In the two centuries before 1410 it was the custom for the king of
Aragon to open a session of the cortes with a speech. These speeches
were not merely simple statements of the reasons why the cortes had
been summoned but were elaborately staged and ornately constructed
orations, very often written in the style of sermons. Affairs of state were
portrayed in terms of Christian morality with the aid of exempla drawn
from the Old Testament and from other religious works, emphasising,
above all, the king's God-given authority. Exempla were also derived from
written royal histories of the Crown of Aragon, transmitted orally by the
king to his people and used to create a feeling of national pride and unity
between the king and his subjects. I propose to examine the use of these
royal sermons in the Crown of Aragon first by discussing whether it is
indeed right to call these politically motivated speeches sermons at all;
second, by putting the Crown of Aragon into context by examining the
evidence for royal preaching throughout Europe; third, by considering
the evidence for a long-standing tradition of preaching by members of the
royal house of Aragon; and finally, in order to illustrate in more detail the
nature and content of royal Aragonese sermons, by providing a detailed
analysis of the speeches by King Pedro iv ‘the Ceremonious’ to the Cortes
of Tarragona (Catalonia) of 1370 and to the Cortes of Monzón (Aragon)
of 1383, full texts of which were recorded in the official proceedings.