Sigismund Crowned King of Bohemia

JAN 01 1420 · 12:00

Sigismund of Luxembourg, crowned King of Bohemia in St Vitus on 28 July 1420 over a city that refused to recognise him. Place: Cathedral of Saint Vitus, Prague Castle Figures: Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans · Konrad of Vechta, archbishop of Prague (Catholic, briefly) · the loyalist garrison of Hradčany Two weeks after the rout at Vítkov, with the New Town in Hussite hands and the city refusing his entry through any open gate, Sigismund has himself crowned King of Bohemia in St Vitus. The cathedral is still half-finished; Petr Parléř's choir has stood since the 1380s, but the nave is unroofed and the south tower bare. Archbishop Konrad of Vechta places the Crown of Saint Wenceslas on Sigismund's head. The congregation is small: the Catholic garrison of the Castle, a few loyalist nobles, the foreign envoys still in Sigismund's camp. Outside the cathedral, three quarters of Prague holds the chalice. The coronation is legal under Bohemian custom (Sigismund is Wenceslas IV's brother and named heir; the rites are observed; the regalia are present). It is also, in practical terms, theatre.