CHR and BAP

[jespa]

Does any one know the difference between the two? These are examples of what the register contains. The birth date is obvious and the registration is The Stamp Duties Act of 1783 to raise monies to pay for the American War of Independence. I have no idea why there is a christening and a baptism.
|help|

17 Feb 1799 Sarah, d. of James and Sarah D***s chr. born 30 Dec 1798 , bap. 14 Jan 1799 , reg. 17 Feb 1799.
30 Dec 1799 Elizabeth, d. of James and Mary C****D chr. born and bap

[Jan1954]

The Cambridge online dictionary defines the two thus:

Christening:
a Christian ceremony at which a baby is given a name and made a member of the Christian Church

Baptism:
a Christian ceremony in which a person has water poured on their head, or is covered briefly in water, in order to show that they have become a member of the Christian Church

However, just to add to the confusion, my great grandmother, who was born in May 1855, was christened in the Parish Church in December of that year. This was recorded on the parish church's baptismal records. Then, in 1876, she was baptised as a member of the Baptist Church. :confused:

[jespa]

Yeah I'm baptist and I have been 'dedicated' but not baptised. Thanks I think It helps.

[Peter Goodey]

Oxford English Dictionary: "Christening": The action or ceremony of baptizing, baptism.

In other words, there is no distinction between the two terms (I assume the examples are from the Church of England)

See this message for a longer discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.genealogy.britain/browse_frm/thread/66301b28832e90be/66e0bee282f98c88?hl=en&lnk=st&q=#66e0bee282f98c88

I'm not convinced that the examples do demonstrate a distinction - I would really want to see the original.

[Jan1954]

Peter, I agree with you entirely.

In the Church of England, the two terms seem to be interchangeable.

In the example of my great grandmother, she was born into a family who belonged to the CofE. All of the children were baptised/christened in the parish church. They were all married there as well - including her.

It was only after she had been married for a couple of years (and had a son christened/baptised at the parish church) that she and my great grandfather "converted" to being Baptists. All subsequent children were only baptised in the Baptist chapel - usually when they were teenagers.

[jespa]

Peter, the register is from 1658 but this is from volume 6 1799-1812. All that I can say is up until 1800 some are chr. born, bap., and reg. Some just chr and some just Bap.
I feel that Jan1954 is right and it is something to do with wetting the babies head.
Thank-you both for your help.

[Peter Goodey]

The Church of England
The Baptism Service
Frequently asked questions

Q. What's the difference between a baptism and a christening?

A. None, they are just different words for the same thing.


http://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/baptismconfirm/baptism1.html#difference

[Ken Boyce]

Peter is correct the two are interchangable but Baptism is the more formal name for the act

See http://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/baptismconfirm/sectionb.html

and also insert Christening in their engine

I remember growing up hearing such phrases " I baptise thee in the name of the father ........" never "I christen thee .....)

The few non-transcripted registers I have on CD refer to Register of Baptism xxxx to yyyy The transcribed ones interchange the words and do not carry the original pages so its anyones guess how the transcriber used them

Regards

[Ken Boyce]

I see Peter types faster than I

Here is an interesting ref to the King James Book of Common Prayer

http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/bcp/bcp.htm

[Ken Boyce]

The original posting stated the examples came from a 'register of Stamp Duty"

This piqued my interest and I found this ref

Under the provisions of this act, all baptism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism), marriage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage) and burial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial) entries in each parish register (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_register) were subject to a tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax) of 3d (old pence). Church ministers were empowered to collect the duty, and were allowed to keep 10% of this fee as compensation for their trouble. Refusal to pay carried a fine of five pounds.
This was a deeply unpopular tax, and many clergymen were sympathetic to the plight of their parishioners, and as paupers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauper) were exempt from this tax, it is not uncommon for family history researchers and genealogists to find that the number of supposed poor people within a parish has increased many times above normal during these years until the act was finally repealed in 1794. Such entries in a parish register are annotated with either the letter "P." or "Pauper". If a family could not claim exemption then it was not unusual for them simply not to bother, and this would result in a number of adult "late" baptisms during the following decades

Possibly the register viewed by Jespa was a record possibly (a transcript) of stamp duty transactions not a Parish Register in the normal sense or the incumbent was not following the rules for keeping BMD records

[Peter Goodey]

Ken
It's probably worth mentioning another anomaly in that this Act was repealed in 1794 yet the examples shown are for 1799.

I would guess that for this sort of period the register would be a combined baptism and burial book.

