Spiritual Kinship

The volume "New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties Across the Abrahamic Religions," edited by Todne Thomas, Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman, undertakes a comparative analysis of "spiritual kinship" (such as God-parenthood) in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. My chapter, "Kinship as Ethical Relation," starts by questioning the usefulness of spiritual kinship as a category for the understanding of Judaism and expands that critique into an alternate model that might be more useful for comparative purposes. I argue that the idea of "Spiritual Kinship" emerges precisely from an a set of Christian taxonomies that are often implicitly or explicitly anti-Jewish (kinship of the flesh vs. kinship of the spirit, the letter and the spirit of the law, etc.) which makes it unsuitable as an "Abrahamic" category. Moreover, the specific ways in which it is unsuitable for comparative purposes actually demonstrate the importance of this category for understanding of Christianity and of the anthropological kinship categories (affinal, consanguineal and fictive)  that were in large measure adapted from European Christian sources. Viewing kinship as a set of ethical relations, by contrast, does indeed allow for useful comparison across these religious divides and makes better sense of the ethnographic and textual data. Examples are brought from both modern and medieval Jewish life.

Abstract: The present paper examines the social relations related to the creation of fictive kin networks through the analysis of baptismal records in 18th century Portuguese village of Rio Grande. Focusing on the family of Antônio Simões and Maria Quitéria Marques de Souza, this article explores the benefits of baptizing individuals from different social groups, such as Minuano Indians and children of Azorean immigrants. This study stresses the importance of baptism as important social strategy to create alliances in groups with different social and legal status in colonial society. The use of baptismal networks was deployed by colonists to maintain or improve their social status, as well as it represented a strategy that fostered the advance of colonialism in the Southern frontier of Portuguese America. The alliances built through baptism reflected the values and social hierarchies of both Indigenous and Luso-Brazilian agents interacting in the formation of this 18th century colonial society.

Resumo: O presente artigo visa discutir as relações subjacentes ao batismo no extremo-sul da América, tendo como principal documentação os registros batismais da Vila do Rio Grande no século XVIII. Tomando o núcleo familiar do casal Antônio Simões e Maria Quitéria Marques de Souza, busca-se entender os benefícios advindos do estabelecimento de relações de apadrinhamento e de compadrio com setores sociais diferentes do seu, destacando os batismos de indígenas minuano e de fi lhos de açorianos. Para tanto, importante foi a utilização da metodologia de cruzamento de registros nominais e o diálogo com a antropologia. Tem-se como constatação a importância do estabelecimento das relações de apadrinhamento e compadrio com diferentes grupos étnicos, com pessoas e famílias de estatutos sociais distintos e de condições sociais diferentes, tanto superiores quanto inferiores às dos compadres e padrinhos de boas famílias lusas e luso-brasileiras. Tal recurso dá mostras de ter sido fundamental para a consecução de seus projetos sociais e familiares visando, na pior das hipóteses, a manutenção de suas posições e, na melhor, uma mobilidade social ascendente nessa fronteira, bem como ter contribuído no projeto de povoamento dos territórios meridionais da colônia e viabilizado a construção das hierarquias das sociedades locais, tanto a indígena quanto da luso-brasileira.

"Le second peuple de Nantes au XVIIIe siècle :
environnements du quotidien et interactions sociales.

Pour les intellectuels et lexicographes officiant sous l’Ancien Régime, le peuple de France n’est alors pas un mais multiple. Au cœur de l’espace urbain, exclusion faite de la population mendiante et vagabonde, la partie tout à la fois la plus nombreuse et la moins bien considérée de ce peuple regroupe les travailleurs journaliers et sans qualification, ceux de la terre ou plus ou moins qualifiés mais non dépendants d’un cadre corporatif, la domesticité au sens large, les ouvriers de manufactures, les compagnons et garçons de métiers jurés ainsi que l’ensemble des chambrelans besognant en contravention aux statuts des jurandes. Cette population que nous identifions sous l’appellation « second peuple » se caractérise par une existence de ses membres majoritairement vécue dans la précarité quotidienne, une insertion plus ou moins bien définie et solide au sein de la société urbaine et une inscription en dehors de toute forme officielle d’organisation horizontale du travail. Une attention portée sur trois pans majeurs de l’existence du second peuple de la ville de Nantes au dernier siècle de la monarchie absolue, soit la vie en communauté, la consommation matérielle et l’activité laborieuse, est en mesure de dévoiler quelques-uns des traits essentiels des individus le constituant : place centrale de l’élément féminin, importance des notions de déplacement et d’implantation géographiques, force des connexions et solidarités de voisinage, rapport parfois houleux à l’autorité et frugalité de l’environnement matériel du quotidien.

