The dynamic of family structures in seventeenth-century Moldavia. Adoption and godparenthood

Abstract

This study analyzes aspects related to family structure and kinship (in particularly, to relations between parents and children, but other types than the blood relations) and the influences they had on seventeenth-century Moldavian society. In the first part, the focus is on the practice of adoption that is mainly mentioned in documents through the expression taking into one's soul and has as its main purpose ensuring posterity and implicitly transmitting patrimony. This analysis is based on juridical disposition and diverse types of documents conserved referring to this practice, trying to outline the importance of this gesture in Early Modern Moldavian society and the nature of the reasons which caused the individual to choose this lineage manner. Also, for a better understanding of the role and the amount of the patrimony inherited by the adopted children in the destiny of a family and its social implications, the method of comparing the adoption in contrast with other spiritual kinships, especially with baptismal sponsorship, has been used.

Keywords::

• family
• adoption
• seventeenth-century Moldavia
• inheritance
• blood kinship
• spiritual kinship

Acknowledgements

This paper was translated from Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth.

Funding

This paper was supported by grant: ‘Corpul ca reprezentare metaforică a comunităţii politice şietnice româneşti (sec. XV-XX) [The Body as a Metaphorical Representation of the Romanian Political and Ethnic Community]’ grant number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0730 financed by National Research Council (CNCS).

Notes

^1.Istoria dreptului românesc, vol. I, p. 518.

^2. For a preliminary research on adoption for seventeenth-century Moldavia see: (Bedreag, 2010, pp. 15–29).

^3. Analyzing spiritual adoption in Wallachia for the end of the eighteenth-century, Andreea Iancu believes that there are several ‘confusions’, at least at the level of terminology, between adoption and baptism. ‘Thus, through the appellative spiritual father, one may call both the godfather and the adoptive parent. Also, through spiritual brotherhood one may understand, on the one hand, the family relationship created between the father of the baptized child and the godfather of the child concerned, and on the other hand, the family relationship created between the adopted son/daughter and the legitimate children (or other adopted children) of the person who made the adoption’ (Iancu, 1999, p. 24). Without confusing them, the two types of spiritual relationship have, as we will see, much in common.

^4. Which contain both ecclesiastical and juridical stipulations.

^5. For further details about Romanian sources, especialy for those regarding seventeenth century, see Barbu (2003, pp. 18–20).

^6. The first attempt to define and analyze the concept in relation to the Romanian space was made by Maria Magdalena Székely, (Székely, 1997, pp. 102–108). ‘Artificial or conventional kinship is not based on the laws of consanguinity or those of alliance. It is a special type of kinship which is established either through rituals (e.g. blood brotherhood, baptism, marriage) or adoption. Thus, between two persons between whom there was no type of kinship, there crystallizes a specific type of kinship, accepted by society and having consequences at the juridical level.’ We subscribe to this definition, but should point out that as far as adoption goes, we are of the opinion that, like baptism and other types of spiritual kinship, it also takes place by means of a ritual. See: (BAR, Mss. Rom. 3275, f.71; Iancu, 2004, pp. 240–241).

^7. With reference to priests and churches, Jack Goody argues that ‘probably no other religion in the world has had such an effective tool for local control, coupled with the highly successful activity of its missionaries’ (Goody, 2003, pp. 45–46).

^8. Jean Gaudemet mentions in one of his books on the evolution of ecclesiastical law that the Church took measures with regard to the family early on, besides other measures on marriage, limiting, for example, the abuse of children by reining in the so-called patria potestas (Gaudemet, 1979, p. 214). For an analysis of adoption and baptism from the perspective of the new system of values introduced by Christianity, see: (Roumy, 1994, p. 93).

^9. ‘A înfia/înfială’(to adopt/adoption) are terms used starting with Codul Calimach (1817), that means, at the begining of the nineteenth century: ‘The relationship by which someone receives a child, and that child is endowed with the same dritto as the natural son, it is called adoption’, Codul Calimach (1817/1958), the First Part, paragraph 50, p. 83.

