Hi Audrey No a child can be baptised by anyone, and midwives were licenced by the church for this very reason. So the fact that no name is given indicates that the child was never baptised, even by a midwife. Polly ----- Original Message ----- From: "A Lee" <alee231@btinternet.com> To: "Barbara Youds" <barbara.youds@ntlworld.com>; <eve@varneys.org.uk>; "OLD-ENGLISH@rootsweb. com" <OLD-ENGLISH@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 9:36 PM Subject: Re: [OEL] re Nunc child Could these babies have been born very sickly and baptized by the midwife? This would mean that the midwife was "unqualified" to perform baptisisms as such but had, nevertheless, performed a baptism of sorts. I believe that it was the practice of midwives to do this where a child was born on the point of death. This could cover the nuncupative meaning. Audrey ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barbara Youds" <barbara.youds@ntlworld.com> To: <eve@varneys.org.uk>; "OLD-ENGLISH@rootsweb. com" <OLD-ENGLISH@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 1:51 PM Subject: Re: [OEL] re Nunc child > Well spotted Eve! I have that booklet, and also others of more recent > origin. It seems the jury is still out on the exact cause and while I am > not > enough of an expert to suggest that I might lay the debate to rest I am > hoping to gain some insight from this particular PR, which as you have > also > guessed is in Lancashire, Ashton under Lyne to be precise. > > As far as nunc: child goes I do think, as I work through the register and > find more examples, that these are unbaptised children and not necessarily > illegitimate - I have just found a nunc: child and a wife of an individual > buried in one coffin. This is the entry for the incumbent, Henry Fairfax, > in > VCH: > He was a younger son of Sir Thomas Lord Fairfax, and was fellow of Trinity > College, Cambridge; inherited Oglethorpe, near Tadcaster, where he > died..... > His eldest son Henry, born at Ashton, became the fourth Lord Fairfax; a > younger son, Brian, was an author. > > So perhaps not the half educated curate I imagined at first. > > Thank you to everyone for this - you have all helped confirm my idea of > what > these children were, even if there are still puzzling aspects to his use > of > the word. I will be sure to acknowledge you all!(Though, if my tutors are > familiar with the term I could write almost anything I wished I think :-) > > Barbara Y > > -----Original Message----- > From: eve@varneys.org.uk [mailto:eve@varneys.org.uk] > Sent: 30 December 2008 13:06 > To: Barbara Youds > Subject: Re: [OEL] re Nunc child > > > The reason I would like to know is that I am looking at a mortality >> crisis and the term abortive is given for many burials indicating >> possibly the effects of a famine and I need to be able to assign these >> nunc entries to a particular category of burial in order to come up >> with a set of stats to manipulate. > > Is this the mortality crisis of 1623, which Dr Colin Rogers studied as > affecting a large number of Lancs parishes - way back in 1979 or so? > He did publish a paper on it - but I dare say you are familiar with this. > I recall he concluded it was famine related, since mothers are babies > were malnourished and so died. > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.1/1868 - Release Date: > 29/12/2008 > 10:48 > > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.1/1868 - Release Date: > 29/12/2008 > 10:48 > > > > ==================================== > WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ > ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.1/1869 - Release Date: 30/12/2008 12:06 ==================================== WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hello Polly, Audrey and list, before I write another word let me say that what follows relates, from the reformation onwards, entirely to the C of E. Other churches had their own way of doing things. The matter of baptism by midwives - or indeed by lay people generally- has had a chequered history over the centuries. The early church appears to have regarded lay baptism as irregular and to be avoided except in cases of extreme urgency. Later, in medieval England, and according to the "Prayer Book Dictionary", lay baptisms were frequent. This continued through to the first two Edwardian Prayer Books of the Reformed Church which set out a simple form of private baptism but also warned that "without great cause and necessity they baptise not children at home in their houses" In the reign of Queen Elizabeth there is evidence that midwives received written permission from the Bishops to perform the rite in an emergency. However, in perhaps one of the very few matters in which James I, the Church and the Puritans seem to have been in agreement, "the irregularity of lay baptism was so strongly and widely felt" that in 1604 the rubrics of the Prayer Book were altered so as to make no mention of baptism by any other than a " lawful minister" and in 1662 they were still further revised in the same direction. Charles Wheatly's "A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer" published in !720 and then at frequent intervals at least until 1848 is a series of notes to all the services advising clergy and commenting on questions that may arise in connection with the 1662 Prayer Book. In it he states that "...... it was determined that in the absence of the Minister of the Parish "any other lawful Minister is to be called in that can be procured". Briefly the argument ran that "where God gives no opportunty of having baptism administered by a person duly commissioned it seems much better to leave it undone"..This same 1662 Prayer Book sets out the form of baptism for the Minister to use in these circumstances and Wheatly notes that a child baptised in the manner prescribed is "lawfully and sufficiently baptised". If the child so baptised lives then Wheatly states that it is expedient that he or she be brought into the church so that the congregation "may be certified of the true form of baptism .......privately before used". If the baptism was by any other lawful MInister than the priest of the parish where the child was born then the parish priest is "to examine and try" those who were present at the baptism as to "whether the child be lawfully baptised or no"., which meant, in brief, by whom and how? If the answers show that "all things were done as they ought to be then he is not to christen the child again but to receive him as one of the flock of true christian people" There is then a form of service for this reception into the congregation. It is interesting to note that the first words in the 1662 service of * public* baptism are "Hath this child been already baptised or no?" Only if the answer is "no" does the baptismal service proceed. In the 19th c the matter arose again in both public discussion and in the courts, but that is another story for another day ! And in that this message relates more to later postings than to the original question I apologise !! Jim Halsey On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 6:14 AM, Polly Rubery <polly@rowberry.org> wrote: > No a child can be baptised by anyone, and midwives were licenced by the > church for this very reason. > So the fact that no name is given indicates that the child was never > baptised, even by a midwife. > Polly > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >