Page 149 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

A Dynasty of Mayors and a Member of Parliament

hood. Nonetheless, the tendency towards family-restricted and socially
horizontal patronage remains clear and is all the more evident consider-
ing the increased social distance between the Černes and other villagers.
As throughout the nineteenth century the villagers increased and differ-
entiated contacts with the world outside, thus losing dependence on local
bigwigs and authorities, extra-family godparenthood seems to have lost
theroleitonce had.Concurrently, theČernesdidnot needthesupport of
fellow villagers for affirming their social status as they stepped out of the
village fabric. In other words, if during the eighteenth century the Černe
mayors may be located – to use the distinction by Menant and Jessenne
(2007b) – at the threshold between the peasant and the rural elite, which
is testified by their lesser accessibility as godfathers in the village when
holding that power function, proceeding in the nineteenth century an in-
creasing number of their family members stepped into the rural elite by
holding relevant political positions and exercising liberal professions.
We may conclude that the godparenthood patterns noticed in the case
of the Černe family in the Karst between the late seventeenth and the late
nineteenth centuries reflect wider European trends. But we must recall
that the data regarding other family groups in the village and the parish do
not seem to allow a generalization of the Černes’ adherence to European
trends, neither in the early modern period nor in the nineteenth centu-
ry. Hypothetically, they might have been an exception precisely because
of their elite status. As far as the method is concerned, the use of godpar-
enthood to measure prestige and popularity seems to work well, although
more so in the eighteenth than in the nineteenth century.

Archival Sources
ast: Archivio di Stato di Trieste
Atta: Archivio Torre Tasso Antico
cf, oc: Catasto Franceschino, Operati catastali
pang: Pokrajinski arhiv Nova Gorica
939: Družina Černe, Tomaj
šak, žat: Škofijski arhiv Koper, Župnjiski arhiv Tomaj.
mkk: Matične knjige krščenih.
mku: Matične knjige umrlih.
sa: Status animarum.

References
Agneletto, J. 1914. ‘Gospodarski položaj Slovencev.’ Veda 4 (4): 368–81.

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