Crying Rooms?

[she_is_my_addiction]

Do they have glassed in areas in some churches called crying rooms? Do you have them in your local churches? I'm thinking of incorporating the idea into a story I'm working on. Any clue on the use and history of these rooms?

 

[neonlyte]

I don't think we have them in the UK but I'm happy to be corrected. There was a time when women would have a room built for them in a church and the entrance would be bricked up, just a slot left for feeding and presumably 'slops'. It was regarded as an extremely pious way of 'giving yourself to God', and usually involved a man, husband dying, father not having enough money to marry off the second daughter, that type of thing - I would imagine they cried.

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

I don't think we have them in the UK but I'm happy to be corrected. There was a time when women would have a room built for them in a church and the entrance would be bricked up, just a slot left for feeding and presumably 'slops'. It was regarded as an extremely pious way of 'giving yourself to God', and usually involved a man, husband dying, father not having enough money to marry off the second daughter, that type of thing - I would imagine they cried.

It sounds close if not correct. When I went to Catholic church with my mother when I was a little girl, one church we went to had a glassed in area in back of the regular pews and alter and such. Mothers would go in there with crying babies, mourners, etc. She told me it was called a "crying room".

Your description sounds strikingly similar neon. I'd love to have as much information as I can gather on the topic. I have a kinky/religious/eerie story idea floating around in my head.

 

[sophia jane]

I've only seen it used as the place for moms to take their crying kids during church so they don't disturb the service.

SJ

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

I've only seen it used as the place for moms to take their crying kids during church so they don't disturb the service.

SJ

I know. I remember seeing moms and their babies in those crying rooms when I'd go to church with my own mother, but I wondered about the history behind it, where they orginated. Was it always like that, or did some guy who got sick of hearing screaming kids in church invent it?

 

[impressive]

I've seen 'em in funeral homes, but never in churches (other than glass rooms for kids -- as SJ mentioned -- where the service was piped in over a PA system so the moms didn't have to miss the sermon).

 

[neonlyte]

It sounds close if not correct. When I went to Catholic church with my mother when I was a little girl, one church we went to had a glassed in area in back of the regular pews and alter and such. Mothers would go in there with crying babies, mourners, etc. She told me it was called a "crying room".

Your description sounds strikingly similar neon. I'd love to have as much information as I can gather on the topic. I have a kinky/religious/eerie story idea floating around in my head.

This is from: The Hollow Crown - Miri Rubin ISNB 0-713-99066-X It is a factual account of Britain in the Middle Ages. Pgs 47-48

'Death in this life could also be chosen, as did few but remarkable men and women who left their families and friends to live a solitary life. While men could become hermits in forests and caves, women were not allowed to wander freely and so strict instructions on living the 'anchoritic' life were developed. By the fourteenth century such women were expected to undergo a ceremony of death and burial officiated by a bishop, after which they were walled into a cubicle usually attached to a parish church. Friends and the community were to contribute to the support of such a person, who sometimes brought a maid with her into the enclosure. While cut off from the world, a little chink allowed the anchoress to observe the liturgy within the church, and an opening allowed offerings of food to be passed into her chamber. The system was regulated by bishops, but each case was a personal drama enacted publicly. When Christine Carpenter, daughter of William the carpenter of Shere, Surrey, expressed a desire to becoma an anchorite in 1329, an investigation was undertaken by her parish priest and resulted in the Bishop of Winchesters approval. Christine was duly enclosed, but her choice was not a happy one, as we know from the fact that less than three years later Bishop Stratford dispatched a letter, into which was copied a dispensation which allowed Christine to return to her enclosure after she had 'left her cell inconstantly and returned to the world'.'

Lot of ammunition in that extract, there was another relating to the daughter of a Lord in financial straits whose daughter opted for 'enclosure' rather than to spend her life as a spinster, from memory she lived for thirty years walled up. I'll try and find it when I've more time.