Boulton Jeremy, Davenport Romola
Local Popul Stud. 2015 Spring(94):28-47.
The evident lengthening of the interval between birth and baptism over the eighteenth century has often been assumed to have increased the risk that young infants died before baptism. Using burial records that include burials of unbaptised infants and give age at death we demonstrate that very few infants who survived the first few days of life escaped baptism in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, despite a very profound lengthening of the delay between birth and baptism over the second half of the eighteenth century. Examination of baptism fee books indicates that perhaps a third of all infants were baptized privately in the parish and a pamphlet dispute between the vicar and one of his clerks provides extraordinary evidence of the extent to which baptism was a process rather than a single event. Our analysis suggests that it was the registration of baptism that was delayed, with no affect on the risk of death before baptism.
18世纪出生与洗礼之间的时间间隔明显延长，人们常常认为这增加了幼儿在洗礼前死亡的风险。利用包含未受洗婴儿埋葬情况及死亡年龄的埋葬记录，我们证明，尽管18世纪后半叶出生与洗礼之间的延迟大幅延长，但在圣马丁场教区，很少有活过最初几天的婴儿逃过洗礼。对洗礼费用账簿的审查表明，该教区可能有三分之一的婴儿是私下受洗的，教区牧师与其一名书记员之间的小册子争议提供了非凡证据，证明洗礼在很大程度上是一个过程而非单一事件。我们的分析表明，延迟的是洗礼登记，而这对洗礼前的死亡风险没有影响。
