Analysis
The Groom Arrested in Jerusalem: Two Registers for One Marriage, Bethlehem 1779
By L'équipe Levantine Lives ·
On 5 September 1779, two fathers came to the parish priest’s room at Bethlehem to settle their children’s engagement:
È venuto in Stanza mia Salame Capo del Jardi[no ?] e Chalil Meti Salame; il primo domandò la figlia del secondo chiamata Catterina Gazale per isposa al suo figliolo Michele.
Salame, head of the garden [?], and Chalil Meti Salame came to my room; the former asked for the latter’s daughter, called Catterina Gazale, as a wife for his son Michele.
The priest records the dowry, one hundred piastres and a handkerchief, then the reading of the banns on 6, 12 and 19 September:
Ed ha consegnato al Padre della sud.a 100 piastre col fazzoletto
And he handed to the father of the said [daughter] 100 piastres with the handkerchief.
The marriage was to follow shortly. It did not take place on the planned date. On the same folio, right after the engagement entry, the priest records what happened in between:
Il sud. Michele doveva Sposarsi il giorno 19. di 7bre sud.o e [li ?] tre giorni prima, per essere andato in Gerusalemme a postulare d'invitare alcuni cittadini al di lui Sposalizio, fù incontrato dai Soldati del Comandante, e preso prigione per cagion che li Betlemitani salvavano in paese li figlioli del Bostangi soggetti monetatorj falsi contro il divieto del Bascià; e perchè il sud.o non aveva colpa alcuna, fu col danaro del comune liberato, sborsato a conto dei due Conventi Greci ed Armeni.
The said Michele was to marry on 19 September aforesaid; three days before, having gone to Jerusalem to ask to invite some townspeople to his wedding, he was met by the Commandant’s soldiers and taken prisoner, on the grounds that the people of Bethlehem were sheltering in the town the sons of the Bostangi, who were counterfeiters, against the Pasha’s ban; and since the said man was not at fault, he was freed with money from the community, paid out on the account of the two Greek and Armenian convents.
It is the priest who writes that Michele was "not at fault": this is not a court’s verdict, it is what his own parish priest states of him. The charge held against him, and against the whole village, was not even his own: the sons of the Bostangi, accused of forging coin, had found refuge in Bethlehem against the Pasha’s ban, and it is this collective affair that falls on a man who had gone to invite guests to his own wedding. The sum that frees him does not come from his family: it is the community’s money, paid out on the account of the town’s two convents, Greek and Armenian, for a Latin parishioner.
The marriage, delayed by four weeks, finally takes place on 16 October. The proof is not in the same register as the account: it lies elsewhere, in the Liber Conjugatorum, a different volume of the same parish.
Anno qui supra die 16. 8brij tribus denunciationibus praemissis … interrogavi Michaelem filium Salame et Catharinam filiam Matth. Chalil Salame … in matrimonio conjunxi juxta Ritum S. R. E.
In the year aforesaid, on 16 October, three publications of banns having preceded (...), I questioned Michael son of Salame and Catherine daughter of Matthew Chalil Salame (...) and joined them in marriage according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church.
ميخائيل ابن سلامه مع كتورا بنت خليل
Mikhail son of Salame, with Katura daughter of Khalil.
The same priest who wrote the 5 September engagement entry came back to it himself, beneath that very entry, to add a dated line: "A di 16. 8b̃re Sposati" ("On 16 October, married"). The marriage register, kept apart and signed by another priest, records the same day and the same names. Two different registers, two hands writing in two different places, and a single, matching date.
Cited sources
- BSC-SPO-1779-i415-02
- BSC-SPO-1779-i415-03
- BSC-MAR-1779-i258-7
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "The Groom Arrested in Jerusalem: Two Registers for One Marriage, Bethlehem 1779," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/marie-arrete-bethleem-1779/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
Cite this record.
Reference (Chicago style).
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "The Groom Arrested in Jerusalem: Two Registers for One Marriage, Bethlehem 1779," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/marie-arrete-bethleem-1779/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
See the BibTeX and RIS formats
@misc{levantine_marie_arrete_bethleem_1779,
title = {The Groom Arrested in Jerusalem: Two Registers for One Marriage, Bethlehem 1779},
author = {{Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/marie-arrete-bethleem-1779/},
note = {Snapshot 2026-08-30, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b, id marie-arrete-bethleem-1779},
urldate = {2026-08-30}
}TY - DATA TI - The Groom Arrested in Jerusalem: Two Registers for One Marriage, Bethlehem 1779 AU - Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project DA - 2026/08/30 PY - 2026 UR - https://levantinelives.org/en/carnets/marie-arrete-bethleem-1779/ ID - marie-arrete-bethleem-1779 N1 - Snapshot 2026-08-30, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b Y2 - 2026-08-30 ER -