Medieval Children [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Orme starts off with conception: "Medieval Christians came to believe that God put the soul into the foetus when it took human shape, at about forty-six days for a male, and ninety for a female; until that point, the embryo was not human and had neither human life nor human soul." This view was held by Innocent III and Thomas Aquinas. We discuss the ceremonies of baptism, the responsibilities of godparents, and the naming of children. We discuss the relative rarity (though not absence) of birthdays. We learn about cradles and swadling, about weaning and day and night time activities. Infanticide was viewed with disapproval, and we learn about accidents and possible abuse. Perhaps 42.5% of children died before they were ten in the late 1500s. We learn about changing views of the fate of unbaptised children.

Especially interesting are children's use of rhymes and songs, to which Orme devotes a whole chapter to. We also learn about the use of toys, a practice well developed by the Middle Ages. Orme talks about dolls, windmills, and tops. He shows use pictures of toy knights on horsebacks which were mass-produced from moulds. "Children, of course, have never confined themselves to toys made specially for them. Poor or rich, they have fashioned their own from anything lying at hand. Gerald of Wales, describing his childhood...in the 1150s, recalls how he and his brothers played with sand and dust...They built towns and palaces, and he made churches and monasteries." Orme goes on about games, such as marbles and chess, as well as playing at war.

Orme devotes another chapter to the church, and like today some churches were tolerant of small children wandering around, and others were more easily irritated. There are, rather surprisingly, two chapters on reading, one on learning how to do it, and another on literature for children. Since most children did not know how to read in medieval England this might be a bit excessive. It is interesting to learn about the different alphabets and how children were taught to learn syllables, but perhaps this is a bit much. On the other hand, Orme forcefully reminds us that literacy was not the result of the invention of printing. Instead increased literacy encouraged the development of the printing press. Orme is part of a historical trend which emphasizes the importance, if not the predominance, of literacy in the late medieval period as opposed to the supposed ubiquity of an exclusively oral tradition. Orme concludes with a chapter on growing up. He reminds us that contrary to what many people think, the marriage of children or their execution was a rather rare event. Nor was a callous greedy apprenticeship that common either. All in all, Orme has provided a thorough dissection of the child's role in medieval England. No doubt much of this is applicable to the rest of Europe. One only wishes, giving that so much of Orme's account deals with the Church, about how Jews raised their children.

Chapters cover all aspects of childhood, from pregnancy and birth to upbringing, the child's place in religion, how children entertained themselves, and how they were educated. There was quite a bit here that I had never seen before, dispelling many commonly-held misconceptions of how children were treated and viewed in the period.

The book is large, with good pictures and photos. The writing is extremely good, very readable, and free of overly high-blown language. I especially appreciated the information on education and recreation -- I had never seen medieval spellers or hornbooks, and never knew what kinds of games children actually played. Another chapter covered how children were treated by the Church -- how they were entered into its service, and even quite a bit about the Feast of Innocents, where children took the place of the bishop and priests and had a service!

Overall, I found the book to be absolutely a good addition to my history library, and suggest that others interested in the subject may find it so as well. It's $$$, but such a good value doesn't come along often.