Imperial Memory and the Charles Bridge

Establishing Royal Ceremony for Future Kings

Abstract

The Charles Bridge was an integral part of medieval ceremonies and processions in medieval Prague, and the imagery on its Old Town Bridge Tower was likely created to participate in these ceremonies. One such ceremony was the pre-coronation procession, imagined by Charles IV, which journeyed from Vyšehrad, the old seat of the Přemyslid rulers, to the Hradčany, where the new castle and cathedral were located. This article argues that the sculptural program on the Old Town Bridge Tower was designed to present Charles IV and his son as a part of eternal history of Bohemian monarchs, and to highlight the rule of the ageing emperor on the route of this pre-coronation procession.