Medieval Children

by Nicholas Orme

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

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Anthropology, Reference, Historical, Childrens

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 10, 2001

About the author

A specialist in the Middle Ages and Tudor period, Nicholas Orme is an Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and has worked as a visiting scholar at, among others, Merton College, Oxford, St John's College, Oxford, and the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes very good use of primary sources. Also has excellent illustrations. The only drawback is that the book might better have been called "Medieval English Children," as most of the material comes from English sources. It is an excellent survey, beginning with the pre-birth period and ending at young adulthood.

[Linda Chrisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book regarding all aspects of childhood during medieval times from birth through to adulthood. The book even discusses the naming of children, legal status, and health factors. It certainly challenged the idea that parents tried not to become attached th their children due to high infant mortality. Lavishly illustrated and wonderfully researched.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of great information is included in this book. The information is not dry but makes the read want to continue reading on. I loved the medieval art that accompanied the text.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a great looking book with wonderful illustrations but I found the text to be dry and academic.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orme writes that most people to whom he talks assume that medieval children were just little adults, that there was no sense of childhood in the past. This stems from Ariès. Subsequent researchers have proven Ariès wrong: “They have gathered copious evidence to show that adults regarded childhood as a distinct phase or phases of life, that parents treated children like children as well as like adults, that they did so with care and sympathy, and that children had cultural activities and possessions of their own” (5).

“Medieval people believed that human life progressed trough a series of stages, each with its own characteristics: ‘the ages of man.’ This belief was inherited from classical writers: not in a single form but in several versions, current alongside each other. Writers divided life into three, four, five, six, seven, or twelve periods” (6).

Orme goes on to present an overview of the lives of medieval children (from the 7th century to mid-16th, but most of his sources are from 1100-1550). In 9 chapters, he presents evidence about birth, family life, death, rhymes, play, church, learning to read, reading for pleasure, and coming of age. The book is well-written and accessible, not just for academics. It is also filled with minute detail, as well as copious illustrations that illustrate many of the claims Orme makes about childhood in the period.

Unfortunately, as Orme notes, there is little writing dating from the medieval period that references children. He argues that “we can hardly blame them for a lack of interest in childhood merely because they did not write about it. Fewer people could write, and their reasons for writing had less to do with children. When it was relevant to refer to them in coroners’ records or accounts of miracles, adults did so with the same care and consistency that they gave to themselves” (9). This is certainly true, but with so little written evidence, many of the claims Orme makes must be qualified by "seems as if," or "we can suppose," for lack of a body of evidence. Other claims seem to rest on a modern construction of childhood (for example, when he writes of a commonplace book “Several of the pieces he collected seem more appropriate for them [his children], or for reading with them, than for him or his wife alone” [278]). I wondered if medieval historians have a different view about what constitutes enough evidence to make an argument plausible than historians who work in later periods, with more extensive written records?

Still, an erudite, informative, an engaging study of what is currently knowable about children in the Middle Ages in England.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful reproductions of illustrations, paintings and manuscripts make Medieval Children a treasure of a reference book, which is why I shouldn't have read it straight through. Generally interesting, but looooong and so carefully researched that Mr. Orme needs to explain that medieval mothers probably used baby talk when speaking to their medieval infants, as it's a general human trait, but he cannot prove this due to lack of documentation. More interesting is the chapter on baptism and the benefits of nominal kinship between children and their three godparents, or the discussion of literacy explaining that, while most people could not read, all communities had literate members and relied on writing for religious and legal reasons. I picked up Medieval Children because I read Growing Up in Medieval London by Barbara Hanawalt several years ago and remember it fondly.

http://surfeitofbooks.blogspot.com/20...

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry, but still interesting.