214 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



us that originally the ceremony concerned in the first 

 place adults, and Tertullian refers only in Cap. 18 (fol. 231) 

 to child baptism as an undesirable thing. He mentions 

 it as introducing a new danger owing to the need for 

 sponsores. The term compater is not used. It would 

 thus appear that infant baptism was unusual in 

 Tertullian's day. We may therefore, I think, conclude 

 that the growth of infant baptism was largely favoured 

 by Germanic heathen customs the Church adapting, 

 as in so many other cases, what it found already 

 existing to its own usages. If that be so, the special 

 characteristics and the folklore of the Teutonic gevatter 

 may alike be taken as illustrative of the fateron, or 

 group of fathers of the old kin-community. 1 



(7) If the terms for mother's sister and for father's 

 brother originally stood for any of the women of one 

 generation, and for any of the men of one generation 

 within the kin-group, then we should not expect any 



1 In the Saxon Laws, Ine (before 694) has godfceder, godsunu, jEthelrsed 

 has (circa 1008) gefaederan, and Canute (circa 1026) uses the same word. The 

 exact meaning of god in godfather and godmother is very open to question. It is 

 hardly god, deus, as Skeat, for example, among many writers suggests. O.H.G. 

 gota is admater, commater, godmother, and gotti is adpater, compater, godfather ; 

 gotele is filiola, goddaughter. From the Middle Ages we have gott, paternus, 

 gottin,'maternus, gbttlein, filiolus, and gotla, filiola, in fact, the whole of the Anglo- 

 Saxon godsib, modern gossip. The words are still in German dialect use, der 

 god is the godfather, die godl, the godmother. Gfodl is, however, frequently 

 used of the goddaughter, and indeed of any girl whatever. Gottenloffel is the 

 'silver spoon' ; gotteit is gevatterschaft. This obscure O.H.G. goto, gota, has been 

 associated with goting, tribunus, sacerdos^ (possibly also found in the place-names 

 Gb'ding and Gottingeri), and with Gothic gudja, Icelandic godi, priest, judge. 

 However this may be, the source of god in god-parents is not the obvious one of 

 god, deus, but in all probability dates from some hitherto unelucidated heathen 

 notion involved in the O.H.G. names goto and gota. In this respect it seems of 

 significance that gotta, godfather, appears to be a derivative from gota, god- 

 mother. The heathen goddess Frau Gode, who can be traced throughout large 

 districts of Germany, must also be borne in mind. 



