Cori
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 Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 4:30 am Post subject: Re: OT: "Medieval Children" by Nicholas Orme, 2001 |
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On Nov 1, 12:35 pm, lenona...@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | Two inches thick. Looks fascinating.
http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Children-Nicholas-Orme/dp/0300097549/r...
There are six reviews.
Interestingly, he suggests that marriage between teens was not as
common as some think!
Lenona.
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Still, that has to be a misprint about childhood lasting from "infancy
to age 28." Surely they mean 16 or 18? Geez, average age of death
back then was about 27!
Cori |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: OT: "Medieval Children" by Nicholas Orme, 2001 |
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| Quote: | Still, that has to be a misprint about childhood lasting from "infancy
to age 28." Surely they mean 16 or 18? Geez, average age of death
back then was about 27!
Cori
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Or, quite likely, infancy to 8.
From "Developmental Psychology" by David R. Shaffer, pages 9-10:
"Historical records and paintings from medieval Europe provide some
clues about what your childhood would have been like had you lived
during that era (see Aries, 1962; deMause, 1974). Although you might
not have received the extensive attention and coddling that infants
and toddlers receive today, you would definitely have been cared for
until you could dress, feed, and bathe yourself. At about age 6, you
would have begun to wear downsized versions of adult clothing. You
would also have begun a career by working with adults (often a parent
or a relative) at home, at the shop, or in the fields. You would have
had the opportunity or privilege of partying with adults and partaking
in the same social and sexual practices that adults favored. Lest the
life sound like a pleasant one, you would soon have learned that the
laws of the day made no distinction between children and adults. Had
you, as a 10-year-old, been convicted of stealing, you would have been
treated as a common thief and perhaps hanged for your offense (Kean,
1937). Historian Philippe Aries (1962) concludes from the record that
European societies had no concept of 'childhood' as we know it before
1600. Medieval children were treated as miniature adults."
And even after 1600, it would seem, the cut-off point for childhood
stayed quite low. In Katharine Scherman's 1957 much-sanitized juvenile
biography of Catherine the Great (who was born in 1729), it said that
her mother took all her toys away from her at age 7, saying she was
grown-up now and too old for them.
Lenona. |
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