The Reception of the Decree Tametsi in Northern Ottoman Europe (1580s–1680s)

Abstract

Throughout the early modern world of Catholic reform and evangelization, the proclamation and implementation of the Tridentine marriage decree Tametsi was complicated by a series of factors, including local demography, geography, and religious politics. Focusing on the Ottoman-governed regions of Bosnia, Slavonia-Srem, and the Banat (northern Ottoman Europe), this paper analyzes how the local dynamics of these areas conditioned the reception and enforcement of Tametsi between the end of the 16th and the end of the 17th centuries. In the broadest sense, this article aims to demonstrate how various case studies from northern Ottoman Europe can enrich our understanding of the variety of marital customs and their continuous reconfiguration throughout the Early Modern world.

Keywords

• Tridentine marriage reforms
• Tametsi
• clandestine marriage
• northern Ottoman Europe
• Catholic missionaries