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The generalization of the registration of baptism and marriage in the Catholic countries is shown to be the result of a process in which France used the authority of the Council of Trent to impose on the whole Church a system of public registration it had started to implement through temporal law at home in 1539, so that the clerics in charge of the registration be subject to canonical penalties if they failed to comply. The registration of baptism and marriage was integrated into the Decree on the Reformation of Marriage that France maneuvered to impose on the Church to curb clandestine marriages which had dire effects on estate planning in France, given the peculiarities of its inheritance and matrimonial law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the examination of a set of baptismal records from Aveiro, a coastal town between Lisbon and Porto in northern Portugal, this study explores the ways in which women were identified in relation to their families and community, and in relation to their economic occupations. The findings show that of the approximate 2,600 names of parents and godparents who were noted in the parish registers in the years between 1624 and 1638, the vast majority of them were not provided with a work label. Yet, the inconsistent manner in which women and men were identified suggests that what the church scribe deemed worthy of note did not necessarily reflect the views of the broader community. Although officialdom generally relegated women to their marital or family links, it was possible for a woman to acquire an occupational status of her own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]