392 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
exemplary reprehension centuries-old practices whose persistence would
continue to surface for many years to come, both in the wedding ceremo-
nial itself and in other venerable customs such as a lengthy premarital
cohabitation of the betrothed. Marriage continued to be a multi-stage
process, initiated with the stipulation of the nuptial contract and con-
cluded, after some months or even years, with the blessing of the spouses
in church; to the point that the patriarch giovanni francesco Morosini, a
century after the publication of Tametsi in 1662, complained to the organs
of civic government about the scarce application of the conciliar decrees.
The senate’s response to Morosini’s complaints was a year in coming, but
they eventually imposed the Tridentine marriage model in Venice as well
and constricted the various stages of nuptial rites into the sole ceremony
of a celebration in church. only the 18th century, however, would see the
regularization of the practice of blessing a marriage on the day of its stipu-
lation or in the days immediately following.34
The norms of Tametsi brought important modifications not only to
the lives of the faithful but also in the dialogue between them—espe-
cially women—and ecclesiastical institutions. No longer a basis for valid
marriage, vows followed by sexual relations (which had constituted the
principal material for discussion in marriage tribunals) left ecclesiastical
jurisdiction to become the responsibility of the secular authorities. in 1577
the Council of Ten assigned the Esecutori contro la bestemmia jurisdic-
tion over deflowerings with a promise of marriage and over clandestine
marriages in general: that is to say, over the gamut of normal marriage
arrangements before Trent.35 The patriarch thus lost jurisdiction over the
most common types of matrimonial disputes up to the decree of Tametsi.
in front of lay judges, responsible for rape instead of marriage, women
ceased to refer the words and gestures of the affectus, which in the period
before Trent constituted the presumption of consent (and thus of mar-
riage), and in order to obtain a favorable sentence they began to recount
an aggression they had suffered rather than a life lived in common, thus
expressing—and interjecting—the sense of sin now attached which in
the past had been accepted, and which was now condemned despite its
34 Cavazzana Romanelli “Matrimonio tridentino”; Volker Hunecke, Die venetianische
Adel am Ende der Republik 1647–1797. Demographie, Familie, Haushalt (Tübigen, 1995),
pp. 110–27.
35 Renzo Derosas, “gli esecutori sopra la bestemmia,” in gaetano Cozzi, ed., Stato
società e giustizia (Rome, 1980), pp. 431–528.