Preliminary Programme

In Greece, and as regards to the rite of baptism, apart from immersion there only existed the “aerovaptisma” in case of imminent risk of death (any Christian and not necessarily a priest, could baptize the infant by throwing it three times into the air and saying a specific sentence). It was not until 1976 that the Law 344 has completely separated the procedure of baptism from that of the name giving. Although more than 30 years have passed, the procedure of the child’s name giving at the Town Hall is still very rarely practiced. In general, in the Orthodox Church, the child is baptized during the first year of its life. The proposal made to a person to become the godfather or godmother, which means becoming the spiritual parent of a child, is considered to be a genuine honour. Even today, the best man of the wedding becomes the godfather of the couple's first child.
Although the last 20 years the interest of historians in the history of baptisms has developed, the existing body of research concerns mainly the Catholic world.
The aim of this intervention, which combines the anthropological approach and that of the social history, is to study the networks of godparenthood in Athens during the period 1850-1950. More precisely, we will first study the practices and customs of baptism in an urban Orthodox area. At a second level, we will study patterns of sociability and relational strategies of families and different social groups in order to reveal possible "fronts of kinship." Finally, we will study the social inbreeding and prevalence of the practice of mutual choice between families.
As we do not have registers of population and of baptism in Greece, our study will be based on the Books of baptisms of two parishes in the city centre of Athens. (Show less)

Based on 4 492 baptisms of legitimate, natural and abandoned children of the parish of El Santo Ángel Custodio known as Analco of the city of Puebla in Mexico during two periods in the eighteenth century –from 1720 to 1726 and from 1783 to 1792–, the practices, strategies of selection of godparents and possible long-term transformations of catholic godparenthood in the New World are analyzed by ethnic group: Spaniards, persons of mixed race, and Indians, as well as the different attitudes of society facing the “quality” of children in terms of their legitimacy or not. The study also approaches the dissimilarities according to the genre of the newborn children.
This paper attempts to be a first step to undertake a longer term study beginning around mid-seventeenth century when the parochial registry of baptisms formalized in New Spain. It will also allow a comparison with European countries (Show less)

Based on two case studies on artisans from Finnish countryside this paper presents five major factors behind usual godparent relations. This paper argues that while in some cases (especially concerning the highest echelons of the local society) much emphasized godparent strategies had some meaning, however for the majority of the population more important defining factors were locality, occupation, social class and kinship. In fact most of these were highly entangled in pre-modern Finnish society of estates and their entanglement is well visible in godparent networks. Thus this paper serves as an important reminder for researchers of godparenthood on how multi-faceted the phenomenon itself was. It also shows how persistent old social and godparent structures were in Finnish countryside. Despite general European trend of favoring almost exclusively kinsmen in selection of godparents from the 18th and 19th centuries onward, this trend is not found from sources of this study, not even in the first decades of the 20th century.

This paper is based on detailed prosopographic study of artisans of rural parish of Hollola and a whole population of ironworks community of Strömfors. Databases constructed for these regions contain data on place of residence, kinship ties and occupational position of members of communities. This data is then reinforced with knowledge available on socio-economic status of these individuals under study. Based on this data godparent networks are reconstructed and compared to analyze defining factors behind different godparent patterns found. Importance of this study is reinforced by exceptionally good quality of available source material in Finland which enables building and comparing extensive databases for virtually whole population. Also noteworthy is available time scale that extends to later period than is usually reached in studies on godparenthood. (Show less)

I will look at the social relations established by godparental choices to see how kinship is differently considered in Northern Italy. The choice of godparents could be used to understand whether couples are embedded into closed or wide sociability. Some interpretative hypothesis need to be empirically verified. Do differences exist in priority and disparity in the social practices?
The hypothesis is that this bind to the degree of religious practice in every family. Analysis will include the ample Venetian region and Friuli. (Show less)