What question did this study set out to answer?

The central aim is to investigate the phenomenon of animal baptisms in the context of theological and social debates of the seventeenth century.

April 21, 2026

Sara Peck’s Dog and the Baptism of Animals in the Long Seventeenth Century

Key Points

The central aim is to investigate the phenomenon of animal baptisms in the context of theological and social debates of the seventeenth century.
Analysis of historical accounts and pamphlets discussing animal baptisms.
Examination of social contexts surrounding the practice, including debates on infant baptism and conversion issues.
Exploration of theological implications of blurring lines between humans and animals.
Animal baptisms reflected a deterioration of distinctions between humans and animals.
These acts were often motivated by social critique or revelry rather than sincere religious intention.
Controversial accounts of animal baptisms served as slanderous tools in public disputes.

Abstract

Concurrent with pamphlet wars about the fitness of infants for baptism and with the debates in the New World about the conversion of enslaved Africans and Indigenous Americans, seventeenth-century England saw a rash of attempted, affected, or alleged baptisms of animals. Theologically, these so-called baptisms seem to come about alongside a deterioration of the very clear distinction between a human person and an animal, and socially, they appear to be motivated by a drive for social critique, an inclination toward wanton revelry, or (rarely) a sincere desire to appropriate the power of the sacrament. But the stories of people baptizing animals have a power of their own, and some used slanderous accounts of their enemies’ baptism of animals as an effective weapon against them.

Bookmark

Sara Peck’s Dog and the Baptism of Animals in the Long Seventeenth Century

Key Points

Abstract

Cite This Study