Nozze a sorpresa nella Milano teresiana (1768-1775). Conflitti famigliari e conciliazione ecclesiastica

This essay focuses on the phenomenon of clandestine marriages, long widespread in early modern Italy, although the Council of Trent had deprecated them, while still maintaining the free consent of the spouses as a substantial element for the validity of marriage. Some unpublished ecclesiastical trials held in the diocese of Milan in the second half of the 18th century against young people who had married without parents’ consent provide the historian with a valuable opportunity to verify the functioning of ecclesiastical justice and its interaction with the justice of the sovereign; and to observe live the clash between persistent mentalities and new sensibilities in the society of that time, in families, and in affective relationships.