Miss Lydia Robinson, aged 12 Years, Daughter of Colonel James Robinson. Marked “Corné pinxt, Sept. 1805.”
“Miss Betsy Lee is about thirteen, a tall, slim, genteel girl. She is very far from Miss Hale’s taciturnity, yet is by no means disagreeably Forward. She dances extremely well, and is just beginning to play the Spinet. She is dressed in a neat Shell Callico Gown, has very light Hair done up with a Feather, and her whole carriage is Inoffensive, Easy and Graceful.”
The christening of an infant was not only a sacrament of the church, and thus of highest importance, but it was also of secular note. It was a time of great rejoicing, of good wishes, of gift-making. In mediaeval times, the child was arrayed by the priest in a white robe which had been anointed with sacred oil, and called a chrismale, or a chrisom. If the child died within a month, it was buried in this robe and called a chrisom-child. The robe was also called a christening palm or pall. When the custom of redressing the child in a robe at the altar had passed away, the christening palm still was used and was thrown over the child when it was brought out to receive visitors. This robe was also termed a bearing-cloth, a christening sheet, and a cade-cloth.
This fine coverlet of state, what we would now call a christening blanket, was usually made of silk; often it was richly embroidered, sometimes with a text of Scripture. It was generally lace-bordered, or edged with a narrow, home-woven silk fringe. The christening-blanket of Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony still is owned by a descendant; it is whole of fabric and unfaded of dye. It is rich crimson silk, soft of texture, like heavy sarcenet silk, and is powdered at regular distances about six inches apart with conventional sprays of flowers, embroidered chiefly in pink and yellow, in minute silk cross-stitch. Another beautiful silk christening blanket was quilted in an intricate flower pattern in almost imperceptible stitches. Another of yellow satin has a design in white floss that gives it the appearance of being trimmed with white silk lace. Best of all was to embroider the cloth with designs and initials and emblems and biblical references. A coat-of-arms or crest was very elegant. The words, “God Bless the Babe,” were not left wholly to the pincushions which every babe had given him or her, but appeared on the christening blanket. A curious design shown me was called The Tree of Knowledge. The figure of a child in cap, apron, bib, and hanging sleeves stands pointing to a tree upon which grew books as though they were apples. The open pages of each book-apple is printed with a title, as, The New England Primer, Lilly’s Grammar, Janeway’s Holy Children, The Prodigal Daughter.
An inventory of the christening garments of a child in the seventeenth century reads thus:—
“1. A lined white figured satin cap.
2. A lined white satin cap embroidered in sprays with gold coloured silk.
3. A white satin palm embroidered in sprays of yellow silk to match. This is 44 inches by 34 inches in size.
4. A palm of rich ‘still yellow’ silk lined with white satin. This is 54 inches by 48 inches in size.
5. A pair of deep cuffs of white satin, lace trimmed and embroidered.
6. A pair of linen mittens trimmed with narrow lace, the back of the fingers outlined with yellow silk figures.”
Knitted Flaxen Mittens.
The satin cuffs were for the wear of the older person who carried the child. The infant was placed upon the larger palm or cloth, and the smaller one thrown over him, over his petticoats. The inner cap was very tight to the head. The outer was embroidered; often it turned back in a band.