RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church Order Church Registers
between a protective and a titular patron. In accordance with its teaciiing as to the saints and veneration of relics, the Roman Catholic Church has developed a special doctrine concerning veneration, election, alteration, etc., of church patron saints (cf. the decree confirmed by Urban VIII., Mar. 23, 1630, in L. Ferraris, Bibliotheca promyta cmonica, 11 vols., Venice, 1782-94, s.v. patroni sancii).
The Reformers and Protestants generally have retained the old custom of designating churches after saints and Christian mysteries for the purpose of thus bestowing upon them a definite, distinguishing name. In the choice of it, more or less deference is shown to the preferences of the congregation and the founder. E. Sehling.
Bibliography: M. E. C. Waloott, Sacred Archceology, s.v. " Patron," London, 1868.
CHURCH REGISTERS.
Early Church Books (§ 1).
Medieval Registers (§2).
The Beginnings of Modern Registers (§ 3).
Contents and Character (§ 4).
Value for Other than Church Uses (§ 5).
Ecclesiastical and Civil Registers (§ 6).
Collections of Church Registers (§ 7).
The German word Kirchenbuch has different meanings. It refers to church books in the sense of " service-books," and to parish books which recorded inventories, rents, income, ecclesiastical celebrations, and other matters referring to worship; but in modern times the word has generally taken the meaning of registers of sacramental acts, such as baptism, marriage ceremonies, confessions, and funerals.
An especially old and remarkable example of a " church book " in the older sense is that of Oldesloe, which begins before 1371 and contains a table for determining Quinquagesima Sunday, the pastoral epistle of Bertram, bishop of Ltibeck (1376), hsts of pastors, also of tithes, income of pastors, donations, etc. Church books of another kind, but differing from modern church registers, are the cartularies of bishops in England, as, for instance, the Register of John Pontissara (1282-1304) and the Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, bishops of Winchester, 1316-23 (London and Winchester, 1897). These books contain everything relating to the government of bishops.
The church book in the sense of a I. Early register of ecclesiastical celebrations Church is important for the history of modern Books. registers, since in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was transformed into the church register of baptisms, marriages, etc., for instance in Mecklenburg and Holstein. Land-registers and registers of taxation go back much farther in Germany into the fifteenth century, in England, France, Italy into the fourteenth or thirteenth, even earlier. Another source for the date of personal records are the church bills found in the older parish registers. A more thorough knowledge of the history, nature, and importance of church registers began only when efforts were made to collect and test existing material. Church registers, or at least compilations
corresponding to them, are traceable to the civihzed nations of the earliest times, for instance the Egyptians. The Hebrews had also their records of birth and genealogical tables. In the Roman empire registers of births may be traced back to the time of the kings; from the time of Augustus are found registers of marriages. As Christianity took its rise in the Roman empire, it accepted to a certain extent the existing elements of culture. The diptyches (see Liber Vit^; Sculpture, Christian) were adopted from the Romans, and adapted to Christian usages, the members of the congregation being registered not for military reasons or for the levying of taxes, but as citizens of the kingdom of God. Besides the dates of birth, there were also recorded dates of marriage and of death. These " sacred books and tablets " were important preeminently from a historical standpoint, as they contained the names of bishops, martyrs, and benefactors.
The diptyches did not develop into church registers of the modern kind, nor were they of any importance for the modern Church, owing chiefly to the degeneration of culture after the destruction of the Roman empire, and to a perverted tendency of the medieval Church. Instead of the diptyches of the deceased and living,
2. Medieval churches and monasteries adopted Registers, necrologies and morilogies, in which
were entered especially the names of donors and benefactors. They were usually called " books of life " (see Liber Vit^b). Besides these, there were in existence church books in the older sense, that is, registers of taxes, inventories, etc. On account of the lack of personal registers, princes and lords had their own family books, while the age of other people had to be determined, even as late as the sixteenth century, by the testimony of living persons. At the close of the Middle Ages the census in the modern sense was instituted in flourishing cities like Augsburg and Breslau.