Mots clés : peuple, ville, Nantes, inventaire de biens, travail illégal, résistance, solidarité, voisinage, lien social, violence, mouvement, migration, parrainage, pauvreté, précarité, consommation, micro-histoire, déménagement.

The second people of Nantes in the XVIIIth century:
everyday environments and social interactions.

For the intellectuals and lexicographers officiating under the Ancien Regime, the people of France was then not one but many. At the heart of urban space, excluding the population of beggars and vagabonds, the at once most numerous and least well regarded part of this people groups together unqualified day laborers, those working on the land or more or less qualified but not dependent on a corporate framework, domestic workers in the broadest sense of the word, factory workers, journeymen and juniors in the legal profession and all “roomworkers” toiling in contravention of the statutes of the guilds. This population that we identify under the name of the “second people” is characterized by a life of its members mostly lived in everyday poverty, a more or less well defined and strong insertion in the heart of urban society and an entry without any official form of horizontal organization of work. A focus on three major segments of the existence of the second people of the city of Nantes in the last century of absolute monarchy, be it community life, material consumption or work activity, is able to reveal some essential features of the individuals which make it up: the central role of the feminine element, the importance of the concepts of travel and geographic location, the strength of connections and neighborhood solidarity, sometimes stormy relations with authority and the frugality of the material environment of daily life.

Key words: people, city, Nantes, inventories of goods, subterranean work, resistance, solidarity, neighborhood, social tie, violence, movement, migration, spiritual kinship, poverty, precariousness, household consumption, microhistory, move."

Scopul cercetării de față a fost să scoată la lumină și să așeze în contextul cuvenit o serie de documente, în principal testamente, care să schițeze sau să completeze povestea de viață a unor Sturzești, unii dintre ei adevărați „stâlpi ai țării” în acele vremuri, după cum spune cronicarul. Pe de altă parte, important este de subliniat și modul în care unii boieri sau soții de boieri din veacul al XVIII-lea aleg să-și împartă averea în situația în care ei nu aveau moștenitori direcți.
În diatele despre care va fi vorba în rândurile de mai jos, se observă că se acordă o grijă specială pentru suflet și pentru orânduirea „cu dreptate” a patrimoniului, că familia rămâne unită în momentele grele ale vieții și încearcă păstrarea moșiilor de baștină la cei mai mari dintre frați pentru a fi evitată fragmentarea acestora. Printre rânduri citim și despre metodele folosite de boieri pentru a se sustrage de la plata unor taxe către visteria țării, despre cum făceau față văduvele diferitelor încercări ale sorții, despre asumarea morții ca un lucru firesc (dar și despre cât costa să scapi de osânda spânzurătorii) sau despre cum boierii nu uitau niciodată să ctitorească sau să-și facă pomană cu cei săraci.
Diatele rămân, așadar, o categorie de surse prin care se poate reconstitui (chiar dacă parțial) imaginea societății din unghiuri, altminteri, mai puțin accesibile.

Au début du XIIIe siècle, Robert de Boron met en scène dans son Merlin, l’invention de l’Antéchrist : fils d’un incube et d’une vierge, Merlin fut conçu pour servir les puissances infernales. Mais Dieu, sensible au repentir de sa mère, renversa son destin tragique en lui offrant un don prophétique. De là commence la vie tourmentée de Celui qui cherche à se défaire d’une condition diabolique par l’accomplissement de l’Œuvre divine. Or, ce chemin providentiel est jalonné d’obstacles dont le lignage constitue la principale entrave. Depuis l’immense travail de Jérôme Baschet, Martin Aurell et bien d’autres encore, il n’est plus à prouver l’influence considérable de la parenté dans la définition des rapports sociaux, l’imaginaire collectif et la création littéraire. Créé sans semence d’homme, Merlin est désigné par la périphrase d’« enfant sans père » ; une formule qui est loin d’être insignifiante puisqu’elle annihile sa filiation paternelle, par conséquent son lignage, et de fait son héritage. Ainsi, le texte joue sur l’ambiguïté de la naissance merveilleuse de Merlin en rejetant les parentés spirituelles qu’il entretient respectivement avec le diable et Dieu. À l’inverse du texte, les enluminures défendent les différentes filiations de Merlin si bien que la parenté devient un enjeu de ses représentations. À bien des égards, l’étude des manuscrits enluminés du Merlin et de sa Suite Vulgate rend compte d’un jeu paradoxal, entre l’ambiguïté textuelle et l’ambivalence visuelle, d’une grande richesse sémantique.

