Abstract

The contribution starts out from the observation that during the Middle Ages the most significant moments in the lives of the faithful, birth, marriage and death, solemnized by the celebration of the sacraments, led to an abundant production of writings and forms of registration. The Church gradually established the practice of compiling registries for the baptized, the wedded and the deceased (in its session of November 11, 1563, the Council of Trent ordered registries to be kept for baptisms and marriages while the registering of deaths was made mandatory in 1614). Over the past few decades the study of these sources has resulted in an extensive historiography, which is briefly presented in this essay, although it does not consider the topic of marriage registrations. “Writings concerning the deceasedµ are mainly represented by wills, which for the past fifty years have been the subject of special attention.