Funeral Procession for Archduke Charles II Georg Peham, 1594

The Battle of Confessions is at a Standstill

Monarchical mourning ceremonies served as propaganda for the rulers. A funeral procession was determined by the protocol of the court ceremony and reflected social conditions. When the corpse of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria was taken from Graz to the mausoleum in Seckau in 1590, however, the real conditions appeared in a mild light. Despite the hard steps taken by Catholics during the Counter-Reformation, Protestants also paid their last respects to the dead monarch. As a framing bracket of the Empire, he was more important than the split denominational convictions of the participants at this very moment.