After founding the Italian Ethnological Mission in Mexico in 1973, which he directed for over 20 years, Italo Signorini carried out his ethnographic research among Mexican natives, studying in depth the results of the evangelization process which started with the Conquest, the syncretic dynamics and the peculiar forms of Catholic native religion, as well as the negotiations carried out by the representatives of the clergy and the native ritual specialists. His characteristically balanced approach to the study of the Catholic Church’s pastoral work enabled him to propose penetrating and innovative analyses on the categories and interpretations of scholars who had tackled the same themes from positions characterized by a strong ideological opposition, and he was able to provide original and well argued interpretations about indigenous religiosity. His long lasting experience in Mexico was of great help in the decade in which he covered teaching assignments at the Pontifical Urbaniana University (1984-1993), allowing him to adapt the teaching of ethnology to this peculiar educational context and to the needs of a missiology clearly oriented towards the enculturation of the Gospel.

A lo largo de la Edad Moderna, y especialmente tras el Concilio de Trento, sucesivos tratados morales y constituciones sinodales desaconsejaban –o directamente prohibían-la elección de sacerdotes y otros miembros del clero como padrinos, con la idea de evitar la desvirtuación de la labor del clérigo en favor de determinados individuos, familias o colectivos de su entorno. Sin embargo, en la práctica, esta directriz se quedaba normalmente en una declaración de intenciones, dadas la configuración y dinámicas sociales de las comunidades del Antiguo Régimen. Si la Iglesia quería participar de la sociedad que la rodeaba de manera efectiva, debía integrarse en esa mélange de lealtades y fidelidades superpuestas en forma de redes interdependientes que abarcaban a todas las personas. En el caso que nos ocupa, el del Valle de Iguña, situado en la actual Cantabria, nos acercamos a la realidad de este fenómeno a partir del estudio de aquellos casos en los que seglares y eclesiásticos entablaron relaciones de compadrazgo a través del bautismo. Una de las opciones más naturales para escoger a un padrino pasaba por los diferentes miembros de las élites locales, lo que en este espacio rural del norte peninsular se reducía, por un lado, al pequeño número de familias de hidalgos infanzones que concentraban la propiedad de buena parte de la tierra. Realmente, estos clérigos eran ellos mismos parte de estas mencionadas élites, habiendo sido elegidos como capellanes, dentro de las estrategias de reproducción social tradicionales. A través del padrinazgo y el compadrazgo se establecían relaciones que interrelacionaban a los diferentes estamentos y grupos sociales, fomentando, por un lado, la cohesión social, y por otro, la creación de relaciones clientelares.A través del análisis de un importante número de partidas sacramentales, junto a otra documentación complementaria, como protocolos notariales y el Catastro de Ensenada, trataremos de abordar esta vertiente del padrinazgo, con sus diferentes particularidades y patrones a lo largo de los siglos XVII y XVIII en este espacio de la España cantábrica. Palabras clave: Padrinazgo eclesiástico, élites locales, Iglesia. Abstract: During the Early Modern period, and especially after the Council of Trent, several moral treaties and synodal constitutions advised against –or directly forbade-the election of priests and other members of the Church as godparents, as it was thought to distract the clerks from their original spiritual goals in favour of certain individuals, families or collectives from their surroundings. In real life, this prohibition was taken in many places more as a recommendation than an actual norm to follow, given the social dynamics of Early Modern communities. If the Church wanted to join the society that surrounded her in a practical way, it had to immerse itself in that mélange of loyalties and fidelities superposed which had the form of interconnected networks that included every member of the community. In the case that we are going  to  present  here, that  of  the  Iguña  Valley,  located  in  the  nowadays  region of  Cantabria, we  will  come  closer  to  this  phenomenon  reality  by  analyzing  those  cases  where  clerks  and laymen  established  relationships  of  coparenthood throughout  baptism.  In many  occasions, these  clerks  were  themselves  part  of  those  families  that  formed  the  local  elites,  having  been named chaplains within the traditional social reproduction strategies. Thanks to godparenthood and coparenthood, relationships that linked different social classes were created, promoting on
the  one  hand,  social  cohesion,  and  on  the  other,  the  development  of  patron-client  links.
Through  the  analysis  of  an  important  number  of  parish records,  along  with  other  documents such  as  notarial  records  and  Ensenada’s Registry of properties, we will try to approach this specific  aspect  of  spiritual  kinship  with  its  different patterns  throughout  the  XVIIth  and XVIIIth centuries in this area of Early Modern Cantabria.
Keywords: Ecclesiastical Godparenthood, local elites, Church

