The Belgian historian Klaas Van Gelder is the author of an important monograph on the advent of Austrian Habsburg rule in the Southern Netherlands following the War of Spanish Succession. He is currently active at the Free University and at the State Archives in Brussels but was previously connected to Vienna through a series of research positions. In this edited volume, Van Gelder presents the results of several meetings on eighteenth-century inaugurations and coronations.

More than Mere Spectacle brings together ten substantial and carefully researched chapters on Habsburg inaugurations and coronations from the seventeenth to the later nineteenth century, plus an introduction and epilogue. The volume deals with Habsburg composite monarchy in its various incarnations but leaves out the senior Spanish line and its possessions. In the introduction, Van Gelder underlines the sociopolitical relevance of acts of homage and coronations: in one way or another, these moments helped to define as well as show the balance between local political institutions and the overarching figure of the Habsburg ruler. The enactment of rulership took distinct shapes in the various component parts of Habsburg monarchy, from the Southern Netherlands to Galicia, and from the supreme elective imperial dignity of the Holy Roman Empire, the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns to the Austrian archduchies. Van Gelder rightly notes that the literature examining these occasions has tended to focus on the period from the later Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century. Moreover, it frequently asserts that inaugurations lost some of their political relevance in this period. This volume extends the debate into the nineteenth century; it highlights changes in the format and frequency of inaugurations but successfully defends the view that they retained great relevance.

The contributions by Petr Mat'a and William Godsey form the backbone of the volume. These two authors examine the “plethora” of Habsburg investitures, respectively, from the 1520s to the 1790s and from the 1790s to 1848. Together, they provide the outlines of the phenomenon. Mat'a (33) states that 21 Habsburgs were involved in 108 acts of investiture in his period (or 200 if we include lower-level events); Godsey's chapter includes a table comprising 26 inaugural rites “personally undergone by Habsburg rulers or their consorts” between 1890 and 1848 (249). Both authors show a keen eye for change. Mat'a sees overall continuity until the 1660s, but then notes a mixed pattern including suspension (as in the case of Moravia under Leopold I), invention for new territories (e.g., Galicia in 1773–74), and a permanent process of adaptation of these rites to current circumstances. Joseph I was never crowned in Bohemia, and this may have reflected Leopold's policies as well as wartime penury during Joseph's rule. Mat'a (41) wonders why Charles VI, himself a champion of investitures, did not choose to have Maria Theresa inaugurated vivente imperatore—a process that would have eased her ascendancy to power. Joseph II, elected as king of the Romans before his father's demise, had misgivings about the constitutional implications of investitures and avoided them, most notoriously the Bohemian and Hungarian coronations. Godsey, examining four different instances of investiture with great acuity, shows that continuity at the surface could hide profound change. The Tyrolean inauguration of 1816 (261–63) coincided with the grant of a patent establishing a new Tyrolean estates-based constitution. The event was organized by court Oberceremonienmeister Gundaker Heinrich count Wurmbrand rather than by the local estates. Moreover, the Tyrolean deputies pledged their oath to Ferdinand I as “emperor of Austria” rather than as “count of Tyrol”—and Ferdinand himself did not reciprocate with an oath. This was “a popular-patriotic celebration of the return to Habsburg rule” (263).

The imperial crown was never an heirloom of the Habsburgs, nor was the empire under their direct sway; yet the imperial crown represented their supreme dignity. Harriet Rudolph discusses the six imperial elections and coronations in eighteenth-century Frankfurt. The imperial coronation has often been pictured in terms of decline, most conspicuously after the Bavarian election of 1742. Negative appraisals by critical contemporaries abound in the literature. Rudolph underlines that change in the course of the eighteenth century went together with popularity of the occasion and persistence in form. Goethe himself, Rudolph reminds us, was fascinated by this key event connected to his native city (84).

All other contributions deal with a single territory within the Habsburg portfolio. Hungary is represented by three authors. Fanni Hende considers the Hungarian coronations of Charles VI and Leopold II, both following phases of political crisis. Werner Telesko focuses on the medals produced on the occasion of Maria Theresa's 1741 Hungarian coronation and on the importance of medals in dynastic representation. Judit Beke-Martos follows the situation traced by Hende in the later nineteenth-century context: the reconstitution of compromise through Francis-Joseph's 1867 Hungarian coronation. The immense political relevance of this coronation, closely entwined with the Ausgleich is a fitting defense of the title of this volume.

Van Gelder offers a general discussion of inaugurations in the Southern Netherlands, including an overview (182) and a list of printed descriptions (185). Thomas Cambrelin zooms in on the preparations and format of Maria Theresa's 1744 personal inauguration in Brabant, the famous “joyous entry” (blijde inkomst). Petra Vokáčová places Charles VI's long-postponed 1723 Bohemian coronation in the context of international political challenges facing the Habsburg monarchy. Maria Theresa's 1773–74 investiture in newly acquired Galicia is dealt with by Miloš Řezník, who convincingly shows that this ritual counteracted Polish noble traditions and did not reflect the contractual style of investitures in the Habsburg composite monarchy. The Lemberg/Lviv investiture established hereditary rule and was not repeated under Maria Theresa's successors. The volume is concluded by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly's epilogue stressing the impact of anointment and highlighting the investiture of the last ruling Habsburg.

Van Gelder's volume shows how a longue durée perspective helps to question the typology and periodization of coronations and acts of homage. It is a welcome addition to the literature on inaugurations in general, and a cornerstone for this theme in the context of the Austrian Habsburgs.