Godparents
To the Oxford Dawn readers, sorry for the four week absence. My startup, ClefRights Music Publishing, made it through Stage III of the CodeLaunch competition and there was quite a bit of work associated with that.
Long-time Oxford Dawn readers may be amused by the hyperlinked article: This is old news, but a priest in Brazil invalidated a marriage immediately after officiating it when he discovered that as a joke the groom put a sticker on his shoe saying ‘Get me out of here.’ The priest informed the couple that under Canon Law, this ‘joke’ meant that the groom was acting under coercion, and that if the couple wanted to be married, they would have to repeat the entire wedding preparation process with a different priest — after, of course, the groom took a solemn oath that he was NOT being coerced.
Godparents are a unique development from Christian Europe. In terms of social function, East Asian societies had their own elaborate clan systems associated with elite families that covered many of the same elements as godparenthood in European societies. Judaism certainly has a part of the brit milah ceremony where particular individuals are honoured by carrying the child, but the use isn’t the same as godparenthood in certain strains of high church-ery in Christianity. The blunt, unadulterated truth is that godparenthood was, and still is, a networking opportunity for certain types of families.
Ecclesiastical and social historians aren’t completely sure when godparenthood evolved into a social status statement. The Roman Catholic Church first began treating the godparents-as-social-statements as a problem in the Counter-Reformation, but the phrasings of the documents suggest that the practice wasn’t truly seen as an issue, at least within the laity and civil society, prior to that.
The institution of godparenthood dated to early Christianity, with at least one sponsor required in both the Western and Eastern rites. But in the Latin rite, by the time of the Reformation, the number of expected godparents had risen from the mandatory one to a minimum of five, with families of high social rank, or those wanting to be perceived as belonging to the elite, appointing over twenty per child.1 The issue with this was that, at the time, the Catholic Church conceived of godparenthood as creating a familial relationship, such that a godchild was held to be equivalent to a blood relation of the godparents. This in turn meant that the Church believed god-family incest was a real concern, e.g. a godchild could not marry a child of his or her godparent, or parents could not marry the godparents of their children, because doing so was equivalent to marrying a blood sibling. Unsurprisingly in an environment where appointing the adult population of a village to godparenthood was a social statement, ordinary people, especially those in rural areas, ignored the idea of god-family incest when contracting marriages. No one, not even parish priests, thought this was an issue, but in the wake of the Reformation, the Vatican decided that having people living in flagrant violation of official teaching was a problem.
Scaling down the number and officially capping godparents at two, one of each gender, was half a solution. The other half was to make marital impediment be exclusively between godparents and godchildren. While the second solution was welcomed as the Church being realistic, the first, the capping of the number of godparents, was not. Some of Oxford Dawn's readers may be familiar with the Anglican Church’s custom of godparents, at least for royalty and aristocracy, being three at the time of baptism, two of the same gender as the child and one of the opposite gender, which is called the ‘ternary model’, as opposed to a ‘binary model’. Although discouraged, this custom exists as well in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1557, during the broader Council of Trent which ran from 1545 to 1563, Bishop Eustache du Bellay led a synod in France in which the bishops decided to permit the ternary model, effectively enshrining it as a tradition — and therefore a right — for certain types of families.2
To understand why the number of godparents was such an issue, we should look at underlying incentives. Godparenthood, by the time of the Reformation, had evolved into such a strong social institution that a godchild had inheritance rights over a godparent’s property — though not titles — and there was an expectation that godchildren could reasonably ask for their godparents to contribute financially or through professional introductions to the child’s education and career. Additionally, an appointment as godparent could be interpreted as equivalent to appointment as guardian in the event that parents died before a child reached the age of majority.
In light of the last usage, St Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, began preaching as early as 1547 that parents should choose godparents based on an individual’s ability to be a responsible guardian, rather than their wealth, power, or access. The reality, though, is that ‘godparent capitalism’ was real and could be major tool in a parent’s arsenal. ‘Godparent capitalism’ was also so widespread that it transcended the Catholic-Protestant divide and class divides, though there were different possible configurations.
For example, an anthropological study of Icelandic peasants from the nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries found that leveraging godparenthood was a known social tactic:
The Icelandic peasants studied by the late Gísli Ágúst Gunnlaugsson and Loftur Guttormsson were mostly tenants with scant means. Extending their social networks could help significantly in bettering their lot or their status. Not surprisingly in view of the prevailing harsh conditions, they chose people of standing as godparents or witnesses, people who could offer them work, flexible prices, or relief. At least one of the usual two godfathers was a notable, especially one in charge of distributing poor relief, or a merchant.3
This variant, identified by the author as endemic to Scandinavia and therefore associated (perhaps wrongly) with Lutheranism, parents chose godparents for the immediate betterment of themselves, and there was an expectation that the child would receive trickle-down benefits. In the continental European and British variant, the one that appears latently in literature and in historically-informed period film and television, parents chose godparents with a long view toward the future betterment of the child’s lot through social or professional connections or inheritance.
