From Openness to Restriction: Mixed Marriages between Greek and Latin Christians in Late Medieval Venice

Analysis of the data yielded by a scrutiny of matrimonial cases in Venice, as recorded in the city’s Curia archives, and a detailed examination of a small number of case studies provide the basis for an assessment of the significance of interconfessional unions in Venetian society, with reference to marriages between Latin and the Greek Christians, up to the Council of Trento (1545-1563). This will serve to assess the impact of mixed marriage on the processes of assimilation of a religious minority – Greeks believers settled in Venice – and at the same time to evaluate its function in the mechanisms whereby the cultural identity of the community was conserved and transmitted. The same material will provide a perspective on how interconfessional unions prompt conflict, but also mutual comparison, between different religious groups at both personal and community level. Finally the two confessions – the Latin and the Greek one – will be examined in parallel in order to highlight the differences and similarities in their respective marriage liturgies and judicial reference systems.