Bratislava Coronation Days Main Programme

Monarchs have not yet completely disappeared. All lovers of history and entertainment will find the real goods in coronation Bratislava. Come to recall the atmosphere of the past with period procession, coronation ceremony and the knights’ tournament.

The coronation procession will move from Bratislava Castle at 1 p.m. for its ceremonial journey through the city. It will consist of approximately 250 members of historical groups in period costumes. With much fanfare, they will be cheering the newly crowned Ferdinand IV.

At the Main Square, particular groups will perform demonstrations of their fencing duels. Before the tournament starts on the Tyrš Embankment, groups of historical fencing will have more space for these fights.

The procession will carry the portrait of Ferdinand IV. It will be led by Bratislava flagmen and drummers, followed by procession of Maximilian II, procession of Rudolf II and of Matthias II, followed by procession of Ferdinand II and of Ferdinand III, all followed by the vanguard of Ferdinand IV’s main procession.

With children sprinkling petals at the head of precession, court ladies and ecclesiastical authorities will follow. You will see a monk with a clerical vane, a parish priest with incense, a minor canon with the bible, an archbishop and two bishops.

The coronation procession will also consist of carriers of insignia of the Kingdom of Hungary, a procession of the palatine of Hungary with a flagpole, drummer and palatine himself, King Ferdinand IV’s personal procession with nobility in costumes from the period after the end of the Thirty Years’ War, a ruler himself surrounded by light infantry bodyguards and the western nobility and the Hungarian nobility in baroque costumes at the end of the procession. Finally, a feu de joie from muskets will sound.

At 2 p.m. at the Main Square, the herald will welcome the processions of the kings who have been crowned so far. He will then announce the arrival of the king who has just been crowned. With fanfares sounding, King Ferdinand the IV will perform the oath with the sword on the four cardinal points.

The ceremony will be followed by the introduction of a commemorative gold coin depicting King and Emperor Rudolf II, a great supporter and patron of art, as well as sciences, especially alchemy. The National Bank of Slovakia will ceremonially hand over the first minted piece of this precious coin to the representatives of the city.

The members of historical groups from the Visegrád Group countries will then pay tribute to the tradition of coronations and the celebration of the issue of the commemorative coin with demostrations of falconry and fencing duels. The programme on the Main Square will finish by a ceremonial salute and the procession will then move to Tyrš Embankment after 3 p.m., where the programme of the knights’ tournament will start at 4:30 p.m.

There will be a falconers’ performance before the trial of medieval knights starts. Then the royal court, headed by Ferdinand IV, will come while fanfare and festive music will sound. He will seal his coronation with a coronation oath on the four cardinal points again.

Then the knights will appear on the scene. They will forge a picture of a knightly tournament held on the occasion of the famous engagement of King Louis I of Hungary with Princess Margaret of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor and Czech King Charles IV. The knights will represent the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the free royal town of Pressburg and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.