Page 146 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Aleksander Panjek and Miha Zobec

reputation of the Černe family in the village of Tomaj and, thus, to their at-
tractiveness as godparents. The slight recovery in extra-familial godfather-
hood which can be observed in the mid-1870s, and especially in 1880, had
arguably more to do with the rise of the family of Amalija (Anton’s daugh-
ter) and her husband Franc Černe. Franc could count on his reputation as
a high-ranking officer of the Austrian army, an imperial institution enjoy-
ingsupport amongthecommonpeopleatthattime(Cole 2014). Moreover,
he was a younger man than Anton, which, as noted in the text above, en-
hanced the allure of one being a godfather. Finally, he was a son of Mihael
Černe, who seemed to have been respected enough among the villagers
to earn their desire for godfathering (see figure 4.3, the early 1820s when
Mihael served as mayor). Nevertheless, around half of godparenthoods in
the first half of the 1880s and slightly less so in the last half of the 1870s
took place within the family, confirming thus the trend of general decline
of extra-family godparenthoods which commenced in the beginning of the
nineteenth century and became ever more apparent following the centu-
ry’s third decade. The descent becomes all the more pronounced towards
the century’s end when even in-family godparenthood becomes virtually
non-existent (see the decline in in-family godparenthood from 1885 until
1900 in figure 4.2; the decline and then absence of extra-family godpar-
enthood in 1893, 1895, and 1898 in figure 4.3). This is hardly surprising
given that Franc passed away in 1898 and the household was managed by
the aged widow Amalija. Their son Emil Artur, appointed as heir, was at
that time only sixteen and was studying in faraway places. The restored
success of the family, brought about by Emil Artur’s proficient manage-
ment of their vineyard, was reflected in the increased godparenthoods, al-
beit only on the in-family level. Presumably, Emil Artur, after living and
studying in distant places and marrying a woman from Dolenjska, was no
longer considered a true native among villagers and could only gain no-
table charm as a godfather among his relatives. We could conclude this
sketch of the nineteenth century by pointing out that increasing links with
the world outside the village fabric, rising throughout the period in ques-
tion, resulted in the diminished quality of contacts with fellow villagers
andthusinthegeneraldeclineoftheallureofextra-familygodparenthood.
The trend towards horizontal parentage with more personal, intimate con-
tact with a godparent, evident elsewhere in Europe (Guzzi-Heeb 2012, 196;
Fertig 2016, 202), is therefore apparent in Tomaj too, at least in the case
of the Černe family. Notwithstanding, taking the nineteenth century in
its entirety, we could argue that the desire for (extra-family) godparent-

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