Medieval Children

Looks at the lives of children, from birth to adolescence, in medieval England.

This volume will be a critical anthology of primary texts whose main audience was children and/or adolescents in the medieval period. Texts will include theoretical and interpretative introductions and commentary.

Kids Those Days is a collection of interdisciplinary research into medieval childhood. Contributors investigate abandonment and abuse, fosterage and guardianship, criminal behavior and child-rearing, child bishops and sainthood, disabilities and miracles, and a wide variety of other subjects related to medieval children.

This book presents a synthetic history of the family--the most basic building block of medieval Jewish communities--in Germany and northern France during the High Middle Ages. Concentrating on the special roles of mothers and children, it also advances recent efforts to write a comparative Jewish-Christian social history. Elisheva Baumgarten draws on a rich trove of primary sources to give a full portrait of medieval Jewish family life during the period of childhood from birth to the beginning of formal education at age seven. Illustrating the importance of understanding Jewish practice in the context of Christian society and recognizing the shared foundations in both societies, Baumgarten's examination of Jewish and Christian practices and attitudes is explicitly comparative. Her analysis is also wideranging, covering nearly every aspect of home life and childrearing, including pregnancy, midwifery, birth and initiation rituals, nursing, sterility, infanticide, remarriage, attitudes toward mothers and fathers, gender hierarchies, divorce, widowhood, early education, and the place of children in the home, synagogue, and community. A richly detailed and deeply researched contribution to our understanding of the relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, Mothers and Children provides a key analysis of the history of Jewish families in medieval Ashkenaz.

An investigation into a variety of texts providing guidance for teachers, parents, and children themselves.

In the Medieval times, the world looked different. There were no gadgets and homes didn't have electricity. Isn't it interesting to step into a time machine just to see how life was like in those dark days? Luckily, you don't have to wait for a time machine to actually be invented to do that. You can open and read this book instead!

In the middle ages, there were nobles and knights who performed special roles in society. Open this book to read about what they do and why they do such functions. A glimpse into the past would provide you with facts to model the modern way of living. So what are you waiting for? Get a copy and read this book today!

What can we know of the children of the Middle Ages? It is commonly thought that children were of little interest to medieval adults for documentation on childhood is supposedly rare and fragmentary. Daniele Alexandre-Bidon and Didier Lett challenge this assumption in this learned and lively book. Drawing from a wide range of sources -- from archaeological finds to romances from miracle accounts to law codes -- they bring together many glimpses of children in order to form a composite picture. By examining the existence of children in various contexts -- wars, epidemics, the famines that mark both the beginning and end of the Middle Ages -- the authors trace an evolution in the perception of childhood. Children in the Middle Ages offers a multifaceted image of medieval childhood in all the countries of present-day Europe and within all levels of medieval society, from the peasant girl who longed to read to the apprentice scribe doodling pictures on the margins of the manuscript he copied to the young duke of berry, whose bedroom was redecorated each year at Easter, going from red to green, the color of spring. The authors consider children not only within the context the family life, but within the supporting structures of the society -- in school, in business, in the monastery, in extened or foster families. They further demonstrate that despite often difficult living conditions, the great majority of children were surrounded with affection.