Faith of Our Fathers: Popular Culture and Belief in Post-Reformation England, Ireland and Wales

The mid-seventeenth century parish registers of Bedwellty in the Gwent valleys contain several references to the burial of children described as stillborn and therefore presumably unbaptised. These provide the basis for a discussion of competing ideas on baptism and burial, the doctrine of the sacraments and the role of the clergy in the established church of the seventeenth century.