Baptism appears in the New Testament, including John baptising Jesus. The New Testament does not describe godparents or baptismal sponsors in the later sense.

Around the beginning of the 3rd century, Tertullian's De Baptismo gives the earliest explicit surviving reference to sponsors ('sponsores') in connection with the baptism of children. His concern that sponsors might fail to fulfil their promises shows that the role already carried continuing responsibility.

The Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus describes parents or other relatives answering for children who cannot answer the baptismal questions themselves. This illustrates the transition from adult self-profession towards representation of children at baptism.

St Augustine treats a child's parents as the normal people who answer for the child at baptism, while allowing others to undertake the role in exceptional circumstances.

By the 5th century sponsors were increasingly described in kinship language such as 'spiritual fathers', showing that sponsorship was becoming understood as a new family-like bond rather than merely attendance at the rite.

A decree of Emperor Justinian prohibited marriage between a godfather and his goddaughter. This is a major stage in the legal recognition of 'spiritual kinship' as comparable in some respects to blood kinship.

The Justinianic Corpus Juris Civilis reflects a situation in which baptismal sponsors were by then predominantly people other than the child's natural parents.

By around the end of the 6th century, the terms compater and commater ('co-father' and 'co-mother') were being used for sponsors, embedding the idea of godparents as spiritual co-parents of the child.

The Council/Synod of Mainz prohibited natural parents from acting as baptismal sponsors for their own children. This formalised the developing distinction between parents and godparents.

The Council of Metz attempted to restrict baptism to a single sponsor. The rule was not consistently observed, but it demonstrates church attempts to control the expanding number and social reach of godparent relationships.

As confirmation became increasingly separated from baptism in the early medieval West, a second sponsorship role developed for confirmation, carrying similar ideas of spiritual relationship and, for a time, marriage restrictions.

Gratian's Decretum gathered and systematised canon law concerning baptismal sponsorship and spiritual kinship. Its treatment helped make godparent relationships part of the standard medieval legal framework governing marriage and family relationships.

By the high Middle Ages the marriage prohibitions created by spiritual kinship had expanded well beyond godparent and godchild, potentially affecting natural parents, spiritual parents and people related to them.

The Synod of Worcester stipulated three baptismal sponsors: for a boy, two godfathers and one godmother; for a girl, two godmothers and one godfather. This became the enduring English pattern and remains reflected in Church of England practice.

Martin Luther published his Baptismal Booklet (Das Taufbüchlein). The Lutheran Reformation retained infant baptism and sponsors, while rejecting the medieval idea that spiritual kinship between godparents and godchildren should itself bar marriage.

The Act of Supremacy formally severed the Church of England's ecclesiastical links with Rome and recognised Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England. English rules concerning godparents could thereafter develop independently of Roman canon law.

The Marriage Act 1540 declared marriages lawful unless prohibited by Scripture. In England this swept away the medieval canon-law marriage impediments based on baptismal 'spiritual kinship', while the institution of godparents itself was retained.

The first English Book of Common Prayer retained godfathers and godmothers in infant baptism. They answered for the child and were explicitly tied to the child's later catechesis and confirmation, defining the Protestant Anglican godparent role.

The Council of Trent restricted Catholic baptism to one sponsor, or at most one man and one woman. This was intended in part to contain the very wide networks of spiritual kinship that multiple sponsors had created.

The Council of Trent precisely limited the marriage impediment of spiritual relationship to the baptiser, sponsor(s), the baptised person and the baptised person's parents, sharply reducing the much wider medieval prohibitions.

The Council of Trent also distinguished baptismal godparenthood from confirmation sponsorship for purposes of the reformed marriage impediment, ending much of the earlier legal overlap between the two forms of sponsorship.

The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God replaced the Book of Common Prayer during the Parliamentary/Puritan settlement. In baptism it directed that the child be presented by the father (or, if necessary, another Christian friend) and omitted the traditional office of godparents.

After the Restoration, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer restored and entrenched the Anglican godparent system. It required two godfathers and one godmother for a boy, and one godfather and two godmothers for a girl; the godparents made the baptismal promises and undertook continuing instruction.

A documented British non-religious naming ceremony was conducted by freethinker George Jacob Holyoake for the child of Edward Truelove. Holyoake asked the community to help the child grow in values such as kindness and independent thought, an early secular parallel to the supporting role of godparents.

The first comprehensive Code of Canon Law for the Latin Catholic Church codified the status and duties of baptismal sponsors. Canon 769 described the godchild as perpetually entrusted to the sponsor's spiritual care; the Code also retained spiritual relationship as a marriage impediment.

Modern Church of England canon law explicitly permitted parents to act as godparents for their own children provided the child has at least one other godparent. This reverses, in Anglican practice, the medieval rule separating the two roles.

The post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Rite of Baptism for Children gave parents a more active and primary place in infant baptism while retaining godparents as assistants in the child's Christian upbringing. This marked a significant shift from older rites in which sponsors answered most of the baptismal questions.

The revised Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law defined the sponsor's role as assisting an adult in Christian initiation or, with the parents, presenting an infant and helping the baptised person live the Christian life. It permits one sponsor or one male and one female sponsor, and excludes the child's father or mother from being sponsor.

The 1983 Latin Code no longer included spiritual relationship between godparent and godchild among the impediments to marriage, completing in modern Latin Catholic law the retreat from the extensive marriage restrictions that had grown out of medieval godparenthood.

Church of England Common Worship baptismal rites reinforced the modern understanding of godparents as people who present and support a child and continue to walk with the child in the Christian faith, rather than merely acting as legal or ceremonial sureties.

Civil naming ceremonies began to be piloted and adopted by UK registration services as a non-religious alternative to christening. These ceremonies commonly provide for 'supporting adults' or 'special adults' who make promises to the child in a role consciously analogous to godparents.

Humanists UK describes 'guide parents' as the non-religious equivalent of godparents: chosen adults who make promises and undertake an enduring role of love and support in a child's life. This shows the godparent idea developing beyond baptism while retaining the core chosen-adult relationship.

Current Church of England guidance still normally expects at least three godparents, traditionally two of the same sex as the child and at least one of the opposite sex. Parents may themselves be godparents provided there is at least one additional godparent.