Vincent Gourdon

Entrepreneurs, Formalization of Social Ties, and Trustbuilding in Europe (Fourteenth to Twentieth Centuries)

The establishment of trust is a key component of economic activity and social ties can make business dealings work better. However, we do not know much about how economic actors created new social ties deliberately in order to pursue their objectives. This article analyses the way in which merchants and entrepreneurs used specific rituals to establish formal social ties, with the intent of protecting their business relationships. It focuses on relational instruments that until now had been neglected, particularly godparenthood and marriage witnessing. It shows that formalization, ritualization, and publicity of ties were used by entrepreneurs to establish trust with their business associates, for example when information was asymmetric or when institutions were perceived as inefficient in guaranteeing mutual good behaviour. The analysis covers a long period, from the late middle ages to today. It pays particular attention to the consequences of the Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth. Contrary to the received wisdom, it suggests that formal social ties such as godparenthood continued to play an important role in economic activity during and after the industrial revolution. New databases on early modern Italy and nineteenth‐century France are used.

Spiritual Kinship in Europe, 1500-1900

List of Figures and Tables Contributors Spiritual Kinship and Godparenthood: an Introduction G.Alfani & V.Gourdon PART I: THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD Immigrants and Formalisation of Social Ties in Early Modern Italy G.Alfani Ecclesiastical Godparenthood in Early Modern Murcia A.Irigoyen Godparenthood and Social Networks in an Italian Rural Community: Nonantola, Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries G.Alfani & C.Munno Godparenthood and Social Relationships in France under the Old Regime: Lyons as a Case Study E.Couriol PART II: GODPARENTHOOD FROM THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO THE AGE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION Whats in a Name? Choosing Kin Godparents in Nineteenth Century Paris V.Gourdon Spiritual Kinship, Political Mobilization and Social Cooperation: a Swiss Alpine valley in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries S.Guzzi PART III: REFORMED GODPARENTHOOD Kin, Neighbours or Prominent Persons? Godparenthood in a Finnish Rural Community in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century K-M.Piilahti Who Wants to be a Godparent? Baptisms in a Lutheran Church in Paris, 1755-1804 T.Ericsson PART IV: EASTERN EUROPE AND EUROPEANS ABROAD Godparenthood in the Russian Orthodox Tradition: Custom against the Law M.Muravyeva The French in Gold Rush San Francisco and Spiritual Kinship A.Foucrier Notes Bibliography

Spiritual kinship and godparenthood: an introduction

In European societies during the Middle Ages, baptism did not merely represent a solemn and public recognition of the ‘natural’ birth of a child. Rather, it was considered a second birth, a ‘spiritual birth’ within a group of relatives normally different from that based on blood relations: the spiritual family, composed of godfathers and godmothers. In the eyes of the Church there was a tie of kinship between godfathers and godmothers on one side, and godchildren and their parents on the other, which was an impediment to marriage. The use of spiritual kinship ties did not always correspond to their religious significance. So there was no ‘coherence’ between religious thought and social practice. Although spiritual kinship and godparenthood were key factors in the functioning of European societies in the past, they have been given very limited attention until recently. As a rule, they have been mentioned only in passing in general works on the history of kinship and the family (usually for their implications regarding European systems of impediments to marriage, from an anthropological perspective).1 More specialised monographs dedicated to the topic, themselves quite rare, showed a tendency to focus on the Early Middle Ages (Lynch, 1986; Cramer, 1993; Jussen, 2000), leaving the Late Middle Ages and especially the Early Modern period virtually uncharted territory, with a few notable exceptions (Coster, 2002; Alfani, 2009a). Only the last two centuries have been the object of a greater number of studies on godparenthood and spiritual kinship, the vast majority of them being anthropological in character. The reason for this neglect is probably due to the widespread conviction that spiritual kinship was losing relevance at the end of the Middle Ages, a view held by many, especially among anthropologists, following a scholarly tradition that can be traced back to the 1950s.2 Recently, this conviction has been seen to be unfounded (Alfani, 2009a; Alfani and Gourdon, 2009, 2011), and godparenthood has been shown as vital, and notably perceived to be a very important relationship, up to the beginning of the twentieth century and beyond. The articles collected here point in the same direction.