Perhaps Jespa would confirm what the register is and what parish it relates to and then perhaps someone else may be in a position to cast a fresh eye over it.

[Guy Etchells]

This is exactly why I keep bleating on about “experts” in family history simply repeating like sheep myths perpetuated by books and other experienced family historians who should know better.
The problem is one so called expert will give their opinion and then this is written in a book and copied ad nausea until it is taken to be the truth.

The correct answer is there is a difference between christening and baptism, the confusion occurs because both ceremonies are usually performed at the one time.

Christening is the naming of a person
Baptism is the admission into the church

It is very easily shown by use of parish registers

Bottesford register
Sarah, daughter of William Ravell(by Hannah his Wife) born Septr. 18th, baptized 7th Octr. 1797 at Long Bennington, and Christened at Bottesford April 12th. 1798

One can see from the dates of the above this was not a private baptism in case the infant died (it actually occurred in Long Bennington church, St. Swithin).

The following entries are the more common

Zebedee, son of William & Elizabeth Hallam, born April 4th, baptized and christened April 29th

Elizabeth Daughter of WM. And Frances Pyket (of Easthorpe) born June 25th, baptised and christened July 15th

I could show hundreds of other examples from parish registers from various different counties in England.
Cheers
Guy

[Peter Goodey]

The correct answer is there is a difference between christening and baptism

Can you please provide a reference to these two ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer?

Here are a few references:

Oxford English Dictionary: Christening: The action or ceremony of baptizing, baptism.

Example: "1712 Act 10 Anne in Lond. Gaz. No. 4981/3 The Register-Books for Christnings belonging to the respective Parishes"

I don't own a copy and don't have a reference to hand but I recall that David Cressy's book "Birth, marriage, and death: ritual, religion, and the life-cycle in Tudor and Stuart England" offers no support for baptism and christening being separate things.

From the Catechism (1662 version)

Catechist What is your Name?
Answer N. or M.
Question Who gave you this Name?
Answer My Godfathers and Godmothers in my Baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

[Guy Etchells]

But Peter the Book of Common Prayer is a guide book not a book of rules it is like the difference between an Act of Parliament which sets the law regulating road users (i.e. The Road Traffic Act 1988) and the Highway Code.
The Highway Code is simply a dumbed down guide for the proletariat.

What seems to be forgotten in “modern times” is that in the past no one was baptised as an infant, one was always baptised as an adult.
As the popularity of infant baptism grew so did the incident of naming and baptising at the same time.

The early form of Christening was more like the present service of thanksgiving for the gift of a child.
Cheers
Guy

[jespa]

Gosh, I thought this was going to be an easy question for some one to answer. Little did I know.
It is from the register for Births and Christenings. Those that were only ever christened appeared to have died before being baptised.
I have since found (but now can not re-find) an article that referred to the Christening ceremony of an infant and said something like, ‘be it given a name in the way of Christ.’ For baptism it referred to ‘ablutions or immersion’.

Now I have totally confused my-self and I need a headache pill. I will have to concede that there is a difference but I will never know what and those who did know, are long since dead.
Thank-you all for your help and links.|cheers|

I have just seen your reply Guy. Thank-You I am with you, I love you (just don't tell my husband)

[arthurk]

But Peter the Book of Common Prayer is a guide book not a book of rules .....

What seems to be forgotten in “modern times” is that in the past no one was baptised as an infant, one was always baptised as an adult.
As the popularity of infant baptism grew so did the incident of naming and baptising at the same time.

The early form of Christening was more like the present service of thanksgiving for the gift of a child.
Cheers
Guy

I'm afraid I'll have to ask you for sources for these rather rash assertions, Guy. The BCP arose in a period of intense religious turmoil as the foundation document of the C of E, and as such it was intended to bear witness to the faith of that church. There was no place for dumbing down - nor, as Peter has implied, is there any definition of a difference between baptism and christening.

"In the past no one was baptised as an infant" - yes, if you go back long before the C of E was established, but infant baptism had become the norm by the 16th century, and was continued by the C of E.

I agree that there is some sloppiness and confusion when it comes to parish registers. Some seem to use baptism and christening as interchangeable terms - when there is a change of minister (or clerk) you sometimes find the page headings change from one to the other. Or the page might be headed "Christenings" and each entry says "Baptised".

There are others, as you say, where the entries say "baptised and christened", which implies that those ministers were making some kind of distinction. However, I have not come across any contemporary references which make clear exactly what they meant, and it may be only modern supposition which equates christening with the modern thanksgiving service.

