Throughout the ages, power has manifested itself through the use of symbolic and ritual mechanisms. Perhaps the political institution that has benefited most from this has been the monarchy, fundamentally due to its deep and universal roots, its capacity to adapt to historical circumstances and its connections with another great social presence: religion. These three elements were revealed through rites and ceremonies whose main purpose was to show the majesty of the ruler to the population as a whole. Public solemnities served as an instrument of link between society and a monarchical power that before the 19th century was distant and whose absence was conjured up through invocations and rites in intimate connection with the divinity. But even though monarchies went into retreat from the mid-18th century, going from rule to exception, the survivors managed to do so by adapting to the new political frameworks and the primacy of the nation. They then sought to symbolically embody this new sovereignty as they had previously personified an absolute authority of divine origin. And in the transition from one system to another, they preserved and adapted a good part of the ceremonials, modifying those that served to maintain the essential.

Among the rituals that characterized the royal ceremonial - royal entrances, births, oaths and marriages, treaties and declarations - one of those that acquired a more significant presence was that of the coronation. The Royal Academy of the language defined it in 1729 as the "act and public function arranged for a prince to be crowned, which is celebrated by placing the crown on his head with certain ceremonies and solemnities". The academics were collecting a ritual whose origin dates back to the beginnings of the monarchy itself as a form of power and which retained many elements of remote origin.

In fact, the first testimonies of the coronation ritual refer us to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian world, in which ingredients such as the scepter, royal insignia or the throne were common around the third millennium BC. The monarch was the symbolic center of society, guarantor of divine order in the face of the chaos represented by enemies, plagues or floods, famine or disease. That is why his mission statement had to be legitimized with all the solidity and pomp possible. Within this context we must include the biblical model , especially important for the West. The references to the coronation of kings in Israel established a set of rituals that associated the religious with the political and marked some steps that, through the filter of Rome and the nuances of time, most European monarchies maintained until the eighteenth century, symbolically reflecting the two bodies of the king. The acclamation, the oath of the monarch, the anointing, the investiture with the symbols of power and royalty, the coronation and the enthronement, were common even until the twentieth century, although at each moment the meaning of these rituals varied or adapted. Being creations of a specific historical moment, it was sought that they had meaning beyond it, which led to the compilation of ceremonial books where the content of the coronation rites was fixed, from the Japanese Daijo-sai (927), to the Book of the Coronation of the Kings of Castile (XIV century).

In the 19th century, the religious component was relaxed, although even in a liberal ceremony such as the enthronement of King Pedro I of Brazil, the religious presence was maintained. However, the opportunities for popular acclaim increased as a way of legitimizing a power that ceased to be of divine origin to rest in the nation. The street and the people gained protagonism. Royal symbols were exalted and the oath became secular, moving from the cathedral to the parliament. All these changes sought to safeguard its presence and symbolism within a new framework, but maintained the ceremonial and dramatic character of the institution and favored the idea of greater popular participation in the rituals and acts, which facilitated the identification of the masses with the nation and its symbolic representation in the constitutional monarch.

The Spain of the 19th and 20th centuries experienced problematic coronations. If that of Ferdinand VII was semi-clandestine, in conflict with his father Charles IV and in skill with Joseph I Bonaparte, his daughter Isabel II had to compete with the pretender Charles V. Amadeo de Saboya arrived as constitutional king, but lacked support after Prim's death and abdicated. In 1875 Alfonso XII did not come to the throne in a favorable environment, immersed in several wars (Carlist, Cantonal, Cuban). His son Alfonso XIII became king in 1902, after a long regency. Aware of the changing times, he sought to increase his visibility through travel, public ceremonies, the media and intense political activity, not always in accordance with the constitution. Nor did his departure from the throne allow for a normalized succession. His son D. Juan abdicated in Juan Carlos I after the establishment of the monarchy by the Franco regime, which sought to break the Bourbon legitimacy to establish a reign that did not depend on dynastic continuity. The 1975 coronation, more than a regularized coronation, sought to solve an unprecedented status . For this reason, perhaps the coronation of Felipe VI is the first with a certain Degree of normality. It is not surprising that one consequence has been the austerity of the coronation rites in Spain and their lesser symbolic relevance, at least if we compare them with the British example.

Therefore, does such a ceremonial make sense today? It seems evident that it can only make sense if it adapts to the circumstances, to a society that would not understand the sense or the opportunity of many rites that were common in other times. Only if the institution effectively embodies the nation and the nation assumes the monarchy as its own, the symbolic ceremonial can be welcomed with the naturalness of a public rite that cohesion and, therefore, creates community. Despite the changes, in contemporary societies we still need myths and rites, and the coronation is a ritual possibility that the nation must accept as its own.