From the OED:
Chrison/crisom:
In obituaries and the like, applied to a child that died during the
first month or shortly after baptism, and was shrouded in its chrisom-cloth.
Chrisom-cloth: A white robe, put on a child at baptism as a token of
innocence: originally, perh. merely a head-cloth, with which the chrism
was covered up to prevent its being rubbed off. In the event of the
child's death within a month from baptism, it was used as a shroud:
otherwise it, or its estimated value, was given as an offering at the
mother's purification.
Peter Higginbotham
Angie Blaydon wrote:
>In the Registers for Bath Abbey in 1644 I have come across a burial entry for 'A crisom child'. I have checked various reference books, viz: Latin dictionary, Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, and the Local Historian's Encyclopaedia, but can find nothing remotely like 'crisom'. Can anyone tell me the meaning of this entry please? It would appear that the mother of this child was buried seven days later.
>
>Many thanks
>
>Angie
>
>
|