^10. The fifth type of kinship – ‘the spiritual sons’ are those children who ‘are taken by someone through the Holy Molieben, making them truly his/her children, like his/her own children’. (Îndreptarea Legii, gl. 190, p. 188).

^11.Cartea românească de învăţătură, gl. 9: 2, p. 92, gl. 9:50, p. 97, gl. 46:2, p. 154.

^12. It should be noted that we have not endeavoured to provide a firm answer, but have merely attempted to trace a hierarchy of motives, establishing the correct position of each element. For the evolution and implications of the social ties produced through baptism or marriage in Catholic and Protestant Europe see the work of Alfani and Gourdon (2012, pp. 1005–1028).

^13. This paper focuses on Moldavian territory during the seventeenth century, which means that we deal with a rural society more than with a urban one; one boyar could own lands (which includes villages or parts of villages) in different ţinuturi of the country; for further details and explanations regarding Moldavia's territorial organization and evolution see: Rădvan (2010).

^14. The documents referring to adoption and the parts of the villages that Ionaşco Vrabie purchased in Crăhăneşti village can unfortunately only be dated approximately using a deed of reinforcement dated 28 March 1623.

^15. ‘And one of my men or my brothers shall have no business with my part or with my vineyard’ (therefore, at the date of the adoption only his brothers were still living).

^16. It is known that Ionaşco Vrabie was staroste and pîrcălab between 1593 and 1623 and he is found purchasing numerous properties between 1608 and 1623 next to the ones in Crăhăneşti, Blăgeşti, Plăcinţeni, and Răpedzeşti, see: (DIR, Indice de persoane, XVII, vol. II, doc. 180, p. 143; vol. III, doc. 10, p. 8; doc. 11, p. 8; doc. 12, p. 8).

^17. Moldavian Prince from 1634 to1653.

^18.Şetrar, postelnik, logothete, high sulger, visitiernic, spatharius, dvornik (Moldavian and Wallachian medieval and pre-modern offices/dignities; for more details, see the Glossary).

^19. She donates this ocină, the document of confirmation states, for her soul and those of her parents, ‘that they might be commemorated, as she has not natural children’ (Antonovici, vol. III, doc. XXXVII, pp. 53–54).

^20. Nicolae Stoicescu argues that besides being a postelnik he was also a cămăraş: (Stoicescu, 1971, p. 386).

^21. Mama Stancăi, Salomia, was the wife of Nădăbaico the high dvornik: (DIR, XVI, vol. III, doc. 42, pp. 32–33; Stoicescu, 1971, p. 319; Zotta, 1925, p. 260).

^22. This would not have been impossible and might be proved via the estate of Tălăbeşti [half of the village was taken by Salomia in 1555 in an ‘exchange’ with Movilă the logothete, (Iorga, vol. VI, p. 151)], from which the sons of Dumitru took their name. It was not donated at the moment of adoption, and for this reason it needs to be demonstrated how the estate passed from an ascendant of Stanca (or Murgoci) to Dumitru and via the latter to his sons; we might then be able to give credence to Velciu's argument. Even were this so, if Dumitru bought the estate of Tălăbeşti and bequeathed it to his sons, this does not necessarily mean that he was a blood relative and it is highly likely that he bought the estate, by virtue of the right of protimisis, precisely after the moment of spiritual kinship [Zotta argues that apart from the ocini donated when he, Dumitru, was adopted by Stanca, Dumitru also bought from Stanca parts of Spineşti and Ocheşeşti and half of Tălăbeşti, but we have not found in the documents any information about this transaction, (Zotta, 1925, p. 260)].

^23. Likewise, Păltănea also emphasizes the fact that the document of 13 March 1653 invoked by Velciu (Velciu, 1978, p. 1452, note 78) is not unpublished, see: (Uricariul, 1891 × , XVII, pp. 139–140).

