Apr 06

Reims, France: The Coronation City

Lynda Harper Kelly, Ph.D.

For over a thousand years, French kings were crowned and anointed in Reims cathedral. In 816 Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son, chose the cathedral as a place of coronation in memory of the baptism in 498 A.D. of the Frankish king, Clovis, by the bishop of Reims. It took another couple of hundred years for the custom of coronations in Reims to be established. From 1027 on, all French kings were crowned at Reims, except for Louis VI & Henry IV.

According to legend, at the baptism of Clovis a dove brought a glass vial containing holy oil from Heaven, symbolizing the bond between royalty and the divine. The myth of the anointing of Clovis with oil sent from Heaven established Reims as the place where the sacredness of monarchy was periodically renewed.

This richly-illustrated lecture will spotlight the cathedral, the archbishop’s palace, and the abbey church of Saint-Rémi, all on UNESCO’S World Heritage list. The lecture will also feature an extraordinary underground facet of the city’s heritage: former Gallo-Roman chalk quarries used by Champagne houses to store and mature the wine of kings.

The class will be held in person and simulcast via Zoom.


Semester

$40.00

Class Tuition

59 in stock

Price is per student. Class tuition is non-refundable.