Abstract
The article deals with the parish archives of the Catholic Church in the canton of Fribourg, which are currently being catalogued in their entirety. Even though nowadays such archives are often equated with private archives, they are nevertheless important as public archives (especially the older ones) if one considers the context in which they were created. Before 1876, for example, parish registers (baptisms, marriages, deaths) were regarded as civil registers and very often represented the only traces of individuals’ lives.
After a historical introduction to the parish as a creator of records throughout the centuries (structural developments, separation of parish and political community in modern times), the article presents the cataloguing of parish archives in the canton of Fribourg. It examines the cataloguing up to now, the initial results of the 2023-2028 project, the method used and the limits of post-processing. The article also deals with the processing phase of parish archives including the existing legal foundations and guidelines, the traditional stages of the archival life cycle (transfer, description, appraisal, processing and archival packaging), and the active participation of parish archives in this process. The article ends with a discussion of certain grey areas that may open new perspectives for the project: audiovisual archives, clergy and parish libraries as well as the issue of digital archiving in parishes.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Sébastien Demichel