The unbaptised death is almost certainly the case here. There is a paper which touches on on chrisom children by Will Coster - I think as below. Also '/purification/thanksgiving continued in the CofE - there is a nice paper by David Cressy in _Past and Present_ on its later manifestation and contrvoersy over it.
Cressy, David. 'Purification, thanksgiving and the churching of women in post-Reformation England'. Past & Present, 141 (1993), 106-46.
Coster, Will. 'Tokens of innocence : infant baptism, death and burial in early modern England'. In Gordon, Bruce; Marshall, Peter, 1964- (ed.), The place of the dead : death and remembrance in late medieval and early modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 266-87.
Cheers,
Dave Postles
> -----Original Message-----
> From: From: Local-History list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Woollard, Matthew G
> Sent: 06 January 2005 17:09
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Unusual PR entry
>
>
> remained on the head of the baby until the mother was "churched".
> (Churching was a Catholic 'ceremony' of thanksgiving after
> childbirth --
> and, so far as I know was in vogue until Vatican II.)
>
> However, Steel also suggests that Chrisome was used (in burial
> registers) synonymously with unbaptised and notes that Dr. Johnson
> defined it as dying within a month of birth.
>
> So plenty of possibilities.
>
> Matthew Woollard
>
>
>
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