Commentary on the Splendor of the Arch-Offices in the Coronations of Charles VII, Maria Amalia, and Francis

entering the threshold of the church, both ecclesiastical Electors and the legate of Trier were ready; the Elector of Mainz, having put aside his miter, offered the sprinkler of holy water, which he had received from the director, to the visiting King; the consecrator, having likewise put aside his miter but retaining the archbishop's crosier in his hand, greeted his brother with pious prayers. These finished, the ecclesiastical Electors covered themselves again with their miters, and the consecrator proceeded to the altar, where the august coronation was to be performed, along with his retinue and the legates of the absent Elector Princes. There followed those who carried the insignia, and after them Pappenheim with a drawn sword. This man walked immediately before the King of the Romans. The Elector of Mainz and the Count of Ingelheim were on either side of the King; behind them were the master of the royal court, the master of the horse, and the captain of the guards. Thus, the King was led into his oratory, raised three feet high and prepared beautifully in the middle, opposite the altar of coronation, under a hanging canopy. Near this same altar on the right, though slightly lower, a praying desk stood out by one step under a precious canopy for the consecrating Elector; another seat with its cushions was seen for him opposite on the left side of the said altar, which the [Elector of] Cologne then used in the ceremony of anointing. To the King's right, though somewhat further away, sat the Elector of Mainz, before whom stood the supreme marshal of his court with the electoral sword, point downward, and also the Mainz canon Count of Stadion, holding the silver staff from which the imperial seals hung. By the consecrator's seat, besides the priests and the principal courtiers of Cologne, the hereditary archbishop's marshal was also seen holding the electoral sword in his hand with the point downward. Then, on the King's left, opposite the Elector of Mainz, the first legate of the Elector of Trier occupied the place; the legates of the secular Electors followed on the Emperor's right in one row, and the legates of the ecclesiastical Electors on the left, with a certain space left between them. Here, among the Princes of the Empire, the papal nuncio, Prince ab Aurea, and the marshal of the most Christian King, Belle-Isle, conspicuous in the clothing and collar of the knightly Order of the Holy Spirit, were admitted to witness. At the Emperor's oratory, on the right, the hereditary marshal of the Empire, Count of—