religious life 391
facinore, he played a pacifying role and consequently made himself garan-
tor of validity of the marriage. in addition to speaking “comforting and
spiritual” words, he might take the opportunity to remind bystanders of
the binding value of the words of consent (to which laymen did not confer
the same importance) and underline the necessity that marriage be freely
contracted.
in the 16th century the presence of a priest at wedding ceremonies
gradually became more common and legitimizing. This came about par-
ticularly in connection with the growing importance parish priests came
to assume within the state structure thanks to the fiscal and public health
responsibilities with which the Republic entrusted them, but also because
of a synodal decision which made a license from one’s parish priest man-
datory for contracting marriage,31 as well as a provision of the Maggior
Consiglio, dating to 1506, delegating the registration of noble marriages to
the parish priest.
However, it was only with the decree Tametsi (1563) produced in the
last phase of the Council of Trent that the presence of the parish priest
of at least one of the betrothed became necessary to avoid the invalid-
ity of the marriage. unlike what had occurred previously, moreover, the
exchange of consent for the future followed by sexual intercourse no lon-
ger constituted marriage.
After the introduction of Tametsi in the 1564 synod, some parish priests
took the decree’s provisions particularly to heart: trying, for example, to
convince one by one their already married parishioners to renew their
vows according to the formalities prescribed at Trent; or taking care to
point out those in his marriage register to whom he had not given the
priestly blessing because, after having promised themselves in marriage,
they had had sexual relations without waiting for the wedding celebra-
tion as per the new directives.32 exemplary measures were taken against
concubines as well: in 1588 the patriarch Trevisan stubbornly denied
burial in consecrated ground to a man who had died more than two years
earlier because his family members had been unable to prove that the
woman with whom he had lived had been his wife and not a concubine.33
The severity of these actions helped redefine as deviant and worthy of
31 see giovambattista galiccioli, Delle memorie venete antiche profane ed ecclesiastiche
raccolte da Giovan Battista Gallicciolli libri III (Venice, 1795), book ii, pp. 9–10.
32 Cavazzana Romanelli, “Matrimonio tridentino.”
33 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Congregazione dei vescovi e regolari, Regista episcoporum,
15, c.210. see also giovanni Romeo, Amori proibiti. I concubini tra Chiesa e Inquisizione
(Rome/Bari, 2008), p. 25.