Note 619 — SCENE V.
Reading edition
a chrisom] i.e. an infant,—one who dies within the month of its birth, and is buried in the chrisome, a white cloth, an emblem of Christian innocency, which was thrown over it at baptism, and which it was to wear till the mother came to be purified, when the cloth was returned to the church.
Before the Reformation, in the old baptismal office, the chrisom cloth was put on the child’s head, to prevent, according to Ducange in Chrismate, the holy oil (χρισμα) from running off.
Compare Shakespeare’s Henry V. act ii. sc. 3, where dame Quickly says of Falstaff, "’a made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child."