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

the Elector of Cologne, clutching the hem of the imperial mantle; behind them, the master of the court and the commander of the guards walked, with the guards surrounding them. The second and third electoral legates stayed behind the line of soldiers from Mainz and Cologne, who closed the triumph. Everyone I have brought onto the stage walked on foot and with heads uncovered, except for the Electors and the legates of any number, who had covered their heads. When the procession was finished, the cloth with which the path had been covered became plunder for the common people; the wooden bridge felt no damage, as they had taken care with letters patent before free access had been opened to the multitude for these solemnities. As soon as the Emperor had ascended to the Town Hall, the Electors and the legates accompanied him into the chamber, and the insignia were placed there on a table. The Electors retreated to their own room, and the legates to another, to regain their spirits after the exhausted labors. When they had indulged in rest for a little while, the Electors and the legates led the Emperor to a spacious dining room, the door of which was guarded from within by the porter of the Empire, Count Werthern, and from without by imperial guards and Saxon Swiss. There, tables were prepared, the hanging canopies and all furnishings of which the Electors themselves had arranged. For the absent ones, only three covered dishes were placed on the tables, and according to tradition, no one sat there; the legates instead dined at the house of the Saxon. But before both the Emperor and the Electors took their places, the functions of the arch-offices, as prescribed in the Aurea Bulla Golden Bull, had to be performed. Therefore, both Electors stood at the first window on the right to watch, the Emperor at the second, the legates of Trier, Bavaria, and Saxony at the fourth, and the legates of Brandenburg, the Palatinate, and Hanover at the fifth; the august table stood at the third under the canopy. Now, therefore, Count Pappenheim, the hereditary marshal of the Empire, descended from the court, preceded by both his own attendants and those of the imperial pay, as well as the imperial trumpeters. He mounted a horse amidst the concentration of trumpets and drums, and with the horse at a gallop, he rode into a heap of oats, inside the railings on the hill at the Roemer town hall, up to the horse's chest. There, restraining the reins, he scooped up oats with a small silver measure, leveled it with a silver ruler, and poured it out. Having done this, he returned to the court, while the multitude