Churching

The usual date of churching was the fortieth day after confinement.

The churching of women traditionally includes thanksgiving for the women's survival of childbirth.

The clergyman had to dine some distance from town, and had got two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral, to perform in something less than an hour.

As discussed in detail by Caroline Shenton, the churchings of Queen Philippa, for which the details following Isabella's birth in 1333 survive, represented a 'gigantic festival of a family whose start in life had been extremely unsteady'.