ABSTRACT
If the selection of godparents reflects an element of choice, or social prescription, then a study of the pattern of sponsorship in baptism presents an opportunity to cut a section through early modern society from which a greater understanding of its construction can be gained. Anthropologists have identified spiritual kinship as a means of extending kinship networks, through the drawing of unrelated persons into the system, or for their intensification, by the selection of existing kin.1 As we have already seen, both possibilities have been postulated for pre industrial England. The parish registers of Bilton, Almondbury and St Margaret’s, York, with their records of the identities of godparents, allow this debate to be addressed directly. However, there were gradations within the practices of intensification and extension. These distinctions permit us to come to a better understanding of the construction of pre-industrial communities, through an investigation of the ways in which baptismal sponsorship was used to reinforce the relationships of close family and distant kin, and to create, or facilitate, relationships between patrons and clients, neighbours and friends. To this end, this chapter focuses on the identities of godparents recorded in these three registers and attempts to analyse them in terms of the kinship, social order and concepts of community. However, to fully understand these elements of the structure of spiritual kinship, it is also necessary to understand the employment of spiritual kin from the perspective of individuals and this chapter will also attempt to investigate the differing strategies of selection employed by early modern parents.
