Metryki kościelne – historia i współczesność. Geneza powstania ksiąg metrykalnych

Abstract

Register books are official church documents, which include lists of baptized, married and buried parishioners, held by parishes and large branch churches as required by the Code of Canon Law. The first lists of the faithful were drawn up as early as the Roman times. They contained the names of people about to receive baptism. In the centuries that followed, individual synods announced their decisions concerning the need to maintain register books; it was in the second part of the 16th century that the Church made it universally mandatory to keep such records. For centuries, those books have recorded the most important moments in the lives of Christian people from their births, through marriages, to deaths. Since registers remain the most available and best preserved sources, they are the primary source of information for researchers studying population. They are used first and foremost to increase demographic knowledge. Studying register books has also become common practice among those who carry out research work on customs and families.