Synopses & Reviews
The authors in this volume analyze spiritual kinship in Europe from the end of the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. Uniquely comparing Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox views and practices, the chapters look at changes in theological thought over time as well as in social customs related to spiritual kinship, including godparenthood.
Synopsis
This volume challenges the common belief that scientific knowledge is international. Employing case studies from Austria, Poland, the Czech lands, and Hungary, the authors show how scientists in the late Habsburg Monarchy confronted the problem of simultaneously nationalizing and internationalizing their knowledge in a multinational empire during the 'age of nationalism'. The case studies go beyond traditional emphasis on history, ethnology or other 'national' disciplines, ranging from chemistry and physics to natural history, geology, seismology, surgery, linguistics and eugenics, focusing inter alia on scientific terminology in various national languages, supranational networks of observation or data gathering, language issues in science education, and research practices in crossnational comparison.
About the Author
GUIDO ALFANI is assistant professor at Bocconi University, Italy,and Honorary Research Fellowat the University of Glasgow, UK. He is chief editor of the journal Popolazione e Storia. An economic and social historian, and an historical demographer, he is an expert of godparenthood in medieval and early modern Europe; on this topic he published Fathers and Godfathers: Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern Italy (2009).
VINCENT GOURDONAn historian of the family and an historical demographer. Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, he is alsochief editor of the journal Annales de Démographie Historique. He is an expert of the history of baptism and godparenthood in early modern and modern Europe; on this topic he has published (with Guido Alfani and Philippe Castagnetti Baptiser), Pratique sacramentelle, pratique sociale XVIe-XXe siècles (2009).
Table of Contents
List of Figuresand Tables
Contributors
Spiritual Kinship and Godparenthood: an Introduction; G.Alfaniand 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.Alfaniand 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 Churchin 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