L’Ancienne Confederation suisse, par son polycentrisme politique marque et ses multiples situations de frontiere, constitue un laboratoire privilegie pour l’etude de la transmission de reseaux et de pouvoirs. La thematique est abordee en analysant les rapports entre les elites des cantons souverains et les elites sujettes des bailliages de Lugano et Mendrisio a l’epoque moderne. Les notables de ces deux prefectures arrivent a se profiler comme de veritables partenaires aux yeux du souverain par le biais de dons, de la parente spirituelle, de mariages, de contacts noues lors des sejours d’etude et grâce a l’acquisition de titres divers. Ils assurent ainsi stabilite et continuite au gouvernement des bailliages. Actifs aussi bien au sud qu’au nord des Alpes, les membres de cette elite sont conscients du fait que la cle de leur succes est d’etre quelqu’un partout.

Abstract
In my paper I will present some results about ritual kinship and political mobilization of popular groups in an alpine Valley: the
Val de Bagnes, in the Swiss canton of Valais. There are two major reasons to choose the Val de Bagnes for our inquiry about social
networks: the existence of sharp political and social conflicts during the 18th and the 19th century and the availability of almost
systematic genealogical data between 1700 and 1900.
The starting point of my research focuses on this question: what role did kinship and ritual kinship play in the political
mobilization of popular groups and in the organization of competing factions? This question allows us to shed light on some other
uses and meanings of ritual kinship in the local society. Was ritual kinship a significant instrument for economic cooperation? Or
was it a channel for patronage or for privileged social contacts? The analysis highlights the importance of kinship and godparentage
for the building of homogeneous social and political networks.
If we consider transactions between individuals, the analysis of 19th century Val de Bagnes gives the impression of quite open
networks. Men and women tried to diversify their relations in order to avoid strong dependency from powerful patrons.
Nevertheless, when we consider the family networks, we can notice that most relations took place in a structured social space or a
specific “milieu”, were intense contacts enhanced trust, although political allegiances and social choices were not fully predictable
on the basis of such preferential patterns.
In a politically conflictual society, like 19th century Bagnes, ritual kinship interacted with kinship solidarities and ideological
factors shaping dense social networks mostly based on a common political orientation. Such milieus sustained the building of
political factions, which show surprising stability over time. In this sense, milieus are important factors to understand political and
religious polarization in 19th century Switzerland.

Keywords: Alps; Switzerland; Social networks; Kinship; Ritual Kinship; Patronage, Political; Mobilisation

Cette thèse a pour objectif de comprendre l’usage de la parenté spirituelle à Lyon aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Deux éléments sont à prendre en compte dans le contexte : la croissance de la population et l’affirmation de la Réforme catholique. L’étude a pour cadre Saint-Nizier, paroisse du centre de la ville avec une forte diversité sociale. Des analyses sociales précises permettent d’examiner la complexité des relations sociales et la souplesse du parrainage, les stratégies et comportements décelables.Les registres paroissiaux constituent la source principale. Cette thèse souhaite également attirer l’attention sur la richesse que l’étude des relations de parenté spirituelle apporte à l’histoire sociale urbaine. Cette source classique nous permet d’aborder l’histoire religieuse d’un point de vue social.This research aims to understand the use of spiritual kinship in Lyons during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a double context: urban population was in expansion while t...

The main source of the article is a sermon on Godparenthood written in 1575 by Gaspare
Locatelli, a priest of Gemona of Friuli, a small town closed to the eastern Alps in the territory of
the Republic of Venice. Starting from the author’s biography and the reconstruction of the context
in which the sermon was spoken, we examine the sources used to prepare it, and compare it with
contemporary and successive literature on the theme of Godparenthood for preachers. Indeed, the
sermon describes the matrimonial impediments determined by spiritual kinship, a theme discussed by
the Protestant Reformation. Preaching therefore represented a persuasive strategy for disseminating
the rules established during the Council of Trent.

This study analyzes aspects related to family structure and kinship (in particularly, to relations between parents and children, but other types than the blood relations) and the influences they had on seventeenth-century Moldavian society. In the first part, the focus is on the practice of adoption that is mainly mentioned in documents through the expression taking into one’s soul and has as its main purpose ensuring posterity and implicitly transmitting patrimony. This analysis is based on juridical disposition and diverse types of documents conserved referring to this practice, trying to outline the importance of this gesture in Early Modern Moldavian society and the nature of the reasons which caused the individual to choose this lineage manner. Also, for a better understanding of the role and the amount of the patrimony inherited by the adopted children in the destiny of a family and its social implications, the method of comparing the adoption in contrast with other spiritual kinships, especially with baptismal sponsorship, has been used.