»… sie bitten, sie weinen, sie drohen« – Emotionen in katholischen Ehedispensverfahren vom ausgehenden 18. bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts

The points of departure for the contribution are the Catholic Church’s prohibition of consanguineous and affinal marriage and the practice of dispensation with a geographic focus on the Diocese of Brixen, which comprised parts of historical Tyrol and Vorarlberg during the period of study. Granting dispensation was and remained an act of grace, even when government regulations began to interfere in administrative procedures in the late 18th century. The amount of dispensation applications regarding close degrees of consanguinity and affinity significantly increased during this time. Emotions were an integral part of these proceedings. Two central areas of interest are: What were the effects of recording emotions in the dispensation paperwork, and how were the ways that emotions were described in writing expressed in social interactions? The hypothesis of this study is that applicants tried using emotions as instruments for expediting their applications on the one hand, and that lower-level clergy used the practice of recording emotions in order to legitimize supporting dispensation applicants on the other hand.