Familianten

Familianten was the German term commonly used for the laws and the related record books which regulated the number of Jewish families in the Czech lands in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1726, by order of the Habsburg ruler Charles VI, the number of Jewish families was limited by quota to 8,541 in Bohemia and 5,106 in Moravia. To enforce this quota (or "numerus clausus"), a so-called "Familianten" order was issued. According to this order, only the first-born son of each Jewish family was given permission to marry (called a "copulatio consensus"). The permits could also be sold if there were no son to inherit them. The Familianten order was in force until 1848. As a result, many Jews who could not obtain marriage permits emigrated from Bohemia and Moravia. For example, by 1900 almost half of the Jews in Hungary were of Bohemian or Moravian extraction.

One other result of the Familianten laws was that the government maintained very precise records of which families lived in which towns. The list of Familianten were collected in the Book of Jewish Familianten (also called "Mannschaftsbücher" in Moravia). Records were collected in 1799 and in 1811 and updated until about 1830. Each record comprised the name of county, registration number of the family in the whole land (based on "copulatio consensus"), the registration number of the family in the county (set up in 1725), name of the father, his wife, his sons and a few other family details.

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