In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

APPENDIX II THE LIBER STATUS ANIMARUM OF SELDZHIKOVO Documentation of the libri status animarum type, literally “soul descriptions,” is widely recognized and used as an important source of information on the history of the population, particularly on household structure. Used in conjunction with the other types of parish registers, they could help overcome some limitations , which have caused Flandrin to criticize heavily, but also too categorically the one-sided approach of the family reconstitution method: The “families” reconstructed by the French demographers on the basis of the registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are nothing more than a demonstration of the fertility of couples; they tell us nothing at all about the dimensions of the domestic group. The “families” which British historians discover in censuses of households are merely, as it were, a snapshot of the occupants of accomodation in a given locality at a given moment (Flandrin 1979, 3). The Council of Trent was the major factor in the growth of what became the universal practice to keep parish registers (Mols 1954–1956, vol.1, 75–78). In its 24th session in 1563, the Council ordered the registration of marriages and births in special registers (Libri matrimoniarum, Libri baptizatorum) (Le Mée 1975, 442). The Rituale Romanum, promulgated under Pope Paul V in 1614, required the keeping of three more registers—on deaths (Liber mortuorum or Liber defunctorum ), on confirmations (Liber confirmatorum), and a general book about the state of the population (Liber status animarum) (Le Mée 1975, 445–448). According to the Rituale Romanum, the Liber status animarum was to be kept in the following manner: Familia quaequae distincte in libro notetur, intervallo relicto ab unaquaque ad alteram subsequentum, in quo singillatim scribantur nomen, cognomen, aetas singulorum, qui ex familia sunt, vel tanquam advenae in ea vivunt (Mols 1954–1956, vol.3, 37). 173 Appendices Two regions in Bulgaria were inhabited by Catholics: ten or more villages in Northern Bulgaria, around the towns of Svishtov and Nikopol, and an approximately equal number of villages in Southern Bulgaria, around the town of Plovdiv. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Bulgarian Catholics numbered about 15 000. These Catholic settlements were formed as a result of the missionary propaganda of the Roman Catholic church among the Bulgarian Paulicians (Miletich 1903; Frazee 1983). Until the middle of the sixteenth century the influence of Catholicism was sporadic, superficial, and weak. After that, the activities of the Propaganda fidei in Northern Bulgaria gained strength. At the end of the sixteenth century, Pope Clement VIII founded the Catholic bishopric of Sofia. The Catholic proselytization in Southern Bulgaria started later and increased only towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Different religious orders—Franciscans, Dominicans , Capuchins, Passionists, Liguorists (Redemptorists), and others—were engaged in this work. They made great efforts to introduce the canons of the Catholic church and to eradicate the adherence to traditional rites and practices. In addition, the Bulgarian Catholic Archbishopric, as part of the Roman Catholic church, was required to systematically keep parish books. The particularly hard conditions which the Catholic propaganda had to face until the beginning of the nineteenth century explains the practical absence of this type of documentation . The oldest known parish register, a Liber confirmatorum covering the period 1703 to 1767, is merely mentioned by Miletich (1903, 150), who reports that he had seen it in the church of Seldzhikovo. It seems that during the nineteenth century parish books had been kept regularly, according to the information provided by Lyubomir Miletich, the well-known scholar of the history of the Bulgarian Paulicians, who had seen many of the books in the early 1900s. Miletich mentions a Liber status animarum for the village of Oresha for the period 1854–1860; a Liber baptizatorum from 1808 and 1824–1827; a Registro de battesimi for Seldzhikovo 1703–1767; a Liber baptizatorum for Kalachli and Baltadzhi from 1703, and others (Miletich 1903, 115, 134, 150, 152). Unfortunately, none of them has been retrieved yet. As already mentioned in this text, the Liber status animarum of the village of Seldzhikovo for 1836–1838 is the first, and, to the best of our knowledge, the only one to have been discovered for the Bulgarian Catholics. In general, the Libri status animarum were rarely kept, if kept at all. This was confirmed by a conversation which the author had in 1989 with the present metropolitan of the Catholic community in Plovdiv. He himself was not aware of...

Share