14. March 2023

New Dissertation by Dr. Eva Marie Lehner New Dissertation by Dr. Eva Marie Lehner

Baptism – Marriage – Death. Practices of indexing in early modern Church records

We are pleased to congratulate our BCDSS Researcher Dr. Eva Marie Lehner on the publication of her dissertation! 

"Taufe – Ehe – Tod. Praktiken des Verzeichnens in frühneuzeitlichen Kirchenbüchern"

(Baptism – Marriage – Death. Practices of indexing in early modern Church records)

With the recording of all baptisms, weddings and funerals, pastors created the first civil registers of their parishes in the 16th century.

Dr. Eva Marie Lehner
Dr. Eva Marie Lehner © Wallstein Verlag
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In the 16th century, Protestant and Catholic pastors began to register their parishioners. On the basis of baptisms, weddings and funerals, they not only recorded important church rituals, but also created the first comprehensive civil registers: church registers.
Eva Marie Lehner examines for the first time the beginnings of church accounting in the 16th and 17th centuries. In doing so, she investigates the possible reasons why church staff systematically began documenting personal data. In addition, it shows which categories (gender, status, religion, marital status, body, salvation, etc.) were related to each other in order to identify persons. The research work makes visible differences between pre-modern and modern categories of personal registration as well as their fundamental changeability and negotiability. Thus, the reading offers an incentive to classify current discussions about personal data and identity in a longer historical development and to better understand.

Expected publication date: 22.03.2023

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