A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

SPANDRIL. The triangular portion of wall between two arches, or an arch and the adjoining wall; or between the side of an arch and the square panel in which it is set. The latter is a remarkable feature in perpendicular doorways, being often richly ornamented with figures, foliage, or heraldic shields.

SPIRE. The high pyramidal capping or roof of a tower. The earliest spires still existing in England are Early English; and in this style, as well as in the next, or Geometric, it is generally of the form called a broach. In the Decorated, the broach and the parapetted spire occur indifferently; in the Perpendicular, the latter almost exclusively, though there is a large portion of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire in which Perpendicular broaches are not uncommon. Many of our loftiest spires were formerly of timber, covered with lead: such was the spire of St. Paul’s cathedral, the highest in the kingdom; such is still the remarkable twisted spire of Chesterfield. Several smaller spires of this kind remain in the southern counties, but the perishableness of the material has led to the destruction of by far the greater number of them.

SPLAY. The slanting expansion inwards of windows, for the wider diffusion of light. This is usually very great in Norman windows, where the external aperture is small.

SPONSORS. In the administration of baptism, these have from time immemorial held a distinguished and important place. Various titles have been given them significative of the position they hold, and the duties to which they are pledged. Thus they are called sponsors, because in infant baptism they respond or answer for the baptized. They are sureties, in virtue of the security given through them to the Church, that the baptized shall be “virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life.” And from the spiritual affinity here created, by which a responsibility almost parental is undertaken by the sureties, in the future training of the baptized, the terms godfather and godmother have taken their rise.

(For the rubrics and canons on this subject see Godfather.)

In the ancient Church they reckoned three sorts of sponsors: 1. For children, who could not renounce, or profess, or answer for themselves. 2. For such adult persons, as by reason of sickness or infirmity were in the same condition as children, incapable of answering for themselves. 3. For all adult persons in general.

The sponsors for children were obliged to answer to all the interrogatories usually made in baptism, and then to be the guardians of their Christian education. In most cases, parents were sponsors for their own children; and the extraordinary cases in which they were presented by others were such, where the parent could not or would not perform that kind office for them; as when slaves were presented for baptism by their masters; or children, whose parents were dead, were brought by any charitable persons, who would take pity on them; or children exposed by their parents, who were sometimes taken up by the holy virgins of the Church, and by them presented unto baptism. In these cases, where strangers became sureties for children, they were not obliged, by virtue of their suretyship, to maintain them; but the Church was charged with this care, and they were supported out of the common stock. All that was required of such sponsors was, first, to answer to the several interrogatories in baptism; and, secondly, to take care, by good admonitions and instructions, that they performed their part of the covenant they engaged in.

The second sort of sponsors were to answer for such adult persons as were incapable of answering for themselves. These were such as were suddenly struck speechless, or seized with a frenzy through the violence of some distemper, and the like. And they might be baptized, if their friends could testify that they had beforehand desired baptism. In which case the same friends became sponsors for them, making the very same answers for them that they did for children.

The third sort of sponsors were for such adult persons as were able to answer for themselves; for these also had their sureties, and no persons anciently were baptized without them. It was no part of the office of these sponsors to answer to the interrogatories made in baptism: the adult persons were to answer for themselves, according to that plain sentence of the gospel, “He is of age, let him answer for himself.” The only business of sponsors, in this case, was to be guardians of their spiritual life, and to take care of their instruction and morals, both before and after baptism. This office was chiefly imposed upon the deacons for the men, and the deaconesses for the women.

Anciently, there was no prohibition of any sorts of men from performing this charitable office; excepting only catechumens, energumens, heretics, and penitents; that is, persons who as yet were never in full communion with the Church, or such as had forfeited the privileges of baptism and Church communion by their crimes or errors; such persons being deemed incapable of assisting others, who stood in need of assistance themselves. In the time of Charles the Great, the Council of Mentz forbade fathers to be sponsors for their own children: and this was the first prohibition of this sort.