^24. The last mention of Murgoci Toflea dates from 26 May 1616 (Caproşu & Zahariuc, 1999, vol. I, doc. 108, pp. 149–150).

^25. Dumitru had two sons and a daughter, Ion/Ioniţă Tălăbăscul, a second logothete, Gheorghiţă, a stolnik, and Grăjdana, married to Cocială (CDM, vol. III, doc. 1415, p. 306); Stoicescu, 1971, p. 386.

^26. If Sever Zotta has correctly identified a Toflea in the Murgoci mentioned on 16 February 1668 in Tecuci, then Stanca's husband must have been previously married, a marriage that produced two children, a daughter, Maria (who in February 1668 sells parts of Blăgiani to Nicolae Racovţă the hatman), and a son, Damian, mentioned as the brother of Maria in the same document (Ghibănescu (1914), vol. VIII, doc. 213, p. 317; Zotta, 1925, p. 262).

^27. For the Romanian territory, during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, the living husband did not have the right to inherit from the deceased wife and vice versa, but only if the couple had had children; so, if the couple had not had any children, the fortune left was shared among the relatives of the deceased husband or wife.

^28. Murgoci Toflea had at least three nephews, Isac, Constantin and Avghenia, all three being brothers, about whom we discover in a document dated 25 December 1637 that they had purchased a part of the village of Păuleşti from the brothers of Stanca Murgucioaia (Antonovici, vol. III, doc. XXIV, p. 36); it seems that Stanca had a number of brothers, as we have mentioned, of whom two left heirs. (Antonovici, vol. III, doc. XXV, pp. 35–36; doc. XXXV, pp. 51–51; doc. XXXVIII, p. 54; doc. LXII, p. 82).

^29. For an analysis of the dynamic and evolution of godparenthood and its social implications in western society, inclusive from a demographic point of view, see: Alfani, Gourdon, and Vitali, (2012, pp. 483–505) and Berteau, Gourdon, and Robin-Romero (2010, pp. 597–621).

^30. ‘The children of that cumătru with the children he baptized are the second relations because that father, that is, that cumătru or godfather to those children fathered them bodily and the others spiritually. And the children of the cumătru, that is, of the godfather, whom he did not baptize, with his children, are the fourth relations, as children of two brothers, who are called first cousins, the same as them.’ Îndreptarea Legii, gl. 195, p. 193; and in Cartea românească de învăţătură there are specifications as to ‘the mixture of blood that comes about through marriage’: ‘the weddings that shall be made between mixed blood, which is to say from parents-in-law or from relations that descend from blood or from godparenthood that will be from holy baptism, these marriages shall be separated […] and those persons will thereafter no longer be able to marry any other unrelated persons.’ (gl. 42: 7, p. 146).

^31. Baptism in the presence of one or more godparents seems to have emerged in the sixth century, in spite of the fact that, as we have seen above, it has no biblical precedent (Guerreau-Jalabert, 1981, pp. 1032, 1035).

^32. A cross-section view of the godparent–godchild relationship and the social implications of this kind of kinship in the Romanian space can be found in Vintilă-Ghiţulescu (2009, pp. 261–280).

^33.Pravila ritorului Lucaci, p. 166, p. 173, p. 176.

^34.Îndreptarea legii, gl. 153, p. 162; gl. 156, p. 164.

^35.Îndreptarea legii, gl. 157, p. 164; Pravila bisericească numită cea mică, p. 116^*.

^36. Which imposes a maximum number of two.

^37. The recent studies show us that godparenthood in West and Central Europe evolved, starting from the seventeenth–eighteenth century, in the direction of reinforcing the family ties. Berteau, Gourdon, and Robin-Romero (2012, p. 461–462) and Vasile (2012, p. 107).

^38. Even if the example relates to a godfather and godson by marriage, the symbolic charge of this type of bond is equivalent with that resulting from baptism; likewise, tradition dictates that the godfather at a baptism should be the first to be invited to act as the godfather in marriage to his godson.