Suchergebnisse

The recognition of the local collectivities and the essential role of democratic
society require the clear definition of the term "local collectivity", which would allow the
avoiding of ambiguities in its usage.
The defining element of the local territorial collectivities is the population, which
includes all inhabitants permanently living in the territorial perimeter of the local
collectivity.
There are identified criteria that allow the establishment of the individuals' belonging
to a specific local collectivity. This is very important because the individual's ability to be
part of a particular local collectivity gives him the opportunity to take part in local selfgovernment.
I insisted on the recognition of the local population as a subject of the local autonomy,
and not of the local public authorities elected by the population who are representatives of
the local territorial collectivities, while also examining the causes of the population's nonparticipation
in local public life.

The study "Population and habitat on the feudal domain Şiria at the beginning of the XVIth century" is based on a statistical document developed in 1525. We have many and very important information on the people's one of the largest feudal domain in Transylvania in the middle Ages. The 8152 inhabitants, where nearly 90% for them is represented by serfs, live in 121 villages scattered over an area large enough in the old county of Zarand. The predominantly landform is mountain. The majority of the 121 villages, 76% more accurate, have up to 80`s inhabitants, so they are relative small villages. Yet some localities are also somewhat larger – market towns - which have between 184 and 460 inhabitants. Finally, we can see that the old type of habitat is preserved up to the present day with few changes and 70 villages from them exist in our days on the territory of the counties Arad and Hunedoara.

A marriage amongst youth belonging to the Greek-Catholic and Orthodox confessions was considered almost normal in certain communities. This can be explained by the fact that few parishioners could grasp the differences between the two confessions. At the same time, we have the ethnical aspect. Ethnie could not be separated in this case from confession, as both Greek-Catholics and Orthodox in the area are mostly of Romanian ethnie. These elements should be considered especially since we considered a mainly rural area, where customs "laws" are superposed over the official ones. On the other hand, in the mixed Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic communities, inter-confessional marriages are easier accepted on the "official" level.
An important constraint, or, on the contrary, a strong determination against a mixed inter-confessional family came from the families. As mentioned before, a strong pressure against achieving a mixed marriage came from the church. Both parishes to which the youngsters belonged had to be consulted. In order to have a religious marriage, they needed an engagement exemption from the archpriest (they came weeks, even months late, there were situations when the marriages were not accepted, so there would be no exemption). They had to pay a large amount for the exemption, so that many youngsters could not afford to pay for it; this was often solved by clandestine "wild" marriage. However, both the State and the Church wished to stop this phenomenon, so they took steps in this area.

The study aims to carry out an analysis from demographic perspective for the city of Arad during the years 1767-1768. It is based on two documents that contain mainly statistical data with which it is possible to emphasize aspects related to some demographical behaviour in Arad. Information about the deceased, newborns and marriages registered, about the share of different ethnicities and confessions help us to outline the image of Arad, in which, during the XVIIIth century has been seen a clear process of modernization and demographic growth.

This study proposed, first, to carry out, based on archive documents, an incursion as regards matrimonial relationships of XVIIIth century with all legal, economic and social connotations involved. The marriage contracts studied fall into a typology more closely of what was happening in the same period in Western Europe than in South Eastern Europe. This is because such acts have emerged within the former county of Arad in the first half of the century after the establishment of Habsburg domination and after the German colonists were brought into the area.
Besides the juridical problems regarding the contractual liabilities of the spouses, the status of the children, some problems related to wealth and dowry, I tried to mark out some aspects regarding the everyday life of Arad's inhabitants in the XVIIIth century.