Theologically, baptism has only ever meant the wetting of a person by dipping, sprinkling or immersion; christening was sometimes used to mean the same, and sometimes not. And to add to the confusion, in modern times some non-Anglicans and/or FH programs seem to reserve christening for infant baptism in order to distinguish it from adult baptism.

Arthur

[Ken Boyce]

Guy put up a convincing point of view that caused me to do more homework
The sacraments and ceremonies of the C of E (and RC) are, as I’ve always believed, carried out according to Cannon Law As far as I could determine from browsing the net whilst much is documented regarding Cannon Law for baptisms and marriages for RC and C of E I did not come across a single reference relating Cannon Law to christenings.
I then somehow moved on to the topic of church dominance over the population and found much relating to church control over BMBs and their revenues. The gist of my understanding of baptisms v christenings is now briefly as follows
In the 18C the C of E was attempting to maintain its dominance over the population and the revenue this generated in baptisms, marriages and burial fees. Cannon Law and the Common Book of Prayer specifically required Baptisms and Marriages (Burials? I lost my references) to take place inside Churches and was backed up by Civil Law, at least for marriages. However around the time of the American Revolution more and more people were ignoring the church edicts hence the proliferation of child naming parties (Christenings) and clandestine marriages particularly in the Colonies to the point where the Civil Government saw fit to start collecting revenues from these activities
Subsequently between c1785 and c1850 Clandestine Marriages were made illegal, the church lost control over the marriage and burial process and it seems that baby naming ceremonies (christenings) became a reality but not a sacrament
Interesting to note that during this exercise I discovered that according to C of E Cannon Law I was not qualified to be a Godfather to my 1962 Godchild I hope that she can sort that out with St Peter when attempting to enter the Pearly Gates!

[Guy Etchells]

Basic history. ;)


The Book of Common Prayer came into being in 1549 as the King Edw. VI.’s first Service Book published by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, it was to be revised with an edition in 1552 but this was never published.
A further edition was cobbled together in 1559 then a further edition in 1662 (the one used today).
It could be argued that his Book of Homilies (1547) was a more accurate account of biblical worship than the Book of Common Prayer.

In essence the Book of Common Prayer was a watering down of Catholic doctrines to apply to the Church of England due to the reformation.
It was part of the move away from the Mass being celebrated by the priest alone and the expediency of using it as Cranmer states “such speech as the people may understand”.
It was also in part a way of quelling the rebellion against the changes in worship caused by the break from the Catholic Church.
It was as much political expedience as doctrine.
Cheers
Guy

[Peter Goodey]

The situation seems to be that...


The Oxford English Dictionary
The Book of Common Prayer
The Catechism
Cressy's "Birth, marriage, and death..."
The Official Website of the Church of England
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church


...all indicate that "christening" and "baptism" mean precisely the same thing.

It's also interesting that those bilingual dictionaries that I can lay my hands on translate "christening" and "baptism" in exactly the same way.

Incidentally, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church also notes that infant baptism dates from at least the 3rd century. It was not until the 16th or 17th centuries that dissenters started to reject the practice. It most certainly does not support the claim that "in the past no one was baptised as an infant".

The Book of Common Prayer is the prescribed liturgy of the Church of England. Opposition to this was one of the issues uniting the forces of Parliament in the Civil War.

[Guy Etchells]

Which brings us back to my original point that “experts” and compilers of books often simply copy other books in the field. As was the case in the compilation of the Book of Common Prayer.

What source was used for the OED very likely the Book of Common Prayer(BoCP), Cressy certainly used the BoCP as he refers to it on page 175.
The Catechism comes from the same source as the BoCP and the Concise OED the same as the OED.

I do not know where the Official Website of the Church of England got its information but a pound to a penny says the BoCP. ;)

Cheers
Guy

[arthurk]

I did a bit more research in the BCP, and did actually find two references to "christening", both in the order for the Private Baptism of Children. (I originally thought there weren't any.) If a child has been privately baptised by someone else, "then the Minister of the Parish, where the Child was born or christened, shall examine and try whether the Child be lawfully baptized, or no."

There follow 4 questions aimed at establishing if the child was properly baptised (with the word "baptized" used explicitly in each case), then the following rubric: "And if the Minister shall find by the answers of such as bring the Child, that all things were done as they ought to be; then shall not he christen the Child again, but shall receive him as one of the flock of true christian people, saying thus..."

This seems to make clear that officially at least, the C of E regards "baptism" and "christening" to be exactly the same, and distinct from "receiving" or "welcoming". In some registers, as Guy pointed out, the ministers do seem to imply a difference between baptism and christening, but unfortunately they don't seem to have told us what that is - and it wouldn't be official church teaching anyway.

