Crossing Borders:Comparative and Transnational Approaches to Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe

This article pays tribute to J. R. Mulryne’s cross-national and cross-disciplinary scholarship on festival culture in early modern Europe and seeks to identify and explore avenues for future research on festival occasions in which his pioneering scholarship can be implemented and further expanded. Its focus is on comparative approaches to court and civic festivals. By drawing on insights from cultural and postcolonial studies, the article proposes an all-encompassing comparative approach to festival culture in early modern Europe that seeks to acknowledge both the mediated nature and immaterial and intangible aspects of festive occasions, including beliefs, ideas, institutions, languages, practices, structures, diplomatic solutions and strategies, and spectatorial responses