“The Child’s Blood should lye at his door”: local divisions over baptismal rites during the English Civil War and the Interregnum

By the 1640s, prayer book ritual had marked rites of passage in England for over eighty years. It formed a reassuring continuum with older Catholic rites and gave communality to parish religion. However puritans disliked its ceremonial elements, which were banned by parliament in the 1640s. Anecdotal evidence suggests that parishioners continued to demand old-style rites of passage, and some clergy to offer them. This has led historians to suggest that traditionalist practice was condoned by the regime. Using loyalist memories of antagonisms between puritan and non-puritan clergy and parishioners over baptism, as well as evidence from legal prosecutions and other sources, this chapter complicates such presumptions, showing how, with opinion sharply divided on their practice, rites of passage led to clashes and confrontations within parishes.