Arthur

(In case anyone is wondering, I prefer the spelling "baptise", but I have quoted from the BCP as printed, where "baptize" is used.)

[jespa]

I have found an entry for a Christening for Feb 6th 1799 and it is noted that the child’s Baptism is to be found in the previous years register on December 29th 1798. As this practice of Baptism and Christening seems not to be isolated to Shropshire, (re: Guy Etchells reply), I feel that it is wrong to state that it would not have been official church teaching because we simply can not be sure of that. To that end I have contacted the Church for clarification and if I receive a reply I will post and let you know.

[arthurk]

The problem here is not in knowing what the Church of England's official teaching was: I and others have quoted from the Book of Common Prayer (which was in use in 1799) and elsewhere to demonstrate that officially there is no difference between christening and baptism. The problem is trying to work out what ministers meant when they recorded baptisms and christenings as if they were different ceremonies. (In one register I've seen, individual entries were noted as "Named", "Christened", or both; later entries showed a distinction between those who had apparently been "fully baptised" and those who had not - whatever that meant.)

According to the church's official teaching, all of this was irregular, and while someone in the C of E HQ might be able to explain it, what you really need is some contemporary reference to these practices, perhaps in literature or someone's diaries, which will explain what these people thought they were doing.

Arthur

[Guy Etchells]

One can trace the separation of baptisms and naming (christenings) all the way back to the times of Judaism (Jews and the Old Testament). When the naming was celebrated at the time of circumcision (brit milah) rather than the time of baptism.
Cheers
Guy

[arthurk]

That may be true, Guy (although baptism was never a core Jewish ceremony, and didn't have the initiatory aspect it has in the Christian church - cf John the Baptist), but it doesn't actually help a lot.

The picture that seems to be emerging is that what some clergy appeared to be conducting and/or recording was not consistent with the official C of E doctrine and practice. That wouldn't be the first or last time this has happened, but we still don't know exactly what was going on.

Incidentally, in the example I quoted (from Swineshead, LIN) the minister was not equating "naming" with "christening"; some children were recorded as named, and others as named and christened. It's clear from other entries that he used the terms christening and baptism interchangeably, so the naming he refers to must have been something different.

We could go on for ever speculating about what was meant by "naming" (or in some cases, "christening" where a baptism was recorded as well). Maybe there was some conscious harking back to a Jewish precedent, but as I have already said, if we really want to know what these irregular practices were, we need to know what people of the time were saying about them.

Arthur

[Ken Boyce]

On the question of the form of baptism in the C of E references to baptisms in Tudor and Stuart times (there are some in Google Books) indicate that the English Church was having great difficulty at that time in deciding the role and practise of Baptism in the English Church
Also in early Georgian times (c1725) people, especially in the colonies, were beginning to object to the inconvenience caused by the church edict that Baptisms and Marriages had to take place in (side) a church by an ordained C of E cleric hence the proliferation of naming parties and clandestine marriages. Prior to 1754 a clandestine or irregular marriage was a marriage not performed by the established Church and according to church edicts (Banns or License) Clandestine marriages were legal under civil law until the Marriage Act of 1753
I wuold think that edicts of the C of E would be governed by the Cannon Law of the church in force at any given time not by the BCP at least until the Ecclesiastical Courts lost their legal powers. I have not come across any reference to Christenings in literature dealing with Cannon Law
Sure is strange that such an important event in people lives down the centuries appears to be so befuddled
Regards

[Ken Boyce]

Re Strange Entries in Registers
One more kick at the can
I think the strange entries referred to in this thread may be explained by the 1771 ed of the BCP posted by me earlier and stem from the fact that the church edict was that all baptisms had to normally take place physically in (side) the parish church and by the Parish Minister
http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/bcp/bcp.htm (http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/bcp/bcp.htm)
Go to the pages displaying the links to the images for the public and private baptisms of children
Bottom of page 260 “….and let them not doubt but that the child so baptized is lawfully and sufficiently baptized and ought not to be baptized again. Yet nevertheless should the child which after this sort baptized do afterwards live it is expedient that it be brought into the church to the intent that if the minister of the same parish did himself baptize that child the congregation may be certified of the true form of baptism privately before him used………
……but if the child was baptized by any other lawful minister ……..shall find that all things were done as they ought to be then shall not christen the child again
I leave you to draw your own interpretations of these and how they fit with the various register entries
Of particular interest is the meaning of the ref “shall not christen”
Regards