Les mort-nés à Paris au XIXe siècle : enjeux sociaux, juridiques et médicaux d'une catégorie statistique

Au XIXe siecle, le taux de mortinatalite de Paris depasse celui du reste de la France, et represente pres d’une naissance sur dix en fin de siecle. Ces resultats, fournis par les institutions statistiques, renvoient a la difficile apprehension de la categorie des mort-nes, situee aux frontieres de la vie et de la mort, et a la superposition de differents regards sociaux. Apres un retour sur la legislation de l’Ancien Regime et de la Revolution, l’article montre la confusion qui a regne a partir de 1806 dans la definition des modalites d’enregistrement des mort-nes, en raison des pressions multiples des differents ministeres, et qui expriment les visions contradictoires du monde judiciaire et des statisticiens. Cette confusion a longtemps empeche de distinguer les « vrais mort-nes » des « faux mort-nes ». En outre deux facteurs ont a Paris contribue a rehausser le niveau de la mortinatalite : la mise en place precoce dans la capitale de la verification medicale a domicile des naissances et deces, qui a ameliore l’enregistrement des mort-nes ; la crainte obsessionnelle de l’avortement criminel qui a conduit a un controle renforce des fausses couches et a un enregistrement comme mort-nes d’embryons d’âge gestationnel de plus en plus precoce.

Las familias y la elección de padrinos y madrinas de bautizo en la Europa católica en la Edad Moderna: balance y perspectivas de investigación

Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto Familia, desigualdad social y cambio generacional en la Espana centro-meridional, 1700-1900, referencia HAR2013-48901-C6-6-R, del Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad del Gobierno de Espana, dirigido por el profesor Francisco Garcia Gonzalez (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha).

Les pratiques du baptême à Paris et à Rome au XIXe siècle

Baptismal practices in Paris and Rome in the nineteenth century This article treats baptismal practices in the nineteenth century in two cities featuring very different religious, political and economic circumstances. Paris is the center of Revolution; Rome is the center of Catholicism. This analysis begins with an examination of the postponment of the baptismal ceremony and the changes in the day of the week that was chosen for the occasion. In Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, baptisms occur later and later in the life of the child, to the point that the baptism of new-born infants becomes very rare. This is above all notable in working class neighborhoods. In contrast, Rome features, despite a certain postponment of the rite beginning in the 1860s, a reworking of the ceremony and baptising new-born infants remains the norm. Further developments show that political factors have a certain impact on the practice. This is however not always the case. The article shows that changes in baptismal practice can’t only be explained as a function of advancing secularisation. These changes are aided by medical advice that believes infant baptism is dangerous for the new-born infants and by a tendency to a privatisation of the rite. Paris, but not Rome, sees families try to reconcile these two motives by the use of a ‘ondoiement’ in the home with the previous approval of the bishop. Le pratiche del battesimo a Parigi e Roma nel XIX secolo Questo saggio e dedicato alla pratica del battesimo durante il XIX secolo, in due citta dalle traiettorie religiose, politiche ed economiche opposte: Parigi, la capitale delle rivoluzioni; Roma, la capitale della Cristianita cattolica. In un primo tempo, vengono analizzati il ritardo nella data del battesimo rispetto alla nascita e le fluttuazioni nei giorni della settimana in cui venivano celebrate di preferenza le cerimonie. Il ritardo del battesimo e particolarmente marcato a Parigi nella seconda meta del XIX secolo, al punto che il battesimo dei neonati diviene minoritario, specialmente nei quartieri popolari. A Roma, al contrario, benche un ritardo nel battesimo sia visibile a partire dagli anni 1860, si assiste principalmente ad una riorganizzazione della cerimonia, ed il battesimo del neonato rimane il modello privilegiato. Le evoluzioni mostrano che gli avvenimenti politici hanno un impatto misurabile sulla pratica, senza tuttavia che si tratti di un fenomeno sistematico. In un secondo tempo, il saggio mostra come queste mutazioni della pratica battesimale non possano essere comprese unicamente facendo riferimento al processo di secolarizzazione. Le trasformazioni sono legate anche, da un lato, all’accentuarsi d’un discorso medicale che percepisce il battesimo precoce come pericoloso per il neonato, dall’altro a un processo di privatizzazione/familizzazione della cerimonia. A Parigi, ma non a Roma, le famiglie tentano di conciliare questi due imperativi sviluppando la pratica dell’‘ondoiement’ a domicilio previa autorizzazione del vescovo.