210 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



/adder, and Modern German gevatter for godfather. 

 Ninth - century glosses give gavatero for compater, 

 and gavatera 1 for commater, godfather and godmother. 

 It is singular that these terms, which can only be 

 strengthened forms of fetero and faedera, 2 should have 

 been chosen at such a comparatively early date for 

 the Christian sponsors. Indeed the Middle Latin com- 

 pater and commater look much more like a translation 

 of gavateron than vice versa. Some light on this point 

 might be obtained from a study of the early use of com- 

 pater and commater. In one respect their use differs very 

 widely from modern godfather and godmother ; the latter 

 terms mark a relationship between the sponsors and child, 

 the former precisely as gafatero and gafatera, mark a 

 relation between sponsors and the child's parents. Thus 

 the Lex Langobardorum (ii. 8, 5) expressly defines a 

 commater as commater to one whose child she has taken 

 from the font, or to one who has taken her child from 

 the font. 3 A decretal of A.D. 614 (Lex Canonica, Pars 

 II. Causa xxx. Quaestio i.) orders that a man shall not 

 continue to live as husband with his wife, if she has by 

 mischance acted as godmother to her own child. The 

 wife is spoken of as the man's commater, and in Modern 

 German gevatterin would translate it, but clearly not 

 English godmother. Thus the compatres or gafateron are 

 much closer and more familiar relations than godfather 

 and godchild, they belong, as a rule, to one and the 



1 The feminine is not such an anomaly as it might first appear, if pd (as in 

 f6dian) be conceived as having attained the meaning reproduce, bear, as well as 

 procreate ; thus we have Gothic fadreins for both parents. 



2 Compare Friesian fedria, fetha, father's brother, with faedrum, fatherum, 

 godfather. 



3 This sense was accurately retained for many centuries in the Lex Canonica. 



