Googling for details of the churching ("purification" - yes, really!) of women after childbirth*** I came across a report that in 17th-Century England - or maybe Britain - midwives had "quasi-clerical" authority to baptize newly born babies if they seemed about to die. Would such baptisms have been recorded in the Parish Registers? And, if the babies lived would they have been obliged to be baptized again in church? If there was no such obligation, and no other recording, that might explain why some baptisms are missing. Am I on the right track here? *** When was churching abolished in the civilised world, by the way? I seem to recall reading that the Orthodox Churches still observe the practice: could that be correct? Seems a bit primitive, in these days of (Western) respect for women. Gordon Barlow

Baptism does not have to be done by a priest or deacon. Anyone can do it in an emergency. The situation you describe was thought to be an emergency because unbaptized babies were bound to end up in hell! Baptism also can only be done once so if the baby survived and there is a second baptism in church the priest has to say some thing like N, if you are not already baptized I baptize you ...... I have seen register entries for babies baptized privately (ie at home) and then baptized in church: but in the end it will depend on whether the midwife told the vicar - and then on whether he remembered to enter it in the register. It seems that clergy often kept rough notes and then wrote then up in batches. Christopher Richards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Barlow" <barlow@candw.ky> To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:59 AM Subject: [OEL] baptisms by midwives > Googling for details of the churching ("purification" - yes, really!) of women after childbirth*** I came across a report that in 17th-Century England - or maybe Britain - midwives had "quasi-clerical" authority to baptize newly born babies if they seemed about to die. Would such baptisms have been recorded in the Parish Registers? And, if the babies lived would they have been obliged to be baptized again in church? If there was no such obligation, and no other recording, that might explain why some baptisms are missing. Am I on the right track here? > > *** When was churching abolished in the civilised world, by the way? I seem to recall reading that the Orthodox Churches still observe the practice: could that be correct? Seems a bit primitive, in these days of (Western) respect for women. > > Gordon Barlow > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > OLD-ENGLISH Web Page > http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ > > >