Baptism and citizenship

In an article in Religion and Philosophy , Elena Brambilla and Joaquim Carvalho discuss the connections between baptism and citizenship under the ancien regime. They begin by distinguishing two levels of citizenship:

“It is therefore essential to consider, as a preliminary step, and also at the historical level, the distinction between civil rights (meaning negative or human rights) and political rights. Until the end of the Ancien Régime ‘political rights’ were very exclusive, and were defined by the secular Commune, or municipal Corporation . . . .

“The Commune was called upon to meet the fiscal needs of the State, and was responsible for the collection of taxes not only for local but also for provincial and State expenses. The secular Commune thus decided, on the basis of patrimony, which inhabitants owed taxes to the State and how much they owed: in most cases it was on the basis of their fiscal position that taxpayers were admitted or excluded from access to political offices. In a more general perspective, one can say that political offices were restricted to adult males either of noble birth, or endowed with a sufficient measure of land or city property. It is therefore essential to consider, as a preliminary step, and also at the historical level, the distinction between civil rights (meaning negative or human rights) and political rights. Until the end of the Ancien Régime ‘political rights’ were very exclusive, and were defined by the secular Commune, or municipal Corporation. The Commune was called upon to meet the fiscal needs of the State, and was responsible for the collection of taxes not only for local but also for provincial and State expenses. The secular Commune thus decided, on the basis of patrimony, which inhabitants owed taxes to the State and how much they owed: in most cases it was on the basis of their fiscal position that taxpayers were admitted or excluded from access to political offices. In a more general perspective, one can say that political offices were restricted to adult males either of noble birth, or endowed with a sufficient measure of land or city property.”

On the other hand, “civil rights” were much more widely recognized, and were tied to the church: “Wherever the Catholic system of state churches remained in force, the parish was, one might say, the ecclesiastical Commune: the parish priest acted also as a ‘public official,’ and as such he was charged with those tasks which define personal status: performing the communal rites for births, marriages and deaths, distinguishing celibates and widows from married couples. Since the second half of the 16th century he also registered his parishioners’ civil status in written parish registers.”

Baptism was important as a mark of citizenship in this second sense: “Baptism was first and foremost among the sacraments defining, symbiotically, religious together with civil membership: on the one hand it defined compulsory religious affiliation to the only true Church and the only true Catholic faith; on the other hand it determined membership of all individuals, or of the faithful, to that lower, basic level of civil rights or ‘civil’ citizenship which included all men, rich and poor, women, infants, serfs and slaves, excluded from active or political citizenship.”

This baptismal citizenship was universal: “Baptismal citizenship was not limited – like political citizenship – only to adult males endowed with property or of noble birth: nor was it limited to all those adult men and women who enjoyed juridical and economic rights, such as owning property, bringing litigation through the courts or disposing of heritages and dowries by written act; it also included all those human beings that did not possess the perquisites to
be admitted to political, juridical and economic rights, such as women and minors, serfs and slaves.”

Baptism was thus a solvent of earlier legal structures and social formations: “Being compulsory at birth, it was conferred on the basis of the territorial subdivisions of the ‘universal’ Catholic Church: its introduction since the end of the 4th Century A.D., and during the later Roman Empire (whose territorial organization into provinces and dioceses it assimilated) was extremely successful as a means to impose territorial belonging – through the so-called ius soli; it was able to work, throughout the High Middle Ages, in such a way as to overcome, on a common, expanding territorial basis, all minor ethnical distinctions, and to include all minor affiliations to the different tribes or ethnical groups who had entered Europe: in a word, it was the means to overcome the more limited and distinctive way of affiliation through the so-called ius sanguinis , and to unify different ethnic groups under a common system of religious affiliation, based not on the parents’ identity but on the place of birth.” Baptism replaced blood as the basis for citizenship.