The Renaissance had a wholesome effect upon the development of church registers, in France and Italy as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. A register of baptisms from Cabri^res near Vaucluse dates from 1308, fragments of a register of marriages and deaths in Middle France from 1335 and 1336. In Italy the use of such registers may be traced to the fourteenth century. In Spain the famous cardinal Ximenez in 1497 at the Synod of Toledo ordered the introduction of baptismal and matrimonial registers; soon afterward similar orders were issued in Portugal. In
Switzerland and Germany church
3. The Be- registers go back to the time of the ginnings of Reformation. Earlier attempts had
Modern not been successful. The first bap- Registers, tismal register in Zurich dates from 1525, the register of marriages in Strasburg from the same time. Church registers in Constance began in 1531, and in Frankfort, Thuringia, Saxony, and Bohemia about the same time. In the imperial city of Nuremberg they existed from 1524, in Silesia from 1534, under the influence of the Silesian Reformer Hess; the other
Church E.eg'isters Church and School
Till; NEW ,s(;;hapf-iieiizog
territories followed soon afterward, in the earlysixties of the sixteenth century. The number of these registers, since the enormous losses resulting from the Thirty Years' War, especially in Electoral Saxony, can be estimated only approximately. There is reliable information of the existence of more than 150 registers dateil 1522-63. The earlier introduction of church registers in Italy and France must be ascribed to the independent influence of the classical renaissance, which became of importance in Germany only after its union with the religious efforts of Luther. In the Netherlands the Reformation was for a long time suppressed and its confessors were exiled, but a synod in 1574 changed these conditions, and church registers were soon generally introduced; but there are extant fragments of earlier date. From Germany the use of church registers penetrated the Scandinavian kingdoms at a comparatively late date. In Denmark they were introduced by royal order in 1646, in Norway in 1685, in Sweden in 1686. As in Germany, so in England, the general introduction of church registers followed separation from the Papal Church, by order of King Henry VIII. in 1538. In spite of this unevangelical origin, the introduction of church registers in England was accompanied by immediate success. There have been preserved not less than 812 church registers from the year 1538, 1,822 from 1528 to 15.'>S, and 2,448 from 1558 to 1600. From 1551 date the first evidences of church registers in Scotland; in Ireland their general introduction took place only in the nineteenth century. In transoceanic countries personal registers were used from settlement there by the civilized peoples of Europe. The earliest church register is that of the Dutch in Reciff, Brazil, 1633. The East India House in London preserves church registers from Bombay from 1703, from Bengal dated 1713, from Madras dated 1743. Of Roman Catholic church registers there are only sporadic cases in Germany at the time of the Reformation. Their general introduction followed the decrees of the Council of Trent in 1.5R3. These decrees referred only to registers of baptisms and marriages; records of funerals were introduced in 1614 by the Rituale Romanum. During the Thirty Years' War church registers were sometimes taken away from the Evangelicals and continued by the Catholics, so that the supposed antiquity of some Catholic registers has no basis in fact.
The church registers did not consist solely of lists of baptisms, marriages, and funerals; a church register at Lehrbach in Hesse contains not less than twelve columns. The registers, especially those of the seventeenth century, are frequently a rich source for the history of church discipline. The registers of the catechumens and con- 4. Contents firmed form a part of the church record and which is very important for the history Character, of Christian worship. They may be traced back to the first period of the Reformation. The most curious church records are found among the so-called family books. There the members of the congrey;ations -avo. arranged alphabetically according to families, an 1 their resi-
dences, with the religious acts performed on them, are given. In this way there orij^'nati'd chronicles of whole villages; so, for instance, the village of Dankerode in the Hartz mountains, .\nother noteworthy class is found in the so-called ministerial books which were introduced after 1686 in Sweden. They consist of six chfferent parts: Register (1) of births and baptisms; (2) of deaths and funerals; (3) of marriages; (4) of catechetical examinations at home; (5) of newly admitted members; (6) of members who had moved to other parishes. The most interesting part is the fourth, which contained records of religious instruction, of examinations, and of attendance at the Lord's Supper, and notes on conduct and discipline before and after marriage.
After the church registers had become known and been generally introduced in all civilized states of Europe, about the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, their value and importance began to be appreciated from other points of view, and they were used as sociological sources, first in England after the seventeenth century. After Natural and Political Annotations upon the Bills of Mortality, by John Graunt (London, 1666 and 1676), there followed a rich literature of similar character in England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Sweden. It is true, many of these productions were merely sociological, but some of them included the theological side, as, for instance, William Derham's Physical Theology (London, 1713). This work formed the model
for Die gdttliche Ordnung in den 5. Value for Verdnderungen des menschlichen Ge- Other than schlechts, by Johann Peter Siissmilch Church (1741, 3 vols., 1776), and Mohsen, a Uses. physician, published in his work on
vaccination for the first time a history of church registers of baptisms and deaths. Thus, a powerful influence was exerted upon them by the rapid growth of sociology and statistics, and the attention of large circles was called to them. After the end of the seventeenth century extracts from church registers were ordered to be made by the pastors and superintendents of Brandenburg- Prussia and sent to the government offices in Berlin for purposes of vital statistics. The keeping of church registers became dependent upon the orders of civil authorities; this led to their general adoption and to stricter enforcement of rules, but at the same time the registers lost much of their churchly character as they were used chiefly in court and for purposes of taxation and for military purposes. In conformity with the general law of Prussia, every pastor had to make one copy of his church register and send it to the local court. Electoral Saxony and Austria issued similar orders. In the course of time personal records were separated altogether from the Church and entrusted to the municipal authorities, civil lists taking the place of church registers. This was due in France in part to the Revolution, in part to the pecuhar development of the royal authority. King Francis I. issued as early as 1539 an order making church registers subject to the supervision of the municipal courts. Under Louis XIV the keeping of