212 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



mind what has been said of the mediaeval frauengadem, 

 as remaining as a fossil of the sexual license of the old 

 kin-group, it is somewhat noteworthy to find the term 

 commatres used for young women living in the houses of 

 bishops and priests about 1300, whose conduct created 

 scandal, while the term to go ad commatres seems to 

 have been used in a still worse sense. Ducange gives 

 instances of compater being used for sodalis, amicus, and 

 not in a spiritual sense; 1 and a particularly important 

 case of the date 855, in which compater actually denotes 

 the father's sister's husband, is also cited by him. Such a 

 use is quite intelligible if the compatres were originally 

 the males of the kin-group, sharing bed and board ; it 

 becomes quite obscure if the term compater was a term 

 originally devised to cover the spiritual relationship. 



Turning back, indeed, to heathen times we find asso- 

 ciated with the exposure of children practices closely 

 akin to Christian baptism. The new-born child in 

 Scandinavia was either taken to the father, or left on 

 the floor (golf) where, according to ancient custom, the 

 mother had given it birth, for its fate to be settled. If 

 the father took it to his breast or raised it from the 

 ground, its life was preserved, otherwise it was exposed. 

 If the father accepted the child, he was asked how it 

 should be named ; he then poured water over it and 

 gave it a name. Occasionally he left this ceremony to 

 one of his near kin, who then named and 'baptized' 



spirituales, and the same words are used by the Council of Worms in 868. The 

 tvm\. patrinus also appears to have a Germanic origin, it is used first in a charter 

 of Pipin (A.D. 752) and, as I have hinted in the text, I expect compater as well 

 as patrinus to be late Latin translations of gevatter. 



1 Note also how French parrain, godfather, is used for a second in a duel and 

 for any intimate friend ; also un bon compare = a merry fellow. 