For continental European, especially Mediterranean European, baptisms, the custom of twenty-plus godparents was an opportunity for social display beyond the church. Parents were expected to give gifts to the godparents, and there was an expectation of a big, all-day banquet following the ceremony. Although there are no records indicating that anyone saw this as a problem, there was, unsurprisingly, a wealth divide in terms of the gifts given and the quality of food served.
The twenty-plus godparent baptisms may have been big social displays on the part of the parents, but that was balanced by a very egalitarian selection. Guido Alfani, a social historian whose work explores godparenthood as an institution, found that up until about 1549, parents, even very elite ones, chose godparents from all ranks as a matter of good manners; this meant that among the twenty-plus individuals, there was a mixture of nobility, tradespeople, and peasants. Another study of godparenthood found that in 1500s Dubrovnik the standard number of godparents was ten, with homeless individuals or indigents included alongside nobility or clergy.4 A similar study of Aubervilliers in France found that prior to the Council of Trent, godparenthood served as a crucial structure for maintaining civil peace as the bonds it created were leveraged to prevent petty feuds among locals and to increase the sense of connection between the aristocracy and their tenants.5
Within the newly expanding Spanish Empire, godparenthood came into play with establishing good, or at least cordial, relations between the Spaniards and native peoples as both groups actively sought spiritual kinship with each other, and an entire native elite sprang up that was connected to the Spanish via godparental relations.6 Yet another study of rural Brazil found that enslaved Africans strategically used godparenthood for their children’s benefits as the parents could appoint any free person, excluding the slaveowner, as godparent; in turn, the free godparent(s) contributed to the child’s welfare, usually resulting in manumission along with provision of trades training or a small sum of capital.7 As with the situation between the Spaniards and the native peoples, an inequality opened up between those of African descent who knew to establish and leverage godparental connections and those who did not.
Although the significance of godparenthood as a source of social bonds is evident in the documentation, the bonds varied in strength out of necessity. The strongest ties were within the first five godparents, who traditionally followed a fixed selection pool. The pool was as follows: 1) someone from the immediate friends or family, who would usually be among the first to be considered as guardian if the parents died; 2) a military man, ideally an officer which would, by extension, mean he was an aristocrat since the officer ranks were limited to them; 3) a lawyer, frequently from the middle, non-aristocratic class; 4) an academic, doctor or merchant, usually from the middle class; finally, 5) a clergyman, ideally, though Alfani found that an additional family member or merchant were equally common appointments. The top five were the most important because they set the child up with all the infrastructure he or she might need on the way to adulthood, e.g. medical care, legal assistance, and dowry supplementation or assistance with early career needs, e.g. provision of an officer’s commission. The additional fifteen plus godparents were social decoration, a chance for the parents to gain prestige through providing an opportunity for people to sit down and eat together at a baptismal feast. In the case of the appointment of homeless in Dubrovnik, the researchers discovered that the child’s parents were expected to provide all godparents with new clothes for the ceremony, which gave an opportunity for the more well-to-do to kit out the less fortunate without making the latter feel like charity cases.
The irony of the Council of Trent’s limiting of the number of godparents is that it had an immediate deleterious social effect. Smaller communities, such as Aubervillier, lost one of their biggest bonding tools, and new customs or rules came into force that effectively siloed the social classes off from each other. Although there was a negative effect on the native peoples and enslaved African peoples in the New World, according to current research, it wasn’t as strong as it was in Europe, probably due to a combination of factors, such as the length of time information took to travel, weak enforcement mechanisms — after all, rural priests might never hear of the new rules — and that being godparent to a native or enslaved person was a charitable act, which therefore granted the doer social prestige.
In terms of implementation in Europe, the restriction on godparent number caused appointments to plummet by over eighty percent in less than ten years, according to Alfani’s research. Though due to custom and social need, the number levelled out at three, even for countries such as Italy where the bishops hadn’t enshrined the ternary model as a tradition. In parts of Italy, there was a slight tussle between patrician civil society and the Catholic Church as parents opted to dispense with a godmother in favour of three well-connected godfathers.8 In the hierarchy of matters, the Church decided to ignore enforcing the binary model but insisted that there had to be a woman sponsor. The Church’s insistence on a woman sponsor, while reenforcing an elevated position for women within ecclesiastical structure, contributed to social stratification as parents sought out women from wealthy or well-connected families.
