the proximity of Ferenc Rákóczi II’s army and the advance of the Swedish King, Charles XII, and sent to the Diet his commissioners Hans Adam von Liechtenstein and Otto Ehrenreich von Traun. From 24thMay 1728 Charles III was represented by Franz Ferdinand Kinsky and Johann Hermann Franz von Nesselrode at Pozsony. The commissioners were re-ceived and greeted by a smaller delegation at the bank of the Danube. They proceeded to the Vienna gate of Pozsony, where a speech was given by the clerk of the city. The keys of Pozsony, however, were not handed over to the commissioners, and their hands were not kissed either, naturally. Fol-lowing their salutation, the commissioners were escorted to their accom-modation, while the citizens of Pozsony lined the street in arms. During the proceeding, trumpets and drums resound, and artilleries were fired.
Some of the participants had already arrived in Pozsony before the open-ing of the Parliament. The Lower House delegates presented their creden-tials to the Palatine, the Archbishop of Esztergom and the Chief Justice in the Personal Presence (in Hungarian személynök). The aristocrats, who were entitled to appear personally, presented their letter of invitation to the Pala-tine and the Archbishop of Esztergom. On the first day, the presidents of the two houses (in case of the Upper House, the Palatine, while of the Lower House, the személynök) greeted the audience, which returned the salutation. Following this, the two houses also hailed each other through a small delegation. The salutations were told in Hungarian. On the last day of the Parliament, following the ratification of the new laws, the presidents
of the two houses said farewell to those who were present, which was fol-lowed by the chambers’ farewell from each other and their show of grati-tude for the common work. Only a few records of the last day have been kept. Although we have more and more evidence from 1728, only a hand-ful have been preserved of the detailed descriptions on the members of the delegations. This explains the fact why the analysis of the ceremonies will not provide a full picture in the field of estate representation and political language.
Apart from the summoning of the Parliament, royal privileges also in-cluded the right to initiate issues discussed at the Diet. The rulers handed over to the Parliament their propositions, which contained those topics which were intended to be negotiated. Both Charles III and Maria Theresa exercised this right before their coronations, as they were entitled to do so on the basis of the resolutions of the years 1687 and 1722. The participants of the Parliament received the propositions from the ruler in the knight’s hall of the Pozsony castle. This ceremony was opened by a speech in Hun-garian, delivered by the Court Chancellor of Hungary. The rulers, who also addressed a speech to the estates, spoke in Latin, and then handed over their propositions to the Archbishop of Esztergom. Also speaking in Latin, the prelate expressed his gratitude for the ruler’s benevolence and then the estates appeared to kiss the royal hands. Following this, they proceeded to the building of the Parliament and read the document at the joint session of both houses. If the ruler was not present, the royal commissioners were those who went to the building of the Diet and they handed over the propositions.
The Parliament was also the only event where the estates could elect the new Palatine. There were solely three such occasions in the first half of the 18th century: in 1714 Miklós Pálffy, in 1741 János Pálffy, in 1751 Lajos Batthyány were elected as the Palatines of the Kingdom of Hungary. The rulers appointed governors on two occasions, in 1732 and 1765. (Prince Francis of Lorraine and Prince Albert Casimir of Saxony, the Duke of Teschen.) The appointment was brought about by the death of the incum-bent Palatines, which was not followed by palatinal elections. When palati-nal elections took place, the ruler sent two commissioners to the joint ses-sion of the two houses with the names of two Catholic and two Protestant nominees. The deputies were received at the building of the Upper House.
The Court Chancellor gave a speech, then the sealed envelope was given to the Archbishop of Esztergom, who opened it and read out the names of the appointees. It was followed by the election itself. The elected Palatine
swore his oath in the castle in front of the ruler. Not all of the nominees had real opportunity to be elected. It was common that three of the names had no chance at all, while the fourth was the most favourable candidate.
It is most probable that the nomination of the candidates without chance should be interpreted as a reward for their loyalty to the ruler. This is sug-gested by the fact that in 1751 the sixty-year-old Protestant Imre Zay was included among the nominees for a second time, in spite of the fact that he was not even present at the Parliament. The election of the crown guards was similar to that of the Palatine: the ruler presented two names of which the Parliament chose one.