Page 135 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

A Dynasty of Mayors and a Member of Parliament

tratingongodfatherspertainingtotheruralandpeasanteliteandonwider
geographical networks revealed by godfatherhood.
For the peasants in the Tomaj parish, the most common godfathers be-
longing to the rural elite were the members of the clergy. This was the case
both of parish priests but also of their assistants (cooperatore)atalower
rank in the church hierarchy, who acted as godfathers in many cases. Nev-
ertheless, since during the seventeenth century especially, some of them
stemmed from (mostly petty) noble or urban elite families, in some cas-
es it was possible to have a godfather belonging to the rural elite who at
thesametimewasof noble extraction. Thefact that clergymen were the
most common could mean they were the most desirable among elite god-
fathers, but they were also the most accessible to the peasants, since they
lived in their communities. Although very numerous, clergymen appear
as godfathers around 1640 and become quite rare after 1760. In the nine-
teenth century, clergymen were godfathers only in eleven cases, the last
one occurring in 1891.
The second category of elite rural godfathers were the manorial admin-
istration officers of the different manors to which the villages (or village
parts) in the Tomaj parish belonged. These were not numerous, though,
summing up to only fourteen cases, concentrated between 1657 and 1781.
They were much more difficult to approach, testifying to their much less-
er social proximity with the peasant society. Meaningfully, it was mostly
members of the Černe family who managed to have administrators of the
Devin manor as godfathers, that is, in seven out of eleven cases.⁹
Within the same timeframe, five cases of men with a nobiliary parti-
cle were registered as godfathers to peasant children, possibly linked to
the manorial administrations as well. Just as rarely, altogether only four
times, peasants of the Tomaj parish even managed to have as godfathers
members of the noble families who ruled the manors of Devin (della Torre
– Thurn) and Rihemberk (Lanthieri). The latter cases were all concentrated
between 1692 and 1698. While no similar cases are registered in the whole
nineteenth century, in 1912 the president of the Austrian Imperial-Royal
maritime government, Anton Deles, appeared as godfather at the baptism
of Emil Artur Černe’s daughter (šak, žat, mkk 9).
Although, given the numerous godfathers from the ranks of the clergy,
social impulses must have been strongly intertwined with and corroborat-

⁹ Tomaž Černe in 1706 and 1715, Andrej mayor in 1715, Anton in 1737, Jožef in 1747, Marko in
1764 and Franc in 1778.

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