FWF-Projekt 28063-G28: Marriage Litigations from the 16th to the 19th Century. Regional and Social Differentiation

The research project carried out between October 2015 and September 2018 investigated the practices of the matrimonial court in the Archduchy of Austria below the Enns (now Vienna and Lower Austria). It followed a previous FWF research project, also led by Andrea Griesebner, which investigated matrimonial proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts of the dioceses of Passau and Vienna for selected time periods between 1558 and 1783 and the cases brought before the civil magistrate of the city of Vienna from 1783 – 1850. The research project extended the source basis in three respects: regionally, for divorces which were approved or decided upon either by the magistrates of Eggenburg, Langenlois, Tulln and Perchtoldsdorf or by the local courts of the dominions of Seitenstetten and Sitzendorf. Temporally, for marriages proceedings carried out by the Catholic matrimonial courts of St. Pölten and Vienna, whose jurisdiction over matrimonial matters was reinstated from 1857 – 1867 after the Concordat of 1855. Finally, also socially, in that for all recorded couples further sources were sought, making it possible to provide more information not only about the marriage itself but also on the social classification of the couple or one of the spouses. The continuous bilingual web portal Ehen vor Gericht 2.0 | Marriage at Court 2.0 provides information on the research results, the staff and the work being done with the sources.