is true for Christians in
             today's times as well. This was the single most important of
             the rituals administered by the Church. Without baptism the
             child could not enter into heaven. In those times Baptism
             was so important that everyone was encouraged to learn the
             basic words of the ritual. In Middle English the words were,
             "I crystene thee in the nome of the Fader, and the Son and
             the Holy Gost. Amen. The Christening would usually take
             place a week within the birth of the child. It all depended
             on how healthy the child was. In today's times, everyone is
             invited to the Baptismal celebration of their newborn. Back
             then the godparents were summoned and the rest of the family
             would proceed to the church without the mother being
             present. The reason for that was because it was custom for
             her not to enter the church prior to her own ceremony of
             "purification", which is supposed to cleanse her from the
             3spiritual stain of childbirth. Today we are given two
             godparents. They were given two godparents of the same sex
             and one of the opposite. The godparent's role in the child's
             life was a very important one. They were to play the role as
             the religious instructors towards the child. (Singman,McLean
             For the most part Baptism marked the child as part of
             the church as well as society. Church and society were
             considered to be equal. After this ceremony the child would
             receive the most important symbol of its public identity: a
             name. Just like today people had a wide variety of names to
             choose from. Most of the names, however, were ones of saints
             or those that had a French origin. The girls had very few
             saints names to choose from so they choose anything
             excluding the names of Mary or Martha.
             Just like in any society during any period, the shape
             of an infants life depended on its social background. The
             mothers had no option of weather to get baby formul...