| Abstrakt: |
Abstract: The parish of the Church of St. Mary Below-the-Chain was part of the Prague district of Malá Strana. In the 17th and 18th centuries the parish population was considerably mobile. The partners who came to the church to marry were not necessarily inhabitants of this specific parish or townspeople of Malá Strana, or even inhabitants of the Old or New Town of the City of Prague, but tended even to be people from other countries. This was true for the grooms, and it is possible to assume that there were brides also from outside the parish. The clientele of the Church of St. Mary Beneath-the Chain was made up of craftsmen from Malá Strana, and to less of a degree also from the other Prague towns, officials from provincial and town offices, and the nobility who had residences in Malá Strana. Soldiers and troops passing through also appear in the records; their presence produced an increase in the number of marriages particularly during war years. The social traits of the marrying partners on the marriage rolls were not recorded, and only in 1720 do entries designating the betrothed as "dominus/domina", "liber/libera" or "subditus/subdita" begin to increase on the registers. Even the marital status of the partners was not very carefully recorded. Among those partners whose marial status was known, 60 % of them were marrying for the first time. From a seasonal perspective, the records show that the population of the parish tended to follow contemporary customs and in the 17th and 18th centuries generally the timing of weddings did not differ much from the rural areas of the country. Most marriages took place in November and in February, the least in the March-April period and December (in connection with the church calendar). There was an interesting shift in the most popular wedding day away from Sunday - which until the 18th century had been the most frequent wedding day - to Tuesday instead, which during the 18th century then became very common. |