As a sign of the significance of the godmother and the role she might play in a child’s future, there was a case in 1670s France, covered by Jeffrey Ravel in his book The Would-be Commoner, where a man from the nobility decided to abandon his family and captain’s commission in favour of entering into a bigamous marriage with a publican’s daughter.9 When a neighbour identified the man, the prosecutor initially charged him with murder since the consequences of his actions were unfathomable — bigamy carried capital punishment and desertion from the army carried stripping of noble status and its privileges followed by capital punishment — such that no one thought that a man would do such a thing. As it turned out, the man in question was simply a malicious creature who quarrelled with his wife, his older brothers, and their cousins after the combined family refused to keep funding his extravagance (and incompetence), and so he moved onto other prey, like the publican and her daughter. But in the subsequent court case, the prosecutor subpoenaed the godmother as the last living adult who had been present at the baptism, and therefore was supposed to be able to identify him. Her testimony didn’t really help because she said that the family hadn’t remained in contact with her after the baptism. Although she provided her address in Paris to the child’s father, he hadn’t sent her the expected annual updates; she hadn’t been informed of her godson’s marriage (a huge faux pas), and the only time she’d seen him after the baptism was when he showed up at her door asking for money ‘to buy a commission’. Her story was so unusual that at the end of her testimony, the judge offered her a chance to bring her own fraud complaint against the man. The godmother’s story spawned an entire separate scandal, especially after the man’s identity was verified, over how deviant the family’s behaviour toward the godmother was.
Although the role of godparents has diminished in modern society, just like wedding ceremonies, the selection of godparents is still no light matter. For certain types of families, godparents can be the ones who grant permission for marriages if there are no parents or siblings to do so. Choosing well is paramount because the choice reflects the parents’ values, and, though less obviously than before, the choice is still a demonstration of the family’s social status. Having doctors, lawyers, or academics around the baptismal font remains a signal.
Alfani, Guido. ‘Godparenthood and the Council of Trent : Crisis and Transformation of a Social Institution (Italy, XV-XVIIth Centuries)’. Ohm : Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, no. 18 (January 1970). https://doi.org/10.15304/ohm.18.452.
Berteau, Camille, Vincent Gourdon, and Isabelle Robin-Romero. ‘Godparenthood: Driving Local Solidarity in Northern France in the Early Modern Era. The Example of Aubervilliers Families in the Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries’. The History of the Family 17, no. 4 (2012): 452–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602x.2012.752758.
Morin, Claude. ‘Beyond Kinship and Households: Godparents and Orphans: An Introduction’. The History of Family: An International Quarterly, ahead of print, 1 January 2000. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1081-602X(00)00047-6.
Marić, Marinko. ‘Baptismal Kinship and Wedding Witnesses in the Parish of Desne as Factors of Social Networks (1870 - 1875)’. Review of Croatian History, ahead of print, 1 January 2022. https://doi.org/10.22586/REVIEW.V18I1.24280.
Berteau, Camille, Vincent Gourdon, and Isabelle Robin-Romero. ‘Godparenthood: Driving Local Solidarity in Northern France in the Early Modern Era. The Example of Aubervilliers Families in the Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries’. The History of the Family 17, no. 4 (2012): 452–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602x.2012.752758.
Foster, George M. ‘Cofradia and Compadrazgo in Spain and Spanish America’. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 9, no. 1 (1953): 1–28. Charney, Paul. ‘The Implications Of Godparental Ties Between Indians And Spaniards In Colonial Lima’. The Americas 47, no. 3 (1991): 295–313. https://doi.org/10.2307/1006802.
Mendes, Fabio. Inequality and Social Networks: Spiritual Kinship, Slavery and Illegitimacy in Nineteenth-Century Minas Gerais, Brazil. n.d. Accessed 12 July 2025. https://www.academia.edu/3726983/Inequality_and_Social_Networks_Spiritual_Kinship_Slavery_and_Illegitimacy_in_Nineteenth_Century_Minas_Gerais_Brazil.
Morin, Claude. ‘Beyond Kinship and Households: Godparents and Orphans: An Introduction’. The History of Family: An International Quarterly, ahead of print, 1 January 2000. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1081-602X(00)00047-6.
Vidali, Andrew. ‘Political and Social Aspects of Godparenthood in Early Modern Venice: Spiritual Kinship and Patrician Society’. Journal of Early Modern History 26, no. 5 (2022): 429–55. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-bja10041.
Ravel, Jeffrey S. The Would-Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in Seventeenth-Century France. Houghton Mifflin, 2008.